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Ninth Circuit:
Hostile-Work-Environment Claim Proper Under Rehabilitation Act
By a MetNews Staff Writer
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ANDREW MATTIODA scientist |
The Ninth U.S. Court of Appeals held yesterday that an employee plaintiff may pursue a federal hostile-work-environment claim against under either the Americans with Disabilities Act or the Rehabilitation Act and found that a scientist with hip and spinal disabilities had alleged sufficiently severe and pervasive harassment by his employer, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, to withstand dismissal.
Circuit Judge Danielle J. Forrest authored the opinion reversing an order by Magistrate Judge Susan G. Van Keulen of the Northern District of California dismissing the hostile-work for failure to state a claim but affirming her order granting summary judgment to NASA as to a disability-discrimination.
Senior Circuit Judge J. Clifford Wallace and Sixth Circuit Judge Danny J. Boggs, sitting by designation, joined in the opinion.
In May 2022, Van Keulen ordered entry of a judgment of dismissal of the lawsuit after a settlement was reached as to the remaining claims “without prejudice to Plaintiff’s anticipated appeal of the claims dismissed by the Court.”
Appealing the orders was Andrew Mattioda, a research scientist in the Astrochemistry and Astrophysics Laboratory at the NASA Ames Research Center, who informed NASA in 2011—after undergoing multiple surgeries—that he was suffering from a degenerative defect in his hips and Scheurermann’s disease of the spine.
Mattioda filed four actions in 2020, following Equal Employment Opportunity complaints, which were consolidated into a single action in which he alleges various claims under the Rehabilitation Act, codified at 29 U.S. Code §791, including hostile work environment and discrimination, against NASA based on his treatment by two supervisors, Timothy Lee (now deceased) and Jessie Dotson, following his disclosure.
Forrest noted that while the Ninth Circuit has held that there is no significant difference in the analysis of rights and obligations created under the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act, “we have not yet decided whether a hostile-work-environment claim is cognizable under either statute.”
She explained that “[i]t is well established that a plaintiff may bring a hostile-work-environment claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. §2000e…” and that the ADA has “nearly identical language” to that of Title VII. Based on this similarity, she said:
“[W]e now join our sister circuits that have held that hostile-work-environment claims are cognizable under the ADA.”
Taking the analysis one step further, Forrest opined that the Rehabilitation Act itself is materially identical to the ADA, but for the limit in the Rehabilitation Act that it applies only to federally funded programs. Given the near-identical nature of the two acts, she declared:
“[W]e also hold that hostile-work-environment claims are cognizable under the Rehabilitation Act.”
Mattioda’s Claims
In his complaint, Mattioda alleges that in March 2011, before an upcoming work trip to the Netherlands, he submitted reasonable accommodation letters from his orthopedist, Dr. Steven Osborn, explaining that Mattioda must fly in premium class for flights longer than an hour.
Mattioda alleges that from that time until 2018, his time at NASA was plagued by derogatory comments from his supervisors, Timothy Lee (now deceased) and Jessie Dotson, who also inhibited his work opportunities and resisted accommodation requests due to his disabilities.
Forrest acknowledged that Van Keulen had applied the correct legal standard for a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure §12(b)(6) as “a complaint must contain sufficient factual allegations that plausibly suggest entitlement to relief,” but said:
“[T]he district court concluded that Dr. Mattioda failed to allege a plausible causal nexus between the claimed harassment and his disabilities. This was error.”
Explicitly Linked
Forrest commented:
“[T]he district court acknowledged that Dr. Dotson’s threat to Dr. Mattioda’s job was explicitly linked to his disabilities, but concluded that this allegation concerned only his disability claim based on ‘failure to accommodate,’ even though this allegation was ‘particularly’ realleged as part of Dr. Mattioda’s harassment claim. Such parsing of Dr. Mattioda’s complaint is inconsistent with the district court’s obligation to construe well-pleaded allegations in Dr. Mattioda’s favor.”
Forrest noted that the complaint alleges that negative comments by Lee were so pervasive that a coworker described them as “background noise” and that Lee allegedly openly discussed Mattioda’s disability in front of others and publicly pondered why Mattioda could not just “suck it up and travel coach.”
The jurist looked to Mattioda’s allegation that Lee’s disparaging comments only began after Lee was informed of the disabilities and wrote:
“Construing this fact in Dr. Mattioda’s favor and considering that Dr. Lee denigrated Dr. Mattioda as lazy and as using his disabilities to avoid work, Dr. Mattioda plausibly alleged a nexus between the described harassment and his disabilities…. Dr. Mattioda’s allegation that Dr. Dotson treated ‘non-disabled researchers’ better, further linked Dr. Dotson’s allegedly harassing conduct to his disability.”
Sufficient Pleading
Finding that Mattioda alleged “sufficiently severe or pervasive harassment to survive NASA’s motion to dismiss,” she reasoned:
“Dr. Mattioda alleges that Dr. Lee inhibited Dr. Mattioda’s work opportunities and repeatedly made harassing and derogatory comments over a period of years, and he has described several specific examples. Dr. Mattioda further alleges, among other conduct, that Dr. Dotson vaguely threatened his job, demeaned him by making him sign a letter acknowledging Dr. Dotson’s refusal to reconsider Dr. Mattioda’s poor performance rating, and made insulting comments about his reasonable-accommodation requests and job performance.”
Forrest agreed, however, with Van Keulen that summary judgment in favor of NASA was proper as to his remaining claim of discrimination relating to being passed up for a promotion because Mattioda conceded that the candidate selected for the promotion was more qualified, a valid non-discriminatory reason.
The case is Mattioda v. Nelson (NASA), 22-15889.
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