Silveria v. Wilkie

Background

Anthony Silveria alleged that he worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs after serving in the U.S. Marine Corps. He said he received workplace accommodations for back, shoulder, and wrist conditions and that, beginning in 2013, supervisors took adverse actions against him while he was seeking medical leave or medical treatment. The alleged actions included ordering him to work during leave, suspending him, issuing return-to-duty orders, charging him with being absent without leave, accessing his medical, benefits, and financial records, removing him from the building, and ultimately removing him from federal service.

Silveria’s remaining claim was based on a hostile work environment allegedly involving disability discrimination and retaliation. The case had been consolidated with an earlier lawsuit, and the operative pleading was his Third Amended Complaint. The opinion states that the court had dismissed the complaint and amendments in the earlier lawsuit three times and that the current case was based only on a non-mixed-case claim from Silveria’s 2014 employment-discrimination complaint.

Motion to dismiss

The defendant moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which permits dismissal when a complaint does not adequately state a legal claim. The defendant argued that Silveria did not sufficiently describe his disability, did not allege verbal or physical harassment, and did not plead the acts needed to support a hostile-work-environment claim.

Court’s analysis

The court first held that Silveria had not adequately alleged that he was disabled under the applicable disability-discrimination standards. The complaint stated only that he had received accommodations for his back, shoulder, and wrist and that he had been hired under the VA’s Vocational Rehabilitation Program. It did not explain how any physical impairment substantially limited a major life activity or provide other details supporting the claimed disability.

The court separately held that the hostile-work-environment claim failed because Silveria did not allege verbal or physical conduct of a harassing nature, such as disparaging comments about his disability. The court recognized that differential treatment could contribute to a hostile-work-environment claim, but found that Silveria had not connected the alleged leave disputes, access to records, absence charges, or removal from the building to a recognized disability. The court therefore concluded that he had not plausibly alleged a series of adverse actions connected to his disability or an abusive work environment targeting that disability.

The opinion notes that the Ninth Circuit had not expressly recognized a disability-based hostile-work-environment claim under the Rehabilitation Act or the Americans with Disabilities Act, but the court assumed for purposes of its analysis that such a claim could be asserted.

Disposition

Judge Edward M. Chen granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss the Third Amended Complaint with prejudice. The court stated that Silveria had already been given numerous opportunities to amend, directed the clerk to enter judgment, and ordered the file closed. The order disposed of Docket No. 44.