Andrew Mattioda v. Jim Bridenstine

Background

The court had previously ruled on defendants’ motion to dismiss Mattioda’s first amended complaint. It denied dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, granted in part and denied in part dismissal for failure to state a claim, and allowed Mattioda to amend some claims. Mattioda then filed a second amended complaint, and defendants moved to dismiss it under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which tests whether a complaint adequately states a legal claim.

Claims Against Dr. Howell

Defendants argued that Mattioda had not exhausted his administrative remedies for his claims against Dr. Howell. The court denied the motion to dismiss those claims. It relied on its earlier finding that the allegations were sufficiently similar to Mattioda’s administrative complaints and involved the same actor and similar conduct. The court found that defendants had not shown that the allegations in the second amended complaint materially differed from those previously considered.

Disability Discrimination

The court denied defendants’ motion to dismiss the disability-discrimination claim. It repeated that events before July 7, 2015 could not be used as the basis for untimely discrete discrimination claims or as part of a continuing violation. The court stated, however, that evidence of earlier conduct might in some circumstances be used as background evidence supporting a timely claim, with evidentiary decisions reserved for discovery and trial. The court also concluded that Mattioda had plausibly alleged a connection between the challenged conduct and his disability.

Harassment

The court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss the disability-based harassment claim. It found that many allegations were unchanged from the first amended complaint or added only assumptions and unsupported inferences, rather than facts linking the alleged harassment to Mattioda’s disability. Although some allegations described comments connected to disability-related accommodation requests, the court read those allegations as concerning accommodation rather than harassment. The court also concluded that the alleged 2011 incident could not support the accommodation claim because it occurred before July 7, 2015.

Accommodation and Interactive-Process Claims

The court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss the claims for failure to provide reasonable accommodation and failure to engage in the interactive process. It found that the new allegations did not cure the deficiencies identified in the earlier order. The court described many allegations as unchanged, insubstantial, based on assumptions, or not factually tied to Mattioda’s disability. The allegations concerning the 2011 incident could not serve as the basis for these claims because of their timing.

Reprisal Claim

The court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss the reprisal claim. Reprisal means retaliation for protected activity; here, the relevant protected activity was Mattioda’s earlier activity involving the equal-employment-opportunity process. The court held that Mattioda had not pleaded specific facts connecting the alleged retaliatory incidents to that earlier activity. It rejected allegations based only on timing, labels, assumptions, or inferences without supporting facts.

Disposition

The court granted in part and denied in part defendants’ motion to dismiss the second amended complaint. It denied dismissal of Mattioda’s claims against Dr. Howell and his disability-discrimination claim. It granted dismissal of the claims for disability-based harassment, failure to provide reasonable accommodation, failure to engage in the interactive process, and reprisal. Because Mattioda had already been given an opportunity to amend and still had not supplied facts supporting those claims, the court dismissed them without leave to amend. The court also scheduled an initial case-management conference for June 15, 2021, and required a joint case-management statement by June 8, 2021.