KANSAS CITY – A federal judge has partially granted a motion to dismiss a former U.S. Department of Agriculture employee's suit that alleged she was forced to take medical early retirement when other employees purportedly were allowed to work at home until they retired.
Vanessa Claborn-Welch, a former employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Kansas City, filed suit against Sonny Perdue, secretary, Department of Agriculture, et al., in 2011.
The case was reviewed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri in Kansas City by Judge Ortrie D. Smith on April 27. Perdue, et al. petitioned the court to dismiss the entire suit because of the plaintiff's untimely filing of her charges.
Smith ruled that “For the foregoing reasons, defendants’ motion to dismiss is granted in part, and denied in part. Plaintiff’s claims against all defendants for fraud, fraudulent concealment and outrageous conduct are dismissed without prejudice. Plaintiff’s Title VII claims remain pending.”
As stated in the ruling, the claim was the result of Claborn-Welch’s employment ending after she had been told that she could work at home due to developing a disabling disease. She had worked at the USDA Risk Management Agency’s (RMA) Fiscal Operation Branch in Kansas City from 1985 to 2002 as an information technology specialist.
In 2000, she was diagnosed with demantromyositis/ polymysitis, a disease that affected her immune system and caused her to suffer muscle weakness, breathing difficulties, and limited movement as well as extreme and constant pain and anemia, the ruling states. Because of her suppressed immune system, she could no longer work in the office where she had been working for the past 15 years.
According to the ruling, in September 2000, Claborn-Welch was granted a reasonable accommodation to work from home as part of the agency’s Short Term Medical Flexiplace Program. She said she was told that this accommodation would permit her to work from home until she was able to return to the office or until she retired.
In March 2001, Claborn-Welch was notified via letter that her flexible work program period had ended. She was given three options: "(1) report to work at RMA’s offices, (2) voluntarily quit, or (3) apply for disability retirement," the ruling states. After protesting this ultimatum to no avail, she opted to take a medical retirement.
Several years later in 2011, Claborn-Welch, who identifies as a black female, attended a funeral where she learned that two Caucasian USDA female employees who had participated in the flexible work program were permitted to work under those conditions until they retired approximately five years later, the ruling states.
After learning this information, she filed complaints with several agencies, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). Her appeals to the EEOC were denied as untimely and the MSPB said that the agency lacked jurisdiction to rule on her complaint. Her appeals went back and forth between these two agencies, but no relief was offered.
Finally, Claborn-Welch filed a suit on Sept. 7, 2017, with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri against Perdue, EEOC and MSPB. The charges named in the lawsuit include failure to accommodate disability, race discrimination, wrongful discharge and/or constructive discharge, fraud, fraudulent concealment and outrageous conduct.
In his ruling, Smith dismissed most of Claborn-Welch’s claims due to her untimely response.
Smith stated, “As a federal employee bringing a discrimination claim, plaintiff must fully exhaust her administrative remedies before the federal courts may hear her claims. Federal regulations require plaintiff to initiate contact with an EEO counselor 'within 45 days of the date of the matter alleged to be discriminatory' or within 45 days of an alleged discriminatory personnel action. But the failure to timely initiate the administrative process is not a jurisdictional requirement to bring suit in federal court; rather it is a condition precedent which 'is subject to waiver, estoppel and equitable tolling.'”
The court denied USDA’s motion to dismiss on the basis of laches.
“As detailed above, plaintiff contacted several management and human resources employees, but was rebuffed each time she sought to remain in the flexible workplace program with a reasonable accommodation. Additionally, plaintiff has pled her immediate supervisor’s concern about racial bias by agency managers. Considered together, plaintiff has sufficiently pled her inability to discover information about her situation and other employees at the agency, or to seek administrative remedies. Accordingly, the court denies defendant agency’s (USDA) motion to dismiss on this basis.”
The judge closed by saying, “For the foregoing reasons, defendants’ motion to dismiss is granted in part, and denied in part. Plaintiff’s claims against all defendants for fraud, fraudulent concealment and outrageous conduct are dismissed without prejudice. Plaintiff’s Title VII claims remain pending.”