Relentless Advocacy for the Rights of Employees
Case Results
Notable Appellate Decisions
In Stennis v. Bowie State University, No. 17-1345 (4th Cir. Dec. 27, 2017), Nathaniel D. Johnson represented a professor on appeal from the dismissal of her retaliation suit against Bowie State University. In an unpublished per curiam opinion, the Fourth Circuit affirmed dismissal of her Title VII, Maryland FEPA, and constructive discharge claims, but vacated the dismissal of her Title IX retaliation claim insofar as it rested on her department chair’s attempts to deny her tenure, and remanded. The court held that the chair’s reduction of her professional development opportunities and recommendation against her tenure application could constitute a materially adverse action even though the University ultimately granted her tenure.
In Coleman v. Duke, 867 F.3d 204 (D.C. Cir. 2017), Nathaniel D. Johnson briefed and argued a successful appeal before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on behalf of an African American Department of Homeland Security employee alleging unlawful retaliation. Reversing the district court’s dismissal, the court held in a published opinion that the employee had properly exhausted his EEO retaliation claim by raising it in his formal complaint, rejecting the government’s argument that an agency acceptance letter could quietly narrow a complaint’s scope without the notice the regulations require. The court remanded his claims for further proceedings.
In Lightfoot v. Soul World, No. 2449, Sept. Term, 2015 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. Mar. 31, 2017) (unreported), Nathaniel D. Johnson briefed and argued a successful appeal before the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland (now the Appellate Court of Maryland), overturning a discovery sanctions judgment entered by the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County. The appellate court held that the trial court had abused its discretion because its sanction rested on a misreading of the Maryland discovery rules — which require neither that interrogatory answers be signed on the last page nor that responses to document requests be signed at all — and because the court had imposed sanctions in a factual vacuum, without identifying any discovery violation or making the findings the law requires. The court reversed the sanctions order and vacated the resulting judgment.
In Blackmon-Malloy v. U.S. Capitol Police Board, 575 F.3d 699 (D.C. Cir. 2009), Nathaniel D. Johnson served as co-counsel for the plaintiffs — more than 250 current and former African American U.S. Capitol Police officers who alleged systemic race discrimination under the Congressional Accountability Act. The D.C. Circuit partially revived the officers’ claims. It affirmed that the Act’s counseling-and-mediation process is a jurisdictional prerequisite that equitable doctrines such as vicarious exhaustion cannot excuse. But it reversed the dismissal in part, holding that neither the Act nor the Office of Compliance’s rules require an employee’s in-person attendance at counseling or mediation, and that the Office’s written notice of the end of mediation both triggered the statutory period for electing judicial or administrative relief and demonstrated that the employee had completed the required counseling and mediation.
Representative Matters
The Employment Law Firm, LLC was retained to ensure compliance with the class action settlement in Cook v. Billington, the long-running employment discrimination litigation brought against the Library of Congress on behalf of a class of approximately 2,000 African American employees under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
These results are specific to the facts and legal circumstances of each client’s case and should not be construed to represent the results that will be obtained in any other matter.