U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg on Friday dismissed the remainder of an employment discrimination suit after plaintiff Demetria Harris repeatedly failed to provide full responses to written discovery requests despite numerous extensions over the past year.
Additionally, in trying to ward off a motion to dismiss, Harris and her counsel made arguments citing nonexistent case law.
Arguing that mental health problems have impeded the discovery process, Harris cited the case Sheard v. Principle Business Enterprises Inc. to defend the delayed evidentiary responses. However, as pointed out by the defendant, Sheard does not exist.
"The court is thus quite concerned that plaintiff's counsel has engaged artificial-intelligence services to draft her brief and then submitted it without checking the citations in the filing," Friday's order said. "It will issue a show-cause order to investigate this serious lapse."
While Harris also cited two existing court cases, their holdings differed "remarkably" from the plaintiffs' arguments. The cases involved single instances of noncompliance — physical injuries sustained from a house fire and the failure to get a loan that impeded travel to a courthouse — whereas Harris had been warned previously for her lack of responses in the case.
"Rather than support the proposition that Harris claims they do, these cases instead bolster the idea that the court should not dismiss suits after one instance of noncompliance, which is not the situation here," Judge Boasberg said.
Harris and three other women who worked for the DPW filed suit against the District of Columbia and two city officials in August 2022, alleging that they were harassed and that some were pushed out of their jobs because they're middle-aged Black women. According to the complaint, two DPW managers harbored ageist and sexist attitudes toward the women, especially because they're Black, and the managers worked to discredit and remove older workers from the department.
Judge Boasberg dismissed most of the suit in March 2023, ruling many of the bias claims were not properly pled, were not properly administratively exhausted or had other deficiencies. This left only the women's race bias claim under Section 1981 and Harris' Age Discrimination in Employment Act claim, though Judge Boasberg also tossed the race discrimination claim in June 2023, saying he had erroneously relied on sex harassment allegations to decide whether the claim was viable.
Harris said in her complaint that she began working for D.C. in 2007 and eventually became the special events coordinator for the city's Department of Public Works. She claimed that her supervisor wouldn't let any women over 50 attend departmental leadership meetings, which left her out of DPW planning and decision-making, and that she was regularly omitted from work related to special and seasonal events that were meant to be her core responsibilities.
According to the complaint, Harris received a low performance review for the 2019 fiscal year despite never receiving a low performance rating in the past. In early 2020, she was denied an interview for a deputy associate administrator position even though she had all the requisite experience, the complaint said.
Arguing against the motion to dismiss, Harris contended that public policy favors providing alternative sanctions rather than ordering dismissal in discrimination cases.
"Plaintiff supports this contention, however, with a citation to a district-court case deciding a motion in limine regarding financial and video-surveillance evidence, casting further doubt on her counsel's research," Friday's filing said. "Plaintiff, furthermore, never explains why her counsel, who does not have a disability that is disclosed to the court, was unable to comply with deadlines or to seek extensions."
Neither party immediately responded to a request for comment on Monday.
Harris is represented by Charles Tucker Jr.
The District of Columbia is represented by Alicia M. Cullen, Christopher Pantel and Ryan Martini of the District of Columbia Attorney General's Office.
The case is Ruffin et al. v. District of Columbia et al., case number 1:22-cv-02341, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
--Additional reporting by Grace Elletson and Patrick Hoff. Editing by Rich Mills.
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