UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
TREVIS COLES,
Plaintiff,
v. Civil Action No. 16-2023 (JEB)
HARRIS TEETER, LLC,
Defendant.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Plaintiff Trevis Coles brings this action against his former employer, Harris Teeter,
alleging the grocery store fired him because of his disability. Having successfully removed the
case, Defendant now moves to dismiss on the ground that the Complaint fails to state a plausible
wrongful-termination or discrimination claim against it. As the Court agrees with the former
contention but not the latter, it will grant the Motion in part.
I. Background
The Court, as it must at this stage, draws the facts from the Complaint and assumes them
to be true. Sparrow v. United Air Lines, Inc., 216 F.3d 1111, 1113 (D.C. Cir. 2000). Plaintiff
lives in the District of Columbia and suffers from glaucoma. See ECF No. 1, Exh. A
(Complaint), ¶¶ 2, 6. In December 2015, his doctor prescribed him marijuana to help alleviate
the symptoms of his disease. Id., ¶ 7. According to the District’s Legalization of Marijuana for
Medical Treatment Amendment Act of 2010, D.C. Code § 7-1671.01, et seq., Coles properly
registered that prescription with the D.C. Department of Health and received a medical-
marijuana card for this purpose. Id., ¶¶ 7-8.
Several months later, around March 6, 2016, Defendant hired Coles to work on an at-will
basis as a cashier in one of its grocery stores. Id., ¶ 9. He performed well in that role by
reporting early for his shifts, taking on additional responsibilities, and avoiding any disciplinary
trouble. Id., ¶ 11. A month or two in, however, Coles’s number got called for a random drug
screen at work, and he tested positive for marijuana on May 4. Id., ¶¶ 12-13.
Coles explained to his Store Manager, Dan Kuzor, that he used physician-prescribed
medical marijuana to treat his glaucoma. Id., ¶ 14. Kuzor assured him that the positive screen
would not be a problem so long as Coles provided a valid prescription to this effect. Id., ¶¶ 14-
15. Three days later, on May 7, Plaintiff did so. Id., ¶ 15. Harris Teeter nevertheless fired him
on May 10 for violating its substance-abuse policy. Id., ¶ 16.
On September 15, Coles filed this suit in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia,
asserting that Defendant had unlawfully terminated him. See id. at 1. Having removed the case
to this Court on the basis of diversity jurisdication, Harris Teeter now seeks to dismiss it.
II. Legal Standard
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require a plaintiff to include “a short and plain
statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). Rule
12(b)(6), in turn, provides for the dismissal of an action where such a complaint fails “to state a
claim upon which relief can be granted.”
In evaluating a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the Court must “treat the complaint’s factual
allegations as true . . . and must grant plaintiff ‘the benefit of all inferences that can be derived
from the facts alleged.’” Sparrow, 216 F.3d at 1113 (quoting Schuler v. United States, 617 F.2d
605, 608 (D.C. Cir. 1979)) (citation omitted). The pleading rules are “not meant to impose a
great burden,” Dura Pharm., Inc. v. Broudo, 544 U.S. 336, 347 (2005), and “detailed factual
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allegations” are thus not necessary. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). A
complaint, however, “must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to
relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting
Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570). The Court need not accept as true “a legal conclusion couched as a
factual allegation,” nor an inference unsupported by the facts set forth in the complaint. Trudeau
v. FTC, 456 F.3d 178, 193 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (quoting Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286
(1986) (internal quotation marks omitted)). The facts instead “must be enough to raise a right to
relief above the speculative level” even if “recovery is very remote and unlikely.” Twombly,
550 U.S. at 555-56 (citing Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236 (1974)).
III. Analysis
Plaintiff presses two independent state-law counts in alleging that Defendant unlawfully
terminated him. The first asserts a wrongful-termination claim arising under the District’s
common law, and the second alleges that Defendant fired him because of his glaucoma in
violation of the District of Columbia Human Rights Act. The Court takes up the sufficiency of
each allegation in turn.
A. Wrongful Termination
In considering Plaintiff’s wrongful-termination claim, the Court starts with the well-
established principle that “in the District of Columbia . . . an employer may discharge an at-will
employee at any time and for any reason, or for no reason at all.” Adams v. George W. Cochran
& Co., 597 A.2d 28, 30 (D.C. 1991). District of Columbia courts, however, recognize a very
narrow public-policy exception for cases in which “the employee's termination offends some
‘mandate of public policy’ that is ‘firmly anchored in either the Constitution or in a statute or
regulation which clearly reflects the particular public policy being relied upon.’” Bilal-Edwards
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v. United Planning Org., 896 F. Supp. 2d 88, 94 (D.D.C. 2012) (quoting Carson v. Sim, 778 F.
Supp. 2d 85, 97 (D.D.C. 2011)). In other words, a plaintiff pleading a wrongful-termination
claim based on the public-policy exemption must identify a policy source that provides a “clear
mandate” in support of his claim. Coleman v. Dist. of Columbia, 828 F. Supp. 2d 87, 96 (D.D.C.
2011). A protection afforded the employee pursuant to a private agreement will not do. Bilal-
Edwards, 896 F. Supp. 2d at 94.
Coles relies on this narrow exception here to assert that the termination of his at-will
employment violated the District’s public policy – codified in the 2010 Medical Marijuana
Treatment Act, D.C. Code § 7-1671.01, et seq. (MMTA) – of allowing qualifying patients to use
medical marijuana prescribed by their physicians. See Compl., ¶¶ 30-33. This theory, however,
suffers from a fatal flaw: District law does not “provide a clear mandate of public policy” that
employers must accommodate such legal marijuana use by their employees. In fact, the
District’s Prohibition of Pre-Employment Marijuana Testing Act seems to leave room for
employers to remove workers who fail a drug test for marijuana use or violate workplace drug-
prevention policies. See D.C. Code § 32-931(a)-(b). This Court can thus ascertain no clear
policy mandate in the District’s law that an employer must accept an employee’s lawful
marijuana use.
Others courts, moreover, have come to the same conclusion in considering the impact on
wrongful-termination claims of acts similar to the District’s MMTA. See, e.g., Casias v. Wal-
Mart Stores, Inc., 695 F.3d 428, 436 (6th Cir. 2012) (collecting cases); see also Ross v.
RagingWire Telecomm., Inc., 174 P.3d 200, 208-09 (Cal. 2008). Like the statute here, the acts
at issue in those cases legalized the use of marijuana for certain medical purposes, but did not
otherwise explicitly mandate that employers must tolerate that use. Id. As the courts in those
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cases concluded, the District here can at most be said to maintain a public policy that
decriminalizes and allows the consumption of marijuana for private medical reasons. That is a
far cry from prohibiting employers from terminating such users. Plaintiff’s first count must thus
be dismissed.
B. Disability Discrimination
Coles next asserts that Defendant violated the DCHRA when it fired him because of his
disability – glaucoma – and for undergoing the medical-marijuana treatment his physician
prescribed for that condition. See Compl., ¶¶ 24-28. “The DCHRA makes it unlawful for an
employer to refuse to hire, discharge, or otherwise discriminate against an individual ‘wholly or
partially for a discriminatory reason based upon [an] actual or perceived . . . disability . . . .’”
Badwal v. Bd. of Trustees of Univ. of D.C., 139 F. Supp. 3d 295, 308 (D.D.C. 2015) (quoting
D.C. Code § 2–1402.11(a)(1)). To make out a disability-discrimination claim under the Act,
Coles must plead that (1) he has a disability; (2) he was qualified for his position with or without
a reasonable accommodation; and (3) he suffered an adverse personnel action because of his
disability. Id.
Defendant implicitly concedes the first two elements are met here, but asserts that Coles
fails to allege the third because he admits that he tested positive for marijuana; as a result, he was
terminated for violating Harris Teeter’s substance-abuse policy, not for any disability. See Mot.
at 9. Yet Plaintiff does specifically allege he was fired for his disability as well as his treatment
therefor. See Compl., ¶ 25. He also notes that Defendant’s substance-abuse policy is more than
a bit hazy about whether it will consider the legal use of marijuana to constitute a violation. See
Mot., Exh. 1 at 5 (referring to Delaware law in providing “Company will not terminate, refuse to
hire, or otherwise penalize any associate . . . based upon . . . a registered qualifying patient’s
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positive drug test, unless the patient used, possessed, or was impaired by marijuana on Company
property”). Coles further alleges that Harris Teeter did not fire at least one other employee who
failed multiple drug tests for cocaine, but did not have a disability. See Compl., ¶ 22. Taken
together, these assertions suffice to raise a plausible inference that Coles might have been
terminated because of his disability, rather than his positive drug screen. See Adeyemi v. Dist.
of Columbia, 525 F.3d 1222, 1226 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (instructing district courts to avoid “full
causation analysis” in assessing sufficiency of prima facie case of discrimination); see also
Lathram v. Snow, 336 F.3d 1085, 1093 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (holding “unexplained inconsistency [in
policy enforcement] can justify an inference of discriminatory motive”). Although Plaintiff may
ultimately face an uphill climb in proving he was fired because of his glaucoma, the Court
cannot dismiss this count at this stage in the litigation.
IV. Conclusion
For the reasons articulated herein, the Court will issue a contemporaneous Order granting
in part and denying in part Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss.
/s/ James E. Boasberg
JAMES E. BOASBERG
United States District Judge
Date: November 14, 2016
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