Abril-Rivera v. Johnson, 806 F.3d 599 (2015)

Citation: Abril-Rivera v. Johnson, 806 F.3d 599 (2015)
Parent Document: Abril-Rivera v. Johnson, 806 F.3d 599 (2015)
Jurisdiction: United States (federal)
Effective Date: 2015-11-17
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3155371/abril-rivera-v-johnson/ ↗

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In essence, Plaintiffs’ case is that, faced with this scenario, FEMA crafted a business necessity to justify placing them in a rotational staffing plan, then closing the PR Center and ordering their termination. According to Plaintiffs, FEMA did this by inspecting the PR Center premises and issuing a list of safety concerns that allegedly required closing the center immediately for repairs, and only allowing a limited number of employees to continue to work on a rotational basis. Because FEMA had never raised concerns regarding the building’s conditions prior to that point, and the safety issues were either non-life-threatening or quickly resolved, Plaintiffs argued that FEMA should have suspended the rotational staffing plan and allowed them to return to work. In response to the rotational staffing plan, Plaintiffs also filed approximately 300 complaints. Meanwhile, FEMA did some number-crunching and came up with a reduction in operational needs for its nationwide claims processing centers that allegedly justified closing the PR Center altogether. Plaintiffs responded that this was in retaliation for their complaints over the rotational staffing plan, and that far from this representing a valid business necessity that would justify their termination, FEMA historically had released employees based on performance and not on location. They claim this could have been done by releasing employees from all centers rather than simply closing the PR Center.

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