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petitioner filed suit against the District with the United States
District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking damages and
declaratory and injunctive relief. The gravamen of petitioner’s
complaint--comprised of two underlying counts alleging,
respectively, the District’s infringement of petitioner’s First
Amendment rights under 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983 (2000) and violation
of the D.C. Whistleblower Reinforcement Act of 1998, D.C. Code
sec. 1-615.54--concerns the District’s averred retaliatory
conduct against petitioner. Such reprisal was directed at
petitioner, according to the complaint, because of his purported
endeavor to inform various government agencies and officials of
the dire conditions then prevalent in the District’s
developmentally disabled housing program. Petitioner’s damages
were enumerated in the complaint as comprising “emotional and
mental anguish, humiliation and embarrassment, ridicule, physical
pain and physical upset, damage to [petitioner’s] professional
reputation, and damage to his reputation in the community.”
Petitioner did not serve the complaint on the District.
Petitioner’s reason for this was to preserve the viability of one
or both of the asserted claims from the pending expiration of the
period of limitations without impeding the progress of the
settlement negotiations, which had reached a critical juncture.
Petitioner entered into a settlement agreement and general
release with the District on May 14, 2001 (the settlement). The
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Last modified: May 25, 2011