UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CARL E. PANNELL, JR., Plaintiff, v. Civ. Action No. 21-602 PROTECTION STRATEGIES, INC., (EGS) Defendant. MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER Plaintiff Carl E. Pannell, Jr. (“Mr. Pannell”), proceeding pro se, brings this lawsuit against Protection Strategies, Inc. (“PSI”) alleging defamation by PSI that resulted in him being found unsuitable for federal employment and contractual federal employment. See generally Compl., ECF No. 1-1. Pending before the Court is PSI’s Motion to Dismiss. See ECF No. 6. Upon careful consideration of the motion, the opposition and reply thereto, and the applicable law, PSI’s Motion to Dismiss is DENIED. I. Factual Background The Court assumes the following facts alleged in the complaint to be true for the purposes of deciding this motion and construes them in Mr. Pannell’s favor. See Baird v. Gotbaum, 792 F.3d 166, 169 n.2 (D.C. Cir. 2015). From May 15, 2018 to June 1, 2018, Mr. Pannell was employed by PSI as a Personnel Security 1 Specialist, located in a building occupied by the Department of Justice. Compl., ECF No. 1-1 ¶¶ 1, 5. During his employment, he was not reprimanded for any behavior, but his supervisor was “insolent” and “demeaning” to him and so he requested that he be trained by another PSI employee. Id. ¶¶ 6, 8, 9. On May 25, 2018, he was informed by a PSI manager that his complaints about his supervisor would be investigated. Id. ¶ 10. Thereafter, on June 1, 2018, he was informed via a telephone call that his employment was terminated but was not given the reason for his termination. Id. ¶ 14. He later learned that the reason for his termination was “contrived” by the supervisor about whom he had complained based on her animus towards him. Id. ¶ 14. In February 2020, he was interviewed by a federal investigator as part of a federal background investigation. Id. ¶¶ 17, 21. In December 2020, he learned that PSI had informed the investigator that he had been involuntarily terminated because he “had inquired how to search individuals in the Department of Justice’s database system to obtain personal information.” Id. ¶ 20. Mr. Pannell alleges that this statement is false, see id. ¶ 7; and that it has resulted in him losing several employment opportunities, see id. ¶ 21. 2 II. Standards of Review A. Rule 12(b)(1): Subject Matter Jurisdiction “A federal district court may only hear a claim over which [it] has subject matter jurisdiction; therefore, a Rule 12(b)(1) motion for dismissal is a threshold challenge to a court's jurisdiction.” Gregorio v. Hoover, 238 F. Supp. 3d 37 (D.D.C. 2017) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). To survive a Rule 12(b)(1) motion, the plaintiff bears the burden of establishing that the court has jurisdiction by a preponderance of the evidence. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561, (1992). Because Rule 12(b)(1) concerns a court's ability to hear a particular claim, “the court must scrutinize the plaintiff's allegations more closely when …
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