Hossein Zeinali v. Raytheon Company, et al, No. 09-56283 (9th Cir. 2011)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff, who was of Iranian descent, appealed a summary judgment order where plaintiff alleged that defendant wrongfully terminated him in violation of the California Fair Employment and Housing Act when plaintiff failed to obtain security clearance by the Department of Defense. At issue was whether federal courts lacked jurisdiction to decide discrimination cases involving security clearance decisions and whether summary judgment was proper where plaintiff had not introduced evidence to satisfy his burden under McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green. The court held that federal courts did have jurisdiction to adjudicate plaintiff's discriminatory termination claim where plaintiff was not disputing the merits of his security clearance denial. The court also held that summary judgment was improper where plaintiff introduced evidence that raised a triable dispute regarding whether a security clearance was in fact a bona fide occupational qualification for defendant's engineers when defendant retained similarly situated, non-Iranian engineers who lacked security clearances.
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