Belyea v. Florida

859 F. Supp. 2d 1272, 2012 WL 1655718, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 65846
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Florida
DecidedApril 12, 2012
DocketCase No. 4:11cv626-RH/WCS
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 859 F. Supp. 2d 1272 (Belyea v. Florida) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Belyea v. Florida, 859 F. Supp. 2d 1272, 2012 WL 1655718, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 65846 (N.D. Fla. 2012).

Opinion

ORDER DENYING THE MOTION TO DISMISS BUT NOTING A JURISDICTIONAL ISSUE ON THE WORKER’S-COMPENSATION CLAIM

ROBERT L. HINKLE, District Judge.

This is an employment-discrimination case. In the first amended complaint, the plaintiff alleges she was fired because she is disabled — or was perceived to be disabled — within the meaning of the Americans with Disabilities Act. She also alleges she was fired in retaliation for asserting a worker’s-compensation claim or for filing a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The defendant has moved to dismiss. This order denies the motion but notes a sepa[1273]*1273rate jurisdictional issue that may require remand of the worker’s compensation claim.

I

The Supreme Court has set out the standards governing a motion to dismiss:

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) requires only “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Specific facts are not necessary; the statement need only “ ‘give the defendant fair notice of what the ... claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.’ ” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957)). In addition, when ruling on a defendant’s motion to dismiss, a judge must accept as true all of the factual allegations contained in the complaint. Bell Atlantic Corp., supra, at 555-556, 127 S.Ct. 1955 (citing Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N.A., 534 U.S. 506, 508, n. 1, 122 S.Ct. 992, 152 L.Ed.2d 1 (2002); Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 327, 109 S.Ct. 1827, 104 L.Ed.2d 338 (1989); Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974)).

Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 93-94, 127 S.Ct. 2197, 167 L.Ed.2d 1081 (2007). The court must accept the complaint’s allegations as true “even if [the allegations are] doubtful in fact.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955.

A complaint thus “does not need detailed factual allegations.” Id. Nor must a complaint allege with precision all the elements of a cause of action. See Swierkiewicz, 534 U.S. at 514-15, 122 S.Ct. 992 (rejecting the assertion that a Title VII complaint could be dismissed for failure to plead all the elements of a prima facie case).

But neither is a conclusory recitation of the elements of a cause of action alone sufficient. A complaint must include “more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955. A complaint must include “allegations plausibly suggesting (not merely consistent with)” the plaintiffs entitlement to relief. Id. at 557, 127 S.Ct. 1955. The complaint must set forth facts — not mere labels or conclusions — that “render plaintiffs’ entitlement to relief plausible.” Id. at 569 n. 14, 127 S.Ct. 1955.

A district court thus should grant a motion to dismiss unless “the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (emphasis added). This is so because

the tenet that a court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is inapplicable to legal conclusions. Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice____ [Federal] Rule [of Civil Procedure] 8 marks a notable and generous departure from the hyper-technical, code-pleading regime of a prior era, but it does not unlock the doors of discovery for a plaintiff armed with nothing more than conclusions.

Id. at 678-79, 129 S.Ct. 1937 (emphasis added).

II

Based on these principles, the plaintiff in an employment-discrimination case must allege facts that are either (1) sufficient to support a plausible inference of discrimination or retaliation, or (2) sufficient to show, or at least support an infer[1274]*1274ence, that the plaintiff can make out a prima facie case under the familiar burden-shifting framework set out in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973), and its progeny. See, e.g., Ansley v. Fla. Dep’t of Revenue, No. 4:09ev161-RH/WCS, 2009 WL 1973548, at *2 (N.D.Fla. July 8, 2009) (adopting this standard).

Here the first amended complaint is sufficient. It alleges several conditions that sometimes constitute a disability under the ADA. It alleges that the plaintiff filed a worker’s-compensation claim and an EEOC charge and was fired in retaliation. It alleges a very close temporal relationship between the EEOC charge and the firing — a gap of just 10 days.

To be sure, the first amended complaint alleges that the defendant proposed plaintiffs firing on December 15, that the plaintiff filed her EEOC charge on December 20, and that the plaintiff was actually fired on December 30, all in 2010. The December 15 proposal obviously could not have come in retaliation for the December 20 charge. But if the December 30 final decision was based in part on the EEOC charge — as the plaintiff alleges and as is at least plausible — the fact that the firing was proposed on December 15 would not make the December 30 firing lawful. In short, the assertion of a causal connection may seem unlikely, but a court cannot dismiss a complaint because its factual allegations seem unlikely.

So the motion to dismiss must be denied.

Ill

There is, however, another issue. The plaintiff filed this case in state court. The defendant removed the case to this court. The removal of the worker’s-compensation-retaliation claim raises a jurisdictional issue. See 28 U.S.C. § 1445(c) (“A civil action in any State court arising under the workmen’s compensation laws of such State may not be removed to any district court of the United States.”). In Reed v. Heil Co., 206 F.3d 1055 (11th Cir.2000), the Eleventh Circuit held nonremovable a retaliation claim under the Alabama worker’s-compensation statute:

Because we conclude that [removed] claims brought pursuant to Alabama’s statute barring retaliation for the filing of workers’ compensation claims do arise under that state’s workers’ compensation laws, the district court lacked jurisdiction to entertain Reed’s retaliatory discharge claim.

Id. at 1057.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
859 F. Supp. 2d 1272, 2012 WL 1655718, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 65846, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/belyea-v-florida-flnd-2012.