Boone v. Phoenix, City of

• Court: District Court, D. Arizona
• Decided: May 25, 2022
• Docket: 2:21-cv-01708
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 WO 2 3 4 5 6 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

9 Nellie Boone, No. CV-21-01708-PHX-JJT

10 Plaintiff, ORDER

11 v.

12 City of Phoenix, et al.,

13 Defendants. 14 15 16 At issue is Defendant City of Phoenix’s Motion for Partial Dismissal (Doc. 5, 17 MTD), to which Plaintiff Nellie Boone, aka Nellie Anderson, filed a Response (Doc. 6, 18 Resp.), and Defendant filed a Reply (Doc. 7, Reply). The Court resolves the Motion 19 without oral argument. LRCiv 7.2(f). 20 I. BACKGROUND 21 According to the Complaint (Doc. 1-3, Compl.), Plaintiff has been employed as a 22 dispatcher by Defendant since 2006. She alleges that Defendant discriminated against her 23 between the years 2017 and 2019 on the basis of age, sex, race, disability, and for taking 24 leave under the Family Medical Leave Act, 29 U.S.C. § 2601 et seq. (FMLA). Although 25 she alleges filing internal complaints of discrimination, she references only one Charge of 26 Discrimination filed with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, Civil Rights Division, 27 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, dated November 9, 2020. (MTD 28 Ex. A, EEOC Charge). Among her allegations in the Complaint, Plaintiff states the EEOC 1 Charge and Right to Sue Letter are attached to the Complaint as Exhibit A, but they are 2 not. (E.g. Compl. ¶ 108.) 3 Plaintiff raises nine counts against Defendant, under: (1) the Age Discrimination in 4 Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. § 621 (ADEA); (2) the Arizona Employment Protection Act, 5 A.R.S. § 23-1501 (AEPA) for age discrimination; (3) AEPA, for disability discrimination; 6 (4) the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)—no statutory provision identified—for 7 disability discrimination; (5) AEPA, for race discrimination; (6) the FMLA—no statutory 8 provision identified—for discrimination; (7) unidentified legal authority, for “harassment”; 9 (8) unidentified legal authority, for “retaliation”; and (9) “state law wage claims.” (Compl. 10 ¶¶ 87–132.) Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), Defendant now moves to 11 dismiss Counts 2 through 5 and 7 through 9, as well as portions of Count 1 to the extent it 12 relies on allegations beyond those provided in the EEOC Charge. 13 II. LEGAL STANDARD 14 When analyzing a complaint for failure to state a claim for relief under Rule 15 12(b)(6), the well-pled factual allegations are taken as true and construed in the light most 16 favorable to the nonmoving party. Cousins v. Lockyer, 568 F.3d 1063, 1067 (9th Cir. 2009). 17 Legal conclusions couched as factual allegations are not entitled to the assumption of truth, 18 Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 680 (2009), and therefore are insufficient to defeat a 19 motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. In re Cutera Sec. Litig., 610 F.3d 1103, 1108 20 (9th Cir. 2010). 21 A dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim can be based on either (1) 22 the lack of a cognizable legal theory or (2) insufficient facts to support a cognizable legal 23 claim. Balistreri v. Pacifica Police Dep’t, 901 F.2d 696, 699 (9th Cir. 1990). “While a 24 complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6) motion does not need detailed factual allegations, a 25 plaintiff’s obligation to provide the ‘grounds’ of his ‘entitle[ment] to relief’ requires more 26 than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action 27 will not do.” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (citations omitted). 28 The complaint must thus contain “sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim 1 to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting 2 Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570). “[A] well-pleaded complaint may proceed even if it strikes a 3 savvy judge that actual proof of those facts is improbable, and that ‘recovery is very remote 4 and unlikely.’” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556 (quoting Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236 5 (1974)). 6 III. ANALYSIS 7 As Defendant points out, the Complaint has myriad defects, many of which are fatal 8 to the claims it attempts to raise. To begin with, in the Response to Defendant’s Motion to 9 Dismiss, Plaintiff concedes that Counts 2, 3, 5, and 9 must be dismissed because Plaintiff 10 did not send a Notice of Claim to Defendant as required by Arizona law. (Resp. at 1–2.) 11 Accordingly, the Court will dismiss those claims with prejudice. 12 The Court will also dismiss Counts 7 and 8 for failing to meet the pleading 13 requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a). Specifically, Plaintiff—who is 14 represented by counsel—provides no legal basis for Counts 7 and 8, and neither Defendant 15 nor the Court can discern under what legal theory or authority Plaintiff is bringing those 16 claims. Because Plaintiff brings the majority of the other claims in the Complaint under 17 Arizona state law, the Court might assume Counts 7 and 8 are state law claims as well. In 18 that instance, those claims, like Counts 2, 3, 5, and 9, would be barred by Plaintiff’s failure 19 to send a Notice of Claim to Defendant. In any event, because Counts 7 and 8 do not satisfy 20 the mandate in Rule 8(a)(2) that Plaintiff provide “a short and plain statement of the claim 21 showing the pleader is entitled to relief,” the Court will dismiss those claims. See 22 Gottschalk v. City & Cnty. of S.F., 964 F. Supp. 2d 1147, 1156–57 (N.D. Cal. 2013) 23 (dismissing claims for the plaintiff’s failure to articulate their legal basis). 24 With regard to Count 4—a claim for “ADA disability discrimination”1—Defendant 25 argues that Plaintiff failed to exhaust her administrative remedies by failing to bring that 26 claim in her EEOC Charge, and the Court agrees. Filing a timely Charge of Discrimination 27 with the EEOC or a state or local agency that regulates unlawful employment practices is

28 1 Plaintiff also neglected to identify the statutory sections underpinning Counts 4 and 6, identifying those claims only by their acronyms, ADA and FMLA. 1 a mandatory prerequisite to maintaining an ADA action for employment discrimination.2 2 Santa Maria v. Pac. Bell, 202 F.3d 1170, 1176 (9th Cir. 2000) (overruled on other 3 grounds); Zimmerman v. State of Or. Dep’t of Justice, 983 F. Supp. 1327, 1328 (D. Or. 4 1997). Allegations of incidents of discrimination in the complaint that were not included 5 in an EEOC charge may not be considered by the Court unless they are “like or reasonably 6 related” to the allegations in the EEOC charge. Freeman v. Oakland Unified Sch. Dist., 7 291 F.3d 632, 636 (9th Cir. 2002); Green v. L.A. Cnty. Superintendent of Schs., 883 F.2d 8 1472, 1475–76 (9th Cir. 1989). The exhaustion requirement serves the purpose of 9 “plac[ing] the employer on notice of an impending suit that he can try to head off by 10 negotiating with the complainant, utilizing the conciliation services offered by the EEOC.” 11 E.E.O.C. v. Fry’s Elecs., Inc., 770 F. Supp. 2d 1168, 1170 (W.D. Wash. 2011) (internal 12 citation omitted). 13 In the November 9, 2020 EEOC Charge, which both Defendant and Plaintiff 14 attached to their briefs,3 Plaintiff states that, in May and June 2020, she “was denied a 15 promotion and retaliated against because of my race, black, and age 49 years old.” (Doc. 16 5-1.) Plaintiff did not mention a disability or an act of discrimination based thereon. The 17 Court cannot find that Plaintiff’s current claim of discrimination in violation of the ADA 18 is “like or reasonably related” to her statements in the EEOC Charge. For this reason, the 19 Court must dismiss Count 4. 20 Remaining to be examined is Count 1, for age discrimination under the ADEA. The 21 Complaint contains a number of allegations going to Plaintiff’s ADEA claim that are not 22 2 The same requirement applies to claims brought under the ADEA or Title VII, 42 U.S.C. 23 § 2000e et seq. However, the FMLA—under which Plaintiff brings Count 6—does not require an employee to exhaust administrative remedies before bringing the claim in 24 federal court.

25 3 On a Rule 12(b)(6) Motion to Dismiss, the Court considers only the complaint (including attached documents) and documents referred to in the complaint that are central to the 26 plaintiff’s claim and the authenticity of which is not questioned. Marder v. Lopez, 450 F.3d 445, 448 (9th Cir. 2006); Lee v. City of L.A., 250 F.3d 668, 688 (9th Cir. 2001). The Court 27 thus considers the EEOC Charge as part of, and at minimum central to, the Complaint, noting that Plaintiff intended to include it in the Complaint in the first place. The Court had 28 no basis to, and did not, consider the Declarations attached to the parties’ briefs in resolving Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss. 1 listed in the EEOC Charge and not sufficiently related to Plaintiff’s allegations in the 2 EEOC Charge such that the Court can find Plaintiff exhausted her administrative remedies 3 as to the unlisted allegations. For example, Plaintiff alleges in the Complaint that in 2019, 4 she was denied a promotion to the Fire Department and told she failed an eye test after she 5 had been told she passed it. (Compl. ¶ 14.) Plaintiff may not base her ADEA claim on that 6 or other discrete incidents not listed in or reasonably related to the discrete incident alleged 7 in the November 9, 2020 EEOC Charge—the only EEOC Charge Plaintiff provided as a 8 basis for this lawsuit. See Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 110, 122 9 (2002) (differentiating discrete discriminatory or retaliatory acts from a series of events 10 that together may constitute an unlawful employment practice). 11 Finally, Defendant also asks the Court to strike paragraphs 53 to 62 of the Complaint 12 under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(f), because they have to do with Defendant’s 13 protocols for COVID-19 precautions and not with Plaintiff’s claims. Those allegations 14 would go to a claim by Plaintiff that she was discriminated against due to her union 15 affiliation if she was able to bring such a claim, but she failed to exhaust administrative 16 remedies for a claim related to those allegations. Because the Court is dismissing the related 17 claim (to the extent Plaintiff brought it in the first place), Defendant’s request to strike the 18 allegations is moot. 19 IV. CONCLUSIONS 20 The Court dismisses Counts 2, 3, 5, and 9 for failure to send a Notice of Claim to 21 Defendant as required by Arizona law. The Court dismisses Counts 7 and 8 for failure to 22 meet the Rule 8 pleading requirements. And the Court dismisses Count 4 for failure to 23 exhaust administrative remedies. 24 Two claims remain. Count 1, for age discrimination under the ADEA, survives but 25 is limited to the incident of discrimination for which Plaintiff has exhausted her 26 administrative remedies, namely, in May and June 2020, she was denied a promotion in 27 part based on her age. And Count 6 survives, in which Plaintiff claims Defendant took 28 adverse employment actions against her after she took FMLA leave. 1 IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED granting Defendant’s Motion for Partial Dismissal (Doc. 5). Counts 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 are dismissed. Two claims remain: 3 || Count 1, as limited by this Order, and Count 6. 4 Dated this 24th day of May, 2022. CN

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