CAVANAGH v. IDEXX LABORATORIES INC

CourtDistrict Court, D. Maine
DecidedJuly 7, 2025
Docket2:23-cv-00273
StatusUnknown

This text of CAVANAGH v. IDEXX LABORATORIES INC (CAVANAGH v. IDEXX LABORATORIES INC) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Maine primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
CAVANAGH v. IDEXX LABORATORIES INC, (D. Me. 2025).

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF MAINE

JAMIE LEAVITT, ) f/k/a JAMIE CAVANAGH, ) ) Plaintiff ) ) v. ) No. 2:23-cv-00273-NT ) IDEXX LABORATORIES, INC., ) ) Defendant )

ORDER ON MOTION TO AMEND COMPLAINT Jamie Leavitt, the Plaintiff in this sex-based discrimination and retaliation case, seeks leave to amend her complaint to allege a class action nearly sixteen months after filing suit. See Motion to Amend Complaint (ECF No. 33) at 1-6; Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2). The Defendant IDEXX Laboratories, Inc. opposes the proposed amendments. See Opposition (ECF No. 39) at 1-12. For the following reasons, Leavitt’s motion to amend her complaint is denied.1 I. Background This matter arises from Leavitt’s employment at IDEXX from May 2011 to May 2021. See First Amended Complaint (ECF No. 10) ¶¶ 10, 68. She was originally hired as a recruiter (a grade level 500 position) and was then promoted to the following roles: (1) junior human resources business partner (HRBP) (grade level 500) in January 2013; HRBP (grade level 600) in May 2015; senior HRBP I (grade level 700)

1 Leavitt also seeks leave to amend the case caption to reflect her name change from Jamie Cavanagh to Jamie Leavitt. See Motion to Amend Complaint at 1. In lieu of requiring any amended filings, I will apply the change to this order and ask that the Clerk’s Office update her case to mirror the same. in March 2016; and senior HRBP II (grade level 800) in April 2018. See id. ¶¶ 10-13. In the fall of 2017, Leavitt began reporting to Zach Nelson. See id. ¶ 18. After a colleague began interacting with her in a way that she perceived as “flirtatious” and

professionally “distracting,” Leavitt sought to distance herself from the situation by asking Nelson to transfer her to a different client group. See id. ¶¶ 21-25. Instead of taking appropriate action, Nelson gossiped about Leavitt’s request to other IDEXX employees with whom he had no professional reason to discuss it. See id. ¶¶ 28-29. When Leavitt complained about Nelson’s conduct to employee relations, his behavior worsened. See id. ¶¶ 34-35. Nelson gave Leavitt a negative performance

review in which he said she was “too emotional,” disparaged her to leadership, “layered” her under management by other human resource professionals so she had less visibility and fewer advancement opportunities, and cabined her in a role she did not want in the hope that she would resign. See id. ¶¶ 30, 36, 39-41, 48-50, 54-56. Leavitt maintains that Nelson’s behavior created a hostile, abusive, and retaliatory work environment at IDEXX in which she was evaluated differently from her peers for the same promotions, denied advancement and merit-based salary

increases, and eventually constructively discharged. See id. ¶¶ 44-47, 51-53, 65, 68. Leavitt filed discrimination charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Maine Human Rights Commission (MHRC) and received notice of right to sue letters on April 15, 2023, and October 10, 2023, respectively. See id. ¶¶ 6-7. She filed a complaint in this Court (ECF No. 1) on July 13, 2023, and an amended complaint on November 28, 2023, alleging IDEXX engaged in sex-based discrimination and retaliation against her in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, see 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e to 2000e-17, as well as the Maine Human Rights Act (MHRA), see 5 M.R.S.A. §§ 4571-4577

(Westlaw, July 7, 2025), and engaged in disability discrimination against her in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), see 42 U.S.C. §§ 12111-12117; First Amended Complaint ¶¶ 70-95.2 IDEXX was granted two extensions of time to file an answer (ECF Nos. 6-9), and on December 12, 2023, filed a motion to dismiss Leavitt’s entire first amended complaint for failure to state a claim (ECF No. 11). On May 28, 2024, the Court

granted the motion to dismiss only as to Leavitt’s ADA claim (ECF No. 16), prompting IDEXX to file a motion for partial reconsideration (ECF No. 20), which the Court denied (ECF No. 26) on August 7, 2024. Leavitt was granted extensions of time to file oppositions to both the motion to dismiss and the motion for partial reconsideration (ECF Nos. 12-13, 22-23). IDEXX then filed its answer to Leavitt’s first amended complaint on August 19, 2024 (ECF No. 27). On October 28 and November 5, 2024, Leavitt filed motions to stay proceedings

or amend the scheduling order (ECF Nos. 30-31) in anticipation of the instant motion for leave to file a second amended complaint, which she ultimately filed on November 7, 2024. In response, I retroactively amended the deadline to join parties

2 The only amendments Leavitt made to her original complaint were to state that she had received a right to sue letter from the MHRC and fix a typographical error. and alter or amend pleadings to November 7, 2024,3 and ordered remaining discovery deadlines stayed pending resolution of this motion (ECF No. 35). In her proposed second amended class action complaint, Leavitt asserts a class

action against IDEXX alleging the company engaged in a pattern of sex-based discrimination and retaliation against its female employees in violation of Title VII and the MHRA. See Proposed Second Amended Class Action Complaint (ECF No. 33-1) ¶¶ 240-277. Leavitt names herself, Jessica Mayhew, and Molly Hoisser as class representatives bringing claims against IDEXX on behalf of a putative class “of all female citizens of the United States who are, or have been,

employed by IDEXX in the United States and have experienced gender discrimination or retaliation at any time during the applicable liability period.”4 Id. ¶ 215. Leavitt states “there are hundreds, if not thousands, of members of the proposed class.” Id. Like Leavitt, Mayhew and Hoisser allege they experienced sex-based discrimination and retaliation while employed by IDEXX, and they have each exhausted their administrative remedies at the EEOC and the MHRC. See id. ¶¶ 9-10, 69-171. II. Legal Standard

A party that seeks to amend a complaint more than twenty-one days after the

3 The scheduling order (ECF No. 28) originally listed November 5, 2024, as the deadline to join parties and alter or amend pleadings. Because I retroactively amended that deadline to November 7, 2024, and Leavitt filed the instant motion on that date, my analysis is governed by Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2)’s “freely give[n]” standard instead of Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b)’s more demanding “good cause” standard, which applies to “motions to amend filed after scheduling order deadlines have passed.” Somascan, Inc. v. Philips Med. Sys. Nederland, B.V., 714 F.3d 62, 64 (1st Cir. 2013) (cleaned up). 4 The proposed second amended class action complaint also includes factual allegations pertaining to Jessica Schnell, an individual who filed a sex-based employment discrimination complaint against IDEXX with the MHRC in November 2024. See Motion to Amend Complaint at 2; Proposed Second Amended Class Action Complaint ¶¶ 172-193; Schnell MHRC Complaint (ECF No. 39-1) at 1-4. filing of a responsive pleading may do so “only with the opposing party’s written consent or the court’s leave.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2).

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