Clay v. United Parcel Service, Inc.

983 F. Supp. 2d 1331, 2013 WL 5769923, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 152659
CourtDistrict Court, D. Kansas
DecidedOctober 24, 2013
DocketNo. 13-2240-SAC
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 983 F. Supp. 2d 1331 (Clay v. United Parcel Service, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Clay v. United Parcel Service, Inc., 983 F. Supp. 2d 1331, 2013 WL 5769923, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 152659 (D. Kan. 2013).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

SAM A. CROW, Senior District Judge.

This employment discrimination case comes before the Court on Defendant’s motion to dismiss Plaintiff’s amended complaint for failure to state a claim and for lack of jurisdiction. Plaintiff, acting pro so, opposes the motion.

I. Motion to Dismiss Standards

“The court’s function on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion is not to weigh potential evidence that the parties might present at trial, but to assess whether the plaintiffs ... complaint alone is legally sufficient to state a claim for which relief may be granted.” Miller v. Glanz, 948 F.2d 1562, 1565 (10th Cir.1991). The court accepts all well-pled factual allegations as true and views these allegations in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Smith v. United States, 561 F.3d 1090, 1098 (10th Cir.2009), cert. denied, 558 U.S. 1148, 130 S.Ct. 1142, 175 L.Ed.2d 973 (2010). The court, however, is not under a duty to accept legal conclusions as true. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949, 173 L.Ed.2d 868, 884 (2009). “Thus, mere ‘labels and conclusions’ and ‘formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action’ will not suffice.” Khalik v. United Air Lines, 671 F.3d 1188, 1191 (10th Cir.2012) (quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007)).

The Supreme Court recently clarified the requirement of facial plausibility:

To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to “state a claim for relief that is plausible on its face.” Id. [Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) ] at 570. A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the Defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged. Id. at 556 [127 S.Ct. 1955]. The plausibility standard is not akin to a “probability requirement,” but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a Defendant has acted unlawfully. Id. Where a complaint pleads facts that are “merely consistent with” a Defendant’s liability, it “stops short of the line between possibility and plausibility of ‘entitlement to relief.’ ” Id. at 557 [127 S.Ct. 1955].

Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1949. “Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.” Id. “[C]ourts should look to the specific allegations in the complaint to determine whether they plausibly support a legal claim for relief.” Alvarado v. KOB-TV, L.L.C., 493 F.3d 1210, 1215 n. 2 (10th Cir.2007). “While the 12(b)(6) standard does not require that Plaintiff establish a prima facie case in [his] complaint, the elements of each alleged cause of action help to determine whether Plaintiff has set forth a plausible claim.” Khalik 671 F.3d at 1192 (citations omitted).

A court liberally construes a pro se complaint and applies “less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted [1337]*1337by lawyers.” Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94, 127 S.Ct. 2197, 167 L.Ed.2d 1081 (2007). Nonetheless, a pro se litigant’s “conclusory allegations without supporting factual averments are insufficient to state a claim upon which relief can be based.” Hall v. Bellmon, 935 F.2d 1106, 1110 (10th Cir.1991). The court “will not supply additional factual allegations to round out a plaintiffs complaint or construct a legal theory on a plaintiffs behalf.” Whitney v. New Mexico, 113 F.3d 1170, 1173-74 (10th Cir.1997).

Matters Outside the Pleading

In evaluating a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, the court is limited to assessing the legal sufficiency of the allegations contained within the four corners of the complaint. Archuleta v. Wagner, 523 F.3d 1278, 1281 (10th Cir.2008). But in considering the complaint in its entirety, the Court also examines documents “incorporated into the complaint by reference,” Tellabs, Inc. v. Makor Issues & Rights, Ltd., 551 U.S. 308, 322, 127 S.Ct. 2499, 168 L.Ed.2d 179 (2007), and documents attached to the complaint, Rosenfield v. HSBC Bank, USA 681 F.3d 1172, 1189 (10th Cir.2012) (quotations and citations omitted). Plaintiff has attached a number of documents to his Amended Complaint, including his original complaint, grievance forms, his EEOC charge and notice of right to sue, and various notes. In deciding this motion, the Court considers all attachments to be part of the complaint. See Rosenfield, 681 F.3d at 1189.

II. Facts

Neither party has set forth a coherent chronology of the crucial events during Plaintiffs employment which give rise to this case. Accordingly, the court merely offers a summary gleaned from the pleadings. Defendant initially hired Plaintiff in January of 2004 as a utility worker, and Plaintiff stayed in that position throughout his employment. Defendant discharged and reinstated Plaintiff one or more times before finally discharging Plaintiff on March 12, 2013 for the stated reason that he violated Defendant’s Workplace Violence policy. Defendant found that Plaintiff had a verbal altercation and threatened a coworker in the employee parking lot on March 8, 2013, so discharged Plaintiff pursuant to Article 17(i) of Defendant’s Supplemental Agreement with the Central Region of Teamsters. That article generally prohibits Defendant from discharging an employee without first issuing a warning letter and providing a hearing, subject to certain enumerated exceptions and to subsection (i) — a catch-all exception for “other serious offenses.”

The Court takes judicial notice1 of the facts included in the following interpretation of 17(i) by Shawnee County Judge Hendricks, who examined it when Plaintiff sought unemployment benefits after Defendant discharged him in September of 2012 pursuant to that subsection.

Article 17 of the Supplemental Agreement is designed to ensure that employees are not discharged before receiving “a warning letter of a complaint.” Article 17 also sets out several exceptions to this general provision, which include specific conduct that is so severe and offensive that an immediate discharge is appropriate. Some of these exceptions include taking money from the company, [1338]*1338consuming alcohol or narcotics during the workday, and gross negligence resulting in a serious accident. Therefore, the catch-all exception listed in subsection (i) of Article 17, “other serious offenses,” which is cited to as the reason for Mr. Clay’s discharge, refers to other conduct so severe that to merely issue a warning would not be sufficient to ensure the safety of the company’s employees and business operations.

Clay v. Kansas Employment Sec. Bd. of Review, Dk. 28, p. 17.

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983 F. Supp. 2d 1331, 2013 WL 5769923, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 152659, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/clay-v-united-parcel-service-inc-ksd-2013.