RANSON-DILLARD v. TECHNICAL COLLEGE SYSTEM OF GEORGIA

CourtDistrict Court, M.D. Georgia
DecidedMarch 1, 2022
Docket7:20-cv-00247
StatusUnknown

This text of RANSON-DILLARD v. TECHNICAL COLLEGE SYSTEM OF GEORGIA (RANSON-DILLARD v. TECHNICAL COLLEGE SYSTEM OF GEORGIA) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, M.D. Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
RANSON-DILLARD v. TECHNICAL COLLEGE SYSTEM OF GEORGIA, (M.D. Ga. 2022).

Opinion

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF GEORGIA VALDOSTA DIVISION

ASHA V. RANSON-DILLARD,

Plaintiff,

v. Civil Action No. 7:20-CV-247 (HL)

TECHNICAL COLLEGE SYSTEM OF GEORGIA,

Defendant.

ORDER Pro se Plaintiff Asha V. Ranson-Dillard’s Amended Complaint asserts claims against Defendant Technical College System of Georgia under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Before the Court is Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint in Lieu of Answer, or in the alternative, Motion for More Definite Statement. (Doc. 21). For the following reasons, the Court GRANTS Defendant’s motion and DISMISSES Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint. I. PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND Plaintiff filed a complaint with this Court on December 10, 2020, bringing claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”), the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 against the Technical College System of Georgia and Southern Regional Technical College. (Doc. 1). Plaintiff was employed in the student activities center at Southern Technical Regional College from 2006 until

sometime in 2020. (Doc. 1 at ¶ 10, 11, 20, and 30). Plaintiff asserted she was subjected to a pattern of discriminatory conduct including failure to hire, termination of employment, failure to promote, failure to accommodate disability, unequal terms and conditions of employment, retaliation, and “hostile, unsafe, and unhealthy work environment.” (Doc. 1 at p. 4).

On April 22, 2021, Defendants filed a Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s ADEA and ADA claims based on Eleventh Amendment Immunity and moved to remove Southern Regional Technical College as a party. (Doc. 9). They further moved to dismiss all of Plaintiff’s claims for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. (Doc. 9, p. 10). Defendants alleged that Plaintiff’s Complaint did not contain any factual matter and was simply a list of conclusory allegations and non-

specific elements of her claims. (Id.). On May 19, 2021, this Court dismissed Plaintiff’s ADEA and ADA claims and terminated Southern Regional Technical College as a party. (Doc. 17). The Court permitted Plaintiff to amend her complaint to provide more information regarding the events leading up to her termination. The Court directed Plaintiff to explain

what her employer did to discriminate against her and how she opposed her employer’s actions, as well as to describe the circumstances of her termination. (Id. at p. 6). Plaintiff filed her Amended Complaint on June 8, 2021. Defendant Technical College System of Georgia now moves to dismiss Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint as an impermissible shotgun pleading or, alternatively, for an order directing Plaintiff to file a more definite statement of her case.

II. MOTION TO DISMISS STANDARD When ruling on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, a court must accept the facts alleged in the plaintiff’s complaint as true and construe all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Bryant v. Avado Brands, Inc., 187 F.3d 1271, 1272 n.1 (11th Cir. 1999); see Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). To avoid

dismissal, “a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter…to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). The complaint need not contain detailed factual allegations, but it must provide “more than labels or conclusions.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 554. “Threadbare recitals” of a cause of action’s elements, “supported by mere conclusory statements,” are insufficient to

defeat a motion to dismiss. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. III. DISCUSSION Defendant argues that Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint should be dismissed as an impermissible shotgun pleading under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. (Doc. 21 at p.1). Defendant alleges that the Complaint falls into three of the four

established categories of shotgun pleadings: (1) it incorporates preceding paragraphs into each count; (2) it largely consists of conclusory, vague, and irrelevant allegations; and (3) it fails to plead separate and discernable claims for relief. (Doc. 21 at p. 9). Should the Court decide not to grant this motion to dismiss, Defendant asks that Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint be struck, pursuant to Rule 12(e), and that Plaintiff be required to re-plead her allegations in conformity with

pleading standards. A. Shotgun Pleadings “A complaint that fails to comply with Rules 8 and 10 may be classified as a ‘shotgun pleading.’” Johnson v. Georgia, 661 Fed. App’x 578, 580 (11th Cir. 2016) (citation omitted). “‘Shotgun pleadings are flatly forbidden by the spirit, if not the

letter, of [the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure]…Besides violating the rules, shotgun pleadings also waste scarce judicial resources, inexorably broaden the scope of discovery, wreak havoc on appellate court dockets, and undermine the public’s respect for the courts.” Barmapov v. Amuial, 986 F.3d 1321, 1324 (11th Cir. 2021) (internal citations omitted). The Eleventh Circuit has shown “little tolerance” for shotgun pleadings, which generally fall into “four rough types or

categories.” Barmapov, 986 F.3d at 1324–25. The first is a complaint containing multiple counts where each count adopts the allegations of all preceding counts, causing each successive count to carry all that came before and the last count to be a combination of the entire complaint. The second is a complaint that is “replete with conclusory, vague, and immaterial facts not obviously connected to any particular cause of action.” The third is a complaint that does not separate each cause of action or claim for relief into a different count. And the final type of shotgun pleading is a complaint that asserts multiple claims against multiple defendants without specifying which of the defendants are responsible for which acts or omissions, or which of the defendants the claim is brought against. Id. (internal citations omitted). “It only requires qualifying as one of these four types to be considered a shot gun pleading” that is subject to dismissal. Cummings v.

Mitchell, No. CV 118-161, 2020 WL 6802032, at *3 (S.D. Ga. Nov. 19, 2020). At the direction of the Court, Plaintiff filed an amended complaint on June 8, 2021. The Amended Complaint lists 142 factual allegations, many of which are conclusory and vague. Plaintiff re-pleads her claims for violations under Title VII and the Rehabilitation Act but does not specify which facts are related to which

claims. Additionally, only a few paragraphs detail specific incidents, yet even those are conclusory. Plaintiff alleges that her employer “deliberately misclassified [her] position,” that a maintenance director would not allow her to ride on a golf cart in one instance, and that another employee with significantly less experience was given almost an equivalent salary upon hiring. (Doc. 20-1 at ¶ 35, 40, 71). The other paragraphs overwhelmingly contain vague conclusory statements such as

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RANSON-DILLARD v. TECHNICAL COLLEGE SYSTEM OF GEORGIA, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ranson-dillard-v-technical-college-system-of-georgia-gamd-2022.