Opinion
Civil Action No. 06-423-JMH.
December 10, 2007
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
This matter is before the Court on Plaintiff Carolyn M. Schneidt's Motion to Amend her Complaint [Record No. 21]. Defendant J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, N.A. (hereinafter, "Chase") has filed a Response, objecting to Plaintiff's motion [Record No. 31], and Plaintiff has filed a Reply [Record No. 34]. This motion is now ripe for decision.
Defendant has also filed a Motion for Leave to File a Sur-Reply in Opposition to Plaintiff's Motion for Leave to Amend her Complaint [Record No. 35]. Plaintiff has responded [Record No. 36], and Defendant has replied [Record No. 40]. Having considered the motion and being sufficiently advised, the Court will grant Defendant's Motion for Leave to File a Sur-Reply and direct the Clerk to file the same in the record of this matter.
Plaintiff seeks to amend her Complaint to add claims under Title VII and K.R.S. 344 for unequal pay based on her gender. She seeks as well to amend her current claim for employment discrimination based on an "apparent" disability to include a claim for discrimination on account of a "perceived" disability. Defendant has objected on grounds of futility, asking that the Court deny Plaintiff's motion to amend. Defendant's objections are not well taken, and, for the reasons stated below, Plaintiff's motion to amend shall be granted.
A. Motions to Amend, Generally
Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(a)(2) provides, in pertinent part, that "a party may amend its pleading only with the opposing party's written consent or the court's leave. The court should freely give leave when justice so requires." Courts have construed Federal Rule 15 liberally. Leary v. Daeschner, 349 F.3d at 888, 905 (6th Cir. 2003). "Leave to file an amended complaint . . . should not be denied unless there is evidence of undue delay, bad faith, undue prejudice to the non-movant, or futility." Ziegler v. IBP Hog Market, Inc., 249 F.3d 509, 519 (6th Cir. 2001) (citing Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 1982 (1962)).
B. Claims of Unequal Pay Under Title VII
Schneidt's seeks to add facts and add a claim to her Complaint alleging violations of Title VII and the KCRA related to her job classification and the pay associated with it, as follows:
Plaintiff has not previously raised a Title VII equal pay claim before this Court, although there are currently pending allegations of Equal Pay Act violations.
The male vice-presidents were newly hired and placed in Banker III positions, while the plaintiff was assigned to a Banker II position, and plaintiff had substantially more experience and production than her male peers.
Yet the male comparators earned substantially more salary, bonuses, and stock options in spite of plaintiff's greater qualifications and production. Some of the male comparators earned almost twice plaintiff's salary while performing the exact same job duties.
. . .
Defendant, through its management, paid plaintiff unequal pay as compared to her male peers and was assigned a lower job title while performing the same job duties as male comparators because of her sex in violation of . . . Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq., and KRS 344.040.
[Proposed Amended Compl. at ¶¶ 20, 25.]
Defendant urges the Court to construe this as a claim of "failure to promote" and argues that Plaintiff's proposed amendment is futile because her EEOC charge of discrimination does not raise a Title VII claim for failure to promote based on sex. Plaintiff theorizes that the issue of job classification (which Defendant construes as "promotion") and pay (which she claims is based, in part, on job classification) are inextricably intertwined and that the language of her EEOC charge is such that her proposed amended claim could be reasonably have been expected to grow out of it.
Defendant does not dispute that Plaintiff's EEOC charge adequately raises a claim of unequal pay under Title VII.
"It is well settled that federal courts do not have subject matter jurisdiction to hear Title VII claims unless the claimant explicitly files the claim in an EEOC charge or the claim can be reasonably expected to grow out of the EEOC charge." Strouss v. Michigan Dept. of Corrections, 250 F.3d 336, 342 (6th Cir. 2001) (citing Abeita v. TransAmerica Mailings, Inc., 159 F.3d 246, 254 (6th Cir. 1998)); see Mehr v. Starwood Hotels Resorts Worldwide, Inc., No. 02-5013, 2003 WL 21771963, *8 (6th Cir. 2003) (EEOC charge describing another employee who became a "full-time server, because she is 21 yrs old is a party girl" insufficient to prompt EEOC investigation of alleged age discrimination).
Schneidt's EEOC charge reads, in pertinent part, as follows:
Additionally, I believe that I was subjected to different terms and conditions of employment and paid less because of my sex female, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended.
The charge clearly raises the issue of unequal pay on account of her sex in violation of Title VII and relates the "terms and conditions of her employment" to her gender, as well. "Terms and conditions" would reasonably include her job classification, even in the absence of the word "promotion." The Court finds that the phrase "different terms and conditions of employment" would prompt the EEOC to consider any of the terms or conditions of her employment, including job classification, particularly as it related to her relative level of pay. The amendment is not futile on these grounds.
Defendant argues, as well, that Plaintiff has failed to allege a discriminatory pay decision within the 300-day period preceding her EEOC claim, i.e., after June 14, 2005, as required for a
Title VII claim. Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire Rubber Co., Inc., 127 S.Ct. 2162, 2167 (2007). Plaintiff argues, however, that the evidence will show that, after June 14, 2005, two male correspondent bankers were hired or transferred into the same position as Plaintiff and paid a substantially higher salary than she was paid for the same work. The Court understands Plaintiff's argument to be that, as her own salary was not increased at that time, a decision made during the relevant time period resulted in unequal pay. Plaintiff alleges, as well, that after June 14, 2005, a third male correspondent banker received a $30,000 bonus for the year 2005 based on revenue production of $837,000, while Plaintiff received only a $5,000 bonus for revenue production of $2.6 million, again evidencing unequal pay. As these alleged acts took place within 300 days of the April 10, 2006 charge, Plaintiff's amendment is not futile on statute of limitations grounds raised by Defendant.
Non-discriminatory pay decisions that merely perpetuate prior discriminatory acts cannot form the basis for the claim. Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire Rubber Co., Inc., 127 S.Ct. 2162, 2167 (2007)
Plaintiff's Title VII equal pay claims would neither be futile due to lack of subject matter jurisdiction nor barred by the statute of limitations, and leave to amend Plaintiff's Complaint to include these allegations will be freely granted.
C. Allegations of a "Perceived" Disability
The proposed amended complaint also contains changes related to Plaintiff's claims for discrimination based on disability. [ Id. at ¶¶ 11, 12, and 24.] In the original Complaint, Schneidt claimed that the alleged discrimination occurred, in part, on account of her "apparent disability." [Record No. 1 at ¶ 22.] Chase takes the position that the original complaint did not raise any issue of "perceived disability," only discrimination on the basis of disability, that the original claim is without merit, and that the proposed amendment is, thus, futile. Specifically, Defendant argues that neither Plaintiff's alleged inability to sit for long periods of time in a car for long distance driving, caused by a back injury nor the perception of same (which Chase sees as newly alleged in the proposed Amended Complaint) qualify as a physical impairment or a perceived physical impairment which "substantially limits one or more of the major activities" of Plaintiff as required by law.
It is taught that "[w]hen the major life activity under consideration is that of working, the statutory phrase `substantially limits' requires, at a minimum, that plaintiffs allege they are unable to work in a broad class of jobs. . . . `The inability to perform a single, particular job does not constitute a substantial limitation in the major life activity of working.'" Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc., 527 U.S. 471, 491 (1999).
In other words, Chase effectively asks this Court to not only deny the requested amendment but to dismiss the already pending claim for disability discrimination. The Court declines to do so on this motion. Plaintiff's motion to amend her complaint will be granted. The viability or merits of the claims of discrimination on account of disability and/or perceived disability may be more appropriately placed before the Court by the parties in future pleadings or at trial.
D. Conclusion
For all of the reasons stated above, Plaintiff's Motion to Amend her Complaint shall be granted. As the amendments "arise out of the conduct, transaction, or occurrence set out — or attempted to be set out — in the original pleading," the amendments shall relate back to the date of the original Complaint. Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(c)(1)(B).
Accordingly,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED,
(1) that Defendant's Motion for Leave to File a Sur-Reply in Opposition to Plaintiff's Motion for Leave to Amend her Complaint [Record No. 35] shall be, and the same hereby is, GRANTED;
(2) that the Clerk shall FILE the tendered Sur-Reply and Exhibits thereto [Attachment Nos. 3, 4, 5, and 6 to Record No. 35] in the record of this matter;
(3) that Plaintiff's Motion to Amend her Complaint [Record No. 21] shall be, and the same hereby is, GRANTED;
(4) that the Clerk shall FILE the tendered Amended Complaint, [Attachment No. 1 to Record No. 27] in the record of this matter; and
(5) that the amendments shall RELATE BACK to the date of filing of the original complaint. Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(c)(1)(B).