Opinion
Civil Action No. 02-6733.
May 28, 2004
ORDER
AND NOW, this 28th day of May, 2004, upon consideration of plaintiff's pro se motion for exception (docket entry # 65), which we treat as a second motion to reconsider our Order of May 5, 2004, and the Court finding that:
(a) On May 5, 2004, we denied Hurst's motion for summary judgment, granted defendants' motion for summary judgment, and entered judgment in favor of defendants and against Hurst;
(b) We will grant a motion for reconsideration only if "the party seeking reconsideration shows at least one of the following grounds: (1) an intervening change in the controlling law; (2) the availability of new evidence that was not available when the court [rendered its decision]; or (3) the need to correct a clear error of law or fact or to prevent manifest injustice," Max's Seafood Cafe v. Quinteros, 176 F.3d 669, 677 (3d Cir. 1999);
(c) Hurst now argues that our Order of May 5, 2004 contains two clear legal errors that require reconsideration;
(d) First, Hurst believes that we incorrectly concluded that statements he wrote in a September, 2000, performance evaluation were "uncorroborated" because he interprets his supervisor's signature on the evaluation as her attestation to the truth of his statements;
(e) Because we interpret the supervisor's signature only as a recognition that she reviewed the evaluation, not as attestation to the truth of Hurst's statements, we continue to believe that there is no record evidence corroborating Hurst's allegation that he received training;
(f) Hurst's second argument for reconsideration is that we should have construed his pro se complaint as stating a hostile work environment claim, even though it did not explicitly include such a claim;
(g) In other words, Hurst suggests that, even if PNC is entitled to summary judgment on his claims for each instance of its allegedly discriminatory conduct, it is not entitled to summary judgment on his implicit claim for hostile work environment discrimination;
(h) There are three reasons why this argument does not require us to reconsider our Order of May 5, 2004;
(i) First, it wrongly assumes that we have a duty to imagine any possible claims that a pro se civil plaintiff may have and to require a defendant to defend against even unarticulated claims of which it could have no notice;
(j) Second, Hurst waived any claim that he may have had for hostile work environment discrimination when he failed to raise it before we entered summary judgment; and
(k) Finally, Hurst cannot "establish `by the totality of the circumstances, the existence of a hostile or abusive working environment which is severe enough to affect the psychological stability of a minority employee,'" Andrews v. Philadelphia, 895 F.2d 1469, 1482 (3d Cir. 1990) (quoting Vance v. Southern Bell Tel. and Tel. Co., 863 F.2d 1503, 1510 (11th Cir. 1989)), because the alleged instances of discrimination on which his complaint was based were so trivial and disconnected;
It is hereby ORDERED that Hurst's motion for exception is DENIED.