Opinion
No. 04-CV-1567.
October 19, 2004
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Before the Court is Defendant's 12(b)(6) Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff's employment discrimination claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"). Plaintiff claims that Defendant City of Philadelphia ("the City") retaliated against her because she complained to her supervisors about discriminatory biases in the City's hiring practices. Jurisdiction is premised on a federal question. For the reasons set forth below, Defendant's Motion is granted in part and denied in part, and Plaintiff is granted leave to amend her complaint.
42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq.
Initially Plaintiff also claimed race, sex and disability based discrimination. The Court dismissed these claims via Order dated August 11, 2004. The Court also ordered Plaintiff to file a response to the City's Motion to Dismiss her Title VII retaliation claim.
When deciding a Motion to Dismiss, the Court must accept as true all well-pleaded allegations of fact in the plaintiff's complaint, and any reasonable inferences which may be drawn therefrom. Nami v. Fauver, 82 F.3d 63, 65 (3d Cir. 1996).
The City hired Plaintiff as a Hiring Associate 2 in 1998. One of Plaintiff's duties was to construct skills tests for individuals seeking employment or promotion with the City. Throughout her employment in this position, Plaintiff objected to the use of tests that she believed were not reliable or valid. She directed her complaints about the tests to her direct supervisor, Arlene Hilton. Specifically, Plaintiff complained that because all employment applicants attained nearly perfect scores, the tests did not provide useful information for ranking applicants. Therefore, supervisors had to rely upon subjective criteria to make employment decisions, leaving open the possibility that supervisors could use illegal or impermissible criteria such as race, disability or gender. Plaintiff alleges that in retaliation for her ongoing complaints about the tests, Defendant through its employees disciplined her, detrimentally changed her work assignments, passed over her for promotion, and gave her a negative performance evaluation.
Plaintiff filed a discrimination complaint with the EEOC on January 10, 2002. The EEOC investigated and issued a right to sue letter on or about January 14, 2004. Plaintiff filed her Complaint on April 8, 2004.
An aggrieved party must file a complaint with the EEOC and receive a right to sue letter before filing a civil action under Title VII. 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-5(f)(1). The purpose of the EEOC complaint filing requirement is to enable the EEOC to investigate and, if cause is found, to attempt to use informal, non-judicial means to resolve the dispute between employer and employee. If the complaint is not well founded or if reconciliation is not successful, a right to sue letter is issued to the complainant.Anjelino v. New York Times Co., 200 F.3d 73, 94 (3d Cir. 1999).
II. Standard of Review
In ruling on a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, the Court must determine whether "under any reasonable reading of the pleadings, the plaintiff may be entitled to relief." The Court should dismiss a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) only if "it appears beyond a doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief." III. Discussion A. Timely Pleading of Title VII Retaliation Claim
Nami, 82 F.3d at 65.
Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46 (1957).
The City contends that the Court should dismiss Plaintiff's Title VII retaliation claim because she did not raise it within ninety days of receiving her EEOC right to sue letter dated January 14, 2004, arguing that Plaintiff first raised her retaliation claim in her memorandum dated July 19, 2004. The City's argument fails because Plaintiff raised the issue of retaliation in the Complaint she filed on April 8, 2004. Specifically, Plaintiff alleges retaliation at paragraphs eighteen, and twenty-five through twenty-seven. The statements contained in the Complaint are sufficient to put the City on notice of a retaliation claim under Title VII. Since Plaintiff raised her retaliation claim within ninety days of receiving the EEOC right to sue letter, the City's Motion to Dismiss on this ground is denied.
Fed.R.Civ.Pro. 8(a); Leatherman v. Tarrant Country Narcotics Intelligence Coordination Unit, 507 U.S. 163, 168 (1993) (the federal rules set forth a liberal system of notice pleading).
B. Failure to State a Claim
The City next contends that Plaintiff's Title VII retaliation claim should be dismissed because Plaintiff has not alleged sufficient facts to support her claim. To successfully assert a Title VII retaliation claim, Plaintiff must allege that: 1) she engaged in protected activity; 2) her employer took an adverse employment action against her after or during the commission of the protected act; and 3) there was a causal connection between the protected act and the adverse employment action.
Fogleman v. Mercy Hospital, Inc., 283 F.3d 561, 568 (3d Cir. 2002); Robinson v. City of Pittsburgh, 120 F.3d 1286, 1299 (3d Cir. 1997).
1. Does the Complaint allege that Plaintiff was engaged in protected activity?
Plaintiff alleges that she engaged in protected activity by repeatedly complaining to her supervisors about the City's employment tests, and by urging the City to develop more reliable and valid tests. According to Plaintiff, because virtually all the candidates achieve nearly perfect scores on the tests, supervisors must make subjective judgments when making employment decisions. This makes it possible for racial, gender, or disability-based biases to affect their hiring decisions. Plaintiff alleges that she framed her complaints as concern for the potential for disparate impact on protected classes, and argues that her complaints were therefore protected activity under Title VII.
To constitute protected activity, Plaintiff's complaints must have been motivated by a reasonable belief that the City's hiring practices were actually unlawful. Plaintiff has not alleged such a belief (reasonable or otherwise) here, alleging only her own belief that injecting subjectivity into the hiring process can potentially lead to unlawful discrimination in hiring. However, the mere use of subjective hiring criteria does not amount to a discriminatory practice violating Title VII.
A plaintiff need not prove the merits of the underlying discrimination complaint, but only that he was acting under a good faith, reasonable belief that a violation existed. Aman v. Cort Furniture Rental Corp., 85 F.3d 1074, 1085 (3d Cir. 1996).
Watson v. Fort Worth Bank and Trust, 487 U.S. 977, 990 (1988).
Plaintiff's complaints about the use of subjective hiring criteria, as currently alleged, do not amount to protected activity. Therefore, Plaintiff has not sufficiently alleged the first element of a retaliation claim.
2. Does the Complaint allege that the City took an adverse employment action after or during the protected act?
Plaintiff alleges several adverse employment actions, including a negative performance evaluation by her supervisor, a detrimental change in work assignments, preferential transfer of other employees to new positions, and denial of a promotion. She further alleges that her supervisor inappropriately disseminated confidential information about Plaintiff to her co-workers. These allegations, and particularly the allegation that the City denied Plaintiff a promotion in retaliation for her complaints, are sufficient to survive the City's Motion to Dismiss on this ground.
Robinson, 120 F.3d at 1300 (retaliatory conduct other than discharge or refusal to rehire is thus proscribed by Title VII only if it alters the employee's compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, deprives him or her of employment opportunities, or adversely affects his or her status as an employee).
3. Does the Complaint allege a causal link between the protected activity and the adverse employment action?
Plaintiff does not provide a time line, but her Complaint alleges a series of ongoing complaints, and that she concurrently suffered retaliation for her complaints. This close temporal relationship is sufficient to support an inference of retaliatory animus, and therefore, the allegations are sufficient to survive the City's Motion to Dismiss on this ground.
Farrell v. Planters Lifesavers Co., 206 F.3d 271, 280 (3d Cir. 2000).
IV. Conclusion
While the Court finds that the Plaintiff has not successfully pleaded the first element of a Title VII retaliation claim, amendment may cure the deficiencies in Plaintiff's Complaint. Therefore, the Court gives Plaintiff leave to amend her complaint to allege facts establishing that she was engaged in a protected activity. An appropriate Order follows.
ORDER
AND NOW, this 19th day of October, 2004, upon consideration of Defendant's Motion to Dismiss [Doc. # 5], and Plaintiff's Memorandum of Law in response thereto [Doc. # 7], and in accordance with the attached Memorandum Opinion, it is hereby ORDERED that Defendant's Motion is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part as follows:1. The Motion to Dismiss is GRANTED for failure to state a claim for relief. Plaintiff is hereby granted twenty (20) days from the date of this Order to amend her complaint.
2. The Motion to Dismiss is DENIED in all other respects.
3. If Plaintiff amends her Complaint, Defendant shall file an Answer or Motion to Dismiss within twenty (20) days of receipt of Plaintiff's Amended Complaint.
It is so ORDERED.