Adams v. N.Y. State Educ. Dep't

• Citation: 752 F.Supp.2d 420
• Decision Date: 18 November 2010
• Docket Number: No. 08 Civ. 5996(VM).,08 Civ. 5996(VM).
• Parties: Twana ADAMS, et al., Plaintiffs,v.NEW YORK STATE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

752 F.Supp.2d 420

Twana ADAMS, et al., Plaintiffs,

v.NEW YORK STATE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT, et al., Defendants.

No. 08 Civ. 5996(VM).

United States District Court, S.D. New York.

Nov. 18, 2010.

Joy Hochstadt, Joy Hochstadt P.C., New York, NY, for Plaintiffs.Antoinette W. Blanchette, New York State Office of the Attorney General, Blanche Jayne Greenfield, New York City Law Department, New York, NY, for Defendants.

DECISION AND ORDER

VICTOR MARRERO, District Judge.

I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs Twana Adams (“Adams”) and Josephina Cruz (“Cruz”), and Michael Ebewo (“Ebewo”), Joanne Hart (“Hart”), Julianne Polito (“Polito”), Thomasina Robinson (“Robinson”), and Brandi Scheiner (“Scheiner”) ¹ (collectively, “Plaintiffs”) brought this action against the New York State Education Department (“NYSED”) and certain NYSED officials (collectively, the “State Defendants”), and the City of New York (the “City”), the City's Department of Education (“DOE”) and certain City and DOE officials (collectively, the “City Defendants”). In their Fourth Amended Complaint, Plaintiffs assert claims alleging various deprivations by the State and City Defendants of Plaintiffs' rights arising under the United States Constitution, specifically procedural due process of law, equal protection of the laws, freedom of speech, and involuntary servitude, as well as violations of federal statutes prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, gender, age, disability and national origin. Plaintiffs' claims arise from their placement in Temporary Reassignment Centers (“TRCs”), so-called “Rubber Rooms,” pending NYSED's adjudication of disciplinary proceedings brought against Plaintiffs by DOE.²

By Order dated August 23, 2010, Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck, to whom this matter had been referred for supervision of pretrial proceedings, issued a Report and Recommendation (the “Report”), a copy of which is attached and incorporated herein, recommending that the motions of DOE and NYSED to dismiss Plaintiffs' Fourth Amended Complaint be granted. The Report further recommends that the Court deny leave to replead, and directed Plaintiffs to show cause why sanctions against them or their counsel under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 should not be imposed. Plaintiffs filed timely objections to the Report.³ For the reasons stated below, the Court adopts the recommendations of the Report in their entirety.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

A district court evaluating a Magistrate Judge's report may adopt those portions of the report to which no “specific, written objection” is made, as long as the factual and legal bases supporting the findings and conclusions set forth in those sections are not clearly erroneous or contrary to law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(b); see also Thomas v. Arn, 474 U.S. 140, 149, 106 S.Ct. 466, 88 L.Ed.2d 435 (1985); Greene v. WCI Holdings Corp., 956 F.Supp. 509, 513 (S.D.N.Y.1997). “Where a party makes a ‘specific written objection ... after being served with a copy of the [magistrate judge's] recommended disposition,’ however, the district court is required to make a de novo determination regarding those parts of the report.” Cespedes v. Coughlin, 956 F.Supp. 454, 463 (S.D.N.Y.1997) ( citing United States v. Raddatz, 447 U.S. 667, 676, 100 S.Ct. 2406, 65 L.Ed.2d 424 (1980)); Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(b). The Court is not required to review any portion of a Magistrate Judge's report that is not the subject of an objection. See Thomas, 474 U.S. at 149, 106 S.Ct. 466. A district judge may accept, set aside, or modify, in whole or in part, the findings and recommendations of the Magistrate Judge as to such matters. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(b); DeLuca v. Lord, 858 F.Supp. 1330, 1345 (S.D.N.Y.1994).

III. DISCUSSION

Upon de novo review of the full factual record in this litigation, including the pleadings and the parties' respective papers submitted in connection with the underlying motions to dismiss in this proceeding, as well as the Report and applicable legal authorities, the Court concludes that dismissal of Plaintiffs' Fourth Amended Complaint is warranted.

A summary of earlier proceedings in this litigation may help as backdrop for the Court's ruling which follows. By Decision and Order dated April 6, 2010, this Court adopted the previous Report and Recommendation of Magistrate Judge Peck dated February 23, 2010, which recommended dismissal of Plaintiffs' pro se Second Amended Complaint. However, the Court did not accept the recommendation that leave to replead should be denied. At that time, Plaintiffs sought an opportunity to retain counsel to assist them in preparing a revised complaint, and, aided by counsel, Plaintiffs filed a Third Amended Complaint, which Magistrate Judge Peck reviewed and still found deficient in substantial respects. By Order dated May 13, 2010, Magistrate Judge Peck not only granted Plaintiffs leave to file a Fourth Amended Complaint, he also offered detailed guidance regarding the relevant pleading standards as well as analysis of substantive law, and specified how the pleadings could be restated to address the deficiencies he had identified. In that same Order, Magistrate Judge Peck put Plaintiffs on notice of the prospect of sanctions pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 in the event their amended pleadings, without stating new facts or law, merely retreaded claims previously dismissed, thus doing nothing more than reargue matters that had already been resolved against them. Largely ignoring the law primer Magistrate Judge Peck had provided, and despite the Magistrate Judge's strong warnings of the potential for sanctions, Plaintiffs, in their Fourth Amended Complaint, substantially failed to heed the Magistrate Judge's guidance.⁴

Had Plaintiffs paid closer attention to the critiques of their earlier pleadings laid out by Magistrate Judge Peck and this Court in previous rulings, they could have avoided at least some of the more grievous flaws embodied in the Fourth Amended Complaint. It is not necessary for the Court to belabor those defects here because they are already sufficiently detailed in the lengthy Report, the factual content and legal analysis of which the Court has adopted as its own, and because those shortcomings were borne out in the Court's own de novo review of the Fourth Amended Complaint, motion papers and other relevant documents on the record.

Here, the Court highlights some of the deficiencies in general terms to offer an overview of its findings of proper grounds for dismissal. By way of some salient examples, the Fourth Amended Complaint reasserts claims that: continue to misstate or omit necessary elements to sufficiently plead certain of its causes of action; are time-barred by applicable statutes of limitations; name as defendants State agencies or officials whose public duties are protected by constitutional immunity, or City officials who clearly had no direct personal involvement in the wrongs Plaintiffs allege; challenge the constitutionality of a provision of the New York Education Law on the basis of a decidedly incorrect standard of review; allege unlawful employment discrimination claims based on race, age, gender or national origin without adequately specifying what role race, age, gender or national origin played in the conduct Plaintiffs assail, or filed against State agencies or officials not qualifying as their employer, and invoke rights under constitutional provisions, such as the Thirteenth Amendment's prohibition against involuntary servitude, or under other federal statutory law, such as hostile work environment discrimination, that on their face have no application to the facts presented, and that thus assert claims palpably frivolous.

Moreover, as the Report also notes with particularity, the Court finds numerous instances of fatal errors and omissions in the briefs both groups of Plaintiffs filed in response to Defendants' motions. Repeatedly, their papers fail to address substantive grounds raised by Defendants' motions, thereby supporting a finding that the underlying claims have been abandoned. Plaintiffs' opposition briefs also impermissibly introduce into the litigation for the first time substantial factual allegations, legal theories and claims not stated in the Fourth Amended Complaint. Indicative of these failings, Hochstadt's brief consists primarily of a polemic that fills 50 pages swelled with accusations attacking New York school politics and policies while only collaterally and rhetorically touching upon legal points germane to Plaintiffs' claims.

Plaintiffs' objections to the Report raise two issues that do merit more particular consideration because they contend that Magistrate Judge Peck engaged in impermissible fact-finding. As regards their claims alleging First Amendment violations, Plaintiffs assert that in determining that the speech in question related to internal school matters, rather than to issues of more general public concern, the Report failed to assume facts as Plaintiffs alleged them. Specifically, Adams's allegations of retaliation are based on her complaining to her principal that a predominantly white school occupying the same building as her predominantly African–American school had better facilities than those available in her school.⁵ Polito alleged that she suffered retaliation when she complained to DOE's Office of Special Investigations charging that her principal had falsified her school's students' attendance and grade records. Robinson alleged that she challenged an instruction by her principal directing her to make improper changes of her students' grades.

Polito and Robinson contend that it was not part of their job description to make such complaints, and argue that when they did report their principals' misconduct on those occasions they were not speaking on their own behalf, but on behalf of their students. Thus, they argue that these allegations should not be dismissed absent discovery needed to develop a fuller...