Allen v. Bd. of Trs. Rock Valley Coll.
| Decision Date | 03 September 2021 |
| Docket Number | 19-cv-05465 |
| Parties | MELVIN ALLEN, Plaintiff, v. BOARD OF TRUSTEES ROCK VALLEY COLLEGE, an Illinois public community college, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Plaintiff Melvin Allen bring claims against his former employer, the Board of Trustees for Rock Valley College (the “College”) (incorrectly named in the Amended Complaint as Board of Trustees Rock Valley College see 110 ILCS 805/3-11), as well as several College employees in their official and individual capacities. Plaintiff, a 45-year-old Black man, worked at the College from 2014 until his termination in 2018. Plaintiff alleges that the College, in violation of various federal and state laws, terminated him because of his age, race, and his status as a whistleblower. In turn, the College contends that it terminated Plaintiff because of his failure to meet performance expectations. Defendants have moved to dismiss all of Plaintiff's claims.
For the reasons that follow, the Court holds that Plaintiff's discrimination claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act are untimely and that the discrimination claims under Section 1983 and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act are inadequately pleaded. Accordingly, the Court dismisses Plaintiff's federal claims (Counts I-II, IV-V, and VII-VIII)[1] and defers ruling for now on Plaintiff's remaining claim under Illinois law (Count III).
Rock Valley Community College (the “College”), a public community college in Rockford, Illinois, hired Plaintiff as its Executive Director for Recruitment and Admissions in 2014. (Amended Complaint (“Am Compl.”) Dkt. 20 ¶ 15.) In this role, Plaintiff handled the Recruitment and Admissions departments and oversaw a staff of eight employees. (Id.) After a reorganization in 2017, Plaintiff's title changed to Associate Vice President for Enrollment and Retention. (Id. ¶ 16.) In this new position, Plaintiff was responsible for overseeing several more departments and at least 11 more staff members. (Id.)
According to Plaintiff, Defendant Lisa Mehlig, Vice President of Admissions, met with Plaintiff off-campus in 2017 and asked him to “support” inaccurate enrollment numbers that were to be reported to the Illinois Community College Board. (Id. ¶ 19.) Plaintiff told Mehlig he believed the enrollment numbers were wrong and had been so for “a long time.” (Id.) Mehlig responded that she would “just cover up the inaccuracies.” (Id. ¶ 20.) Plaintiff replied that he could not support the inaccurate information and Mehlig warned him not to speak to any College board members about the enrollment numbers. (Id.)
Shortly thereafter, Mehlig directed another staff member, Dave Costello, to begin “snooping and making unwelcome and unnecessary visits” to Plaintiff's office and the areas he supervised. (Id. ¶ 21.) Other staff members under Plaintiff's supervision noticed Costello's “snooping” and asked him to stop. (Id. ¶ 22.) While the “snooping” was going on, Costello purposefully neglected certain work responsibilities so that the projects to which he and Plaintiff were assigned would fail. (Id. ¶ 24.) Plaintiff alleges that this was all part of a plot concocted by Mehlig to sabotage Plaintiff. (Id.)
On May 22, 2018, Plaintiff received an email from Joe Simpson, Executive Director of Human Resources, informing Plaintiff that the College was investigating allegations of misconduct against him. (Id. ¶¶ 4, 28; Dkt. 20-1.) During its investigation, the College spoke with witnesses who claimed that Plaintiff “consumed alcohol during the [workday], on several occasions, and returned to work.” (Dkt. 20-1.) The witnesses also confirmed “various employees' concerns regarding [Plaintiff's] professionalism within the workplace.” (Id.) Based on these findings, Simpson asked Plaintiff to resign. Simpson informed Plaintiff that, if he did not resign by May 24, 2018, the College intended to terminate him. (Id.) Plaintiff alleges this investigation was pretextual and was rooted in race- and age-based discrimination and was conducted in retaliation for his refusal to go along with Mehlig's scheme to inflate the College's enrollment numbers. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 30-31.)
On May 30, 2018, the College terminated Plaintiff's employment on the grounds that Plaintiff engaged in “workplace misconduct” and that he failed to meet “performance expectations.” (Id. ¶¶ 26, 27.) Following his termination, Plaintiff applied for unemployment benefits through the Illinois Department of Employment Security (“IDES”). (Id. ¶ 32.) On June 7, 2018, Simpson sent IDES a letter objecting to the unemployment benefits on the grounds that Plaintiff was terminated for “disqualifying acts of misconduct.” (Id. ¶ 32.[2]) Plaintiff was eventually able to secure unemployment benefits through IDES after three unsuccessful appeals by the College. (Id. ¶ 33.)
On March 29, 2019, Plaintiff filed a Charge of Discrimination with the Illinois Department of Human Rights and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”). (Id. ¶ 57; Dkt. 20-3.) Plaintiff then filed this multi-count lawsuit against the College, Rock Valley College President Douglas Jensen, Joe Simpson, Lisa Mehlig, and Administrative Assistant for Recruitment Lisa DuSavage. Plaintiff alleges violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq. (against the College only), the Illinois Whistleblower Act, 740 ILCS 174/1, et seq. (against the College only), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. § 621, et seq. (against the College only), his constitutional right to equal protection under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 (against the College, Jensen, Simpson, and Mehlig), and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d, et seq. (against the College only). Defendants have now moved to dismiss the entirety of Plaintiff's complaint. (Dkt. 22.)
Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a complaint generally need only include “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2). This short and plain statement must “give the defendant fair notice of what the claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (internal punctuation omitted). Documents attached to a complaint are considered part of the complaint. Fed.R.Civ.P. 10(c).
As the Seventh Circuit has explained, this rule “reflects a liberal notice pleading regime, which is intended to ‘focus litigation on the merits of a claim' rather than on technicalities that might keep plaintiffs out of court.” Brooks v. Ross, 578 F.3d 574, 580 (7th Cir. 2009) (quoting Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N.A., 534 U.S. 506, 514 (2002)). A complaint “must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.' ” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570). These allegations “must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. In evaluating a motion to dismiss, the Court must accept as true the complaint's factual allegations and draw all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's favor. Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 742 (2011); Tamayo v. Blagojevich, 526 F.3d 1074, 1081 (7th Cir. 2008). But although factual allegations are assumed to be true, mere legal conclusions are not. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678-79. Either way, a plaintiff “can plead himself out of court by including factual allegations that establish that the plaintiff is not entitled to relief as a matter of law.” O'Gorman v. City of Chicago, 777 F.3d 885, 889 (7th Cir. 2015) (citing Hollander v. Brown, 457 F.3d 688, 691 n.1 (7th Cir. 2006)).
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act makes it unlawful for an employer to discriminate against an employee on account of the employee's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). In turn, the ADEA prohibits age discrimination in employment. 29 U.S.C. § 623(a). A plaintiff who wishes to bring a claim under Title VII or the ADEA must first file a charge of employment discrimination with the EEOC within 300 days of the materially adverse employment action that resulted from the alleged unlawful discrimination practice. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e)(1); 29 U.S.C. § 626(d)(1)(B); Bass v. Joliet Pub. Sch. Dist. No. 86, 746 F.3d 835, 839 (7th Cir. 2014) (); Flannery v. Recording Indus. Ass'n of Am., 354 F.3d 632, 637 (7th Cir. 2004) (). The 300-day limitations period accrues “at the time the employment decision was made and communicated to the employee.” Stepney v. Naperville Sch. Dist. 203, 392 F.3d 236, 240 (7th Cir. 2004) (cleaned up) (quoting Del. State Coll. v. Ricks, 449 U.S. 250, 258 (1980)).
In the context of a claim for employment discrimination, such adverse employment decisions generally fall into three categories: “(1) termination or reduction in financial terms of employment; (2) transfers or changes in job duties that cause an employee's skills to atrophy and reduce future career prospects; and (3) unbearable changes in job conditions, such as a hostile work environment or conditions amounting to constructive discharge.” Barton v. Zimmer, Inc., 662 F.3d 448,...
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