Alvarado v. Mount Pleasant Cottage Sch. Dist.

• Decision Date: 27 August 2019
• Docket Number: No. 18-cv-00494 (NSR),18-cv-00494 (NSR)
• Citation: 404 F.Supp.3d 763
• Parties: Maria ALVARADO, Plaintiff, v. MOUNT PLEASANT COTTAGE SCHOOL DISTRICT; Christine Leamon, Principal of Edenwald School ; Jessica Harris, Principal of Mount Pleasant Cottage School; Daria Kolesar-Weitman; Anthony Sheppard, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

404 F.Supp.3d 763

Maria ALVARADO, Plaintiff,

v.MOUNT PLEASANT COTTAGE SCHOOL DISTRICT; Christine Leamon, Principal of Edenwald School ; Jessica Harris, Principal of Mount Pleasant Cottage School; Daria Kolesar-Weitman; Anthony Sheppard, Defendants.

No. 18-cv-00494 (NSR)

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

Signed August 27, 2019

Bryan David Glass, Glass Krakower, LLP, New York, NY, for Plaintiff.

Mark Craig Rushfield, Shaw, Perelson, May & Lambert, LLP, Poughkeepsie, NY, for Defendants.

OPINION & ORDER

NELSON S. ROMÁN, United States District Judge

Plaintiff Maria Alvarado ("Plaintiff") initiated this action on January 18, 2018 by filing a complaint, which she amended on June 7, 2018, against Defendants Mount Pleasant Cottage School District (the "School District"), Christine Leamon, Jessica Harris, Daria Kolesar-Weitman, and Anthony Sheppard (together, the "Individual Defendants") (collectively, the "Defendants"). (See Am. Compl. ("AC"), ECF No. 26.)

Plaintiff asserts seven causes of action arising under federal and state law. Specifically, Plaintiff alleges that, while teaching at Mount Pleasant Cottage School, (1) the School District violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. ("Title VII"), by condoning a hostile work environment and retaliating against Plaintiff for engaging in protected activity challenging the same; (2) all Defendants violated the New York State Human Rights Law, N.Y. Exec. Law § 290 et seq. ("NYSHRL") based on the same acts of harassment and retaliation; and (3) the Individual Defendants engaged in various common-law torts, such as defamation, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, and tortious interference with contract. Plaintiff seeks declaratory relief, compensatory damages, and punitive damages.

Presently before the Court is Defendants' motion to dismiss the AC pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) (the "Motion"). For the following reasons, the Motion is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.

BACKGROUND

A. Documents Submitted by the Parties

To begin, the parties have spilled substantial ink regarding what documents the Court may properly consider in resolving the Motion. The issue warrants an analysis by the Court before it summarizes the relevant factual allegations.

On a motion to dismiss, a court "may review only a narrow universe of materials" without converting the motion into one for summary judgment. See Goel v. Bunge, Ltd. , 820 F.3d 554, 559 (2d Cir. 2016). This generally includes "the factual allegations in plaintiffs' amended complaint, which are accepted as true, [ ] documents attached to the complaint as an exhibit or incorporated in it by reference, ... or [ ] documents either in plaintiffs' possession or of which plaintiffs had knowledge and relied on in bringing suit." Brass v. Am. Film Techs., Inc. , 987 F.2d 142, 150 (2d Cir. 1993). A court may also take judicial notice of documents, like public filings, but cannot rely on them for the truth of the matters asserted therein. Powell v. Dep't of Educ. of City of N.Y. , No. 14 CV 2363 (PKC), 2015 WL 5772211, at *1 (E.D.N.Y. Sept. 30, 2015).

For a document to be incorporated by reference, the complaint must make a "clear, definite, and substantial reference" to it. N.Y. Dist. Council of Carpenters Pension Fund v. Forde , 939 F. Supp. 2d 268, 277 (S.D.N.Y. 2013). "Mere discussion or limited quotation of a document in a complaint" does not qualify as incorporation. DeMasi v. Benefico , 567 F. Supp. 2d 449, 453 (S.D.N.Y. 2008) (internal quotations omitted). But even where a document is not incorporated by reference, a court "may nevertheless consider it where the complaint ‘relies heavily upon its terms and effect,’ which renders the document ‘integral’ to the complaint." Chambers v. Time Warner, Inc. , 282 F.3d 147, 153 (2d Cir. 2002). This requires a party to establish that the plaintiff had "actual notice" of the documents and relied upon them in setting forth his or her claim. Id. ; see also Vaher v. Town of Orangetown, N.Y. , 916 F. Supp. 2d 404, 423 n.16 (S.D.N.Y. 2013) ("In order for the contents of a document to be deemed integral to the complaint, they must be deemed necessary to the plaintiff's statement of a claim under Rule 8.").

Here, Defendants argue that the Court may properly consider documents attached to the Affirmation of Mark C. Rushfield in support of the Motion (the "Rushfield Aff.") and the Affidavit of Millicent Lee in support of the Motion (the "Lee Aff."). (Defs. Memo. of Law in Support of the Motion ("Defs. Mot."), ECF No. 39, at 7; Defs. Reply in Support of the Motion ("Defs. Reply"), ECF No. 41, at 7-10.) These documents include a copy of (1) the School District's New York State Division of Human Rights ("NYSDHR") Position Statement, submitted in response to Plaintiff's Verified Complaint filed before the NYSDHR, as well as attached exhibits; (2) a copy of the School District's Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment Policy (the "Policy"); and (3) Plaintiff's September 26, 2016 harassment complaint filed with the School District and Ms. Lee's report addressing it. Defendants contend that these documents are incorporated by reference in the AC, integral to Plaintiff's claims, and/or suitable for judicial notice. (Defs. Reply 9.)

Plaintiff disagrees. Instead, she argues that it would be wholly improper for the Court to consider these documents without converting the Motion into a motion for summary judgment under Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(b). (Pl. Memo. in Opposition to Defs. Mot. ("Pl. Opp."), ECF No. 40, at 9-11.)

Notwithstanding her position, Plaintiff submits her own exhibit—an email screenshot—for the Court to consider. (Id. at 18.) The Court addresses the propriety of each document in turn.

1. Defendants' NYSDHR Position Statement and Accompanying Exhibits

Defendants contend that Plaintiff's reference to their September 13, 2017 NYSDHR position statement (the "Position Statement")—a one sentence quotation—makes that report "incorporated by reference" in the AC. (Defs. Reply 5.) Similarly, Defendants contend that the AC incorporates by reference Defendant Harris's May 15, 2017¹ New York State Justice Center ("Justice Center") complaint (the "May 15 Complaint"), attached to the Position Statement as Exhibit G. (Id. at 6.) The Court shares a differing view.

Regarding the Position Statement, although the AC does quote the document in one paragraph (AC ¶ 22), the AC does not make a substantial reference to it. See Goldman v. Belden , 754 F.2d 1059, 1066 (2d Cir. 1985) (concluding that, although documents were "to some extent quoted," they were not incorporated by reference into the complaint). Nor does the AC in anyway rely—let alone heavily rely—on the terms and effects of the Position Statement. The AC's single quotation constitutes the AC's sole reference to it. See Sira v. Morton , 380 F.3d 57, 67 (2d Cir. 2004) (concluding that a complaint's paraphrasing of events of a disciplinary hearing and a single quotation to testimony from the hearing neither rendered the document incorporated by reference nor made the document integral to the plaintiff's claims).

Although the issue is closer, the Court reaches a similar conclusion regarding the May 15 Complaint. To start, the AC's reference to the complaint amounts to a mere discussion of Defendant Harris's decision to file it and a high-level reference to the allegations therein, rather than a substantial discussion of the document and its contents. This level of discussion does not suffice to incorporate the document itself by reference. See Sira , 380 F.3d at 67 (explaining that "[l]imited ... reference to documents that may constitute relevant evidence in a case is not enough to incorporate those documents, wholesale, into the complaint"). Further, the May 15 Complaint is not "integral" to the AC's retaliation claims. Although the AC does rely on Defendant Harris's lodging of false accusations to establish retaliatory conduct (AC ¶ 33), it does not stand or fall on the May 15 Complaint's actual contents .

Defendants also point to AC paragraph 52 as another reference to the May 15 Complaint upon which the AC relies. (Defs. Reply 4, 6.) Although the May 15 Complaint is not referenced, it appears that several of the factual predicates in support of Plaintiff's defamation claim—many of which appear for the first time in the AC through this paragraph—are premised on allegations therein. Even so, Plaintiff relies on other conduct that she argues independently supports a claim for defamation, which Defendants also identify in their brief (Defs. Mot. 19-20). Accordingly, the Court cannot conclude that Plaintiff "heavily relied" on the terms and effects of the May 15 Complaint so as to make it integral Plaintiff's defamation claim or, more broadly, the AC.² See Sahu v. Union Carbide Corp. , 548 F.3d 59, 68 (2d Cir. 2008) (concluding that documents from a prior litigation, which the complaint referred to and quoted from, were not integral to the complaint because they were not necessary to the "short and plain statement" of the claim, and instead helped "establish that the complaint's factual assertions [were] ‘plausible’ ").

Notwithstanding the above, the Court may properly take judicial notice of the Position Statement and its exhibits. See Isbell v. City of New York , 316 F. Supp. 3d 571 (S.D.N.Y. 2018) ("To the extent that a particular filing with the NYSDHR is not referenced or otherwise incorporated into the Amended Complaint, I may take judicial notice of it for purposes of deciding Defendants' motion."); Macer v. Bertucci's Corp. , No. 13-CV-2994 (JFB) (ARL), 2013 WL 6235607, at *1 n.1 (E.D.N.Y. Dec. 3, 2013) (noting that "courts regularly take notice of NYDHR filings and determinations relating to a plaintiff's claims"). To the extent it notices these documents, however, the Court will not rely on them for their truth.

2. Plaintiff's School District Complaint and Ms. Lee's Report

Defendants...