Black v. City of Pittsburgh
| Decision Date | 07 August 2013 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 12-1286 |
| Parties | CARLOTTA M. BLACK, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF PITTSBURGH, JUDY HILL FINEGAN, DEIDRA COCHRAN, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Pennsylvania |
United States Magistrate Judge
Cynthia Reed Eddy
Plaintiff Carlotta Black filed this action on September 7, 2012, initially pro se, against the City of Pittsburgh, Judy Finegan, Director of the City's Department of Personnel, and Deidra Cochran, a Supervisor in the City's Partnership Reset Program/Employment and Retention Network (EARN), a Welfare to Work Program. Thereafter Plaintiff retained counsel who filed an Amended Complaint on November 29, 2012.
Plaintiff was an employee of the Department of Personnel, and a "program administrator/SPOC case manager" in the EARN program, a "Department of Welfare Federally Funded Program," since July 24, 1995. Amended Complaint, (ECF No. 4), at ¶¶ 1, 15. She claims she was terminated on or about March, 25, 2010 "for a false allegation of willfully allowing a student to maintain cash benefits when in fact they [sic] were not receiving any." Amended Complaint, (ECF No. 4), at ¶ 44. The Amended Complaint states claims against the City and against the individual defendants in their personal capacities, "pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act as amended ("ADA"), 42 U.S.C. §§ 12101, et. seq., and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, ("PHRA") (43 P.S. §§ 955 et. seq.)." Amended Complaint,(ECF No. 4), at ¶ 6. Plaintiff alleges that Defendants failed to accommodate her on the basis of an actual disability, depression and anxiety disorder, and/or "regarded as" disability, that she was denied reasonable accommodation, and that she was discharged unlawfully due to her disability and her request for accommodation. Amended Complaint, (ECF No. 4), at ¶ 7-8. Plaintiff also claims that she was terminated as a result of race discrimination and retaliation for engaging in protected activity, i.e., complaining to management about a continuing pattern and practice of race discrimination, and that she, an African-American, was replaced by a non-disabled white female. Amended Complaint, (ECF No. 4), at ¶ 9-11.
Plaintiff further avers that she filed charges of discrimination with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission and the EEOC and exhausted her administrative remedies; the EEOC issued a letter of dismissal and right to sue letter on June 8, 2012. Amended Complaint, (ECF No. 4), at ¶ 13-14.
On March 18, 2013, Defendants filed a Motion to Dismiss, or in the Alternative, for Summary Judgment, (ECF No. 20). The Motion to Dismiss was filed pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1), challenging this Court's jurisdiction to entertain the case, and Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), for failure to state a claim; the Motion for Summary Judgment pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 56 attached numerous documents generated in Plaintiff's proceedings before the City of Pittsburgh's Civil Service Commission ("Commission") and in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County. The factual underpinning of this motion seeking relief in the alternative is Plaintiff's unsuccessful complaint filed with the Commission, which found that Plaintiff was discharged in accordance with the Pennsylvania Civil Service Act with respect to second classcities, 53 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 23453, for "just cause," because she fraudulently submitted certain records regarding a participant in the Welfare to Work EARN program.
Specifically, the Commission found that Plaintiff fraudulently filled out and signed paperwork, over the course of about five months, indicating that a certain participant in the program had completed academic work which had not, in fact, been completed. In regards to Plaintiff's requests for accommodations at her workplace for a disability (severe depression and anxiety), the Commission found that there was no causal connection between her requests for accommodations and her discharge for intentionally submitting false records. Defendants' Exhibit A, Commission Adjudication of May 20, 2010, (ECF No. 20-3), at 2-3. The Commission also rejected Plaintiff's discrimination claim because Plaintiff's comparator employees were not similarly situated as they had not committed the same type of willful violation as Plaintiff or any other fraudulent conduct. Defendants' Exhibit G, Adjudication of January 6, 2011, upon reconsideration, (ECF No. 20-8), at 1.
The Commission rejected Plaintiff's suggestion that racial discrimination played a part in her termination, noting that all other employees working as case managers or in similar positions within the Department of Personnel, other than those referenced by Plaintiff, are African-Americans. Id. at 2. The Commission also rejected Plaintiff's contention that she was denied the benefit of the progressive disciplinary system, explaining that Plaintiff had a long disciplinary history and yet remained employed with the City until the incident that led to her termination. Id.
The Commission's decision was affirmed by the Court of Common Pleas, which found that Plaintiff had not established a violation of her constitutional or other legal rights, and that substantial evidence supported the Commission's finding that Plaintiff had been discharged forjust cause. Defendants' Exhibit D, Memorandum and Order of Court, O'Brien, J., Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, (ECF No. 20-6).
Plaintiff filed her Response to this motion on April 19, 2013, and defendants their Reply on May 6, 2013. (ECF Nos. 27, 28). At that point, the case was reassigned to this Court. Order of May 23, 2013. (ECF No. 29).
At the status conference on June 6, 2013, the Court advised the parties, inter alia, that it had detected an obvious threshold problem with the case, and entered an Order (ECF No. 32) directing defendants to file an additional brief in support of the motion to dismiss addressing this Court's authority to reconsider matters previously litigated or which could have been previously litigated in state court, with Plaintiff to file a brief in opposition, specifically directing the parties to address claim and issue preclusion.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recently reaffirmed the authority and obligation of the trial court to actively manage its civil docket and to wean out cases with obvious deficiencies at an early stage of litigation, to conserve scarce legal and judicial resources. Lassiter v. City of Philadelphia, 716 F.3d 53 (3d Cir. 2013) (). Rule 16 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure contemplates that a trial court should assume an "active managerial role" in the litigation process to expedite the efficient disposition of a case. Id. at 56 (citing Phillips v. Allegheny County, 869 F.2d 234, 239 (3d Cir. 1989)). Thus Rule 16 vests a trial court with "wide discretion and power to advance causes and simplify procedure before presentation of cases to juries," id. at 56 (quoting Buffington v. Wood, 351 F.2d 292, 298 (3d Cir. 1965)), and to "sift the issues" and reduce "thedelays and expense of trial so that a suit will go to trial only on questions as to which there is an honest dispute of fact or law." Id. at 56 (quoting Delta Theatres, Inc. v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 398 F.2d 323, 324 (5th Cir. 1968)).
Defendants argue in their supplemental brief that the state court's ruling on Plaintiff's statutory appeal of the Civil Service Commission decision precludes this Court from now considering her claims of race and disability discrimination and retaliation. After careful consideration of the motions and briefs in support and in opposition, the Court agrees that the affirmance of the Commission's decision by the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County operates to preclude this Court from reconsidering the state court's ruling, forecloses relitigation of the claims raised or that could have been raised therein, and deprives this Court of jurisdiction pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1).
A plaintiff properly invokes the jurisdiction of the federal courts under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 when she pleads a colorable claim "arising under" the Constitution or laws of the United States. Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 681-685 (1946). Rule 12(b)(1) provides that a party may assert lack of subject matter jurisdiction by motion to dismiss before a responsive pleading is filed. Ordinarily, consideration of a Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss for want of subject matter jurisdiction should not be conflated with consideration of the merits of the case, Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env't, 523 U.S. 83, 89 (1998), but there is a well-established exception: a claim invoking federal-question jurisdiction under section 1331 may be dismissed for want of subject-matter jurisdiction if it is not colorable, i.e., if it is immaterial and made solely for purpose of obtaining jurisdiction, or is wholly insubstantial and frivolous. Arbaugh v. Y&HCorp., 546 U.S. 500 (2006); CNA v. United States, 535 F.3d 132 (3d Cir. 2008) ().
In contrast with Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), wherein the court must accept as true all well-pleaded facts and allegations and draw all reasonable inferences therefrom in favor of the plaintiff, Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009), under Rule 12(b)(1) a district court may...
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