Bunt v. Clarksville Montgomery Cnty. Sch. Sys.

• Decision Date: 02 February 2021
• Docket Number: NO. 3:19-01013,3:19-01013
• Parties: KATHLEEN A. BUNT v. CLARKSVILLE MONTGOMERY COUNTY SCHOOL SYSTEM
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Tennessee

KATHLEEN A. BUNT v. CLARKSVILLE MONTGOMERY COUNTY SCHOOL SYSTEM

NO. 3:19-01013

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT MIDDLE DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE NASHVILLE DIVISION

February 2, 2021

To: Honorable Aleta A. Trauger, District Judge

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

By Order entered November 25, 2019 (Docket Entry No. 4), the Court referred this pro se action to the Magistrate Judge for pretrial proceedings under 28 U.S.C. §§ 636(b)(1), Rule 72 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and the Local Rules of Court.

Presently pending before the Court is Defendant's motion for summary judgment (Docket Entry No. 33), to which Plaintiff has responded in opposition. For the reasons set out below, the undersigned respectfully recommends that the motion for summary judgment be GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART.

I. PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Kathleen Bunt ("Plaintiff"), a resident of Clarksville, Tennessee, filed this pro se lawsuit in state court on October 17, 2019, against the Clarksville Montgomery County School System ("Defendant" or "CMCSS"). The case was subsequently removed to federal court in November 2019, on the basis of federal questions jurisdiction. See Docket Entry No. 1. On May 13, 2020, Plaintiff filed a final amended complaint ("FAC") (Docket Entry No. 30), raising claims against CMCSS for violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-5 et seq. ("Title VII"), and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 621 et seq. ("ADEA"). See FAC at 2 and 30. She also asserts that several other federal and state statutes, regulations, and constitutional provisions have been violated. Id. at ¶ 39.¹ The overriding factual contention underlying Plaintiff's lawsuit is that she has been wrongfully denied a full time teaching job with CMCSS because of unlawful retaliation and age discrimination. Pretrial activity, including a period for discovery, has concluded pursuant to the deadlines set out in a scheduling order. A jury trial in the case has been continued until resolution of the pending motion for summary judgment. See Order entered August 19, 2020 (Docket Entry No. 40).

II. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Plaintiff was born in 1965. After earning a college degree, she began working in the teaching profession in 1989 as a Career Specialist/Teacher for non-profit foundation that administered a cooperative program, Jobs for Tennessee Graduates ("JTG"), with the Tennessee Department of Education. Plaintiff's worked in this job, primarily at Whites Creek High School in Nashville, Tennessee, for 21 years until she was terminated from her employment in April 2010.² Believing that her termination was an act of racial discrimination against her because she is Caucasian, Plaintiff filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on May 19, 2010 ("2010 Charge"),³ and later filed a lawsuit against her employer in state court, eventually settling the case in 2014.⁴

Subsequent to her termination, Plaintiff began working as a substitute teacher at schools within CMCSS, first through an outside employment staffing service from 2012 to 2014, and thenfrom 2012 to the present directly for CMCSS after it ceased using the staffing service.⁵ Plaintiff asserts that both prior to and while working as a substitute teacher, she applied for full time teaching positions and full time office/support staff positions with CMCSS through "AppliTrack," the electronic on-line application system utilized by CMCSS, which she asserts required her to input certain information and select open positions and then submit supporting documents by mail, fax, or in person upon receiving a confirmation e-mail about the application.⁶ Plaintiff was not interviewed or hired for any positions for which she applied over several years and, after not being interviewed for a Business Education Teacher position listed on the CMSS website in May 2017, she contacted the CMCSS Human Resources Department ("HR") to inquire about the status of her employment application.⁷ Based upon her communications with several HR employees during August and September 2017, she concluded that her "electronic application" did not exist in the AppliTrack system and that the physical documents that she had sent to CMCSS in support of her AppliTrack application could not be located and had likely been destroyed.⁸

Plaintiff asserts that CMCSS failed to provide her with either a satisfactory explanation for why her AppliTrack application and records could not be located or an assurance that her application in the AppliTrack system existed and was able to be viewed by the decision makers for open positions at CMCSS from 2009 to 2017. She contends that CMCSS destroyed her application records, in violation of federal record keeping laws and regulations, and prevented her from being interviewed and considered for open positions as a form of retaliation against her because she engaged in protected activity when she filed the 2010 Charge and she pursued an employment discrimination lawsuit against her former employer.⁹

During the same time period when Plaintiff was inquiring about the status of her AppliTrack application, CMCSS was transitioning to a new on-line job application system called New Recruit and Hire.¹⁰ In October 2017, Plaintiff applied for a Business Education Teacher position at Northwest High School and was subsequently interviewed for the position by Theresa Muckleroy ("Muckleroy"), who was the principal of the school at the time and the hiring decision maker for the position.¹¹ Muckleroy ultimately selected another applicant for the position, Leander Peters ("Peters"), who was the only other interviewee and was 38 years old at the time he was selected.¹² Plaintiff claims that she was not selected because of age discrimination and bases her claim upon her belief that she possessed better qualifications for the position than Peters and upon what she contends was a disingenuous or a "guise" interview by Muckleroy, an interview during which Plaintiff alleges that Muckleroy specifically asked Plaintiff her age.¹³ Plaintiff further contends that several Business Education Teacher positions, for which she was not interviewed, were filled by CMCSS between 2009 and 2017 with individuals who were under the age of 40 years and who Plaintiff believes were less qualified than she.¹⁴

On January 10, 2018, Plaintiff filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC ("2018 Charge"), and she received a right-to-sue letter, dated July 19, 2019.¹⁵ The 2018 Charge has not been made a part of the record, but Plaintiff asserts that she alleged "retaliation, routine destruction of her applicant records, blocking of her application from hiring principals/supervisors," as well as "age discrimination which should have been written on a separate charge as it is unrelated to theretaliation and destruction of records and blocking of application charge. The investigator neglected to do this." See FAC at ¶ 37 and ¶ 97.

Plaintiff also includes in her FAC allegations related to a second charge of discrimination that she filed against CMCSS on August 26, 2019, for retaliation that she alleges has occurred subsequent to filing the 2018 Charge and for which no decision has been reached by the EEOC,¹⁶ as well as allegations about CMCSS's history of hiring substitute teachers into full time positions and about her non-selection for a teaching position in December 2019.¹⁷

III. MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

CMCSS contends that it is entitled to summary judgment under Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure because there are no genuine issues of material fact and the undisputed facts demonstrate that it is entitled to dismissal of the case as a matter of law. In support of its motion, CMCSS provides a memorandum of law ("Memorandum in Support") (Docket Entry No. 34), a statement of undisputed material facts ("SUMF") (Docket Entry No. 35), and the affidavits and documents attached thereto of: (1) Melissa Izatt, the Director of Educator Quality for CMCSS and former Classified Employment and Substitute Teacher Coordinator/HR Coordinator (Docket Entry No. 33-1); (2) Jeanine Johnson, the Chief Human Resources Officer for CMCSS (Docket Entry No. 33-2); and Muckleroy (Docket Entry No. 33-3).

CMCSS argues that Plaintiff lacks evidence supporting a claim that it took any kind of adverse action against her in retaliation for her 2010 Charge or her lawsuit against her former employer. CMCSS contends that its officials were not aware of her prior protected activity until she filed the instant lawsuit and thus could not have retaliated against her as alleged regarding her AppliTrack application for any open positions. CMCSS also contends that physical documents for all applicants, not just for Plaintiff, were destroyed and that her prior protected activity had no rolein any issues that existed with respect to her AppliTrack application. With respect to Plaintiff's claim of age discrimination, CMCSS argues that Plaintiff has no actual evidence that supports a claim that she was not hired for any unidentified positions between 2009 and 2017 because of her age and, further, that any claim that she was not selected for a position is time barred to the extent that it occurred more than 300 days prior to Plaintiff's January 2018 Charge. CMCSS also argues that a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason existed for the decision made by Muckleroy to not hire Plaintiff into the Business Education Teacher position at Northwest High School in October 2017, namely, Muckleroy believed that Peters was the best candidate for the position. Finally, CMCSS argues that Plaintiff's FAC does not satisfy the pleading requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a) and that she fails to state claims by her reference to other federal and state statutes.

In response, Plaintiff submits a response to CMCSS's SUMF (Docket Entry No. 50), a memorandum ("Memorandum in Opposition") (Docket Entry No. 51), and 544 pages of...