Collins v. Honda Mfg. of Ala., LLC
| Decision Date | 09 November 2016 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 7:15-cv-02329-TMP |
| Parties | EDWARD L. COLLINS, JR., Plaintiff, v. HONDA MANUFACTURING OF ALABAMA, LLC, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Alabama |
With leave of the court, the plaintiff filed his Third Amended Complaint on May 9, 2016. (Doc. 39). On May 23, 2016, defendants Honda Manufacturing of Alabama, LLC ("HMA"); American Honda Motor Co., Inc. ("American Honda"); and Honda North America, Inc. ("HNA") (together "defendants"), filed a Motion to Dismiss the Third Amended Complaint pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) and 41(b). (Doc. 43). The parties consented to dispositive jurisdiction by the undersigned (doc. 14); accordingly, the court enters the following Order.
The defendants argue that the plaintiff's Third Amended Complaint is an impermissible shotgun pleading. In the Order granting the plaintiff leave to file a Third Amended Complaint, the court instructed the plaintiff to ensure compliance with Rules 8 and 10 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and to avoid filing a "shotgun pleading," as such documents are explained in Weiland v. Palm Beach Cty. Sheriff's Office, 792 F.3d 1313 (11th Cir. 2015). The court directed the plaintiff to allege discriminatory acts the plaintiff endured with "reasonable specificity." The plaintiff filed his Third Amended Complaint within the time-period allowed by the court's order.
The plaintiff made sufficient clarifications in his Third Amended Complaint to overcome previous violations of the pleading guidelines set out in Weiland v. Palm Beach Cty. Sheriff's Office, 792 F.3d 1313, 1323 (11th Cir. 2015). Accordingly, the defendant's motion to dismiss on the grounds that the Third Amended Complaint is a "shotgun pleading" is DENIED.
The defendants assert that the plaintiff has not sufficiently alleged an employment relationship between himself and American Honda and HNA.According to the defendants, neither American Honda nor HNA ever was the employer of the plaintiff, and the plaintiff has failed to alleged facts sufficient to demonstrate an employment relationship. It is not disputed that the plaintiff was an employee of HMA.1 The dispute lies in whether HMA, American Honda, and HNA are a single or joint employer for purposes of Title VII liability.
The Eleventh Circuit addressed single or joint employer status in McKenzie v. Davenport-Harris Funeral Home, which states, in relevant part:
Our role is to decide whether McKenzie presented sufficient evidence to create a genuine issue concerning whether Davenport-Harris and Protective should be treated as a single entity. The predominant trend in determining whether two businesses should be treated as a single or joint employer under § 2000e(b) is to apply the standards promulgated by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). See Equal Employment Opportunity Comm'n v. Wooster Brush Co. Employees Relief Ass'n, 727 F.2d 566, 572 (6th Cir. 1984; Childs v. Local 18, Int'l Bhd. Of Elec. Workers, 719 F.2d 1379, 1382 (9th Cir. 1983); Trevino, 701 F.2d at 404; Mas Marques v. Digital Equip. Corp., 637 F.2d 24, 27 (1st Cir. 1980); Baker, 560 F.2d at 392; Fike v. Gold Kist, Inc., 514 F. Supp. 722, 726 (N.D. Ala.), aff'd, 664 F.2d 295 (11th Cir. 1981). The NLRB factors include: (1) interrelation of operations; (2) centralized control of labor relations, (3) common management, and (4) common ownership or financial control. The showing required to warrant a finding of single employer status has been described as "highly integrated with respect to ownership and operations." Fike, 514 F. Supp. at 726.
834 F.2d 930, 933 (11th Cir. 1987).
In the Third Amended Complaint, the plaintiff asserts that HMA is an Alabama limited liability company employing more than 50 employees, and the plaintiff, for the relevant period, was employed by HMA. (Doc. 39, ¶¶ 5-6). According to the plaintiff, American Honda was the sole member of the HMA limited liability company. (Doc. 39, ¶ 7). As such, the plaintiff alleges that American Honda "is an affiliate, subsidiary, holding company, shell, and/or otherwise associated entity and/or alter-ego of HMA. . . ." Id. The plaintiff further claims that HNA also is "an affiliate, subsidiary, holding company, shell, or otherwise associated entity and/or alter-ego of HMA." (Doc. 39, ¶ 8). According to the plaintiff, HMA is merely an instrumentality of American Honda and HNA and, therefore, the three companies operate, for all intents and purposes, as a single entity. According to the plaintiff, "many of the HMA's, HNA, and American Honda's policies, procedures, benefits, and software are shared among and across their affiliated entities and employees." (Doc. 39, ¶ 15). American Honda is alleged to be the national parent company of HMA and HNA, "owns all or most of the capital stock of HMA," and, "through HNA, is responsible for the formation of HMA." (Doc. 39, ¶¶ 16-17).
The defendants argue that the plaintiff failed to show that American Honda or HNA supervised the plaintiff's employment or played a role in any adverse employment decisions. (Doc. 43, p. 8). According to the defendants, the assertions by the plaintiff are too vague to establish such corporate relationships that constitute a single or joint employer. When evaluating a motion to dismiss, the court is required to operate "on the assumption that all the allegations in the complaint are true." Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S. Ct. 1955, 1965, 167 L. Ed. 2d 929, citing Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N.A., 534 U.S. 506, 508, n. 1, 122 S. Ct. 992, 152 L. Ed. 2d 1(2002). Accordingly, the allegations set forth in the Third Amended Complaint regarding the operating structure of HMA, HNA, and American Honda present a sufficient question of fact regarding the status of those entities as employers that the defendant's motion to dismiss on this ground is DENIED.
The defendants assert that several of the plaintiff's allegations fail to state a claim on which relief can be granted. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). Before the Supreme Court decided Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 127 S. Ct. 1955, 167 L. Ed. 2d 929 (2007), a court could dismiss a complaint only where it wasclear that no relief could be granted under any set of facts that could be proved consistent with the allegations, as set forth in Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 78 S. Ct. 99, 2 L. Ed. 2d 80 (1957). The well-established Rule 12(b)(6) standard set forth in Conley was expressly rejected in Twombly when the Supreme Court examined the sufficiency of a plaintiff's complaint and determined:
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) requires only "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief," in order to "give the defendant fair notice of what the . . . claim is and the grounds upon which it rests," Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47, 78 S. Ct. 99, 2 L. Ed. 2d 80 (1957). While a complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss does not need detailed factual allegations, a plaintiff's obligation to provide the "grounds" of his "entitle[ment] to relief" requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do. Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.
550 U.S. at 555 (citations omitted). The court went on to criticize Conley, stating that "[t]he 'no set of facts' language has been questioned, criticized, and explained away long enough" by courts and commentators, and "is best forgotten as an incomplete, negative gloss on an accepted pleading standard: once a claim has been stated adequately, it may be supported by showing any set of facts consistent with the allegations in the complaint." Twombly, 550 U.S. at 562-63. TheSupreme Court emphasized, however, that "we do not require heightened fact pleading of specifics, but only enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." 550 U.S. at 570. The Supreme Court expanded on the Twombly standard when it decided Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1949-50, 173 L. Ed. 2d 868 (2009), reiterating the Twombly determination that a claim is insufficiently pleaded if it offers only "labels and conclusions" or "a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action." Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1949. The Court further explained:
Two working principles underlie our decision in Twombly. First, the tenet that a court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is inapplicable to legal conclusions. Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice. . . . Rule 8 marks a notable and generous departure from the hyper-technical, code-pleading regime of a prior era, but it does not unlock the doors of discovery for a plaintiff armed with nothing more than conclusions. Second, only a complaint that states a plausible claim for relief survives a motion to dismiss. Determining whether a complaint states a plausible claim for relief will, as the Court of Appeals observed, be a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense. But where the well-pleaded facts do not permit the court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct, the complaint has alleged—but it has not "show[n]"—"that the pleader is entitled to relief."
Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1949-50 (citation omitted). See also Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola Co., 578 F.3d 1252 (11th Cir. 2009) ().
The defendants...
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