Cook v. City of Pomona

• Decision Date: 11 April 1995
• Docket Number: No. CV 94-4297-R.,CV 94-4297-R.
• Citation: 884 F. Supp. 1457
• Court: U.S. District Court — Central District of California
• Parties: Lydia COOK [sic] and Terrie Owens, Plaintiffs, v. The CITY OF POMONA, a public corporation and Does 1-10, inclusive, individually and in their official capacities, Defendants.

884 F. Supp. 1457

Lydia COOK sic and Terrie Owens, Plaintiffs, v. The CITY OF POMONA, a public corporation and Does 1-10, inclusive, individually and in their official capacities, Defendants.

No. CV 94-4297-R.

United States District Court, C.D. California.

April 11, 1995.

Leo James Terrell, Beverly Hills, CA, for plaintiff.

Arnold M. Alvarez-Glasman, Alvarez-Glasman & Colvin, Montebello, CA, for defendants.

FINDINGS OF FACT AND ORDER RE: DISMISSAL OF ACTION

REAL, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

The action was brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq., and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 42 U.S.C. § 1981.

Plaintiffs Lydia Cooks ("Cooks") and Terrie Owens ("Owens") seek enforcement of a 1989 settlement agreement between the parties in which the defendant City of Pomona ("Pomona") agreed to actively promote and maintain an affirmative action recruitment and retention program for minorities and women within the Pomona Fire Department ("PFD"). Cooks and Owens allege that Pomona never implemented the affirmative action program and planned to annex the PFD to Los Angles County in order to avoid compliance with the 1989 agreement. The plaintiffs request a permanent injunction enjoining Pomona from eliminating the PFD or annexing the PFD with Los Angeles County as well as a Court order directing Pomona to comply with the terms of the 1989 settlement agreement. Additionally, plaintiffs pray for compensatory and punitive damages.

On the eve of trial, the Court sua sponte dismissed the action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and lack of standing to seek the equitable relief requested.

II. PROCEDURAL ISSUES

Prior to calling the venire, the Court admonished counsel of both sides for failing to adequately prepare this matter for trial. Because of inadequate preparation, dispositive threshold issues were left unresolved. Specifically, the Court expressed serious reservations as to whether it had subject matter jurisdiction to proceed in this matter, and whether plaintiffs Cooks and Owens had standing to seek an injunction enjoining the annexation of the PFD with Los Angeles County. These issues should have been thoroughly explored by counsel pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Local Rule 9.4.2. According to the defendant and uncontested by the plaintiffs, the required Local Rule 9 discussion never occurred. See Notice of Motion re: Joint Stipulation of Discovery Issues to Be Determined at Hearing 6.

Counsel for the plaintiffs stated that he had complied "to the letter" with the federal and local rules as well as the case management orders issued to the parties by the Court.¹ He claimed that discovery problems arose because no discovery cutoff date had been set. Moreover, matters were complicated by the defendant's failure to respond to plaintiffs' discovery requests or notices of taking depositions. These issues, as well as plaintiffs' own failure to respond to certain defense discovery requests, caused the parties to file a Local Rule 7.15 joint motion to resolve discovery disputes. The motion was set to be heard on February 21, 1995, a week after trial was to begin. Consequently, plaintiffs' counsel filed an ex parte application to continue the trial date in order to resolve these problems and complete discovery.

Despite counsel's objections, there are several problems with this chosen course of action. First, the Court never was notified by either side that there was any confusion regarding the discovery cutoff date. The first time this was brought to the Court's attention was during the instant hearing.

Second, counsel is mistaken that there was no discovery cutoff date in this action. Local Rule 9 operates to automatically set a cutoff date absent an order from the Court. Local Rule 9.4.8 requires the parties to "provide for resolution of all outstanding discovery matters with the view that all discovery be completed at least twenty (20) days before the Pre-Trial Conference." The Pre-Trial Conference was scheduled January 9, 1995. Nothing in any of the Court's case management orders altered this procedure or set a discovery cutoff beyond that required by the local rule. In fact, the Court's Notice of Pre-Trial Conference clearly states that

STRICT COMPLIANCE IS REQUIRED BY THE COURT WITH THE REQUIREMENTS OF LOCAL RULE 9 AND ALL DOCUMENTS REQUIRED THEREIN AND THE FEDERAL RULES OF CIVIL PROCEDURE. FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH THESE RULES MAY LEAD TO DISMISSAL OF THE ACTION.

Exhibit B at 19. Therefore, the parties should have known that discovery was to be completed or else the Court notified of discovery problems by December 20, 1994. There was no compliance with the local rules in this respect.

Third, the parties did not conduct discovery with that cutoff date or, apparently, any cutoff date in mind. Plaintiffs served the defendant with discovery requests for documents and interrogatories on November 28, 1994 and notices for depositions on December 8, 1994. Notice of Motion re: Joint Stipulation of Discovery Issues to Be Determined at Hearing 5. Likewise, defendant did not propound a second request for production of documents or second set of interrogatories until some point in mid-November. Id. at 7.

By their own conduct, the parties should have reasonably anticipated by early December that they were not likely to complete discovery by December 20. Instead of making an application for continuing the discovery cutoff date, the parties waited until January 13, 1995 to file a joint motion to resolve discovery disputes pursuant to Local Rule 7.15. The Clerk's Office set the hearing for this motion on February 21, 1995, a full week after the trial was to commence. Once again, the parties failed to immediately notify the Court of this problem by filing an application to shorten time. Instead, on February 6, 1995 counsel for plaintiffs filed an ex parte application to continue the February 14 trial date, citing the uncompleted discovery as "good cause" for granting the request.

What was not explained to the Court, however, was the "good cause" underlying plaintiffs waiting until November to begin discovery instead of beginning shortly after the early meeting of counsel held on August 12, 1994. Nor did either counsel set forth facts providing the "good cause" behind their failure to notify the Court when it became apparent in early December that the parties were not going to complete discovery before the final Pre-Trial Conference set for January 9, 1995.

Based on the record, the Court finds that both the plaintiffs and defendant have been dilatory in conducting discovery, in filing pertinent pre-trial motions and applications, in notifying the Court of potential problems that could delay the start of trial, and in complying with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 6(b) and 26(f) and Local Rules 9 and 10. Moreover, no "good cause" has been established that would justify further delay in this matter. Therefore, the Court DENIES plaintiffs' ex parte application to continue the trial date.

III. JURISDICTIONAL ISSUES

The Court then held a hearing on the two jurisdictional issues left unresolved. The first issue was whether the Court had subject matter jurisdiction over the action. The second was whether the plaintiffs had standing to seek an injunction prohibiting Pomona from annexing the PFD with Los Angeles County. Based on the hearing and a review of the record, the Court makes the following findings.

A. FINDINGS OF FACT.

1. In July 1988, plaintiffs Cooks and Owens, among others, filed a verified charge with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") alleging the PFD practiced employment discrimination in the manner in which it recruited, hired, tested and promoted firefighters.

2. Cooks and Owens claimed they were denied employment as firefighters because they are African-American and female.

3. At the time of the alleged employment discrimination, the PFD was an agency of defendant Pomona.

4. In January 1989, Cooks, Owens, the Pomona Valley Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ("Pomona NAACP"), other aggrieved individuals and the city of Pomona entered into a settlement agreement that "resolved and disposed of any and all claims" brought before the EEOC. Exhibit D at 25.

5. The EEOC was not a party to the agreement nor did it formally approve the agreement.

6. Any jurisdiction the EEOC had over the matter was relinquished by the parties upon the signing of settlement agreement.

7. The 1989 settlement agreement is a private contract between Cooks, Owens and the other parties mentioned in paragraph 4 on one side and Pomona on the other.

8. The terms of the agreement required the PFD to develop and implement an affirmative action program that would promote the recruitment and retention of minority and female firefighters. Id. at 26-31.

9. In exchange for this promise, all the complainants, including Cooks and Owens, agreed to "seek no further relief for claims alleged in or derivative from the facts that served as a basis for their charges" against Pomona. Id. at 25.

10. The 1989 settlement agreement provides that Cooks and Owens have standing to enforce the terms of the settlement. Id. at 26.

11. The 1989 settlement agreement sets forth specific dispute resolutions procedures that must be followed in the event that any party has a "good faith complaint." Id. at 25-26.

12. The 1989 settlement agreement does not prohibit Pomona from replacing the PFD with another fire protection and emergency services entity nor does it require that Pomona notify the parties to the agreement if it chooses to do so.

13. In January 1994, the Pomona City Counsel approved a contract wherein the County of Los Angeles agreed to provide fire protection and other emergency related services to Pomona. This resulted in the PFD being disbanded on July 28, 1994.

14. In light of the pending elimination of the PFD, on

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