Ewing v. Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines

• Decision Date: 04 August 2009
• Docket Number: No. 4:09-cv-106.,4:09-cv-106.
• Citation: 645 F.Supp.2d 707
• Parties: Jon EWING, Plaintiff, v. FEDERAL HOME LOAN BANK OF DES MOINES; Richard Swanson; Nicholas Spaeth; and Michael Guttau, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Iowa

645 F.Supp.2d 707

Jon EWING, Plaintiff, v. FEDERAL HOME LOAN BANK OF DES MOINES; Richard Swanson; Nicholas Spaeth; and Michael Guttau, Defendants.

No. 4:09-cv-106.

United States District Court, S.D. Iowa, Central Division.

August 4, 2009.

Roxanne Barton Conlin, Roxanne Conlin & Associates, Des Moines, IA, for Plaintiff.

Debra Lynne Hulett, Frank B. Harty, Nyemaster Goode West Hansell & O'Brien PC, Des Moines, IA, for Defendants.

ORDER

ROBERT W. PRATT, Chief Judge.

Before the Court are two motions filed by Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines ("FHLB"), Richard Swanson ("Swanson"), Nicholas Spaeth ("Spaeth"), and Michael Guttau ("Guttau") (collectively "Defendants"): Defendants' Motion to Strike Plaintiff's Prayer for Punitive Damages (Clerk's No. 10) and Defendants' Motion to Dismiss (Clerk's No. 11), both filed on April 17, 2009. After receiving an extension of time to respond, Jon Ewing ("Plaintiff") filed a Resistance to Defendants' Motion to Dismiss on May 29, 2009 (Clerk's No. 17). Defendants filed a Reply (Clerk's No. 22) on June 22, 2009.¹ Clerk's No. 22. Plaintiff filed a Supplement to his Resistance on July 9, 2009 (Clerk's No. 23) and Defendants filed a Response to Plaintiff's Supplement on July 10, 2009 (Clerk's No. 24). Plaintiff did not file a resistance to Defendants' Motion to Strike Plaintiff's Prayer for Punitive Damages.² The matters are fully submitted.

I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiff filed this action in the Iowa District Court for Polk County on January 6, 2009. Clerk's No. 1.4. According to the Complaint, Plaintiff is a 52 year-old African-American who commenced work as a Project Manager for FHLB on February 15, 2007. Id. ¶¶ 2, 9. On November 13, 2007, Plaintiff was informed by Spaeth, the Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Chief Risk Officer at FHLB, that the Project Manager position was being eliminated. Id. ¶¶ 5, 12. Plaintiff was ultimately terminated on December 28, 2007. Id. ¶ 9. Plaintiff contends that his termination was, in fact, due to discrimination against him on the basis of his race and age. Id. ¶ 20. Plaintiff seeks damages for age and race discrimination under the Iowa Civil Rights Act ("ICRA"), Iowa Code § 216.6, and under Iowa Code § 729.4.³ Id. ¶¶ 21, 26.

On March 11, 2009, Defendants Swanson and Spaeth removed the action to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa (Clerk's No. 1), contending that jurisdiction was proper under 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a), which provides for federal jurisdiction over actions involving the "United States or any agency thereof or any officer ... of the United States or of any agency thereof." On March 12, 2009, the Court entered a Pre-Screening Order wherein it expressed concern that Defendants' allegation that FHLB is a "federal instrumentality" was insufficient to invoke the Court's jurisdiction under § 1442(a), which authorizes jurisdiction over cases involving "agenc[ies]" of the United States. Clerk's No. 2. The Court ordered Defendants to file a brief addressing its concerns in this regard no later than March 25, 2009. Id.

Rather than addressing the Court's § 1442(a) concerns, Spaeth filed an Amended Notice of Removal on March 23, 2009.⁴ Clerk's No. 6. The Amended Notice of Removal asserted an alternative basis for removal, namely that FHLB is subject to the "sue and be sued" clause of the statute enacting its federal corporate charter, and that removal was, therefore, proper under 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b). Id. Plaintiff conceded in an e-mail dated April 7, 2009 that "the ground stated in the amendment is in fact a proper ground for federal jurisdiction," and the Court, after reviewing the relevant case law, likewise became satisfied that it possessed jurisdiction over the present matter. See Clerk's No. 9. Shortly thereafter, Defendants filed the present motions.

II. MOTION TO STRIKE

Defendants' Motion to Strike urges that Plaintiff's request for punitive damages under the ICRA is improper and must, therefore, be stricken. As noted supra, Plaintiff has not explicitly resisted Defendants' Motion to Strike. Regardless, Iowa law is quite clear that punitive damages are not a remedy available to civil rights complainants. See Chauffeurs, Teamsters & Helpers, Local Union No. 238 v. Iowa Civil Rights Comm'n, 394 N.W.2d 375, 384 (Iowa 1986); see also Channon v. United Parcel Serv., Inc., 629 N.W.2d 835, 851 ("Because the ICRA does not permit punitive damages, the district court awarded no such damages."). Accordingly, Defendants' Motion to Strike is GRANTED.

III. MOTION TO DISMISS

Defendants' Motion to Dismiss, made pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), initially asserted three arguments in favor of dismissing Plaintiff's claims: 1) Plaintiff's state law claims against the Defendants must be dismissed because they conflict with federal law; 2) Plaintiff's claim under Iowa Code § 729.4 is preempted by the ICRA; and 3) Plaintiff's claim under Iowa Code § 729.4 is untimely. Plaintiff concedes Defendants' second argument, that his claim under § 729.4 is preempted by the ICRA. See Vaughn v. Ag Processing, Inc., 459 N.W.2d 627, 638 (Iowa 1990) (finding that the ICRA provides the exclusive remedies for discrimination and that a plaintiff's cause of action under § 729.4 "is preempted by that chapter"). Defendants have withdrawn the third argument of untimeliness, as Plaintiff's action was clearly filed within the applicable statute of limitation. See Clerk's No. 22 ("Defendants hereby withdraw the argument that Ewing's claim under Iowa Code § 729.4 should be dismissed as untimely"). Accordingly, the only question remaining before the Court is whether Plaintiff's ICRA claim is preempted in whole or in part by federal law.

A. Standard of Review

Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007), provides the applicable standard of review for a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim made pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6): A viable complaint must include "enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." 550 U.S. at 569, 127 S.Ct. 1955. That is, "[f]actual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level...." Id. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955. This standard is not a "heightened fact pleading" requirement, but "simply calls for enough fact to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence of [the claim]." Id. at 547, 556, 127 S.Ct. 1955. Though ordinarily, a Rule 12(b)(6) motion will not be granted on the basis of an affirmative defense, such relief may be warranted where "the complaint itself establishes the defense." Jessie v. Potter, 516 F.3d 709, 713 n. 2 (8th Cir. 2008).

Under Twombly, the complaint must be liberally construed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and should not be dismissed simply because the court is doubtful that the plaintiff will be able to prove all of the necessary factual allegations. See id. at 1964-65; Parnes v. Gateway 2000, Inc., 122 F.3d 539, 546 (8th Cir.1997). Moreover, when considering a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, a court must accept the facts alleged in the complaint as true, even if doubtful. See Twombly, 127 S.Ct. at 1965; see also Cruz v. Beto, 405 U.S. 319, 322, 92 S.Ct. 1079, 31 L.Ed.2d 263 (1972). Thus, a well-pleaded complaint may proceed even if it appears "that recovery is very remote and unlikely." Twombly, 127 S.Ct. at 1965 (quoting Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974), overruled on other grounds by Davis v. Scherer, 468 U.S. 183, 191, 104 S.Ct. 3012, 82 L.Ed.2d 139 (1984)).

B. Law and Analysis

It is well settled that "state law that conflicts with federal law is `without effect'" under the doctrine of preemption. Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U.S. 504, 516, 112 S.Ct. 2608, 120 L.Ed.2d 407 (1992). The doctrine is founded in the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, which provides that the "Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land." U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2.

There are three general categories of preemption: 1) express preemption, where "Congress define[s] explicitly the extent to which its enactments preempt state law"; 2) field preemption, where Congress's regulatory scheme is "so pervasive as to make reasonable the inference that Congress left no room for the States to supplement it" or where an Act of Congress "touches a field in which the federal interest is so dominant that the federal system will be assumed to preclude enforcement of state laws on the same subject"; and 3) conflict preemption, where state and federal law directly conflict, making it "impossible for a private party to comply with both state and federal requirements" or where state law "stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress." English v. Gen. Elec. Co., 496 U.S. 72, 78-79, 110 S.Ct. 2270, 110 L.Ed.2d 65 (1990) (citations omitted); see also CSX Transp., Inc. v. Easterwood, 507 U.S. 658, 663, 113 S.Ct. 1732, 123 L.Ed.2d 387 (1993) ("Where a state statute conflicts with, or frustrates, federal law, the former must give way."); Nordgren v. Burlington N. R.R. Co., 101 F.3d 1246, 1248 (8th Cir.1996).

In the present matter, Defendants contend that conflict preemption operates to bar Plaintiff's ICRA claim because the ICRA's prohibition of "unfair employment practices" directly conflicts with FHLB's enabling statute, which provides:

Upon the making and filing of such organization certificate with the Director, such bank shall become, as of the date of the execution of its organization certificate, a body corporate, and as such and in its name as designated by the Director it shall have power to adopt, alter, and use a corporate seal; to make contracts; to purchase or lease and hold or dispose of such real estate as may...