Greater Indianapolis Chapter of The Nat'l Ass'n For the Advancement of Colored People v. Ballard

• Decision Date: 16 September 2010
• Docket Number: Case No. 1:09–cv–0175–SEB–DML.
• Citation: 741 F.Supp.2d 925
• Parties: GREATER INDIANAPOLIS CHAPTER OF the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION for the ADVANCEMENT of COLORED PEOPLE, et al., Plaintiffs,v.Gregory A. BALLARD, City of Indianapolis, and Michael T. Spears, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Indiana

741 F.Supp.2d 925

GREATER INDIANAPOLIS CHAPTER OF the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION for the ADVANCEMENT of COLORED PEOPLE, et al., Plaintiffs,

v.Gregory A. BALLARD, City of Indianapolis, and Michael T. Spears, Defendants.

Case No. 1:09–cv–0175–SEB–DML.

United States District Court, S.D. Indiana, Indianapolis Division.

Sept. 16, 2010.

Alexander Phillip Will, Office of Corporation Counsel, City of Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN, for Defendants.

Order on Motion for Partial Judgment on the Pleadings

SARAH EVANS BARKER, District Judge.

This matter is before the court on the motion for partial judgment on the pleadings of defendants City of Indianapolis, Indianapolis Mayor Gregory A. Ballard, and Chief of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, Michael T. Spears, (collectively, “the City”). (Dkt. 30). The plaintiffs are the Greater Indianapolis Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (“NAACP”) and individual members of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (“IMPD”) and the Indianapolis Fire Department (“IFD”). The plaintiffs allege in their Amended Complaint (Dkt. 45) that their respective departments use promotion criteria and procedures that discriminate against them and other African–Americans. The City's motion for partial judgment on the pleadings includes challenges to most of the plaintiffs' claims. The City moves to dismiss: (1) all claims of the NAACP for lack of standing; (2) all state constitutional claims seeking damages; (3) certain plaintiffs' Title VII disparate treatment claims for failure to exhaust administrative remedies; (4) all plaintiffs' Title VII disparate impact claims; (5) all section 1981 claims against the City; (6) all disparate impact claims brought under section 1983; (7) one plaintiff's hostile work environment claim; (8) one plaintiff's Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) claim; (9) certain Title VII claims for failure to obtain right to sue letters; (10) individual and official capacity claims against Mayor Ballard and Chief Spears; and (11) Count II of the Amended Complaint relating to pension benefits. The City does not challenge, at this stage, certain plaintiffs' disparate treatment claims under Title VII and section 1983 or the state constitutional claims to the extent they seek prospective injunctive relief. The City's motion for partial judgment on the pleadings is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART.

Analysis

Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(c) allows a party to move for judgment on the pleadings after the pleadings are closed but early enough not to delay trial. Cuatle v. Torres, 2010 WL 2545627 at *1 (S.D.Ind. June 15, 2010). A motion for judgment on the pleadings is reviewed under the same standard as a motion to dismiss under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). Id. That analysis in turn implicates Fed.R.Civ.P. 8, Killingsworth v. HSBC Bank Nev., N.A., 507 F.3d 614, 619 (7th Cir.2007), which requires a “short plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” “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.” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) (quoting Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286, 106 S.Ct. 2932, 92 L.Ed.2d 209 (1986)). A complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to “ ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ ” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, ––– U.S. ––––, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955). And a claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged. Id. at 1949.

Two principles guide these determinations. First, the tenet that a court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in the complaint is inapplicable to legal conclusions. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1949. “Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.” Id. Second, only a complaint that states a plausible claim for relief survives a motion to dismiss. Id. at 1950. “[W]here 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.’ ” Id. (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2)).

I. The NAACP's Standing to Assert Claims

Before addressing the substantive merits of the City's motion for judgment on the pleadings, the court must first determine whether the NAACP has standing to invoke the jurisdiction of this court. See Disability Rights Wisconsin, Inc. v. Walworth County Bd. of Supervisors, 522 F.3d 796, 800 (7th Cir.2008). The NAACP has the burden of establishing its standing. Id. Both the City and the NAACP focus on whether the NAACP has associational standing.¹

The City argues that the NAACP does not have associational standing because it has not alleged that any of the individually named plaintiffs is a member of the NAACP. (Defendants' Opening Brief at 7 (Dkt. 33) (“Defs.' Br.”)). The NAACP contends that it has associational standing because its claims advance interests central to its mission, and it is seeking, in part, injunctive relief. (Plaintiffs' Opposition Response Brief at 6–7 (Dkt. 57) (“Pls.' Resp.”)). Although associational standing does not require that a member of the association is also a named plaintiff, it is not enough that the association is merely advancing its core interests and seeking injunctive relief.

An organization has associational standing to sue on behalf of its members only if it satisfies each of three requirements, known as the Hunt requirements, derived from the Supreme Court's decision in Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising Comm'n, 432 U.S. 333, 97 S.Ct. 2434, 53 L.Ed.2d 383 (1977):

(1) the organization's members would have standing to sue in their own right;

(2) the interests the organization seeks to protect are germane to its purpose; and

(3) neither the claims nor the requested relief requires the participation of individual members in the lawsuit.

Disability Rights Wisconsin, 522 F.3d at 801–02 (citing Hunt, 432 U.S. at 343, 97 S.Ct. 2434); Sanner v. Board of Trade, 62 F.3d 918, 922 (7th Cir.1995) (association “must satisfy” all three prongs of Hunt ). Hunt's first and second prongs for associational standing are of Constitutional dimension, and are required to satisfy Article III's limit on federal jurisdiction to “Cases” or “Controversies.” United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 751 v. Brown Group, Inc., 517 U.S. 544, 555–56, 116 S.Ct. 1529, 134 L.Ed.2d 758 (1996). The third prong, addressing whether the claims asserted or the requested relief requires participation by the organization's individual members, falls within prudential limits on federal jurisdiction. Id. at 555, 116 S.Ct. 1529.

As explained below, it is clear that the NAACP has not satisfied all three Hunt prongs. The City's motion for judgment on all claims brought by the NAACP is therefore GRANTED.

A. The NAACP does not satisfy the first Hunt factor.

The first prong of Hunt reflects an Article III requirement that an associational suit be representative—that is, the association must establish an “actual injury” to its members. Promoting only abstract interests is not enough to establish associational standing where the association has not alleged that its members could have sued in their own right. In Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Organization, 426 U.S. 26, 40, 96 S.Ct. 1917, 48 L.Ed.2d 450 (1976), the Supreme Court held that the requirements for associational standing are met only when plaintiff organizations

can establish [their] standing as representatives of those of their members who have been injured in fact, and thus could have brought suit in their own right.

(emphasis added). Hunt addresses the Article III standing requirements of injury in fact, causation, and redressability “by requiring an organization suing as a representative to include at least one member with standing to present, in his or her own right, the claim (or the type of claim) pleaded by the association.” Brown Group, 517 U.S. at 555, 116 S.Ct. 1529. To “include at least one member” does not mean that the member who could have brought suit on her own must be a party to the action or named in the complaint. Instead, a member on whose behalf suit is brought may be “unnamed by the organization....” Disability Rights Wisconsin, 522 F.3d at 802 (citing Doe v. Stincer, 175 F.3d 879, 882 (11th Cir.1999)); Indiana Protection and Advocacy Services Comm'n v. Commissioner, Indiana Dep't of Correction, 642 F.Supp.2d 872, 879–880 (S.D.Ind.2009) (Seventh Circuit does not require that the organization name the members suffering injury). At the least, however, the complaint must sufficiently allege injury in fact to the organization's members caused by the defendants' conduct and capable of being redressed by a favorable decision. Disability Rights Wisconsin, 522 F.3d at 802; Indiana Protection, 642 F.Supp.2d at 879.

The NAACP has not alleged that any of its members suffered harm as a result of the City's conduct nor has it alleged that it has members who are officers of the IMPD or IFD. Rather, it merely argues in conclusory terms that “[The NAACP] is extremely likely to have members affected by the outcome of the present litigation.” (Pls.' Resp. at 8). This does not satisfy the first requirement of Hunt.

B. Assuming that the NAACP satisfies the second Hunt factor, that alone does not suffice to establish standing.

The NAACP's argument in favor of standing focuses on the strength of its mission to eliminate racial discrimination. The Amended Complaint alleges, and the City does not challenge, that the NAACP's fundamental mission is...