Heckman v. University of North Carolina

• Decision Date: 11 August 1998
• Docket Number: No. 1:97CV00184.,1:97CV00184.
• Citation: 19 F.Supp.2d 468
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of North Carolina
• Parties: Charles W. HECKMAN, Plaintiff, v. UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL, Defendant.

19 F.Supp.2d 468

Charles W. HECKMAN, Plaintiff, v. UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL, Defendant.

No. 1:97CV00184.

United States District Court, M.D. North Carolina.

August 11, 1998.

Charles W. Heckman, plaintiff pro se.

Sylvia Hargett Thibaut, Raleigh, NC, for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

BEATY, District Judge.

This action comes before the Court on Defendant's Motion to Dismiss [Document # 12] and Motion to Dismiss Amendment to the Complaint [Document # 23]. For the reasons stated herein, Defendant's motions are granted and this action is dismissed in its entirety.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND.

This action arises out of a pro se Complaint filed by Plaintiff Charles W. Heckman against Defendant, the University of North Carolina ("UNC") at Chapel Hill, on March 5, 1997. Plaintiff alleges that, by rejecting Plaintiff's application for employment, Defendant discriminated against him on the basis of his age and on the basis of his status as a veteran of the Vietnam War. As the legal background for Plaintiff's claims in this instance, Plaintiff's original Complaint includes references to (1) 29 U.S.C. § 623 et seq., which is the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"),¹ (2) 42 U.S.C. § 6101 et seq., which is the Age Discrimination Act of 1975 ("ADA"),² (3) 42 U.S.C. § 2000e,³ (4) the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, and (5) 38 U.S.C. §§ 2000 and 2012, which are provisions of the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act ("VRA") and which have been recodified as 38 U.S.C. §§ 4100 and 4212.⁴ (See Compl. ¶¶ 3-4.) Plaintiff alleges in his Complaint that he applied for a tenure-track position in Defendant's Department of Biological Sciences but that Defendant unlawfully excluded him from further consideration at the beginning of the selection process. (See id. ¶ 4.) Plaintiff alleges that Defendant's Department of Biological Sciences has never hired anyone over the age of fifty and has never hired a Vietnam War veteran for a tenured or tenure-track position. With respect to the specific position for which Plaintiff applied, Plaintiff alleges that Defendant gave serious consideration and interviews only to applicants who were substantially younger than Plaintiff and who had not served in the United States' armed forces. (See id.) In addition, Plaintiff maintains that the applicant who was chosen for the position in the Department of Biological Sciences was over ten years younger than Plaintiff and, when compared with Plaintiff, had "markedly inferior qualifications" in terms of his total years of experience in teaching and research and in terms of his scientific productivity. (Id.; see also "Table" attached to the Compl.) As support for the allegation that age had a role in Defendant's rejection of Plaintiff's application, Plaintiff states in the Complaint that members of the selection committee told the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") that Plaintiff would not have been able to develop a long-term research program — an explanation which Plaintiff contends was a reference to the number of years he might be willing to work in light of his age. (See Compl. ¶ 4.)

With respect to Plaintiff's status as a Vietnam War veteran, Plaintiff alleges that, because Defendant has a contract with the federal government from which Defendant receives over $10,000 in government funds each year, Defendant had a statutory obligation under the VRA to provide an affirmative action program for Vietnam War veterans. (See Compl. ¶¶ 2, 4) (citing 38 U.S.C. §§ 2000, 2012). Based upon the fact that Plaintiff's application was not considered beyond the first stage⁵ of Defendant's selection process, Plaintiff contends that Defendant failed to satisfy its affirmative action obligations under the VRA. (See id. ¶ 4.) As relief for the alleged violations of federal law, Plaintiff seeks damages in the amount of $250,000 and injunctive relief in the form of an order which prohibits Defendant from receiving any federal funds until its hiring practices are modified both to eliminate discrimination and to grant "statutory affirmative action rights to veterans." (Id. ¶ 5.)

Defendant moved to dismiss Plaintiff's Complaint on June 3, 1997. However, on June 16, 1997, Plaintiff moved to amend his Complaint to include a reference to the ADA, to 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-7 and the Fourteenth Amendment,⁶ and to the recodified provisions of the VRA, particularly 38 U.S.C. § 4212. (See Pl.'s Notice of Mot. to Amend Compl. [Doc. # 15] at 1.) Plaintiff also sought to amend his Complaint to include the following additional claim:

It is further demanded that all those state laws of North Carolina giving the State University and other state-administered institutions exceptions to the state's Veterans' Preference Employment Statute [sic] be voided on the grounds that they deny eligible veterans equal treatment guaranteed by Amendment 14 of the Contitution [sic] of the United States of America.

(Id.) At a pretrial conference held on June 30, 1997, the Court granted Plaintiff's Motion to Amend the Complaint but declined to consider further Defendant's Motion to Dismiss until after Defendant filed an amended motion to dismiss in light of the amendment to Plaintiff's Complaint. Hence, on July 2, 1997, Defendant filed a Motion to Dismiss Amendment to the Complaint, contending that the Complaint as amended should be dismissed for the same reasons that were asserted in Defendant's first motion. Based upon the briefs and other documents which the parties filed in connection with both Defendant's original Motion to Dismiss and Defendant's Motion to Dismiss Amendment to the Complaint, the Court is now prepared to rule on the issues raised by Defendant's two motions.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW.

Defendant contends in the motions before this Court that Plaintiff's Complaint must be dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1), lack of jurisdiction over the person, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(2), and failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. See Fed. R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). With respect to jurisdiction, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has repeatedly stated that "`[f]ederal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction and are empowered to act only in those specific instances authorized by Congress. The burden is on the party asserting the jurisdiction of the court to show that jurisdiction does, in fact, exist.'" Goldsmith v. Mayor & City Council, 845 F.2d 61, 63-64 (4th Cir.1988) (quoting Bowman v. White, 388 F.2d 756, 760 (4th Cir.1968)) (discussing subject-matter jurisdiction specifically); see also Owens-Illinois, Inc. v. Rapid Am. Corp. (In re Celotex Corp.), 124 F.3d 619, 628 (4th Cir.1997) (stating that a plaintiff has the burden of establishing grounds for jurisdiction over the person).

With respect to a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, a dismissal should be allowed only in very limited circumstances. Rogers v. Jefferson-Pilot Life Ins. Co., 883 F.2d 324, 325 (4th Cir.1989). Generally, a court should not dismiss a complaint for failure to state a claim "unless it appears certain that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts which would support its claim and would entitle it to relief." Mylan Lab., Inc. v. Matkari, 7 F.3d 1130, 1134 (4th Cir. 1993), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 1197, 114 S.Ct. 1307, 127 L.Ed.2d 658 (1994). In making this determination, a court must view the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and accept as true all well-pleaded factual allegations. Randall v. United States, 30 F.3d 518, 522 (4th Cir.1994), cert. denied, 514 U.S. 1107, 115 S.Ct. 1956, 131 L.Ed.2d 849 (1995). Moreover, when a plaintiff appears in a case pro se, such as Plaintiff here, the complaint is to be judged by "less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers." Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520, 92 S.Ct. 594, 30 L.Ed.2d 652, 654, reh'g denied, 405 U.S. 948, 92 S.Ct. 963, 30 L.Ed.2d 819 (1972). However, because the primary objective of Rule 12(b)(6) is to test the legal sufficiency of a plaintiff's claims, a court is not bound by any legal conclusions that are included in the complaint. See Randall, 30 F.3d at 522.

III. DISCUSSION.

Defendant argues that each of the claims which Plaintiff purports to assert in the Complaint should be dismissed as a matter of law. The Court will address below each of those claims and will discuss Defendant's arguments with respect to those claims to the extent such discussion is necessary to resolve Defendant's motions.

A. Plaintiff's References in the Complaint to the VRA.

First, with respect to Plaintiff's reference in the Complaint to the VRA's affirmative action requirements, Defendant contends that Plaintiff has failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. In response, Plaintiff argues that he does not rely upon the VRA as a separate cause of action but that he only seeks to use Defendant's alleged noncompliance with the VRA as evidence that Defendant discriminated against him. To the extent that Plaintiff's Complaint cites the provisions of the VRA, alleges that Defendant violated the VRA, and seeks injunctive relief which would require Defendant to modify its hiring practices to grant "affirmative action rights to veterans," (see Compl. ¶¶ 4-5), the Court finds that the Complaint could be read to include a VRA claim and that, despite Plaintiff's argument to the contrary, Defendant's position on this point should be considered. In any event, as emphasized by Defendant, it has already been held by a number of courts that the VRA does not provide Vietnam War veterans with any private right of action. See Harris v. Adams, 873 F.2d 929, 931-32 (6th Cir.1989); Barron v. Nightingale Roofing, Inc., 842 F.2d 20, 21-22 (1st Cir.1988); Wilson v. Amtrak Nat'l R.R. Corp., 824 F.Supp. 55, 58 (D.Md.1992). Therefore, to the...