Jones v. Wormuth
| Decision Date | 21 September 2021 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action ADC-21-860 |
| Parties | ERIC JONES Plaintiff, v. CHRISTINE E. WORMUTH Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Maryland |
Defendant Christine E. Wormuth (“Defendant”), as Secretary of the Army, moves this Court to dismiss, or in the alternative, for a grant of summary judgment. Plaintiff Eric Jones (“Plaintiff'), a federal employee, filed a Complaint alleging employment discrimination and hostile work environment on the basis of age and disability in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (“ADEA”), codified in 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq. (Count I); the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (“Rehabilitation Act”), codified in 29 U.S.C § 701 et seq. (Count II); and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) [1] codified in 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq, (Count III). ECF No. 1. Defendant now files a Motion to Dismiss the Complaint or in the Alternative for Summary Judgment (ECF No. 13). After considering the Motion and responses thereto (ECF Nos. 16, 17) the Court finds that no hearing is necessary. Loc.R. 105.6 (D.Md. 2021). For the reasons stated herein the Defendant's motion is GRANTED in part with regard to Counts II and III and DENIED in part with regard to Count I.
Plaintiff, bom 1952, is a U.S. Army civilian employee employed at the U.S. Army Aberdeen Proving Ground (“APG”) military base. ECF No. 1 ¶¶ 1, 3; ECF No. 13-1 at 1. Plaintiff was working at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey when he received a Permanent Change of Station (“PCS”) order to report to APG on March 27, 2011. ECF No. 1 ¶ 7. Plaintiff's PCS order included reimbursement for moving expenses. Id. However, Plaintiff received no payments due pursuant to his PCS order until on or around February 2014. Id. ¶ 18. Plaintiffs supervisor at the time was Mr. Carl Barrett. Barrett was Plaintiffs supervisor from October 2011 to January 2014. Id. ¶ 6. Plaintiff reported the delay in payment to Barrett repeatedly from March 31, 2011 to January 1, 2014, but the PCS had internal errors committed by Defendant's employees that required amendments to correct. Id. ¶¶ 11, 12. As a result of the delays, Plaintiff faced economic hardship from moving expenses. Id. ¶ 14. Plaintiff alleges this was just one way in which Defendant sought to create a hostile work environment and that Barrett encouraged the PCS payment delays in order to pressure Plaintiff into early retirement. Id. ¶¶ 13, 14. Plaintiff states that in 2011 senior officials at APG informed employers and managers, including Barrett, that a reduction in force would occur if enough older employees did not retire. Id. ¶ 9.
While under the supervision of Barrett, Plaintiff requested a desk audit (a request for position reclassification) because Plaintiff was performing above the requirements of his position without compensation. Id. ¶ 22. Barrett denied Plaintiffs desk audit, claiming that there was a hiring freeze. Id. ¶ 23. However, another employee under the age of 40 was promoted during that time. Id. Plaintiff states that throughout Barrett's supervision, he subjected him to constant harassment about retirement. Id. ¶ 60.
Plaintiff alleges additional efforts to create a hostile work environment by his supervisor after Barrett, Ms. Evette Jones-Hatton. Jones-Hatton became Plaintiff's supervisor on or around Februaiy 2014. Id. ¶ 26. At a meeting with Plaintiff, Jones-Hatton asked him: “are you one of those individuals who refused to retire from Fort Monmouth.” Id. ¶ 28. Plaintiff asserts that Jones-Hatton did not ask any other team members about retirement. Id. Plaintiff again requested a desk audit from Jones-Hatton, which was denied. Id. ¶ 34. Plaintiff repeatedly let Jones-Hatton know that he was seeking promotion to a GS-11 position, however Jones-Hatton failed to notify him when such a position became available, despite informing other team members. Id. ¶¶ 36-39. Further, when Plaintiff asked Jones-Hatton about the position, she misinformed him about the closing date for the position, citing a later date. Id. ¶¶ 40-42. Plaintiff alleges additional harassment while supervised by Jones-Hatton, including Plaintiff being excluded from team efforts, meetings, and chain of command for younger workers, Jones-Hatton showing favoritism to younger workers, Plaintiff being denied information necessary to perform his job, co-workers commenting that Plaintiff was slow in reference to his age, and Jones-Hatton and peers bullying Plaintiff on a daily basis about his job performance and age. Id. ¶¶ 43-45, 47, 55.
On June 22, 2016, Plaintiff emailed his concerns to the team, and, on June 28, 2016, Jones-Hatton held a team meeting to discuss the email. Id. ¶¶ 49, 50. Plaintiff asserts that Jones-Hatton reprimanded him at this meeting. Id. ¶ 51. Further, Plaintiff contends that Jones-Hatton did nothing when another team member, Ms. Tineka Charles, called Plaintiff a “jerk, ” stated that Plaintiff took all day to draft emails due to his age, and told Plaintiff that she laughed at him in meetings because his input was “silly.” Id. ¶¶ 53, 54. As with Barrett, Plaintiff states that that Jones-Hatton also . subjected him to constant harassment about retirement. Id. ¶ 61.
Plaintiff met with an Army Equal Employment Opportunity (“EEO”) Counselor on August 16, 2016 and filed a formal U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) complaint for age discrimination on September 26, 2016. Id. at 11, ¶ 71; ECF No. 1-1 at 1. Plaintiff s EEOC complaint specified age discrimination and cited five specific examples: the June 28, 2016 meeting; the promotion of a coworker to a GS-12 position; the misinformation about the GS-11 position closing date; the PCS payment delays; and errors in filling out Plaintiff s job series and duties by his branch chief. ECF No. 13-2 at 4-5.[2] Plaintiffs initial EEOC complaint was dismissed but then remanded on appeal to the EEOC Office of Federal Operations (EEOC-OFO). Id. at 11. Plaintiffs complaints for discrimination under Barrett were originally dismissed as untimely, but EEOC-OFO concluded that such incidents were timely as “part of the alleged pattern of harassment, ” because an event occurred within the 45-day period preceding Plaintiffs contact with the EEO Counselor on August 16, 2016. Id. at 16. The EEOC then accepted four of the above claims for investigation, excluding the job series and duties errors. Id. On January 5, 2021, the EEOC Administrative Judge granted Defendant's motion for summary judgment of the EEOC complaint, finding no discrimination and issued a Final Agency Action (“FAA”). ECF No. 1-1 at 2; ECF No. 13-1 at 4. Plaintiff timely filed his Complaint in this Court on April 5, 2021. See 29 C.F.R. § 1614.407 ( ).
On April 5, 2021, Plaintiff filed suit in this Court, alleging that Defendant discriminated against him in employment and created a hostile work environment based on his age and disability. ECF No. I.[3] Plaintiff also asserts that he experienced retaliation in violation of the Title VII after filing his EEOC complaint. Id. ¶ 20. On July 1, 2021, Defendant filed a Motion to Dismiss or in the Alternative for Summary Judgment. ECF No. 13. After the Court granted Plaintiff his Consent Motion for Extension of Time to Respond to Defendant's Motion, Plaintiff responded in opposition on August 5, 2021. ECF No. 16. Defendant then replied on August 19, 2021. ECF No. 17. Accordingly, this matter is now fully briefed, and the Court has reviewed Defendant's Motion as well as the responses thereto. For the following reasons Defendant's Motion is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.
The purpose of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion is to test the sufficiency of a complaint, not to “resolve contests surrounding the facts, the merits of a claim, or the applicability of defenses.” King v. Rubenstein, 825 F.3d 206, 214 (4th Cir. 2016) (quoting Edwards v. City of Goldsboro, 178 F.3d 231, 243 (4th Cir. 1999)). 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, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). Facial plausibility exists “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. An inference of a “mere possibility of misconduct” is not sufficient to support a plausible claim. Id. at 679. As stated in Twombly, “[f]actual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” 550 U.S. at 555. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (citations omitted). Walters v. McMahen, 684 F.3d 435, 439 (4th Cir. 2012) (citations omitted). When considering a motion to dismiss a court must accept as true all factual allegations in the complaint, but not legal conclusions couched as factual allegations. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555 (citations omitted).
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