Maddox v. City of Newark

• Citation: 50 F.Supp.3d 606
• Decision Date: 26 September 2014
• Docket Number: No. Civ. 2:10–5025(KM)(MCA).,Civ. 2:10–5025(KM)(MCA).
• Parties: Amina MADDOX, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF NEWARK, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey

50 F.Supp.3d 606

Amina MADDOX, Plaintiff,

v.CITY OF NEWARK, et al., Defendants.

No. Civ. 2:10–5025(KM)(MCA).

United States District Court, D. New Jersey.

Signed Sept. 26, 2014

Motions granted. Christopher C. Roberts, East Orange, NJ, for Plaintiff.

Michael A. D'Anton, Sr., Chasan Leyner & Lamparello PC, Secaucus, NJ, Domenick Carmagnola, Carmagnola & Ritardi, LLC, Morristown, NJ, for Defendants.

OPINION

KEVIN McNULTY, District Judge.

This matter comes before the Court on the motion of Defendant Ivan Whittenburg (ECF No. 61) and the motion of Defendants City of Newark, Julien Neals, and Anna Pereira (ECF No. 62) for summary judgment. The Complaint, filed by the Plaintiff, Amina Maddox, essentially alleges that she was fired from her position as Assistant Corporate Counsel for the City of Newark on a discriminatory basis. For the reasons set forth below, Defendants' motions are GRANTED.

I. INTRODUCTION

The dueling factual allegations in this employment discrimination case are complex and intricate, although not all of the contested facts are relevant. To highlight the central issues, I offer some general discussion at the outset.

Discriminatory termination cases, when they fail, can do so at any one of several junctures. The employee may not have suffered as a result of occupying a protected status (such as race or religion), or engaging in protected activity (such as First Amendment expression). For example, an allegation of a hostile work environment may fail because the evidence shows only isolated incidents, however objectionable. Having passed that hurdle, the employee may fail to demonstrate that an act of discrimination played the necessary causal role in her firing. Consider, for example, a case in which the person who heard a protected complaint or voiced discriminatory sentiments did not participate in the termination decision. The employee would then be relegated to some other, less direct theory of proximate cause. Finally, and relatedly, the employer may meet its burden of establishing that the stated, valid reason for termination was genuine, and not a pretext for discrimination.

Maddox, an assistant corporate counsel for the City of Newark, was fired in January 2009. Her primary claim here is based on a September 2007 incident in which a supervisor, Whittenburg, made remarks that were offensive to a Muslim co-worker, Safdar.¹ Maddox says she was fired because she spoke out about the incident. Her evidence shows that Safdar reported the incident to a supervisor, apparently without any repercussions. Maddox herself merely answered a supervisor's questions, and reluctantly at that.

Whittenburg allegedly retaliated against Maddox, however, by assigning her an unfair share of work. After she complained about her workload, there was a supervisory review of her files. All employees were admittedly subjected to such a file review; Maddox's claim of discrimination is that her review was moved up to the earliest group. What that review uncovered was neglect of duty, including the failure to process checks received from the bankruptcy court. It was for that and other stated reasons that she was dismissed in January 2009.

Whittenburg played no part in the Corporation Counsel's decision to fire Maddox. To connect the September 2007 Safdar incident to her January 2009 dismissal, Maddox resorts to less direct theories of causation, centered around the 2008 review of her files. She complains of discrimination via overwork, but submits no evidence of other employees' workloads from which discrimination or unfairness could be inferred. She complains of being placed in the first group of file reviews, but does not state why that was impermissible or demonstrate that the timing of her review prejudiced her. Causation cannot here be inferred from temporal proximity; the file review occurred over a year after the September 2007 Safdar incident, and her dismissal three months after that. In short, the file review, early or late, does not establish a proximate-cause link between the Safdar incident and Maddox's dismissal.

The City submits persuasive evidence of a neutral reason for Maddox's dismissal: substandard job performance, including absenteeism, uncashed checks in case files for which Maddox was responsible, and failure to make court filings. In response, Maddox offers argumentation, but no evidence, that those concerns were pretextual.

The statutes that Maddox cites do not protect employees from actions that are harsh, unwise, or even mistaken. What is required is a showing that her dismissal was unlawfully discriminatory or retaliatory. She has not made such a showing.

II. BACKGROUND ²

Amina Maddox brought this wrongful termination case against her former employer, the City of Newark (“Newark”) and several supervisory employees in the Corporation Counsel's Office where she worked: Julian Neals (former Corporation Counsel), Anna Pereira (former First Assistant Corporation Counsel), and Ivan Whittenburg (Real Estate Section Chief).

A. Parties

Maddox worked as an Assistant Corporation Counsel for the City of Newark from 2007 to 2009. DSMF ¶¶ 2, 94. She is African–American and a practicing Christian.³ Id. ¶¶ 7–8. Maddox was admitted to the Bar of the State of New Jersey in January of 1998. DSMF ¶ 1 (citing Ex. A, Pl. CV). She clerked for Hon. Rosemary Gambardella, the former Chief Judge of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey. Id. ¶ 4. From April 1999 to May 2007, Maddox worked on bankruptcy matters as a Deputy Attorney General for the State of New Jersey. Id. ¶¶ 3.

Neals was the City's Corporation Counsel from February 1, 2008, to November 15, 2010. Id. ¶¶ 11. Pereira, Neals's successor as Corporation Counsel, served as First Assistant Corporation Counsel from September 22, 2008, to November 15, 2008. Id. 12. Whittenburg was hired as an Assistant Corporation Counsel on March 12, 2007. Id. ¶¶ 18. He became the Assistant Section Chief of the Real Estate Section on July 2, 2007, and the Section Chief on September 1, 2007. He held that position until the Real Estate Section was eliminated in 2010. At the time of the filing of this motion, he served as Assistant Corporation Counsel in the Litigation Section. Id. ¶¶ 18–20. All of the individual Defendants had supervisory authority over Maddox in the Law Department.

B. Facts of the Case

Newark hired Maddox as an Assistant Corporation Counsel on June 4, 2007. Id. ¶¶ 2, 6. (citing Ex. B, Pl. Performance Eval; Ex. D, Pl. Offer of Employment). Defendants posit that Maddox was hired because of her experience in bankruptcy law.⁴ Id. ¶¶ 24. Maddox was expected to take over Newark's bankruptcy cases from Ayesha Freeman, the Section Chief of the Real Estate Section, who was about to retire. Id. ¶¶ 17, 25 (citing Ex. G, Pl. Tasks and Standards).

Maddox asserts that she was employed pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement between AFL–CIO Local 103 and Newark, and could only be terminated for good cause. RSMF ¶ 5. Defendants assert that Maddox was hired as an at-will employee and did not have tenure. DSMF ¶ 5 (citing Ex. C, Newark Ordinances Ch. 6). Section 2:6–5.1 of the Newark Ordinances states that assistant corporation counsel and other Law Department staff serve “at the pleasure of the Corporation Counsel.” Ex. C.

1. Work Load and Performance

Maddox and the Defendants disagree as to various issues regarding her work load and performance. Maddox asserts that Defendant Whittenburg unfairly distributed work assignments to her. RSMF ¶ 67. Defendants assert that Maddox was assigned cases based on her areas of expertise: bankruptcy and real estate. DSMF ¶ 67 (citing Ex. N, Foster Memos to File; Ex. O, Whittenburg Dep.); DSMF ¶ 29 (citing Chandy Cert.). Maddox says that she was “never told” that she was the bankruptcy attorney for Newark until November 2008. RSMF ¶ 35. There is no dispute, however, that she was assigned to a large real estate foreclosure project and then was responsible for a number of bankruptcy files.

Maddox had the “ultimate responsibility” for handling cases assigned to her. DSMF ¶ 28; RSMF ¶ 28. That included drafting answers, interrogatories, correspondence and pleadings; reviewing correspondence; and representing Newark's interests by resolving the cases she was assigned. DSMF ¶ 28.

Maddox was initially assigned as the lead attorney in charge of the in rem foreclosure project. Id. ¶¶ 26. Maddox received assistance from other attorneys and paralegals in the Real Estate Section, and from Newark tax collector Michelle Jones. Id. ¶¶ 32, 33, 34; RSMF ¶ 34. In the course of completing that project, she reviewed title binders and sent out notices. DSMF ¶ 27.

Maddox asserts that she had the heaviest case load in the Law Department and that the bankruptcy matters assigned to her were “much more than a heavy lift.” Id. ¶¶ 37, 40 (citing Ex. 8 at 19). Defendants disagree. They point out that Newark was invariably a creditor; the cases involved filing a simple proof of claim and waiting until the matter was resolved by the issuance of a check. Id. ¶¶ 38. The cases rarely involved an in-court appearance. Id. ¶¶ 39; see also Ex. GG, Johnson Dep. at 40–41. Maddox's paralegal, Jones, testified that Maddox had a huge stack of files. Jones also stated, however, that she, the paralegal, did the “bulk” of the bankruptcy work. Defendants attest that other employees in the Law Department, including Mazzula and David Torres, had workloads equal to or heavier than Maddox's. DSMF ¶¶ 41–42. Maddox does not document the workload of other employees who allegedly had less work than she did.

Defendants assert that Maddox generally “did not do a lot of work.” DSMF ¶ 58. She was frequently “in the hall,” on her cell phone, or chatting with other people. Id. ¶¶ 55–57. Maddox denies these assertions. RSMF ¶¶ 55–57 (without citation). Over 10,000 pages of personal e-mails, some inappropriate for the workplace, were...