Miller v. Sacramento City Unified Sch. Dist.

• Decision Date: 14 October 2021
• Docket Number: 2:21-cv-0757-JAM-CKD PS
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of California
• Parties: SONIA MAREE MILLER, Plaintiff, v. SACRAMENTO CITY UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al., Defendants.

SONIA MAREE MILLER, Plaintiff, v. SACRAMENTO CITY UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al., Defendants.

No. 2:21-cv-0757-JAM-CKD PS

United States District Court, E.D. California

October 14, 2021

ORDER AND FINDINGS & RECOMMENDATIONS ON MOTIONS TO DISMISS (ECF NOS. 12, 18, 21)

CAROLYN K. DELANEY, UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE.

Presently before the court are three motions to dismiss, brought by each of the three defendants in this action: Sacramento City Unified School District (“SCUSD” or “School District”), Sacramento City Teachers Association (“SCTA” or “Union”), and Mr. Norman Hernandez.^[1] (ECF Nos. 12, 18, 21.)^[2] Plaintiff filed a single-paragraph opposition to all three motions ^[3] and the School District and defendant Hernandez filed replies. (ECF Nos. 25-27.) The motions were heard remotely on October 13, 2021. (ECF No 28.) For the following reasons, the undersigned recommends GRANTING all three motions, dismissing all claims against defendants Hernandez and the Union without leave to amend, and dismissing all claims against the School District with leave to amend.

BACKGROUND

A. The Complaint

Plaintiff, who is a certificated special education teacher, filed this action on April 27, 2021 against her employer, SCUSD; her union, SCTA; and two administrators at a charter school where she was assigned to work for several years.^[4] (ECF No. 1 at 2, 7-9.) The caption of the complaint references at least five anti-discrimination laws: “Complaint of Discrimination (Civil Rights Act of 1964) - Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, or the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and Equal Pay Act.” (Id. at 7.) On the attached form complaint, plaintiff checked boxes indicating that four of these provisions formed the basis for the court's jurisdiction: (1) Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”), 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq.; (2) the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”), 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq.; (3) the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA”), 42 U.S.C. § 12112 et seq.; and (4) the Equal Pay Act, 29 U.S.C. § 206 et seq. (ECF No. 1 at 3.) In the body of the complaint, however, plaintiff asserts just two labeled causes of action under Title VII and the Equal Pay Act. (Id. at 23-24.)

Plaintiff's complaint contains a 14-page disjointed statement of facts regarding a host of issues she has had with the School District and the Union over her two decades of teaching in the district. (Id. at 9-23.) She also attaches over 200 pages of exhibits related to these various issues. (Id. at 27-254.)

Plaintiff alleges that she has worked for the School District since 2003 as a certificated special education teacher. (Id. at 3, 7-8, 22, 25.) Although she was continuously employed by the School District (id. at 3, 16), for the school years from 2016 to 2019 she was assigned to work at two charter schools, one being Sol Aureus College Preparatory School (id. at 9, 18). Defendant Hernandez is an “Administrator” at Sol Aureus, ^[5] and the SCTA is a labor organization that “represents certificated and classified employees of SCUSD, ” like plaintiff. (Id. at 2, 8.)

Plaintiff describes an overwhelming number of issues in her complaint, alleging as follows:

• In late spring 2019, she discovered a school website listing her as a teacher and containing text in Latin that supposedly referred to plaintiff as being pregnant.^[6] (Id. at 10, 39-44.) Her requests to take down the website and to discover who created it went unanswered, causing her post-traumatic stress. (Id. at 11.)

• Defendant Hernandez made “negative comments” about plaintiff in publicly viewable board meeting minutes, constituting “slander and public defamation”; and in September 2016 board minutes, he made inaccurate statements regarding the school's special education procedures. (Id. at 11-13.) She received “no response back from SCUSD or SCTA” regarding her concerns with the board meeting minutes. (Id. at 12.)

• For most of the years she worked at the charter schools, her caseload was too high, with 40 students instead of the 28 she should have had. (Id. at 14.)

• In spring 2019, the SCTA provided plaintiff with an employment attorney at no cost, but the attorney “ignored” plaintiff's concerns about the website and board meeting notes, saying she could only help plaintiff with resolving her issues with having too heavy a caseload. (Id. at 11.) Plaintiff felt that the attorney did not “pursue[] appropriate legal restitution and/or resolutions for [her] employment concerns.” (Id.)

• She and another SCUSD, unionized teacher “did not get the same custodial services as the rest of the school, ” having to take out their own garbage and to contend with cramped quarters, wobbly desks, and noisy surroundings. (Id. at 13.)

• She was “uncomfortable” with defendant Hernandez recording “the workspace” with a Nest camera, which he said was for monitoring the parking lot. (Id.)

• “On one day, ” she found an “unknown orange substance” in her purse, which she interpreted as an attempt to kill her because a lab report revealed some sort of controlled substance. (Id. at 13-14.)

• In spring 2019, she discovered “an unknown hack” of her work computers. (Id. at 17.) She found an unrecognized file bearing her first name “Sonia 2017” and containing hundreds of items that she could not access. The School District continually refused to release the file to her, which she states is “clearly discrimination and exclusion.” (Id. at 17-18.)

• In April 2019, she went on leave due to stress. Instead of allowing plaintiff to pick up the rest of her personal belongings from Sol Aureus, defendant Hernandez “threw” her items in front of the school. (Id. at 15.) A Union representative advised her that this was a violation of her teacher's contract. (Id.)

• She also was not allowed to remove her Apple ID and personal files from a MacBook computer she had been using for several years. (Id. at 20.) The Union said this was a violation of plaintiff's privacy and she should be allowed to remove it, but the Union “do[es]n't enforce anything” and “[n]othing gets resolved appropriately.” (Id.)

• “There were continued issues of getting paid on time and [in] the correct amounts this school year” (presumably referring to the 2020-2021 year), as there had been since 2018. (Id. at 19, Exs. W & X.) • She received “inconsistent” W-2 tax forms for 2017 and 2018, which neither the School District nor the Union would help her resolve. (Id. at 16.) Her requests for paystubs and pay scales have gone ignored, or endlessly transferred across various entities. (Id.)

• She was not given credit for a whole year of work when she was first hired in December 2003 and carried a full-time caseload. (Id. at 22-23.)

• Her 1095-B healthcare insurance tax form for 2019 “shows fraud.” (Id. at 17.)

• She found incorrect information about herself and unauthorized computer profiles for herself, which the School District and the Union did nothing to resolve. (Id. at 22.)

• She was “[d]enied employment opportunities” when she interviewed for several different positions within the district but received no offers of employment. (Id.)

On the form complaint, plaintiff checked boxes asserting discrimination in the form of failure to promote, failure to accommodate a disability, unequal terms and conditions of employment, and retaliation, along with other acts that she listed as “public defamation, privacy violations, financial fraud, nondisclosure.” (Id. at 4.) On the form, plaintiff further indicated that this discrimination occurred from December 8, 2003 (her original date of hire) through the present. (Id. at 4, 8.) In the fields for bases of discrimination, plaintiff indicated that the discrimination was based on race (“Mixed Race: Japanese/White”); gender (“Female”); religion (“Catholic”); age (born 1972); and disability or perceived disability (“ADHD”). (Id. at 4.)

Regarding exhaustion of administrative remedies, plaintiff stated that she filed an EEOC charge online on October 23, 2020 and was issued a Notice of Right to Sue letter on January 27, 2021. (Id. at 5.) Plaintiff attaches a copy of the Right to Sue Letter, under an exhibit cover page listing “1.) Title VII discrimination” and “2.) Equal Pay.” (Id. at 27, Ex. A.) The Right to Sue Letter shows that a copy was sent to one charged party: the School District. (Id.)

B. Procedural History

The School District and the Union were granted extensions of time to respond to the complaint (ECF Nos. 7-9), and on August 5 2021, defendant Hernandez filed the instant motion to dismiss (ECF No. 10) which he promptly re-noticed for hearing before the undersigned (ECF No. 12). Nevertheless, on August 6, 2021, plaintiff moved for default judgment against all defendants. (ECF No. 13.) On August 11, 2021, the undersigned recommended denying plaintiff's motion because no default had been entered and no defendant had yet failed to timely respond to the complaint. (ECF No. 14.) Plaintiff filed timely objections to those findings and recommendations, which remain pending before the assigned district judge. (ECF No. 15.) Plaintiff's objections also (improperly) contained two paragraphs of arguments in opposition to defendant Hernandez's motion to dismiss. (Id. at 7-8.) In response to plaintiff's objections, the undersigned permitted plaintiff to file a separate, more complete opposition. (ECF No. 16.) On August 31, 2021, the School District and the Union filed their instant motions to dismiss, with the Union's noticed for hearing two weeks after the School District's. (ECF Nos. 17, 18.) The next day, the School District filed a corrected motion to dismiss. (ECF No. 21.) In order to simultaneously hear all motions to dismiss, the court...