Morrison v. Circuit City Stores, Inc.
| Decision Date | 12 August 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. C-1-99-017.,C-1-99-017. |
| Citation | 70 F.Supp.2d 815 |
| Parties | Lillian Pebbles MORRISON, Plaintiff, v. CIRCUIT CITY STORES, INC., Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Ohio |
Kelly Mulloy Myers, Freking & Betz — 1, Cincinnati, OH, for Lillian Peebles Morrison, plaintiff.
Daniel Goodman Rosenthal, Denlinger, Rosenthal & Greenberg — 1, Cincinnati, OH, for Circuit City Stores Inc., defendant.
This matter is before the Court on a Motion by Defendant Circuit City Stores, Inc. to Compel Arbitration and Stay or Dismiss Proceedings (doc. 3); Declaration of Pamela G. Parsons in Support of Defendant's Motion to Compel Arbitration and Stay or Dismiss Proceedings (doc. 4); Plaintiff Lillian Pebbles Morrison's Memorandum in Opposition to Defendant's Motion (doc. 7); Defendant's Reply (doc. 8); and Defendant's Supplemental Authority (doc. 11).
The Court held a hearing in this matter on April 20, 1999.
This is an employment discrimination action brought by Plaintiff Lillian Pebbles Morrison pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, § 701 et seq., as amended in 1991 by 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq. ("Title VII"), and Ohio Rev.Code § 4112 (see doc. 1). Plaintiff originally filed her Complaint on December 11, 1998 in the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas. Defendant Circuit City Stores, Inc., a retailer of consumer electronics and appliances, then removed the case to this Court on January 12, 1999 pursuant to Title 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1332, and 1441.
Prior to her discharge on December 12, 1997, Plaintiff worked as a store manager for one of Defendant's Cincinnati area stores. According to Defendant, Plaintiff was 30 years old with an undergraduate degree from the U.S. Air Force Academy and a master's degree from Central Michigan University when she applied for a position with Defendant on July 10, 1995 . Defendant hired Plaintiff on December 1, 1995.
As part of the application and hiring process, Plaintiff signed two identical application forms, the first on July 10, 1995 , and the second on December 27, 1995 (copy provided to the Court during the April 20, 1999 hearing). Each application sets forth identical language about the "Circuit City Dispute Resolution Agreement" (hereinafter, the "Agreement"). In addition, each application states that the company will not consider any applicant for employment unless he or she also signs the Agreement.
The Agreement provides, in pertinent part, that an applicant will resolve:
any and all previously unasserted claims, disputes or controversies arising out of or relating to [his or her] application or candidacy for employment, employment and/or cessation of employment with Circuit City, exclusively by final and binding arbitration before a neutral Arbitrator. By way of example only, such claims include claims under federal, state and local statutory or common law, such as the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, including the amendments of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the law of contract and law of tort.
(emphasis in original).
Above the text of the Agreement, the application states in boldface type that:
With this application you should have received the Rules and Procedures of the Agreement. You should familiarize yourself with these rules and procedures prior to signing the Agreement. If you did not receive the Rules and Procedures you must request a copy from a Circuit City representative prior to signing the Agreement.
(Id.) (emphasis in original). Once an applicant signs the Agreement, the Agreement allows the applicant three days in which to withdraw his or her consent to the Agreement. The applicant may also take the application package home and return it later with his or her signature affixed (Id.).
Furthermore, the Agreement states that: (Id.) (emphasis in original). The following clauses offer some detail as to how legal rights will be affected by the Agreement:
I understand that if I do file a lawsuit regarding a dispute arising out of or relating to my application or candidacy for employment, employment or cessation or employment, Circuit City may use this Agreement in support of its request to the court to dismiss the lawsuit and require me instead to use arbitration.
* * * * * *
This Agreement will be enforceable throughout the application process, my employment, and thereafter with respect to any claims arising from or relating to may application or candidacy for employment, employment or cessation of employment with Circuit City. I then must arbitrate all employment-related claims, and I may not file a lawsuit in court.
(Id.)
Defendant now moves this Court to compel arbitration and stay these proceedings pursuant to the Federal Arbitration Act ("FAA"), 9 U.S.C. §§ 3 and 4, or, in the alternative, to dismiss this case entirely pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) or Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, because Plaintiff and Defendant are parties to this Agreement requiring them to resolve this type of dispute through final and binding arbitration.
Plaintiff responds that the Agreement is invalid and unenforceable because it fails to comply with common law principles of contract law and because it attempts to limit Plaintiff's substantive rights and remedies. Therefore, Plaintiff argues, the FAA does not require that the Court stay or dismiss this action and the Court thereby retains subject matter jurisdiction.
A Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction attacks a plaintiff's cause of action in one of two ways: facially or factually. Fed. R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1); United States v. Ritchie, 15 F.3d 592, 598 (6th Cir.1994). A facial attack challenges the sufficiency of the complaint itself. On such an attack, the court must take all material allegations in the complaint as true and construe them in a light most favorable to the non-moving party. Ritchie, 15 F.3d at 598 (citing Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 235-37, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974)). In contrast, a factual attack challenges the factual existence of subject matter jurisdiction. The court reviewing such a motion need not presume that the factual allegations set forth in the complaint are true. Id. Instead, the court may weigh any evidence properly before it. See Ohio Nat'l Life Ins. Co. v. United States, 922 F.2d 320, 325 (6th Cir.1990); Rogers v. Stratton Indus., Inc., 798 F.2d 913, 918 (6th Cir. 1986).
In addressing a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, a court must accept all allegations in the complaint as true and view them in a light most favorable to the party opposing the motion. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6); Great Lakes Steel v. Deggendorf, 716 F.2d 1101, 1105 (6th Cir. 1983). The court may grant the motion only if "it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief." Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957); Balderaz v. Porter, 578 F.Supp. 1491, 1494 (S.D.Ohio 1983).
In the instant matter, Defendant refutes the factual allegations in Plaintiff's Complaint concerning the enforceability of the Agreement. In support of its Motion to Dismiss, Defendant submits a copy of the application Plaintiff signed on July 10, 1995 and a declaration from Pamela G. Parsons concerning that application and the Agreement. Apparently because the Agreement requires final and binding arbitration of all employment disputes, Defendant asserts that the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over Plaintiff's Complaint, or, alternatively, that Plaintiff's Complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
As mentioned earlier, a court may consider any evidence properly before it when a defendant factually attacks subject matter jurisdiction under Rule 12(b)(1). However, evidence outside the pleadings may not be used to support motions brought pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) unless the evidence is referenced in the plaintiff's complaint and is central to a plaintiff's claims. Venture Assoc. Corp. v. Zenith Data Sys. Corp., 987 F.2d 429, 431 (7th Cir.1993). In this case, Plaintiff specifically references the Agreement in her Complaint and she argues in Count I of her Complaint that the Agreement is unenforceable. Therefore, the Court finds that we may consider the Agreement and Ms. Parson's declaration in deciding whether to dismiss this action pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) or Rule 12(b)(6).
The threshold issue before the Court is the applicability of the Federal Arbitration Act, Title 9 U.S.C. § 1 et seq., to the facts of this case. Defendant asserts that the FAA applies to this case and that the FAA requires the enforcement of the Agreement.
The FAA provides that arbitration provisions in any "contract evidencing a transaction involving commerce" are "valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract." 9 U.S.C. § 2. Section 1 of the FAA, though, excludes "contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce" from coverage under the FAA. 9 U.S.C. § 1. Nonetheless, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals construes this exclusionary clause narrowly. In Asplundh Tree Expert Co. v. Bates, 71 F.3d 592 (6th Cir.1995), the Sixth Circuit held that:
the exclusionary clause of § 1 of the Arbitration Act should be narrowly construed to apply to employment...
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