Noble v. The Young Men's Christian Ass'n of Cent. Ohio
Docket Number | 2:19-cv-5094 |
Decision Date | 16 August 2022 |
Parties | CHRISTOPHER NOBLE, Plaintiff, v. THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF CENTRAL OHIO, et al., Defendants. |
Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Ohio |
This matter arises on Defendant Young Men's Christian Academy of Central Ohio (the “YMCA”) and John Bickley's (together with the YMCA, the “YMCA Defendants”) Motion for Summary Judgment. (ECF No. 90.) For the reasons stated herein, the YMCA Defendants' motion is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED AS MOOT IN PART, (id.), and the remainder of this case will be remanded to the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas.
In 1998, Plaintiff Christopher Noble, then an eight-year-old student at Fair Avenue Elementary School, attended a school-based summer program conducted by the YMCA known as the “YMCA Challenge 2000.” At the time, the YMCA-which was then led by Bickley, its Chief Executive Officer-employed Defendant Ralph Bowman as a program director.
On June 24, 1998, Noble's group took a field trip to a nearby library. At some point before the event, Noble contends Bowman stopped him, took him to an apartment, and sexually abused him. Later that day, Noble reported the abuse to his parents, who then went to the police. Ultimately, Bowman was criminally indicted for the alleged event, but never convicted.
On October 17, 2019, Noble sued (1) the YMCA Defendants; (2) Bowman; (3) Bowman's Ohio-based company, Visions Unlimited Academy (“Visions Unlimited”); (4) the Columbus Board of Education (the “Board”); (5) Columbus City Schools (the “School District”) and (6) Cynthia Ball (the principal of Fair Avenue Elementary School in 1998) in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas (collectively, “Defendants”). (ECF No. 2.) His claims included:
On November 19, 2019, Defendants, citing Noble's Title IX and Monell claims (collectively, Noble's “federal claims”), removed his complaint to this Court. (ECF No. 1.) In February 2021, this Court dismissed the School District as a defendant. (Op. & Order, ECF No. 49.) Roughly one year later, in April 2022, Noble voluntarily dismissed all claims against the Board and Ball with prejudice. (ECF No. 72.) That left the YMCA Defendants, Bowman, and Visions Unlimited as the only remaining defendants in this case.
Pending before the Court is the YMCA Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment (the “Motion”), which asks this Court, for various reasons, to dismiss Noble's claims against them in full. (ECF No. 90.) With respect to Noble's federal claims, the YMCA Defendants argue that judgment in their favor is warranted, as there is no “genuine dispute” they were private (i.e., nonstate) actors during the relevant time period. Noble raises no argument to the contrary. Instead, he concedes he “never intended” to bring either his Title IX or Monell claims against the YMCA. (Pl.'s Resp., ECF No. 90.) And while Noble “fails to explicitly state that these counts against Bickley should also be dismissed, he does not otherwise address” the YMCA Defendant's arguments that Bickley-who Noble sued in his capacity as the YMCA's CEO-cannot be subject to liability under Title IX or § 1983.[1] (Def.'s Reply, ECF No. 103.) And even if Noble did counter those arguments, his would be unlikely to prevail. See Freeman v. Helldoefer, 208 F.3d 213, 2000 WL 125885, at *2 (6th Cir. Jan 28, 2000) ( ); Molina v. YMCA, No. 08-cv-577, 2008 WL 789888, at *2 (E.D.N.Y. Mar. 21, 2008) ().
Thus, insofar as Noble's Title IX and Monell claims are concerned, the YMCA Defendant's Motion is GRANTED. (ECF No. 90.)
When Noble brought his federal claims in state court, he created an avenue for Defendants to remove his case to this Court on the basis of “federal question” jurisdiction. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1441. Obviously, they took the opportunity. (ECF No. 1.) But at this point, the landscape of this case has changed. No longer do Noble's federal claims pertain to any public entities (i.e., the School District and the Board) or officials (i.e., Ball). The only defendants left for Noble to orient his federal claims around are Bowman and his company, Visions Unlimited. But that, for various reasons, cannot be.
For one, Noble's Title IX claim is narrowly cabined to the “School [District] and the Board.” (See Complaint, ECF No. 2 at ¶¶ 54-64.) It does not, on its face, apply to Bowman or Visions Unlimited. Nor would it make any difference if the claim was pled to include them, given Title IX's baseline applicability to “educational institutions”-namely, public or private “preschool, elementary . . . secondary . . . or higher education” institutions. See 20 U.S.C. § 1681(c).
The same goes for Noble's Monell claim, which, generally speaking, could only be brought against (1) a municipality that (2) maintained an unconstitutional “policy or custom.” Robertson v. Lucas, 753 F.3d 606, 622 (6th Cir. 2014); accord Doe v. Claiborne County, Tenn., 103 F.3d 495, 507 (6th Cir. 1996) () (citation omitted); Anderson v. Jones, 440 F.Supp.3d 819, 835 (S.D. Ohio 2020) ( ). As noted, here, there is no municipality left for Noble to hold liable under § 1983;[2] only two defendants who were not acting “under the color of state law” (or at all) during the relevant time period.[3]
Thus far, no party has addressed this Court's subject-matter jurisdiction. But the Court, in light of the above, the Court takes up the matter on its own. See, e.g., Doe v. Univ. of Cincinnati, 173 F.Supp.3d 586, 598 (S.D. Ohio 2016) ( ).
At this point, the only colorable claims left for this Court to adjudicate ( arise under Ohio law, and exclusively involve Ohio residents. , Counts I-III, V, VI, and VIII) In other words, there is no “diversity” jurisdiction, nor any federal question-“substantial” or otherwise-for this Court to decide. See Gunn v. Minton, 568 U.S. 251, 257-58 (2013). Thus, the inquiry becomes “whether to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over [Noble's] state-law claims pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1367 and 1441(c)” or to “remand the case to state court” under those same statutes. Mencer v. Kraft Foods Global, Inc., 695 F.Supp.2d 667, 672 (S.D. Ohio 2010); see also McKinney v. City of Grosse Pointe Park, 72 F.Supp.2d 788, 790 (E.D. Mich. 1999) ( ).
A district court's exercise of supplemental jurisdiction is a “doctrine of discretion, not of plaintiff's right.” Brown v. Scaglione, No. 20-cv-10192, 2020 WL 674291, at *1 (E.D. Mich. Feb. 11, 2020) (quoting United Mine Workers of Am. v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 726 (1966)). Thus, under § 1367(c), a court may decline to exercise jurisdiction over any given “supplemental” state-law claim if it finds that:
“In deciding whether to exercise supplemental jurisdiction . . . a judge must take into account concerns of comity, judicial economy, convenience, fairness, and the like.” Id. at *1. Notably, “[w]hen all federal claims are dismissed before trial, the balance of considerations usually will point to dismissing” or remanding the claims to state court. Musson Theatrical, Inc. v. Fed. Express Corp., 89 F.3d 1244, 1254-55 (6th Cir. 1996) (citing Carnegie-Mellon Univ. v. Cohill, 484 U.S. 343, 350 n.7 (1988)); accord Oberer Land Devs. Ltd. v. Sugarcreek Twp., No. 21-3834, 2022 WL 1773722, at *6 (6th Cir. June 1, 2022) ().
Again here, there is no colorable federal...
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