Peters v. Dist. of Columbia
| Decision Date | 16 April 2012 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 09-cv-02020 (BAH) |
| Parties | ANGELLA PETERS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Defendant. |
| Court | United States District Courts. United States District Court (Columbia) |
ANGELLA PETERS, et al., Plaintiffs,
v.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Defendant.
Civil Action No. 09-cv-02020 (BAH)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
DATED: April 16, 2012
Plaintiffs are nine current and former employees of the District of Columbia's Child and Family Services Agency ("CFSA"), who assert that the CFSA "discriminated against them and similarly situated employees on the basis of their race, national origin, age, and/or in retaliation for complaining about discriminatory practices." Second Amended Complaint ("Compl."), ECF No. 17, at 2. As a consequence of CFSA's alleged discriminatory and retaliatory actions, plaintiffs claim that they are entitled to damages under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 ("ADEA"), 29 U.S.C. § 633a(a), the District of Columbia Human Rights Act ("DCHRA"), and 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1983.
Pending before the Court are (1) the defendant's motion, pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, to dismiss plaintiffs' Second Amended Complaint, and (2) two motions, pursuant to Rule 24 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, for leave to permit nine additional current and former employees of CFSA to intervene as plaintiffs in this action. All together, the plaintiffs' Complaint and proposed intervenors' Complaints-in-intervention amount to over one hundred pages and over one thousand numbered paragraphs. They have alleged such
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a plethora of facts that they have made clear their success on the merits is impossible. For the reasons set forth below, the Court finds that the claims of six plaintiffs are barred by res judicata or failure to meet the procedural prerequisites for bringing this action, and the claims of the three remaining plaintiffs fail to state cognizable causes of action. Consequently, the defendant's motion to dismiss is granted and the motions to intervene are denied.
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
A. Procedural History
Two plaintiffs, Angella Peters1 and Larry McCall, initiated this lawsuit on October 28, 2009, alleging that the District of Columbia violated their rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, for which they sought damages under 42 U.S.C. §§1981 and 1983. Shortly thereafter, the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint adding four plaintiffs — Maria Dyson, Augustine Ekwem, Jacqueline Moore and Katherine Washington — as well as claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the ADEA, and the DCHRA. On March 16, 2010, the Court granted the plaintiffs' unopposed motion for leave to file a Second Amended Complaint,2 which added three more plaintiffs: Joan Simpson, Melva Meade, and Cynthia Courts-Marshall.3 See Minute Order (Mar. 16, 2010) (Sullivan, J.).4
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The plaintiffs have continued to seek leave to add plaintiffs to this action. On July 23, 2010, and again on April 22, 2011, the plaintiffs moved, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24, to allow a total of nine additional putative plaintiffs to intervene. These motions to intervene are opposed by the defendant and have been denied by Order entered on March 30, 2012. This Memorandum Opinion sets forth the reasons for that Order.
B. Allegations in Second Amended Complaint
The nine plaintiffs named in the Second Amended Complaint are black women and men who have worked as caseworkers and supervisors at the CFSA for varying lengths of time, ranging from three to eighteen years. Four of the plaintiffs are current or former caseworkers and the other five plaintiffs are current or former supervisors. The four caseworker plaintiffs (Angella Peters, Larry McCall, Maria Dyson and Katherine Washington) complain primarily about the allegedly abusive and discriminatory conduct directed at them by a single supervisor. Three of these caseworker plaintiffs apparently remain employed at CFSA: both Maria Dyson and Katherine Washington remain caseworkers in Child Protective Services ("CPS"), a component of CFSA, and Larry McCall's current assignment is not identified. The five management plaintiffs (Cynthia Courts-Marshall, Jacqueline Moore, Joan Simpson, Augustine Ekwem and Melva Meade), complain about the conduct of at least eight other managers at CFSA, including the CFSA Deputy Director of Operations, for allegedly creating a hostile work environment, and discriminatory and retaliatory conduct. Two of the management plaintiffs (Augustine Ekwem and Melva Meade) remain employed at CFSA, while the other three management plaintiffs (Cynthia Courts-Marshall, Jacqueline Moore and Joan Simpson) are no longer employed at CFSA.
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The Second Amended Complaint asserts two core allegations against CFSA: first, "[f]rom as early as 2001, the Child and Family Services Agency had a custom of allowing its supervisors to bully older, black social workers, particularly those from Africa or the Caribbean Islands," and this conduct created a hostile work environment that management condoned. Compl. at 2. Second, CFSA, from as early as 2003, "had a custom of allowing its supervisors to retaliate against social workers who complain about discriminatory practices." Id. The alleged retaliatory actions against the plaintiffs took different forms, ranging from re-assignment of duties to demotion in position to the unfair assignment of an overwhelming caseload. Specifically, the four caseworker plaintiffs complain that, following the tragic discovery, in January 2008, of the deaths of Banita Jacks' four young daughters in a Washington, D.C. row house, there was a "surge in [the number of] child abuse and neglect reports." Id. ¶¶ 75-89 (Peters), ¶¶ 125-33 (McCall), ¶¶ 166-93 (Dyson), ¶¶ 213-28 (Washington). While acknowledging this across-the-board increase in workload, the caseworker plaintiffs complain that they were assigned an unfair number of cases, which resulted in backlogs and prompted adverse employment actions, ranging from being "written up" to reprimands. Id. Two supervisor plaintiffs also allege retaliation: Jacqueline Moore alleges that after she complained to human resources about her treatment by a supervisor, she was retaliated against, id. ¶¶ 267-310, and Cynthia Courts-Marshall alleges that she was retaliated against after she refused to fire employees as instructed by her supervisor, id. ¶¶ 605-10, 617-18. The allegedly retaliatory actions against these two supervisors included poor job performance evaluations, which resulted in a denial of pay increases, id. ¶¶ 272-81, 293 (Moore); demotion to a caseworker position to help with the post-Jacks tragedy surge in cases, id. ¶¶ 284-86 (Moore); and re-assignment or removal of duties, id. ¶¶ 308-10 (Moore), id. ¶¶ 630-35 (Courts-Marshall).5
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All nine plaintiffs claim that they were discriminated against on the basis of race and subjected or exposed to a hostile work environment during at least some portion of their employment at CFSA between 2001 and 2009.6 Four plaintiffs (Ekwem, Moore, Peters and Simpson) also claim discrimination on the basis of national origin. Six plaintiffs (Dyson, Ekwem, McCall, Moore, Peters and Washington) claim age discrimination, even though the three plaintiffs who do not make this claim are also over 40 years of age and two of them are older than some of the plaintiffs who do claim age discrimination. Finally, six plaintiffs (Courts-Marshall, Dyson, McCall, Moore, Peters and Washington) claim retaliation.7
The Title VII and ADEA discrimination claims asserted by each plaintiff are summarized in the chart below.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
¦ ¦Discrimination based upon: ¦ ¦ ¦
¦Plaintiff - ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
¦ ¦Race National ¦Hostile Work Environment ¦Retaliation ¦
¦Position ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
¦ ¦(Black) Origin Age Gender ¦ ¦ ¦
+-------------+----------------------------+--------------------------+-------------¦
¦Peters - ¦ ¦ ¦v ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
¦ ¦v¦V (Jamaican) ¦ ¦NO¦v ¦v ¦
¦Caseworker ¦ ¦ ¦(51) ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
+-------------+-+-----------------+-----+--+--------------------------+-------------¦
¦McCall - ¦ ¦ ¦NO ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
¦ ¦v¦NO ¦ ¦NO¦v ¦Vv ¦
¦Caseworker ¦ ¦ ¦(57) ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
+-------------+-+-----------------+-----+--+--------------------------+-------------¦
¦Washington- ¦ ¦ ¦v ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
¦ ¦v¦NO ¦ ¦NO¦v ¦v ¦
¦Caseworker ¦ ¦ ¦(52) ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
+-------------+-+-----------------+-----+--+--------------------------+-------------¦
¦Dyson - ¦ ¦ ¦v ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
¦ ¦v¦NO ¦ ¦NO¦v ¦v ¦
¦Caseworker ¦ ¦ ¦(49) ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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+------------------------------------------------+
¦Meade - ¦ ¦ ¦NO ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
¦ ¦v¦NO ¦ ¦NO ¦v¦NO¦
¦Supervisor ¦ ¦ ¦(60)¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
+-------------+-+-------------+----+--------+-+--¦
¦Ekwem - ¦ ¦ ¦v ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
¦ ¦v¦v (Nigerian) ¦ ¦V (Male)¦v¦NO¦
¦Supervisor ¦ ¦ ¦(52)¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
+-------------+-+-------------+----+--------+-+--¦
¦Simpson - ¦ ¦ ¦NO ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
¦ ¦v¦v (Jamaican) ¦ ¦NO ¦v¦NO¦
¦Supervisor ¦ ¦ ¦(52)¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
+-------------+-+-------------+----+--------+-+--¦
¦Moore - ¦ ¦v ¦v ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
¦ ¦v¦ ¦ ¦NO ¦v¦v ¦
¦Supervisor ¦ ¦(Trinidadian)¦(66)¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
+-------------+-+-------------+----+--------+-+--¦
¦Courts- ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
¦ ¦ ¦ ¦NO ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
¦Marshall - ¦v¦NO ¦ ¦NO ¦v¦v ¦
¦ ¦ ¦ ¦(46)¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
¦Administrator¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦...To continue reading
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