Rosa v. Bd. of Trs. of Univ. of Ill.

• Decision Date: 11 December 2020
• Docket Number: No. 18-CV-8477,18-CV-8477
• Parties: MELISSA ROSA, Plaintiff, v. THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, and AARON M. MURAUSKAS. Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

MELISSA ROSA, Plaintiff, v. THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, andAARON M. MURAUSKAS. Defendant.

No. 18-CV-8477

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS EASTERN DIVISION

December 11, 2020

Judge John J. Tharp, Jr.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Plaintiff Melissa Rosa sued her employer, the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois ("Board"), and Aaron M. Murauskas, a Sergeant with the University of Chicago-Illinois Police Department ("UIC PD"), under federal and state law for sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. The defendants move to dismiss the complaint against them in its entirety. For the reasons discussed below, the defendants' motion to dismiss is granted in part and denied in part.

BACKGROUND

For the purposes of this motion, the court accepts all of the plaintiff's fact allegations as true and draws all reasonable inferences in her favor.¹ Cole v. Milwaukee Area Tech. College Dist., 634 F.3d 901, 903 (7th Cir. 2011). The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois governs the UIC PD as well as the University of Illinois's Office of Access and Equity ("OAE"). Id. ¶ 8. Rosa began working as a police officer for the UIC PD in May 2016. Compl. ¶ 12, ECF No. 6. Sergeant Aaron M. Murauskas also works as a UIC PD police officer. Id. ¶ 11.

This case arises from Rosa's allegations that Murauskas sexually harassed her during the period of May 2017 and February 2018. Rosa alleges that in November 2015, before Murauskas began harassing her, the Board had received a complaint from another UIC police officer alleging that Murauskas had violated a variety of laws and UIC PD rules, including the harassment of another police officer's wife at a Christmas party. Id. ¶ 15.

The alleged sexual harassment of Rosa began at a training event with other officers in May 2017, during which Murauskas made unwelcome sexual advances and remarks to Rosa. Id. ¶ 16, 17. Following the training, Murauskas issued Rosa a write-up for arriving late. Id. ¶ 18.

In the incident at the core of this case, on August 24, 2017, Murauskas directed Rosa to accompany him on a patrol ride. Id. ¶ 20. During the ride, Rosa alleges, Murauskas launched into a volley of sexually explicit and offensive comments (including that she did not have a problem "getting fucked," "could get fucked whenever [she] want[ed]" and "with lips like [hers], [he] knew [she] could suck a really good dick"). Id. Murauskas then grabbed Rosa's hand and placed it on his pants over his groin. Id. He attempted to hold her hand there as Rosa pulled it away. Id. According to Rosa, after shouting at him and protesting his advances, Murauskas laughed and told her "to stop acting like [she] had never sucked dick at work before and one more wouldn't kill [her]." Id. Rosa contends that Murauskas threatened to have a lieutenant write her up and suspend her if she refused. Id. Rosa told him to stop, asked him to never to speak to her like that again, and requested that he drop her off at the police station. Id. Murauskas stated that she was not going anywhere. Id. As she cried, he warned her that he would make sure she was fired if she told anyone about this incident. Id.

Fairly read, the complaint alleges that, as a means of coercing Rosa to comply with his advances or not report them, Murauskas threatened to, and did, submit unwarranted reports of rulesviolations. Beyond the May 2017 write-up for being late, the complaint alleges that in October 2017, Rosa was suspended for five days due to an out-of-uniform violation. Id. ¶ 25. The complaint does not, however, allege that Murauskas had anything to do with this discipline, which was based on an incident that occurred in "early August 2017," presumably before the August 24, 2017 patrol ride. In another encounter with Murauskas in December 2017, he implied that Rosa's purple hair was a violation of department rules and told her that "she could still do it any time" if she wanted to stop worrying about write-ups. Id. ¶ 26.

One month later, Rosa filed a formal complaint with the Board charging Murauskas with battery, sexual abuse, official misconduct, and sex harassment. Id. ¶ 27. In turn, the Board directed the OAE to investigate. Id. ¶ 29. Rosa asserts that the OAE performed an inadequate investigation by failing to interview relevant witnesses, not following up on relevant information, and inaccurately reporting information that supported Rosa's complaints. Id. ¶ 30. The complaint does not allege, however, that the Board directed the OAE to perform a shoddy investigation or otherwise interfered in any way with the investigation; neither does it identify with any specificity who should have been interviewed or what errors the investigators made. Rosa reported another incident with Murauskas to the OAE in February 2018, alleging that he had stared her down intimidatingly in the basement at work and "looked like he wanted to hurt" her. Id. ¶ 32. The complaint alleges that in response to these complaints, the defendants engaged in further discrimination, harassment and retaliation, including the denial of training, a transfer request, and additional unwarranted discipline. The complaint identifies no specific disciplinary or employment action taken by the defendants against Rosa as the result of this complaint. It does allege, however, that in response to Rosa's formal complaint, Murauskas filed a defamation suit against her in state court. Id. ¶ 34.

In March 2018, the OAE issued its findings that Murauskas had not violated the sexual misconduct policy.² Id. ¶ 32. Six months later, on September 20, 2018, Rosa filed her first charge of harassment, discrimination, and retaliation with the local district EEOC office. ECF No. 15-1. The EEOC issued a dismissal and notice of right to sue letter, stating that it was unable to conclude whether any statutory violations had taken place. ECF No. 15-2.

On December 26, 2018, Rosa submitted a second, and substantially more detailed, charge to the EEOC. ECF No. 15-3. That same day, Rosa filed this suit against the Board. ECF No. 1. This Court granted the defendants' motion to stay, pending the EEOC's investigation of Rosa's second charge. ECF No. 17. On May 8, 2019, the EEOC issued Rosa a second right to sue letter, informing her that it would not be able to investigate her charge within 180 days.³ ECF No. 19-1. Consequently, this Court lifted the stay. ECF No. 21. Currently pending before the Court is the defendants' motion to dismiss.

DISCUSSION

It is necessary at the outset to address two general points that color the assessment of whether the complaint alleges plausible claims for relief. First, the distinction between "claims" and "counts" must be recognized. Rosa's complaint asserts twelve "counts." Pleading in counts is permissible (see Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(d)(2) and 10(b)), but doing so "tends to obscure the critical difference between 'claims,' which explain the plaintiff's grievance and demand relief, and 'counts,' which describe legal theories." Volling v. Antioch Rescue Squad, 999 F. Supp. 2d 991, 996 (N.D. Ill. 2013). See also Toney v. Quality Res., Inc., No. 13 C 42, 2017 WL 2868757, at *2 n.3 (N.D. Ill. July 5, 2017) (lamenting "the too-frequently-encountered practice of carving [a] federal claim for relief into multiple counts that, as in the state court "cause of action" practice, set out different theories of recovery, despite the fact that Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(b) (the section that expressly defines the use and scope of counts in federal practice) does not provide for such usage."). The federal rules permit dismissal based on failure to state a claim, but "they provide no basis for striking individual legal theories." Zurbriggen v. Twin Hill. Acquisition Co., 455 F. Supp. 3d 702, 719 (N.D. Ill. 2020) (internal quotations omitted). To the extent that any viable legal theory exists to support a claim, that claim will survive a motion to dismiss. See Richards v. Mitcheff, 696 F.3d 635, 638 (7th Cir. 2012); Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(d)(2) ("If a party makes alternative statements [of a claim], the pleading is sufficient if any one of them is sufficient."). To prevail on a motion to dismiss a claim, then, a defendant must demonstrate that there is no legal theory under which the claim plausibly entitles the plaintiff to relief.

Here, Rosa's facts present four principal claims, or grievances, for which she seeks relief. She maintains that: Murauskas is liable to her for his conduct during the patrol ride on August 24, 2017; the Board and Murauskas are liable because she was subjected to sexual harassment and a hostile work environment based on the patrol ride and other allegedly harassing conduct; the Boardand Murauskas discriminated against her because she is a woman; and because of the acts allegedly taken by the defendants in retaliation for reporting sexual harassment and discrimination to the Board. In the twelve counts of the amended complaint, Rosa identifies federal and state theories of liability to support these claims: (1) hostile work environment in violation of Title VII against the Board; (2) sex discrimination in violation of Title VII against the Board; (3) retaliation in violation of Title VII against the Board; (4) retaliation in violation of the Illinois Ethics Act against the Board; (5) gender discrimination in violation of the Illinois Civil Rights Act against the Board; (6) retaliation in violation of the Illinois Ethics Act against Murauskas; (7) sexual harassment, battery, discrimination, and retaliation in violation of Section 1983 against Murauskas; (8) battery under Illinois law against Murauskas; (9) violation of the Illinois Gender Violence Act against Murauskas; and (10) intentional infliction of emotional distress against Murauskas. Rosa further alleges that the Board is vicariously liable for Murauskas's misconduct under state law based on the doctrine of respondeat superior (Count XI) and a state indemnification...