Smith-Haynie v. U.S. Veterans Initiative
| Decision Date | 01 June 2020 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 17-cv-2824 (TSC) |
| Parties | JESSICA C. SMITH-HAYNIE, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES VETERANS INITIATIVE, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
Plaintiff Jessica Smith-Haynie has sued her former employer, the United States Veterans Initiative (USVI), alleging violations of numerous federal and D.C. employment laws. Smith-Haynie brings six claims against USVI: failure to make a reasonable accommodation and retaliation in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, as amended, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12101 et seq. (ADA) (Counts I and V); age discrimination in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, as amended, 29 U.S.C. §§ 621 et seq. (ADEA) (Counts II and III); race discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e, et seq. (Title VII) and 42 U.S.C. § 1981 (Count III); retaliation for filing a worker's compensation claim in violation of the D.C. Worker's Compensation Act, D.C. Code § 32-1542 (Count IV); and retaliation for opposing discriminatory practices in violation of these laws (Count VI). USVI moves to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). (ECF No. 16.)
Having reviewed the parties' submissions, the court will GRANT in part and DENY in part USVI's Motion to Dismiss.
USVI is a non-profit that provides housing, employment, and counseling services to veterans in several states and the District. (ECF No. 15, 2d Am. Compl., ¶ 5.) Smith-Haynie, an African-American woman in her fifties, began working for USVI on October 7, 2013, as a program coordinator. (Id. ¶ 2, 20.) She oversaw a $2-million-dollar budget for temporary financial assistance to veterans and their families, and supervised nine direct reports. (Id. ¶ 64.) USVI terminated her in September 2015, allegedly for poor performance. (Id. ¶ 47.)
In January 2014, while on duty at a Veterans Affairs Hospital, Smith-Haynie fell and injured her shoulder. (Id. ¶ 24.) She requested and received medical leave for her shoulder surgery and recovery in August. (Id. ¶ 25-26.) In late September, Smith-Haynie informed Clifton Lewis, the executive director, that her surgeon had ordered six weeks of physical therapy, and she asked Lewis for a modified work schedule. (Id. ¶ 28.) Lewis did not respond to this request. (Id.) That same month, Smith-Haynie submitted a worker's compensation claim. (Id. ¶ 27.)
Smith-Haynie returned to work on November 14, 2014, when the worker's compensation adjuster advised her to do so, and despite the fact that Lewis had told her not to return until she obtained medical release. (Id. ¶¶ 29-30, 63.) Smith-Haynie asked for management meetings, which were regularly held on Mondays, to be rescheduled so she could attend physical therapy, but Lewis denied the request. (Id. ¶¶ 32, 33.) Smith-Haynie then rescheduled her physical therapy to Tuesdays, and Lewis, after learning this, moved the management meetings to Tuesdays. (Id. ¶ 34-35.)
After Smith-Hayne returned to work, she learned that USVI had hired Roy Haynes, a man in his thirties, as Clinical Director, instead of promoting her. (Id. ¶ 39.) She also learnedthat USVI was "grooming" Debra Truchon, a program assistant on her team, for Smith-Haynie's position. (Id. ¶ 63.) During Smith-Haynie's absence, Truchon had taken over many of Smith-Haynie's program coordinator duties. (Id.) In 2015, USVI promoted Truchon to a newly created position, outreach coordinator, and shifted some of Smith-Haynie's responsibilities to her, including five of Smith-Haynie's nine direct reports. (Id. ¶ 67.) USVI also pressured Smith-Haynie to switch positions with Truchon, a move which Smith-Haynie perceived as a demotion and declined. (Id. ¶¶ 68-69.) During the annual audit by the U.S. Department of Veterans' Affairs, Smith-Haynie's team passed, while Truchon's did not. (Id. ¶ 77.) A month after USVI terminated Smith-Haynie, it promoted Truchon to Smith-Haynie's position. (Id. ¶ 49.)
Smith-Haynie claims that when she returned to work after her medical leave, her direct supervisor, Linda Clark-Holland, "scrutinized" her performance and "issued a poor rating for the backlog" of work that had "accrued during [her] time on medical leave." (Id. ¶¶ 31, 70.) Clark-Holland also blamed Smith-Haynie for errors in a database for which Truchon was responsible. (Id. ¶ 71.) In May 2015, Clark-Holland gave Smith-Haynie an "unsatisfactory" rating despite the fact that she had served more veterans than expected and improved the accuracy rating for her team's reports. (Id. ¶¶ 45-46, 48, 74.) In June, Clark-Holland disciplined Smith-Haynie for changing a staff meeting time, being disrespectful to her, and mishandling a client issue. (Id. ¶ 75.) The next day, Clark-Holland also issued a "corrective action plan" to address Smith-Haynie's hostility toward her and failure to terminate and discipline certain staff members. (Id. ¶ 76.)
A week later, Smith-Haynie's attorney sent a letter to Lewis, "demanding that USVI cease and desist further unfair conditions and harassment toward Haynie, based on her race, age, disability and retaliation for taking leave." (Id. ¶ 82.) Three weeks later, USVI suspendedSmith-Haynie for three days without pay for failure to discipline two employees. (Id. ¶ 83.) Two months after that, on September 22, 2015, USVI terminated her. (Id. ¶ 84.)
A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim tests the legal sufficiency of a complaint. Browning v. Clinton, 292 F.3d 235, 242 (D.C. Cir. 2002). The court does not assess the truth of what is asserted nor "whether a plaintiff has any evidence to back up what is in the complaint." Id. (citation omitted). "To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). "The plausibility standard is not akin to a 'probability requirement,' but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully." Id. (citation omitted). "Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level" and move plaintiff's claims "across the line from conceivable to plausible." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 554, 555, 570 (2007). Facts that are "merely consistent" with a defendant's liability do not meet the plausibility standard. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (citation omitted).
"Courts in this Circuit 'have consistently recognized the ease with which a plaintiff claiming employment discrimination can survive . . . a motion to dismiss[.]'" McNair v. District of Columbia, 213 F. Supp. 3d 81, 86 (D.D.C. 2016) (quoting Fennell v. AARP, 770 F. Supp. 2d 118, 127 (D.D.C. 2011)). A plaintiff need not "plead every fact necessary to establish a prima facie case to survive a motion to dismiss." Jones v. Air Line Pilots Ass'n, Int'l, 642 F.3d 1100, 1104 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (citation omitted); see Farrar v. Wilkie, No. 18-cv-1585, 2019 WL 3037869, at *2 (D.D.C. July 11, 2019) (citing Gordon v. U.S. Capitol Police, 778 F.3d 158, 161-62 (D.C. Cir. 2015)). Nonetheless, a plaintiff must allege sufficient facts "about 'what . . . [,]who . . . [,] and how' that make such a claim plausible." Id. (quoting Arnold v. Speer, 251 F. Supp. 3d 269, 273 (D.D.C. 2017) (); see Harris v. D.C. Water & Sewer Auth., 791 F.3d 65, 70 (D.C. Cir. 2015) ().
The court presumes the truth of a plaintiff's factual allegations, see Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679, and construes the complaint "in favor of the plaintiff, who must be granted the benefit of all inferences that can be derived from the facts alleged." Hettinga v. United States, 677 F.3d 471, 476 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). This presumption does not apply, however, to a "legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation." Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678; see Ralls Corp. v. Comm. on Foreign Inv. in the U.S., 758 F.3d 296, 315 (D.C. Cir. 2014) ().
To state a claim for failure to accommodate, a plaintiff must allege facts sufficient to show that (1) she had a disability within the meaning of the ADA, (2) her employer had notice of her disability, (3) she could perform the essential functions of the position with reasonable accommodation, and (4) her employer refused to make such accommodation. Floyd v. Lee, 968 F. Supp. 2d 308, 326 (D.D.C. 2013) (citation omitted). The ADA defines "disability" to mean "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual." 42 U.S.C. § 12102(1)(A). To be disabled under the ADA, an individual must plead facts to show: (1) that she has a physical or mental impairment (2) that substantially limits (3) amajor life activity. Haynes v. Williams, 392 F.3d 478, 481-82 (D.C. Cir. 2004). The "term 'substantially limits' shall be construed broadly in favor of expansive coverage" and "is not meant to be a demanding standard." 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(j)(1)(i). An impairment is a disability "if it substantially limits the ability of an individual to perform a major life activity as compared to most people in the general population." 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(j)(1)(ii). While Congress amended the ADA in 2008 to broaden coverage and relax the standards under which an individual is deemed disabled, 42 U.S.C. § 12102(4), in order to survive a motion to dismiss, plaintiffs must...
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