Uzoukwu v. Metro. Wash. Council of Governments

• Citation: 983 F.Supp.2d 67
• Decision Date: 30 September 2013
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 11–cv–391 (RLW)
• Parties: Chinyere Uzoukwu, Plaintiff, v. Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

983 F.Supp.2d 67

Chinyere Uzoukwu, Plaintiff,

v.Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 11–cv–391 (RLW)

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

September 30, 2013

Chinyere Uzoukwu, Adelphi, MD, pro se.

Joleen Okun, Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C., Washington, DC, Daniel A. Brown, Jesse D. Stein, Brown & Gould, LLP, Bethesda, MD, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

ROBERT L. WILKINS, United States District Judge

Presently before the Court are the following motions: (1) “Plaintiff's Motion for Reconsideration Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(e), To Set Aside/Vacate Judgment and Request for Post–Judgment Leave to Amend Claims Under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. [§] 2000e and 42 U.S.C. § 1981 Renewing Argument for Equitable Tolling”; and (2) “Motion for Relief from Judgment nunc pro tunc, Pursuant to Rule 60(b)(3).” (Docs. 41, 45.) For the reasons set forth below, the Court will deny relief in part and grant relief in part. The Court will deny relief with respect to Plaintiff's Title VII, ADA, ADEA, and national origin claims, along with any claims alleging gender discrimination or sexual harassment. Reluctantly, the Court will grant Plaintiff post-judgment relief and allow some of her Section 1981 claims to go forward, as well as some of her state law claims. Specifically, Plaintiff asserts sufficient facts to support plausible claims for the following cause of action: Ethnicity based Section 1981 Retaliation and Hostile Work Environment claims asserted against Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (“COG”) and Calvin Smith; Ethnicity Based Section 1981 Retaliation claims asserted against Paul DesJardin and Imelda Roberts; Tortious Interference with Contract claims asserted against Smith, DesJardin and Roberts for alleged interference with Plaintiff's employment at COG; and negligent supervision and/or retention as asserted against COG. The remaining claims will be dismissed.

I. BACKGROUND FACTS

Pro se plaintiff Chinyere Uzoukwu is Nigerian. (Doc. 21–3, Pl.'s 1st Proposed Amend. Compl. ¶ 139.) She initiated this action with a complaint in which she asserted claims under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq., the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”), 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq., and the Americans With Disabilities Act (“ADA”), 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq. ( See Compl. ¶¶ 1–2.) In the complaint she also mentioned the Equal Pay Act, 29 U.S.C. § 206(d), alleged invasion of privacy, and violation of the “District of Columbia Statute of bias-motivated violence or intimidation.” (See Compl. ¶¶ 2, 51, 52.) Plaintiff brought her federal claims against her former employer, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (“COG”). COG is an independent nonprofit association comprised of elected officials from twenty-one local governments, members of the Maryland and Virginia state legislatures, and members of the U.S. Congress. ( See Doc. 2, COG Mot. to Dismiss at 2; Compl. ¶ 5.) COG terminated Plaintiff's employment in March 2008 and she claims her termination was motivated by discriminatory animus. (Compl. ¶ 14.) She also claims that she suffered retaliation and harassment during her employment at COG.

Plaintiff brought her federal and/or state law claims against eight individual defendants, seven of whom were current or former COG employees.¹ The eighth individual defendant, Molly Keller, was an employee of MHNet, which is a behavioral health entity that provides services to COG. Plaintiff asserted claims against Keller for “tortious interference” and “bias/politically motivated violence/intimidation in violation of DC Statutes.” (Doc. 26, Pl.s' Resp. to Keller's Mot to Dismiss at 4.)

In an earlier opinion, Uzoukwu v. Metro. Wash. Council of Govts., 845 F.Supp.2d 168, 171 n. 3 (D.D.C.2012), this Court dismissed with prejudice Plaintiff's Title VII, ADEA and ADA claims asserted against the individual defendants because individuals are not subject to liability under these statutes. See Smith v. Janey, 664 F.Supp.2d 1, 8 (D.D.C.2009) (“[T]here is no individual liability under Title VII, the ADEA or the ADA.”), aff'd Smith v. Rhee, No. 09–7100, 2010 WL 1633177 (D.C.Cir.Apr. 6, 2010). The Court also dismissed with prejudice these same federal claims as asserted against COG because Plaintiff failed properly to file her complaint within 90 days after receiving her EEOC right to sue letter. Uzoukwu, 845 F.Supp.2d at 170–74; see42 U.S.C. § 2000e–5(f)(1) (Title VII); 29 U.S.C. § 626(e) (ADEA); 42 U.S.C. § 12117(a) (applying Title VII limitations period to ADA claims). Further, the Court found that she had not acted diligently to preserve her claims and, therefore, Plaintiff could not rely on equitable tolling to excuse her failure to file her complaint in a timely fashion.²

With no remaining federal claims, this Court dismissed the purported state law claims, without prejudice, as asserted against the seven individual COG defendants because Plaintiff had not set forth sufficient facts for this Court to determine whether diversity jurisdiction existed. Uzoukwu, 845 F.Supp.2d at 173 n. 7. The claims asserted against Keller were dismissed without prejudice because there was no evidence the Court had subject matter jurisdiction over those claims and no evidence that Keller had been properly served. See id.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Motion to Reconsider: Title VII, ADEA, & ADA Claims³

Inasmuch as the federal employment discrimination claims were the touchstone of her complaint, the motion to reconsiderhinges on the timeliness of those claims. “A Rule 59(e) motion [for reconsideration] ‘is discretionary’ and need not be granted unless the district court finds that there is an ‘intervening change of controlling law, the availability of new evidence, or the need to correct a clear error or prevent manifest injustice.’ ” Firestone v. Firestone, 76 F.3d 1205, 1208 (D.C.Cir.1996) (citations omitted).⁴ Plaintiff seeks relief pursuant to Rule 59(e) because she claims she can establish clear error. According to Plaintiff, the Court misconstrued and misunderstood the circumstances surrounding the submission and later filing of her complaint. In her Rule 59 motion Plaintiff attempts to “clarify” the circumstances surrounding the initiation of this lawsuit. (Doc. 41, Mot. to Reconsider at 7.) In her view these circumstances justify equitably tolling the statute of limitations for her Title VII claims.

Plaintiff's second Rule 59(e) argument is that she is entitled to relief from the judgment because she has “new” evidence. Finally, she seeks relief pursuant to Rule 60(b)(3) because she claims she can establish fraud. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(3) allows relief from a “final judgment, order or proceeding” where the Plaintiff can establish “fraud (whether previously called intrinsic or extrinsic), misrepresentation, or misconduct by an opposing party.”

1. Clear Error: Equitable Tolling

A Plaintiff who wishes to pursue Title VII litigation must file her lawsuit within ninety days of receiving her right to sue letter from the EEOC. See42 U.S.C. § 2000e–5(f)(1) (Title VII); 29 U.S.C. § 626(e) (ADEA); 42 U.S.C. § 12117(a) (applying Title VII limitations period to ADA claims). “Courts apply the ninety-day time limit strictly and will dismiss a suit for missing the deadline by even one day.” Wiley v. Johnson, 436 F.Supp.2d 91, 96 (D.D.C.2006) (citation omitted); see Woodruff v. Peters, 482 F.3d 521, 525 (D.C.Cir.2007).

When Plaintiff submitted her complaint to the Court, on November 16, 2010, she had eight days left in which to timely file her complaint. Attached to the complaint was an application to proceed without payment of fees ( in forma pauperis or “IFP”) in which she indicated that she was unmarried and had no dependents; she was unemployed; she owned a Mercedes Benz valued at $6,500; she lived in a residence valued between $395,000 and $430,000; and she had $20,000 in cash or in her bank accounts. ( See Uzoukwu v. Metro. Wash. Council of Gov'ts, 11–mc–15–UNA at Doc. 1.)

The application was denied without explanation and mailed to Plaintiff who received it on December 2, 2010. Because the limitations period had been tolled while the Court considered her IFP application, upon receiving the IFP denial order she arguably had until December 10 (eight additional days) to timely file her complaint.⁵See Ruiz v. Vilsack, 763 F.Supp.2d 168, 172–73 (D.D.C.2011) (noting that complaints submitted with an IFP application are not “filed,” but instead “received” by the Court and the ninety-day statute of limitations is tolled during the Court's review of the IFP application) (citations and internal quotations omitted).

In a sworn affidavit, Plaintiff now more fully explains what occurred between the time she received the IFP denial order and the time she filed her complaint over two months later:

In seeking IFP, Plaintiff did not and could not have known about the concept of tolling. When the IFP denial was returned beyond the 90 days, there was no indication that Plaintiff had to act by a certain time nor that Plaintiff had any additional time in which to act. Plaintiff was in a state of confusion and believed her claim was dead, and thereafter began to research what to do. From December 7–10, Plaintiff began to contact legal aid....

As a last resort Plaintiff contacted the pro se unit of the Court on about December 13^th or 14^th and was informed of the process of rotation by the Judges and that she should wait and resubmit for reconsideration in the next cycle after the new year: usually the second week. Plaintiff took the counsel of the pro se unit, in that they provide counsel to litigants accorded IFP which Plaintiff was seeking to obtain.

(Doc. 41, Mot. to Reconsider at 7; id. at Attachment 1, Uzoukwu Aff. ¶¶ 14, 15(b), 16, 19.) ⁶

On January 11, 2011, approximately forty days after she received the IFP denial order, Plaintiff filed a motion seeking reconsideration of her ...