WHITTINGTON v. Wash. SUBURBAN SANITARY
| Decision Date | 28 March 2011 |
| Docket Number | Action No. 08:10-CV-425—AW |
| Parties | WENDY WHITTINGTON, On behalf of herself and other current and former employees similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. WASHINGTON SUBURBAN SANITARY, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Maryland |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Pending before the Court is Defendant Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission's ("WSSC") Motion to Dismiss or in the Alternative, Motion for Summary Judgment. (Doc. No. 5). Plaintiff, Wendy Whittington, has filed a motion summary judgment in this matter. (Doc. No. 11). Plaintiff has also filed a Motion for Leave to File Out of Time (Doc. No. 22). Each of these Motions will be addressed seriatim.
In this suit, Plaintiff, Wendy Whittington, alleges that her current employer, Defendant Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, violated several federal and state laws during the course of Plaintiff's employment with the Commission. Plaintiff filed suit in this Court on February 22, 2010. (Doc. No. 1). In her Complaint, Plaintiff alleges eight counts against Defendant, including Violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), §201 (Count I); Violation of the Maryland Wage and Hour Law (Count II); Violation of the Maryland Wage Payment Act (Count III); Violation of FLSA §207 (Count IV); Violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (Count V); Violation of ADEA (Count VI); Violation of Maryland Fair Employment Practices Act, Article 49B §16 (a)(1-2) for Age and Disability Discrimination(Count VII); Violation of Maryland Fair Employment Practices Act, Article 49B §16 (a)(1-2)) for Retaliation (Count VIII).
The Maryland legislature established the WSSC under Article 29 of the Annotated Code of Maryland. The WSSC provides water and wastewater services to Montgomery and Prince George's Counties. According to Defendant, the WSSC has an Acquisition Office "which operates a centralized purchasing system." The Acquisitions Office "handles all tasks related to the purchase and procurement of the equipment, materials, supplies, and contractual services that WSSC requires in connection with the construction and maintenance of its water and wastewater systems." (Doc. No. 5-2, at 3).
Plaintiff has worked at the WSSC for twenty-nine years, and she continues to work at the WSSC as a Grade 17 Acquisition Consultant in WSCC's Acquisitions Office, in which position she is responsible for processing requisitions and other procurement related work. (Doc. No. 10, at 2). Before she began in her current position, Plaintiff was a Procurement Consultant II. In this position, she was classified as a non-exempt employee and paid overtime, for each hour over forty hours that she worked each week.
According to Plaintiff, in March 2008, Plaintiff and other procurement consultants had their titled changed to Acquisition Consultants. As a result of this change, they were reclassified as exempt employees and hence, excluded from the Fair Labor Standard Act requirement that they receive payment for working overtime. Plaintiff avers that despite the change in her job title, she has the same job responsibilities that she had before her title changed. (Doc. No. 10, at 2-3)("She and other similarly situated acquisition consultants and procurement staffers do not engage in management, do not direct the work of two or more employees, do not have authority to hire or promote employees and do not perform work directly related to themanagement or general business operations of WSSC."). Plaintiff avers that Defendant failed to pay her and other similarly situated acquisition consultants overtime wages for time that they worked over forty hours, after their positions were changed in March 2008. Id. at 3. Plaintiff avers that the job that she performed at WSSC was merely clerical, and in the duties that she performs in her current position at WSSC (which includes the duty to prepare purchase order data sheets), she does not have the authority to bind the Commission.
In 2007, Plaintiff began reporting to James Weldon, Senior Acquisition Consultant. Plaintiff states that Weldon gave her a heavy workload, which caused her to experience health problems in 2007. Id. at 6. According to plaintiff, she has to work twelve to thirteen hours a week to keep up with her work, which has caused her blood pressure to drastically increase from its normal level.
Plaintiff also alleges that she faced harassment because of her age and as retaliation for engaging in protected speech. Weldon, who was twenty-six years old, told plaintiff that Id. at 6-7. Plaintiff requested that Weldon stop commenting about her age. Weldon and Plaintiff continued to endure tension in their working relationship, resulting in Plaintiff asking Weldon to attend mediation, which Weldon refused.
Plaintiff avers that prior to March 2008, she was required to work overtime on several occasions, and WSSC compensated her for the overtime hours that she worked. However, in late February/early March of 2008, Plaintiff avers that Defendant informed her that she would not be compensated for the overtime work that she had done. Accordingly, Plaintiff alleges that shehas not been paid for the sixteen hours of overtime that she worked in late February/early March 2008.
Plaintiff wrote a letter to Thomas Laboon on March 3, 2008. In her letter, she complained about the harassment, threats, and excessive work that she was enduring on her job. That same week, on March 7, 2008, Plaintiff wrote a letter to Rudolph Chow, the Deputy General Manager of WSSC, in which she discussed the discrimination, retaliation, and excessive work that she was enduring. Plaintiff avers that no action was taken in response to her complaints.
Subsequently, in March 2008, Plaintiff received a diagnosis that she was suffering from anxiety, hypertension, and hyperlilidemia. Her doctor wrote her a letter reflecting the diagnosis. When she showed this letter to her WSSC supervisors, they allegedly involuntarily removed her from her position. Plaintiff avers that "she was off work for approximately five months beginning in March 7, 2008, and she was forced to use approximately 700 hours in sick and annual leave." Id. at 8.
The instant suit addresses these factual allegations. Defendant moves to dismiss Counts I-V of Plaintiff's Complaint. Plaintiff moves for summary judgment on Counts I, II, and IV of her Complaint. The Court will address these motions herein.
Defendants in FLSA cases have the burden to "prove by clear and convincing evidence that an employee qualifies for exemption." Shockley v. City of Newport News, 997 F.2d 18, 21 (4th Cir.1993). In making this showing, "[t]he employer has the burden of establishing by affirmative evidence all the necessary requirements of the exemption." Dalheim v. KDFW-TV, 706 F.Supp. 493, 501 (N.D.Tex.1988), aff'd, 918 F.2d 1220 (5th Cir.1990); Clark v. J.M. BensonCo., 789 F.2d 282, 285-86 (4th Cir.1986). Exemptions from the FLSA's overtime pay requirements are "narrowly construed." Walton v. Greenbrier Ford, Inc., 370 F.3d 446, 450 (4th Cir.2004)(citing Auer v. Robbins, 519 U.S. 452, 462, 117 S.Ct. 905, 137 L.Ed.2d 79 (1997)); Shockley, 997 F.2d at 24 .
The purpose of a motion to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) is to test the sufficiency of the plaintiff's complaint. See Edwards v. City of Goldsboro, 178 F.3d 231, 243 (4th Cir. 1999). Generally, a complaint need only satisfy the "simplified pleading standard" of Rule 8(a), Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N.A., 534 U.S. 506, 513 (2002), which requires a "short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). Nevertheless, the Supreme Court has directed courts that "Rule 8 still requires a 'showing,'" of "enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 556 n.3 (2007). In its determination, the Court must consider all well-pled allegations in a complaint as true, Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266, 268 (1994), and must construe all factual allegations in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. See Harrison v. Westinghouse Savannah River Co., 176 F.3d 776, 783 (4th Cir. 1999). The Court need not, however, accept unsupported legal allegations, Revene v. Charles County Comm "rs, 882 F.2d 870, 873 (4th Cir. 1989), legal conclusions couched as factual allegations, Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286 (1986), or conclusory factual allegations devoid of any reference to actual events, United Black Firefighters v. Hirst, 604 F.2d 844, 847 (4th Cir. 1979). In sum, "factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level, on theassumption that all the allegations in the complaint are true (even if doubtful in fact)." Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555 (citations omitted).
Summary judgment is only appropriate if the pleadings, the discovery and disclosure materials on file, and any affidavits show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c); see Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323-25 (1986). The Court must draw all justifiable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party, including questions of credibility and of the weight to be accorded to particular evidence. Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc., 501 U.S. 496, 520 (1991) (citing Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255 (1986)). To defeat a motion for...
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