Williams v. MediaLinks TV, LLC
| Docket Number | 22-cv-2427 (DLF) |
| Decision Date | 13 March 2023 |
| Parties | ROY WILLIAMS, Plaintiff, v. MEDIALINKS TV, LLC, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
Plaintiff Roy Williams brings this employment action against MediaLinks TV, LLC. Before the Court is the defendant's Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings, Dkt. 14. For the reasons that follow, the Court will deny the motion.
Roy Williams, an African-American male who is now sixty-four years old, worked for MediaLinks TV, LLC, as a lighting technician and video engineer from January 2014 to January 2019. Compl. ¶¶ 3, 14. He “previously had forty-plus years of network [and] major market television production experience,” id. ¶ 9, and had obtained “at least five secret service clearances for presidential and other high-level events,” id. ¶ 13.
In January 2014, Williams was first hired by MediaLinks on a “part-time” basis. Id. ¶ 14. He “later learned” that “three of his White co-workers . . . who performed the same job . . . were paid a higher salar[y].” Id. ¶ 15. Williams continued to “consistently receive[] very good employee evaluations and annual performance-based pay raises for his work,” and he became a full-time employee in December 2016. Id. ¶ 16.
On March 18, 2018, Williams was “working to resolve [a] lighting malfunction during a show” when he heard his younger, white female co-worker, Lora Ersbo, comment over her headset: Id. ¶¶ 18-25. “Paul” referred to Paul Lenihan, a white male co-worker. Id. ¶ 26. After hearing Ersbo's comments, Williams asked another co-worker, Valente Miranda, “why he was being treated as such,” to which Miranda responded: “We were just ragging on you!” Id. ¶¶ 27-28.
On April 20, 2018, Williams requested to meet with his new supervisor, Manuel Samaniego, to express his concerns about Ersbo's “hostile, disparaging, and unprofessional conduct towards him.” Id. ¶ 32. He reported similar concerns to Samaniego “three or more times” after this meeting, but Ersbo was not investigated or disciplined. Id. ¶¶ 35 39-40.
From November 20, 2018 through November 26, 2018, Williams was suspended from work. Id. ¶ 41. At a November 28, 2018 meeting following his return from work, Williams's superiors, Samaniego and Ursula Perales-Muretta, gave him a Corrective Action Notice explaining the reasons for his suspension. Compl. ¶¶ 55-56; see Ex. B (Notice), Dkt. 14-4. The Notice stated that Williams had violated Samaniego's newly implemented policy against use of a phone 10 minutes before a live or taped broadcast, Notice at 1; Compl. ¶ 37, and that Williams had engaged in “inappropriate comments and aggressive behavior” to another member of the studio team, Ersbo, Notice at 1; Compl. ¶ 56. Ersbo “was not reprimanded or punished for her involvement” in the incidents described in the Notice. Compl. ¶ 57.
At the same November 28 meeting, Williams presented his supervisors with a memo listing his complaints about Ersbo, as well as his perception that Ersbo was given “preferential treatment . . . for workplace violations in which she was not suspended or given time off.” Compl. ¶¶ 46-47; Ex. A (Memo), Dkt. 14-3. In the memo, he complained about the March 18 incident; that on another occasion Ersbo “was willing to let the operation suffer in order to try to get [him] in trouble,” Memo at 3; and that on a third occasion Ersbo asked him to turn off a game he was watching during a broadcast, id. at 4. He also admitted that, during the last incident, he “rais[ed] his voice and us[ed] a slang term ‘Scuzz Bucket,'” used to refer to “unsavorable” behavior, to describe Ersbo. Id. Williams also informed his supervisors that he had completed an initial intake with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) because he believed “he had a claim for hostile work environment.” Compl. ¶ 49. In response, Samaniego “informed [Williams] that because of his age and experience, he should be able to absorb the comments of Ersbo.” Id. ¶ 52. Ersbo had not been and was not later reprimanded or disciplined for her involvement in any of the incidents listed in Williams's memo. Id. ¶ 57.
Finally, on January 14, 2019, Williams's employment was terminated “due to write ups for two unapproved late arrivals.” Id. ¶ 59. According to Williams, one late arrival occurred following a surgery and had been approved by Samaniego; as to the second late arrival, he had informed Samaniego that he would arrive late when his vehicle was stuck in a snowstorm. Id. ¶ 60. Another basis for Williams's termination was his participation in a “conversation [at work] about the possibility of purchasing a firearm” to protect his home in the aftermath of two breakins. Id. ¶¶ 63-65. None of the four or five other co-workers who participated in the conversation were disciplined for it. Id. ¶ 71.
On June 5, 2019, Williams filed a complaint against MediaLinks with the D.C. Office of Human Rights, cross-filed with the EEOC. Id. ¶ 77. His Request to Withdraw was granted on January 18, 2022, and the EEOC issued a Notice of Right to Sue on May 31, 2022. Id. ¶¶ 78, 80. Williams filed a complaint against MediaLinks in D.C. Superior Court containing claims for retaliation, age discrimination, and race discrimination. Id. ¶¶ 81-101. On August 15, 2022, MediaLinks removed the complaint, Dkt. 1, and filed an answer to the complaint, Dkt. 10. It then moved for judgment on the pleadings, Dkt. 14.
Because MediaLinks already filed an answer, Dkt. 10, to Williams's complaint, the pleadings are closed, and it has properly moved for judgment on the pleadings. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(c). It has attached two exhibits to its motion, Dkt. 14-3; Dkt. 14-4, that the Court may consider without converting the motion into a motion for summary judgment because each exhibit is “referred to in the complaint and is central to [Williams's] claim.” Vanover v. Hantman, 77 F.Supp.2d 91, 98 (D.D.C. 1999), aff'd 38 Fed.Appx. 4 (D.C. Cir. 2002); Compl. ¶¶ 45-48 (), 55-56 (discussing contents of Corrective Action Notice); see also Lopez v. Nat'l Archives & Records Admin., 301 F.Supp.3d 78, 85 (D.D.C. 2018).
A movant is entitled to judgment on the pleadings under Rule 12(c) if it “demonstrates that no material fact is in dispute and that it is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Schuler v. PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP, 514 F.3d 1365, 1370 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (cleaned up). Here, the Court reviews the motion for judgment on the pleadings under the same standard that governs a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. See McNamara v. Picken, 866 F.Supp.2d 10, 14 (D.D.C. 2012); Schuchart v. La Taberna Del Alabardero, Inc., 365 F.3d 33, 35 (D.C. Cir. 2004). Under this standard, to survive the Rule 12(c) motion, a complaint must contain factual matter sufficient to “state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). A facially plausible claim is one that “allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). This standard does not amount to a specific probability requirement, but it does require “more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.” Id.; see also Twombly, 550 U.S. at 557 (). A complaint need not contain “detailed factual allegations,” but alleging facts that are “merely consistent with a defendant's liability . . . stops short of the line between possibility and plausibility.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Well-pleaded factual allegations are “entitled to [an] assumption of truth,” id. at 679, and the court 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). The assumption of truth does not apply, however, to a “legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (quotation marks omitted). An “unadorned, the defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation” is not credited; likewise, “[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.” Id.
In count two, Williams has plausibly alleged a claim for age discrimination under the D.C. Human Rights Act. See D.C. Code § 2-1401.01. A prima facie claim for age discrimination requires that the plaintiff show that he “(1) was at least forty years of age, (2) suffered an adverse employment action, and (3) that there was some reason to believe that the adverse employment action was based on the employee's age.” Badwal v. Bd. of Trs. of Univ. of Dist. of Columbia, 139 F.Supp.3d 295, 315 (D.D.C. 2015). But “a plaintiff alleging employment discrimination is not required to plead every element of the prima facie case in order to survive a motion to dismiss . . . as long as the complaint meets the plausibility standard.” Id. (citing Jones v. Air Line Pilots Ass'n Int'l, 642 F.3d 1100, 1104 (D.C. Cir. 2011)).
The complaint plausibly alleges the elements of a prima facie case. Williams has alleged that, at the time of his employment, he was over 40 years old. See Compl. ¶ 3. He suffered an adverse employment action when he was terminated in January 2019.[2...
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