Maureen Edwards v. SmithKline Beecham Corporation

Filing 920090727

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 08-2345

MAUREEN L. EDWARDS, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. SMITHKLINE BEECHAM CORPORATION, d/b/a GlaxoSmithKline, Defendant - Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. William D. Quarles, Jr., District Judge. (1:08-cv-01250-WDQ)

Submitted:

July 9, 2009

Decided:

July 27, 2009

Before NIEMEYER, SHEDD, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Joyce E. Smithey, RIFKIN, LIVINGSTON, LEVITAN & SILVER, LLC, Annapolis, Maryland, for Appellant. Deborah K. St. Lawrence, BROWN & SHEEHAN, LLP, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

PER CURIAM: Maureen L. Edwards appeals the district court's order dismissing Employee her complaint, Income which alleged Act violation ("ERISA") of the state We

Retirement

Security

and

employment law, and denying her motion for reconsideration.

have reviewed the parties' briefs and joint appendix and find no reversible error. Accordingly, we affirm primarily for the

reasons stated by the district court.

See Edwards v. SmithKline

Beecham Corp., No. 1:08-cv-01250-WDQ (D. Md. Sept. 18 & Nov. 20, 2008). We district briefly failed address to Edwards' her assertion contention that that the her

claim

address

exhaustion of remedies was not required regarding her claim of wrongful discharge. Even assuming that an ERISA wrongful

discharge claim does not require exhaustion of administrative remedies, Edwards' complaint does not raise this claim.

Instead, in Edwards' ERISA claim in her complaint, she averred only that GSK interfered with her right to retirement and other severance benefits. Wrongful discharge was raised only as a Moreover, we find the claim of wrongful

violation of state law.

termination that Edwards now attempts to assert would have been insufficient to survive the motion to dismiss. See Bell Atl.

Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 570 (2007) (holding that to survive a motion to dismiss, "[f]actual 2 allegations must be

enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level" and the complaint must contain "enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face"). Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court. legal before We dispense with oral argument because the facts and contentions the court are and adequately argument presented not in aid the the materials decisional

would

process. AFFIRMED

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