Ryfa v. State of Delaware et al

Filing 25

OPINION. Signed by Judge Noel L. Hillman on 2/7/2012. (lih)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF DELAWARE

HELEN F. RYFA,
Plaintiff,
v.
STATE OF DELAWARE,
et al.,
Defendants.

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Civ. A. No. 10-602 (NLH)(AMD)

OPINION

APPEARANCES:
Helen F. Ryfa
307 E. Silver Fox Road
Newark, DE 19702
Appearing pro se
Catherine T. Hickey
Department of Justice
102 West Water Street
Dover, DE 19904
On behalf of the State of Delaware
James H. McMackin III
Allyson Britton DiRocco
David H. Williams
Morris James LLP
500 Delaware Avenue, Suite 1500
P.O. Box 2306
Wilmington, DE 19899-2306
On behalf of other defendants
HILLMAN, District Judge
Plaintiff, Helen F. Ryfa, claims that defendants--the State
of Delaware, the Christiana School District, and several
individual employees of the school district--violated her civil
rights under several federal statutes, such as the Civil Rights
Act, American with Disabilities Act, and the Equal Opportunity

Act, and other various state laws.

Plaintiff alleges she was

retaliated against, faced a hostile environment, and was
unlawfully terminated from her teaching position with the
Delaware Autism Program in the Christiana School District.
Plaintiff seeks money damages for her injuries, as well as to
enjoin the school district from committing any more
discriminatory actions.
Presently before the Court is the motion of the State of
Delaware to dismiss plaintiff’s case against it for improper
service and other substantive deficiencies.1
opposed the State’s motion.

Plaintiff has not

For the reasons expressed below, the

State’s motion will be granted.
DISCUSSION
A.

Jurisdiction

Plaintiff has brought her claims pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §
1983, as well as other federal statutes and state laws.

This

Court has jurisdiction over plaintiff’s federal claims under 28
U.S.C. § 1331, and supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiff’s
state law claims under 28 U.S.C. § 1367.
B.

Motion to Dismiss Standard

When considering a motion to dismiss a complaint for failure
to state a claim upon which relief can be granted pursuant to
1

The other defendants have filed their answer to plaintiff’s
complaint, and they take no position on the State’s motion. (See
Docket No. 19, 20.)
2

Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), a court must accept all well-pleaded
allegations in the complaint as true and view them in the light
most favorable to the plaintiff.
347, 351 (3d Cir. 2005).

Evancho v. Fisher, 423 F.3d

It is well settled that a pleading is

sufficient if it contains “a short and plain statement of the
claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.”
Civ. P. 8(a)(2).

Fed. R.

Under the liberal federal pleading rules, it is

not necessary to plead evidence, and it is not necessary to plead
all the facts that serve as a basis for the claim.
Gulf Oil Corp., 562 F.2d 434, 446 (3d Cir. 1977).

Bogosian v.
However,

“[a]lthough the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not require a
claimant to set forth an intricately detailed description of the
asserted basis for relief, they do require that the pleadings
give defendant fair notice of what the plaintiff’s claim is and
the grounds upon which it rests.”

Baldwin County Welcome Ctr. v.

Brown, 466 U.S. 147, 149-50 n.3 (1984) (quotation and citation
omitted).
A district court, in weighing a motion to dismiss, asks
“‘not whether a plaintiff will ultimately prevail but whether the
claimant is entitled to offer evidence to support the claim.’”
Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, 127 S. Ct. 1955, 1969 n.8 (2007)
(quoting Scheuer v. Rhoades, 416 U.S. 232, 236 (1974)); see also
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1949 (2009) (“Our decision in
Twombly expounded the pleading standard for ‘all civil actions’ .

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. . .”); Fowler v. UPMC Shadyside, 578 F.3d 203, 210 (3d Cir.
2009) (“Iqbal . . . provides the final nail-in-the-coffin for the
‘no set of facts’ standard that applied to federal complaints
before Twombly.”).
Following the Twombly/Iqbal standard, the Third Circuit has
instructed a two-part analysis in reviewing a complaint under
Rule 12(b)(6).

First, the factual and legal elements of a claim

should be separated; a district court must accept all of the
complaint's well-pleaded facts as true, but may disregard any
legal conclusions.
Ct. at 1950).

Fowler, 578 F.3d at 210 (citing Iqbal, 129 S.

Second, a district court must then determine

whether the facts alleged in the complaint are sufficient to show
that the plaintiff has a “‘plausible claim for relief.’”
(quoting Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1950).

Id.

A complaint must do more

than allege the plaintiff's entitlement to relief.

Id.; see also

Phillips v. County of Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 234 (3d Cir. 2008)
(stating that the “Supreme Court's Twombly formulation of the
pleading standard can be summed up thus: ‘stating . . . a claim
requires a complaint with enough factual matter (taken as true)
to suggest’ the required element.

This ‘does not impose a

probability requirement at the pleading stage,’ but instead
‘simply calls for enough facts to raise a reasonable expectation
that discovery will reveal evidence of’ the necessary element”).
A court need not credit either “bald assertions” or “legal
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conclusions” in a complaint when deciding a motion to dismiss.
In re Burlington Coat Factory Sec. Litig., 114 F.3d 1410, 1429-30
(3d Cir. 1997).

The defendant bears the burden of showing that

no claim has been presented.

Hedges v. U.S., 404 F.3d 744, 750

(3d Cir. 2005) (citing Kehr Packages, Inc. v. Fidelcor, Inc., 926
F.2d 1406, 1409 (3d Cir. 1991)).
C.

Analysis

In her complaint, plaintiff claims that certain supervisors
and fellow teachers in the Delaware Autism Program, which is a
program provided by the Christiana School District, discriminated
and retaliated against her because of her disability and
protected activity.

Plaintiff has lodged her claims against the

school district and individuals employed by the school district.
Plaintiff has also filed suit against the State of Delaware,
which has moved to dismiss plaintiff’s claims against it on
several bases, including improper service, sovereign immunity,
and lack of any cognizable claims against it.

Plaintiff has not

opposed the State’s motion.2
Plaintiff’s claims against the State of Delaware must be
2

When the State electronically filed its motion on June 1,
2011, the State mailed plaintiff a copy via U.S. Mail. The
Clerk’s office also mailed plaintiff a copy. Plaintiff never
filed a response or otherwise contacted the Court. Two months
later, on August 12, 2011, the State mailed to plaintiff another
copy of its motion. As of the date of this Opinion, plaintiff
has not filed her opposition and she has not contacted the Court.
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dismissed for all the reasons articulated by the State in its
motion.

As a primary matter, plaintiff’s claims against the

State are in violation of Federal Civil Procedure Rule 8(a).
Under the liberal federal pleading rules, the pleadings are
required to give a defendant fair notice of what a plaintiff’s
claims are and the grounds upon which they rest.
Welcome Ctr., 466 U.S. at 149-50 n.3.

Baldwin County

Although plaintiff’s

complaint generally claims that the State violated her various
rights, she does not allege how the State was involved in her
employment with the school district or how it participated in the
resulting alleged discrimination and retaliation.
The State is a distinct entity from the school district,
which is governed by the school board.

See 14 Del. C. § 1043.3

Plaintiff has not alleged any facts that tie the school
district’s alleged actions to the State.4

Even though pro se

complaints are to be construed liberally, Estelle v. Gamble, 429
U.S. 97, 107 (1976), pro se litigants “must still plead the
essential elements of [their] claim and [are] not excused from

3

14 Del. C. § 1043 provides, “In each reorganized school
district there shall be a school board which shall have the
authority to administer and to supervise the free public schools
of the reorganized school district and which shall have the
authority to determine policy and adopt rules and regulations for
the general administration and supervision of the free public
schools of the reorganized school district.”
4

Plaintiff has not filed suit against the school board that
governs the Christiana School District.
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conforming to the standard rules of civil procedure.”
United States, 508 U.S. 106, 113 (1993).
meet this basic element.

McNeil v.

Plaintiff has failed to

Consequently, plaintiff’s complaint

against the State may be dismissed on this basis alone.
Even if plaintiff were permitted to amend her complaint to
specify the claims against the State, it would be futile.5

In

addition to her pleading deficiencies, plaintiff’s claims against
the State fail substantively for several other reasons: (1)
plaintiff has not properly served the State, see Fed. R. Civ. P.
4(j); 10 Del. C. § 3103(c) (“No service of summons upon the State
. . . shall be complete until such service is made upon the
person of the Attorney General or upon the person of the State
Solicitor or upon the person of the Chief Deputy Attorney
General.”); (2) the State is immune from suit, see Will v.
Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 66 (1989) (stating
that § 1983 “provides a federal forum to remedy many deprivations
of civil liberties, but it does not provide a federal forum for
litigants who seek a remedy against a State for alleged
deprivations of civil liberties.

The Eleventh Amendment bars

such suits unless the State has waived its immunity”); Quern v.

5

See Fletcher-Harlee Corp. v. Pote Concrete Contractors,
Inc., 482 F.3d 247, 251 (3d Cir. 2007) (stating that Third
Circuit case law “supports the notion that in civil rights cases
district courts must offer amendment--irrespective of whether it
is requested--when dismissing a case for failure to state a claim
unless doing so would be inequitable or futile”).
7

Jordan, 440 U.S. 332, 342 (1979) (reaffirming “that a suit in
federal court by private parties seeking to impose a liability
which must be paid from public funds in the state treasury is
barred by the Eleventh Amendment”); Employees of Dept. of Public
Health & Welfare v. Dept. of Public Health & Welfare, 411 U.S.
279, 280 (1973) (stating that even though the text of the
Eleventh Amendment expressly bars suits in federal court against
states by citizens of other states and foreign states, the
Amendment has been broadly interpreted to provide immunity to an
unconsenting state for “suits brought in federal courts by her
own citizens as well”); (3) the State is not a “person” within
the meaning of § 1983, see Will, 491 U.S. at 66, 71; (4) the
State was not plaintiff’s employer, see 14 Del. C. § 1043; (5)
for any requested injunctive relief, the Ex Parte Young doctrine
is inapplicable, see Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908)
(explaining that the judicial doctrine of Ex Parte Young allows
suits against states in federal court seeking prospective
injunctive relief to proceed only against state officials acting
in the official capacities, but the doctrine does not apply when
a suit is ultimately asking a federal court to direct a state
official on how to operate under state law); and (6) no causes of
action exist under the other state and federal regulations and
executive orders pleaded in her complaint.

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CONCLUSION
Consequently, because plaintiff’s complaint against the
State of Delaware contains incurable substantive deficiencies,
plaintiff’s claims against the State must be dismissed without
leave to amend.

An appropriate Order will be entered.

Date: February 7, 2012

s/ Noel L. Hillman
NOEL L. HILLMAN, U.S.D.J.

At Camden, New Jersey

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