RIDLEY v. DYNAMIC VISION HOME HEALTH SERVICES et al

Filing 19

MEMORANDUM AND OPINION. Signed by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan on 9/18/14. (ms, )

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
DONNA A. RIDLEY,
Plaintiff,
v.
DYNAMIC VISION HOME HEALTH
SERVICES, et al.,
Defendants.

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Civil Action No. 13-1388 (EGS)

MEMORANDUM OPINION
This matter is before the Court on Defendant the District of Columbia Office of Human
Rights’ Motion to Dismiss [ECF No. 11] and Federal Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss for Failure
to State a Claim or Untimeliness [ECF No. 14]. 1 For the reasons discussed below, the motions
will be granted.
I. BACKGROUND
Plaintiff, a former employee of Dynamic Vision Home Health Services, alleges that she
was wrongfully terminated on July 14, 2009 because of her race and national origin. See
generally Compl. at 2; Am. Compl. at 1. 2 She brings this action against her former employer,
the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”), and the District of Columbia

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The Court will deny Plaintiff[’s] Motion to Continue This Matter with Evidence of
Documentations [ECF No. 17], and instead construe the submission as plaintiff’s opposition to
defendants’ motions to dismiss.
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In light of plaintiff’s pro se status, the Court liberally construes both the original complaint
and exhibits [ECF No. 1] and the amended complaint [ECF No. 4] together as plaintiff’s
complaint. Plaintiff has not numbered the pages of her complaint or her exhibits, and the Court
will adopt the page numbers designated by ECF.
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Office of Human Rights (“DCOHR”) under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as
amended, see 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. See generally Am. Compl. at 1;
see id. Attach. (letter dated July 10, 2013).
Plaintiff contacted the EEOC by telephone on July 22, 2009, see Compl. at 3, 4, was
asked to complete a questionnaire, see id. at 7 (Letter to plaintiff from EEOC dated July 22,
2009), and was informed that her discrimination complaint must be filed within 180 days of her
termination, see id. She submitted a completed questionnaire to the EEOC, id. at 3, which the
EEOC did not receive until June 28, 2010, id. at 6 (Letter to plaintiff from Mindy Weinstein,
Acting Director, Washington Field Office, EEOC, dated July 8, 2013). Because plaintiff had not
filed a charge of discrimination timely, the EEOC dismissed the charge and issued a right-to-sue
letter on May 30, 2013. Id. at 12 (Dismissal and Notice of Rights dated May 30, 2013). Plaintiff
believed that “for some reason they misplaced the document.” Id. at 3; see Am. Compl. at 1.
Plaintiff also sought relief through the DCOHR. She completed an intake questionnaire
on or about May 1, 2010, see Compl. at 18-19 (Employment Intake Questionnaire) and met with
a DCOHR representative on July 16, 2010, see id. at 23 (Letter to plaintiff from Alease B.
Parson, Supervisory Equal Opportunity Specialist, DCOHR, dated June 30, 2010). Ultimately,
plaintiff received notice that DCOHR dismissed her case administratively:
On July 10, 2010 [plaintiff] informed [the] desk receptionist that
[she] had filed and signed a charge of discrimination with the
EEOC in [its] Washington Field Office in reference to the same
incident that [she] had wanted to pursue with the DC Office of
Human Rights. In accordance with the Office of Human Rights
(OHR) Contractual Agreement, the OHR is precluded from
conducting an investigation once a Complainant has filed a case
regarding the same issues with the EEOC.
Id. at 24 (Letter to plaintiff from Gustavo F. Velasquez, Director, DCOHR, dated July 21, 2010).

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Plaintiff “would like [the Court] to check this matter” because the EEOC and DCOHR
“didn’t do the job right.” Id. at 4.
II. DISCUSSION
A. Dismissal Under Rule 12(b)(6)
A complaint need only provide a “short and plain statement of [plaintiff’s] claim showing
that [she] is entitled to relief,” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2), that ‘“give[s] the defendant fair notice of
what the . . . claim is and the grounds upon which it rests,’” Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 93
(2007) (per curiam) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007)). To survive
defendants’ motions to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), plaintiff’s “complaint must contain
sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’”
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570). In other words,
it must set forth “factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the
defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Patton Boggs LLP v. Chevron Corp., 683 F.3d
397, 403 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (citing Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678)). For purposes of this discussion, the
Court construes plaintiff’s complaint liberally, see Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520 (1972),
and presumes that its factual allegations are true, see Gray v. Poole, 275 F.3d 1113, 1115 (D.C.
Cir. 2006). With these considerations in mind, the Court concludes that the complaint must be
dismissed as against the EEOC and the DCOHR.
B. The Complaint Fails to State a Claim Against the EEOC
It appears that plaintiff’s sole claim against the EEOC arises from its handling, or
mishandling, of her administrative charge of discrimination. There is “no cause of action against
the EEOC . . . for challenges to its processing of a claim.” Smith v. Casellas, 119 F.3d 33, 34
(D.C. Cir.) (per curiam), cert. denied, 522 U.S. 958 (1997); Brown v. Berrein, 923 F. Supp. 2d

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43, 43-44 (D.D.C. 2013) (dismissing claim against EEOC and its Chairperson arising from
handling and summary dismissal of plaintiff’s charge of discrimination); Greene v. Washington
Field Office, No. 11-2248, 2011 WL 6369780, at *1 (D.D.C. Dec. 19, 2011) (dismissing
complaint against EEOC’s Washington Field Office based on its processing of discrimination
complaint against plaintiff’s former employer), aff’d sub nom. Greene v. EEOC, 466 F. App’x 6
(D.C. Cir. 2012) (per curiam); see also Koch v. White, 967 F. Supp. 2d 326, 336 (D.D.C. 2013)
(dismissing claim against agency’s EEO counselor for alleged failure to provide adequate
counseling services regarding administrative complaint of discrimination). 3 Therefore, the
complaint fails to state a claim against the EEOC upon which relief can be granted.
C. The Complaint Fails to State a Claim Against the DCOHR
Plaintiff fares no better with respect to her claim against DCOHR. “[T]he overwhelming
weight of precedent in this Circuit . . . holds that in the absence of explicit statutory
authorization, bodies within the District of Columbia government are not suable as separate
entities.” Kundrat v. District of Columbia, 106 F. Supp. 2d 1, 7 (D.D.C. 2000) (brackets, internal
quotation marks and citations omitted). DCOHR is among those District government entities.
See Crew v. Barry, No. 79-1383, 1979 WL 33, at *2 (D.D.C. Sept. 25, 1979) (finding that
District of Columbia Commission on Human Rights and District of Columbia Office of Human
Rights “are not independent agencies capable of suing or being sued”). Furthermore, even if
plaintiff could have brought a claim against DCOHR directly, her complaint fails to state a viable
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In the alternative, the EEOC argues that the complaint should be dismissed as untimely. See
Mem.in Support of Fed. Def.’s Mot. to Dismiss for Failure to State a Claim or Untimeliness at 89. According to defendant, the 90-day limitations period set forth in 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1)
for the filing of this civil action would have ended on August 28, 2013. Id. at 9. Although
plaintiff’s complaint was officially placed on the Court’s electronic docket on September 12,
2013, the Court treats the complaint as if it were filed on August 14, 2013, the date on which the
Clerk of Court received it. See Compl. at 1 (date stamp). Therefore, plaintiff’s complaint is
timely filed.
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claim. Missing from the complaint are any factual allegations as to the error or a violation of
law committed by DCOHR. There simply are not sufficient well-pled facts from which the
Court could “draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct
alleged.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556).
III. CONCLUSION
Because the complaint fails to state claims against the EEOC and the DCOHR, their
motions to dismiss will be granted. An Order accompanies this Memorandum Opinion.

Signed:

EMMET G. SULLIVAN
United States District Judge

Dated:

September 18, 2014

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