Rodriguez v. Digestive Health Physicians, P.L et al

Filing 32

OPINION AND ORDER denying 16 motion to dismiss. Signed by Judge John E. Steele on 4/18/2014. (RKR)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
FORT MYERS DIVISION
REBECCA RODRIGUEZ,
Plaintiff,
v.

Case No: 2:14-cv-14-FtM-29DNF

DIGESTIVE HEALTH PHYSICIANS,
P.L,
a
Florida
limited
liability corporation and
GULF COAST ENDOSCOPY CENTER,
a Florida corporation,
Defendants.
OPINION AND ORDER
This matter comes before the Court on review of Defendant
Gulf

Coast

Endoscopy

Center's

Motion

to

Dismiss

Complaint (Doc. #16) filed on February 4, 2014.
a Response (Doc. #24) on February 18, 2014.

Plaintiff's

Plaintiff filed

For the reasons set

forth below, the motion is denied.
I.
Plaintiff Rebecca Rodriguez initiated this action against
defendants Digestive Health Physicians, P.L. (Digestive Health)
and Gulf Coast Endoscopy Center (Gulf Coast) under the Family and
Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Plaintiff alleges that defendants denied
her requests for leave to attend necessary medical appointments
associated with her high-risk pregnancy.

Plaintiff also requested

FMLA paperwork from her supervisor, but none was provided.

When

plaintiff informed defendants that she would have to leave their
employ due to their interference with her FMLA rights, she was
immediately terminated.
Gulf Coast contends that the Complaint should be dismissed
because plaintiff has failed to plausibly allege that it is an
employer

under

Complaint

the

should

FMLA.

be

Gulf

dismissed

Coast
for

also

lack

asserts

of

that

subject

the

matter

jurisdiction because plaintiff was never employed by Gulf Coast
and Gulf Coast has never employed more than 50 employees within a
75 mile radius of its facility.

The Court will address subject

matter jurisdiction first.
II.
In order to maintain an action under the FMLA, plaintiff must
allege

and

“employer.”

ultimately

prove

that

defendant

qualifies

as

an

See 29 U.S.C. § 2617(a)(2) (“An action to recover the

damages or equitable relied prescribed in paragraph (1) may be
maintained against any employer (including a public agency) in any
Federal or State court of competent jurisdiction by any one or
more

employees

.

.

.

.”).

Gulf

Coast

seeks

dismissal

of

plaintiff’s claims under the FMLA because plaintiff was never
employed by Gulf Coast and Gulf Coast has never employed more than
50 employees within a 75 mile radius of its facility.

2

As

a

jurisdictional

matter,

defendant’s

argument

fails.

While being an “employer” is certainly an element of a FLMA claim,
it is not a jurisdictional requirement.

Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp.,

546 U.S. 500, 514 (2006) (employer status under Title VII claim is
an element of cause of action, not a jurisdictional requirement).
The Court finds this intervening Supreme Court authority to be
controlling.

Morrison v. Amway Corp., 323 F.3d 920 (11th Cir.

2003) was premised on cases holding that employer status under a
Title VII claim was jurisdictional, a position refuted by Arbaugh.
There is no indication that Congress intended the “employer”
requirement to have jurisdictional significance in an FMLA case
but not a Title VII claim.

See Chao v. Oasis, Inc., 493 F.3d 26,

33 (1st Cir. 2007); Rodriguez v. Diego’s Restaurant, Inc., 619 F.
Supp. 2d 1345, 1349-53 (S.D. Fla. 2009).
The failure to state a claim normally is not a basis to
dismiss

for

lack

of

jurisdiction

unless

the

claim

is

“so

insubstantial, implausible, foreclosed by prior decisions of this
Court, or otherwise completely devoid of merit as not to involve
a federal controversy.”

Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better

Environment, 523 U.S. 83, 89 (1998) (quoting Oneida Indian Nation
of N.Y. v. County of Oneida, 358 U.S. 661, 666 (1974)).
clearly not the situation with this complaint.

That is

Defendant’s motion

to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction is denied.

3

III.
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2), a Complaint
must contain a “short and plain statement of the claim showing
that the pleader is entitled to relief.”

Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2).

This obligation “requires more than labels and conclusions, and a
formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not
do.”

Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007)

(citation omitted).

To survive dismissal, the factual allegations

must be “plausible” and “must be enough to raise a right to relief
above the speculative level.”

Id. at 555.

See also Edwards v.

Prime Inc., 602 F.3d 1276, 1291 (11th Cir. 2010).
“more

than

an

accusation.”

unadorned,

Ashcroft

v.

This requires

the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me
Iqbal,

556

U.S.

662,

678

(2009)

(citations omitted).
In deciding a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, the Court must
accept all factual allegations in a complaint as true and take
them in the light most favorable to plaintiff, Erickson v. Pardus,
551 U.S. 89 (2007), but “[l]egal conclusions without adequate
factual support are entitled to no assumption of truth,”
v.

Berzain,

omitted).

654

F.3d

1148,

1153

(11th

Cir.

Mamani

2011)(citations

“Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of

action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.”
Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678.

“Factual allegations that are merely

4

consistent

with

a

facially plausible.”

defendant’s

liability

fall

short

of

being

Chaparro v. Carnival Corp., 693 F.3d 1333,

1337 (11th Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks and citations
omitted).

Thus, the Court engages in a two-step approach: “When

there are well-pleaded factual allegations, a court should assume
their veracity and then determine whether they plausibly give rise
to an entitlement to relief.”

Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679.

Gulf Coast asserts that the Complaint simply includes a
formulaic recitation of the FMLA’s definition of an employer, and
therefore the case should be dismissed for failure to state a claim
upon which relief can be granted.

The Court disagrees.

In the

Complaint, plaintiff alleges that Digestive Health and Gulf Coast
were each an employer covered by the FMLA.

Plaintiff alleges that

“Defendants were an employer covered by the FMLA because they were
engaged in commerce or in an industry affecting commerce who
employed 50 or more employees for each working day during each of
20 or more workweeks during the relevant periods of time.”
#1,

¶

8.)

Plaintiff

also

alleges

that

defendants

(Doc.

were

an

integrated employer and a joint employer for purposes of the FMLA.
(See Doc. #1, ¶¶ 9-10.)

The Court finds that there are sufficient

factual allegations to plausibly allege that Digestive Health and
Gulf Coast were employers under the FMLA.

Therefore, the motion

to dismiss for failure to state a claim is denied.

5

Accordingly, it is now
ORDERED:
Defendant Gulf Coast Endoscopy Center's Motion to Dismiss
Plaintiff's Complaint (Doc. #16) is DENIED.
DONE AND ORDERED at Fort Myers, Florida, this
April, 2014.

Copies:
Counsel of record

6

18th

day of