Wilson-Goines v. Marriott Ownership Resorts, Inc.
Filing
12
ORDER denying 8 Defendant's Partial Motion to Dismiss Amended Complaint. Signed by Judge Virginia M. Hernandez Covington on 10/1/2012. (CH)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
TAMPA DIVISION
SYLVIA J. WILSON-GOINES,
Plaintiff,
v.
CASE NO:
8:12-cv-1675-T-33MAP
MARRIOTT OWNERSHIP RESORTS,
INC.,
Defendant.
_______________________________/
ORDER
This cause comes before the Court pursuant to Defendant
Marriott's Partial Motion to Dismiss Amended Complaint (Doc.
# 8), filed on August 24, 2012. Plaintiff Wilson-Goines filed
a Response in Opposition (Doc. # 11) on September 20, 2012.
For the reasons that follow, the motion is denied.
I. Background
Wilson-Goines, an African-American, commenced employment
with Marriott "in approximately February 2007."
¶ 14).
(Doc. # 5 at
In September 2007, Plaintiff applied and interviewed
for the "Reconciliation and Reporting Manager position" with
Marriott.
Id. at ¶ 15.
After Wilson-Goines interviewed for
that position, "she was informed by the Manager . . . (a
Caucasian) that he had given the position to [a Caucasian
employee] because she had been with the company longer."
Id.
at ¶ 16.
In October 2007, Wilson-Goines applied for a staff
accountant position with Marriott, but again, Wilson-Goines
ultimately was not selected to fill the position.
17-21.
Id. at ¶¶
Wilson-Goines subsequently applied "for various other
positions with Defendant that she was qualified for and was
never selected for any of the positions," including another
staff accountant position for which Wilson-Goines applied in
November 2008.
Id. at ¶¶ 22, 25-26.
Wilson-Goines claims that all of the "reasons given for
failing to promote Plaintiff were a pretense," and that
"Plaintiff was better qualified than the individuals" promoted
or hired by Marriott.
Id. at ¶ 28.
Wilson-Goines filed
timely charges of discrimination with the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Florida Commission on
Human Relations (FCHR).
Id. at ¶ 7.
Wilson-Goines received
a Notification of Right to Sue from the EEOC, but received no
notification from the FCHR within 180 days of filing the
charge.
Id. at ¶¶ 8-9.
Pursuant to the Florida Civil Rights Act (FCRA), WilsonGoines now sues Marriott for (1) Failure to Promote and (2)
"Wrongful
Termination/Retaliation."
Id.
at
¶¶
30-40.
Marriott has filed a partial motion to dismiss, arguing that
certain claims alleged in the Amended Complaint are barred by
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the applicable statute of limitations.
II. Legal Standard
In reviewing a motion to dismiss, a trial court accepts
as true all factual allegations in the complaint and construes
the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.
Jackson v. Bellsouth Telecomms., 372 F.3d 1250, 1262 (11th
Cir. 2004).
However, courts are not “bound to accept as true
a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation.” Papasan
v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286 (1986).
In Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, the Supreme Court
articulated the standard by which claims should be evaluated
on a motion to dismiss:
While a complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6)
motion to dismiss does not need detailed factual
allegations, a plaintiff’s obligation to provide
the grounds of his entitlement to relief requires
more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic
recitation of the elements of a cause of action
will not do. Factual allegations must be enough to
raise a right to relief above the speculative
level.
550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (internal citations omitted).
In
accordance
with
Twombly,
Federal
Rule
of
Civil
Procedure 8(a) calls "for 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, 663 (2009) (quoting
Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570).
A plausible claim for relief must
-3-
include "factual content [that] allows the court to draw the
reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the
misconduct alleged."
Id.
III. Discussion
The Florida Civil Rights Act, Fla. Stat. § 760.01, et
seq., patterned after Title VII of the Federal Civil Rights
Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq., provides that it is an
unlawful employment practice for an employer:
To discharge or to fail or refuse to hire any
individual, or otherwise to discriminate against
any individual with respect to compensation, terms,
conditions, or privileges of employment, because of
such individual's race, color, religion, sex,
national origin, age, handicap, or marital status.
Fla. Stat. § 760.10(1)(a).
Claims based on violations of the
FCRA must be filed with the Florida Commission on Human
Relations "within 365 days of the alleged violation."
Stat. § 760.11(1).
Fla.
Section 760.11 further explains how a
claimant should proceed, depending on whether the claimant
receives from the FCHR (1) a favorable reasonable cause
determination, (2) a determination that there is no reasonable
cause to believe that a violation of the Act occurred, or (3)
no determination at all.
In
the
present
case,
Wilson-Goines
received
no
determination within 180 days of filing a charge with the
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FCHR.
(Doc. # 5 at ¶ 9, Doc. # 8 at 2.)
In Joshua v. City of
Gainesville, 768 So. 2d 432 (Fla. 2000), the Florida Supreme
Court held that, if the FCHR fails to make a reasonable cause
determination within 180 days, "the statute of limitations for
causes of action based on statutory liability, [Fla. Stat.] §
95.11(3)(f), applies" rather than the one-year limitations
period for filing an action after the FCHR issues a finding of
reasonable cause.
Id. at 439.
Section 95.11(3)(f) provides
that an action founded on statutory liability "shall be
commenced
.
.
.
within
four
years."
This
timeliness
requirement is the basis of Marriott's Motion to Dismiss.
Marriott argues that, because Wilson-Goines filed the
Amended Complaint asserting FCRA claims on August 10, 2012,
"claims that accrued before August 10, 2008 are time-barred by
the applicable four-year statute of limitations."
at 3).
(Doc. # 8
In response, Wilson-Goines argues that the Amended
Complaint "alleges a series of denials of promotion," and that
"[t]he
multiple
denials
of
promotion,
particularly
when
Plaintiff learn[ed] much later that the reasons given to her
for many of the denials of promotion were false, individually
and collectively, give rise to a discrimination claim." (Doc.
# 11 at 3).
Wilson-Goines
cites
no
-5-
authority
to
support
the
proposition that "a continuous pattern of discrimination"
based on an employer's failure to promote should prompt
different statutory timeliness considerations than "discrete
acts of discrimination."
(Doc. # 11 at 3).
In Maggio v.
Dept. of Labor & Employment Sec., 910 So. 2d 876 (Fla. 2d DCA
2005), the holding of which Wilson-Goines characterizes as
applying only to "discrete acts of discrimination," the court
explains:
The general rule for the application of a statute
of limitations is that the time for filing an
action begins to run when the cause of action
accrues, and a cause of action is said to accrue
when 'the last element constituting the cause of
action occurs.'
[Fla. Stat.] § 95.031.
. . .
[T]he last element constituting [plaintiff's] cause
of action as to each of the discrete acts of
discrimination occurred at the time that each of
the discriminatory acts occurred.
Id. at 878-79.
However, Maggio refers to the Supreme Court's
opinion in Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101
(2002), to distinguish a hostile work environment claim from
a claim regarding discrete discriminatory acts. Morgan reasons
that because
[t]heir very nature involves repeated conduct . . .
[t]he 'unlawful employment practice' . . . cannot
be said to occur on any particular day. It occurs
over a series of days or perhaps years and, in
direct contrast to discrete acts, a single act of
harassment may not be actionable on its own.
Id. at 115. Thus, because a hostile work environment claim is
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"based on the cumulative effect of individual acts" that
"collectively constitute one 'unlawful employment practice,'"
it does not matter that some of the component acts fall
outside the statutory time period, provided that at least one
act contributing to the claim does occur within the relevant
period.
Id. at 115-16.
Although Morgan involved a hostile
work environment claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964, the Court notes that "federal case law construing
Title VII is persuasive authority for interpretation of the
FCRA, because the FCRA mirrors and is patterned after Title
VII."
Mousa v. Lauda Air Luftfahrt, A.G., 258 F. Supp. 2d
1329, 1340 (S.D. Fla. 2003) (citing Harper v. Blockbuster
Entm't Corp., 139 F.3d 1385, 1387 (11th Cir. 1998)).
Notably, however, the Amended Complaint in this case does
not
state
a
hostile
work
environment
claim,
and
Morgan
specifically distinguishes such a claim from other, "discrete"
acts, stating that "[d]iscrete acts such as termination,
failure to promote, denial to transfer, or refusal to hire are
easy to identify.
Each incident of discrimination and each
retaliatory adverse employment decision constitutes a separate
actionable 'unlawful employment practice.'"
at 114 (emphasis added).
Morgan, 536 U.S.
Morgan further explains:
[D]iscrete discriminatory acts are not actionable
-7-
if time barred, even when they are related to acts
alleged in timely filed charges. Each discrete act
starts a new clock for filing charges alleging that
act. The charge, therefore, must be filed within
the [specified limitations] period after the
discrete discriminatory act occurred. The existence
of past acts and the employee's prior knowledge of
their occurrence, however, does not bar employees
from filing charges about related discrete acts so
long as the acts are independently discriminatory
and charges addressing those acts are themselves
timely filed. Nor does the statute bar an employee
from using the prior acts as background evidence in
support of a timely claim.
Id. at 113 (emphasis added).
Thus, for failure-to-promote
claims, the Court may consider only those discrete acts that
fall within the statute of limitations, but an employee may
nonetheless
support
a
failure-to-promote
claim
with
allegations of prior discriminatory acts that independently
would be untimely filed.
Having established that time-barred, discrete acts may be
used
by
a
plaintiff
to
support
timely
claims
of
discrimination, the Court now turns to the present Motion. As
stated above, Marriott argues that "claims that accrued before
August 10, 2008 are time-barred by the applicable four-year
statute of limitations," and that the "four-year statute of
limitations runs from the date the cause of action accrued."
(Doc.
#
8
at
3-4).
The
Court
agrees.
"Statutes
of
limitations serve important purposes in promoting the fair
-8-
administration of justice."
Arce v. Garcia, 434 F.3d 1254,
1260 (11th Cir. 2006); see also Burnett v. N.Y. Cent. R.R.
Co., 380 U.S. 424, 428 (1965) ("Statutes of limitations are
primarily designed to assure fairness to defendants. Such
statutes promote justice by preventing surprises through the
revival of claims that have been allowed to slumber until
evidence has been lost, memories have faded, and witnesses
have disappeared.") (internal quotation and citation omitted).
Accordingly, Wilson-Goines's opportunity to state a claim for
any violation of the FCRA based on discrete acts occurring
before August 10, 2008, has expired.
However, both of Wilson-Goines's present FCRA claims are
partially predicated on discrete acts occurring as late as
"November 2008."
(Doc. # 5 at ¶¶ 25-28).
Indeed, Marriott
concedes in the Motion to Dismiss that "Plaintiff's claims
that accrued after August 10, 2008 are properly before this
Court" (Doc. # 8 at 4), and Marriott does not otherwise
dispute the sufficiency of Wilson-Goines's claims for failure
to promote and wrongful termination.
The Court agrees with
Marriott's contention that an FCRA claim based solely on the
discrete acts occurring in September 2007, October 2007,
November 2007, or July 2008 (Doc. # 5 at ¶¶ 15, 17, 21 & 23)
would
be
time-barred.
However,
-9-
because
Wilson-Goines
additionally alleges discriminatory acts occurring in November
2008, the inclusion of these previous discriminatory acts does
not constitute grounds for dismissal of either count of the
Amended Complaint at this juncture.
Therefore, because Wilson-Goines has sufficiently alleged
discrete acts of discrimination occurring after August 10,
2008, and because Marriott does not seek to dismiss either
count of the Amended Complaint in its entirety, the Court
denies Defendant's Partial Motion to Dismiss.
Accordingly, it is
ORDERED, ADJUDGED, and DECREED:
Defendant's Partial Motion to Dismiss Amended Complaint
(Doc. # 8) is DENIED.
DONE and ORDERED in Chambers in Tampa, Florida, this 1st
day of October, 2012.
Copies:
All Counsel of Record
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