Glenn v. Terminal Railroad Association of St Louis et al

Filing 28

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER, The Court GRANTS Terminal Railroads motion to dismiss, which was converted to a motion for summary judgment (Doc. 11 ); DISMISSES without prejudice Glenns Title VII claims based on the failures to promote her to the positions of chief clerk, B-2 clerk and paymaster clerk; and DIRECTS the Clerk of Court to enter judgment accordingly at the close of the case. Signed by Judge J. Phil Gilbert on 1/6/2015. (jdh)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
TIFFANY GLENN,
Plaintiff,
v.

Case No. 14-cv-328-JPG-DGW

TERMINAL RAILROAD ASSOCIATION
OF ST. LOUIS and TCU LOCAL 574,
Defendants.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This matter comes before the Court on defendant Terminal Railroad Association of St.
Louis’ (“Terminal Railroad”) motion to dismiss plaintiff Tiffany Glenn’s failure to promote
claims in this Title VII sex and race discrimination action (Doc. 11). The Court has converted the
motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment since matters outside the pleadings are
attached, and it has given Glenn an opportunity to respond to the motion under summary judgment
standards (Doc. 20). See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(d). Glenn has responded to the summary judgment
motion (Doc. 24).
I.

Background
Glenn, an African-American woman, began working as a clerk for Terminal Railroad in

September 26, 2011. In her complaint, she alleges that Terminal Railroad assured her that,
considering her education and training, she would be able to apply for management positions.
She claims she applied for at least three higher level positions (chief clerk, B-2 clerk and
paymaster clerk), but Terminal Railroad hired people for those positions who were less qualified
than Glenn. Additionally, she alleges that in December 2012, Terminal Railroad removed her
from the “Guaranteed Extra Board,” which effectively prevented her from obtaining a permanent

position with Terminal Railroad.1 She believes Terminal Railroad’s decisions to deny her
promotions and to remover her from the Guaranteed Extra Board were based on her sex and race.
In April 2013, Glenn filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
(“EEOC”) alleging sex and race discrimination. In her charge, she describes the basis for her
discrimination claims: “On or about 12/1/2012, I was placed on a Non-Guaranteed Extra Board.
I had previously been on the Guaranteed Extra Board. Dennis Bosco, a Caucasian male with less
seniority than I, was not placed on the Non-Guaranteed Extra Board.” She does not expressly
refer in her charge to Terminal Railroad’s failure to promote her to the three positions for which
she had earlier applied.
On March 12, 2014, Glenn filed this lawsuit alleging claims under Title VII of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., based on Terminal Railroad’s decisions not to
promote her and to remove her from the Guaranteed Extra Board. Terminal Railroad now asks
the Court for summary judgment on Glenn’s failure to promote claims on the grounds that Glenn
did not raise those decisions in her EEOC charge, a prerequisite for suit under Title VII. In
response, Glenn argues that her failure to promote claims are sufficiently like or related to her
removal from the Guaranteed Extra Board claim that they should be deemed to have been included
in her EEOC charge.
II.

Analysis
Summary judgment must be granted “if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute

as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P.
An extra board is “a pool of workers who are available to cover for regular employees. These
workers are employed under special terms and usually do not enjoy all the benefits and
entitlements of regular workers.” A. Latham, What is Extra-Board Employment?,
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/extraboard-employment-18286.html. Although neither party
addressed the matter, it is the Court’s understanding that a guaranteed extra board is assured a
certain level of work or pay and that a non-guaranteed extra board is not.
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56(a); see Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 (1986); Spath v. Hayes Wheels Int’l-Ind.,
Inc., 211 F.3d 392, 396 (7th Cir. 2000). Because all parties agree about the substance of Glenn’s
EEOC charge, the resolution of this motion turns on whether Terminal Railroad is entitled to
judgment as a matter of law, that is, whether Glenn’s charge about her removal from the
Guaranteed Extra Board was sufficient to find she exhausted her administrative remedies with the
EEOC on her claims that she was not promoted.
Title VII requires a plaintiff to present her Title VII claims to the EEOC before filing a
federal lawsuit. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1); Gorence v. Eagle Food Ctrs, Inc., 242 F.3d 759, 763
(7th Cir. 2001). A Title VII plaintiff may sue only on “those claims that were included in her
EEOC charge, or that are like or reasonably related to the allegations of the charge and growing out
of such allegations.” Haugerud v. Amery Sch. Dist., 259 F.3d 678, 689 (7th Cir. 2001) (internal
quotations and citations omitted); accord Swearnigen-El v. Cook Cnty. Sheriff’s Dep’t, 602 F.3d
852, 864 (7th Cir. 2010). Claims are “like or reasonably related” if there is a factual relationship
between them, that is, if the charge and the complaint “describe the same conduct and implicate the
same individuals.” Haugerud, 259 F.3d at 689 (internal citations and quotations omitted); accord
Swearnigen-El, 602 F.3d at 864. If there is such a factual relationship, the Court then asks
whether the lawsuit claim could reasonably have developed from the EEOC’s investigation of the
charge. Cheek v. Peabody Coal Co., 97 F.3d 200, 202 (7th Cir. 1996). If so, the employer will
have had fair warning of the claims against it and a fair chance to settle the dispute during the
administrative proceedings. Haugerud, 259 F.3d at 689.
It is undisputed that Glenn’s EEOC charge does not mention the alleged failures to
promote that preceded Glenn’s removal from the Guaranteed Extra Board. The relevant question,

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then, becomes whether the removal from the Guaranteed Extra Board was so related to the failures
to promote that the charge about the removal and the EEOC’s subsequent investigation put the
defendant on notice of Glenn’s failure to promote claims.
The Court believes the alleged instances of discrimination were not sufficiently related.
First, even under a generous reading of the complaint, each of the three failures to promote Glenn
and her removal from the Guaranteed Extra Board appear to be independent, discrete decisions,
albeit possibly motivated by the same discriminatory animus. However, a common animus that
manifests itself in separate, discrete decisions does not mean that an EEOC charge complaining of
one decision drags in every other decision motivated by that animus. Jones v. Res-Care, Inc., 613
F.3d 665, 670 (7th Cir. 2010) (noting that even if additional alleged acts of discrimination “fit in
and become part of an overall general pattern of discrimination,” finding such additional acts
exhausted “would eviscerate the general rule that each separate act of discrimination must be set
out in an EEOC charge before an action can be brought”). There must be some common factual
basis showing the decisions in the EEOC charge are related to the decisions left out of the charge.
Here, no evidence in the record shows that the four incidents “describe the same conduct”
or “implicate the same individuals” such that one incident is reasonably related to the others for
EEOC charge purposes. Nor is there any evidence showing that the EEOC’s investigation of
Glenn’s removal from the Guaranteed Extra Board was likely to have developed into an
investigation of the three alleged failures to promote. The EEOC charge simply did not give
Terminal Railroad sufficient notice of Glenn’s failure to promote claims such that they had a fair
opportunity to resolve those claims at the administrative level. Accordingly, the Court finds that
Glenn failed to present her Title VII failure to promote claims to the EEOC before filing this

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lawsuit and that, as a consequence, they are barred.
III.

Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, the Court:


GRANTS Terminal Railroad’s motion to dismiss, which was converted to a motion for
summary judgment (Doc. 11);



DISMISSES without prejudice Glenn’s Title VII claims based on the failures to promote
her to the positions of chief clerk, B-2 clerk and paymaster clerk; and



DIRECTS the Clerk of Court to enter judgment accordingly at the close of the case.

IT IS SO ORDERED.
DATED: January 6, 2015
s/J. Phil Gilbert
J. PHIL GILBERT
DISTRICT JUDGE

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