Jackson v. Norton Hospital et al
Filing
5
MEMORANDUM OPINION signed by Judge Charles R. Simpson, III on 4/13/2011. For the reasons set forth, Court will dismiss Complaint for failure to state a claim and as frivolous. Court will enter a separate Order consistent with this Memorandum Opinion.cc: Plaintiff, pro se (RLK)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
WESTERN DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY
AT LOUISVILLE
CIVIL ACTION NO. 3:10CV-762-S
JERRI LEIGH JACKSON
PLAINTIFF
v.
NORTON HOSPITAL et al.
DEFENDANTS
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Acting without the assistance of counsel, Plaintiff Jerri Leigh Jackson filed the
above-styled action against Norton Hospital and the Louisville EEOC Area Office (“EEOC”).
According to Jackson’s complaint, she tried to apply for a position(s) with Norton Hospital, but
was discriminated and retaliated against due to her disability. She alleges that Defendant EEOC
wrongly handled her administrative complaints about the discrimination. Along with her
complaint, Jackson also filed a motion to proceed in forma pauperis. That motion was
previously granted by the Court in a separate Order.
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e), which governs in forma pauperis proceedings, the Court has
a mandatory duty to screen Jackson’s complaint before service on Defendants. McGore v.
Wrigglesworth, 114 F.3d 601 (6th Cir. 1997). Upon review under § 1915(e), a district court
must dismiss an action that it finds to be frivolous or malicious or that fails to state a claim on
which relief may be granted. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B). For the reasons set forth below,
on initial review, the Court will dismiss Jackson’s complaint for failure to state a claim and as
frivolous.
I. Standard of Review
A pro se complaint should be held to a “less stringent standard” than one drafted by an
attorney. See Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520 (1972). Even a pro se complaint, however,
must plead facts sufficient to show a legal wrong has been committed for which the plaintiff may
be granted relief.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) states that a complaint must contain “a short and
plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Although Rule 8 is
fairly liberal in its requirements, “it does not unlock the doors of discovery for a plaintiff armed
with nothing more than conclusions.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, -- U.S.--, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1950 (2009).
While Rule 8 does not require a plaintiff to include every minute detail that makes up her claim,
“it demands more than an unadorned, the defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation.” Id. at
1949.
“A plaintiff’s obligation to provide the ‘grounds’ of her ‘entitle[ment] to relief’ requires
more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action
will not do.” Id. at 1950 (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007)). “First,
the tenet that a court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is
inapplicable to legal conclusions.” Id. Second, “only a complaint that states a plausible claim
for relief survives a motion to dismiss.” Id. The first step requires the Court to identify
allegations that “because they are no more than [legal] conclusions, are not entitled to the
assumption of truth.” Id. The Court is then left with factual allegations. The Court must
presume the factual allegations are true, but its inquiry does not end at this point. The Court
must go one step further and determine whether the facts state a claim that is plausible.
“Plausibility requires showing more than the ‘sheer possibility’ of relief but less than a
‘probab[le]’ entitlement to relief.” Fabian v. Fulmer Helmets, Inc., 628 F.3d 278, 280 (6th Cir.
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2010) (quoting Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1949). “Determining whether a complaint states a plausible
claim for relief will . . . be a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its
judicial experience and common sense.” Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1949.
“Whether a complaint is factually frivolous under §§ 1915A(b)(1) and 1915(e)(2)(B)(i) is
a separate issue from whether it fails to state a claim for relief.” Hill v. Lappin, 630 F.3d 468,
470 (6th Cir. 2010). “The in forma pauperis statute, unlike Rule 12(b)(6), ‘accords judges not
only the authority to dismiss a claim based on an indisputably meritless legal theory, but also the
unusual power to pierce the veil of the complaint’s factual allegations and dismiss those claims
whose factual contentions are clearly baseless.’ ‘Examples of the latter class,’ we said, ‘are
claims describing fantastic or delusional scenarios, claims with which federal district judges are
all too familiar.’” Denton, 504 U.S. at 32 (internal quotation omitted). “A finding of factual
frivolousness is appropriate when the facts alleged rise to the level of the irrational or the wholly
incredible, whether or not there are judicially noticeable facts available to contradict them.” Id.
at 33.
II. Jackson’s complaint
Jackson handwrote her complaint on a court-supplied general complaint form. The
complaint is neither easy to read nor to follow. Nevertheless, the Court has done its best to
distill Jackson’s intent. The best the Court can tell, it appears that Jackson attempted to or did
apply for employment at Norton but was not hired. She states “they called security on me and
threw me out as they assisted me on their hospital computer.” She says the employees at Norton
made fun of her body odor and “disability.”
Jackson attaches pages and pages of exhibits to her complaint. She wrote page numbers
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on the exhibits, but did not cite to them in the body of her complaint. The exhibits are not
organized in any logical way that the Court has been able to decipher.1 Many of the exhibits
contain handwritten and highlighted notes. The notes purport to explain how the documents
relate to Jackson’s claims. For example,
Exhibit 2b9 is a 1998 letter from Central State Hospital to the Department of
Employment Services–Division of Unemployment Appeals Branch–regarding Jackson’s status
as a patient. There is no indication that the letter was ever sent to or received by anyone at
Norton. Yet, Jackson has placed a handwritten note on the letter stating “Norton ridicules
‘institutionalized’ and ‘mental patient’ and uses it as a pretext for discriminatory discharge.”
Exhibit 2c1 contains copies of various attorneys’ business cards. Jackson has drawn lines
and arrows from card to card indicating that the attorneys are “family.” She has placed a
handwritten note on the page stating “Norton, Kentucky ARC and KY EEOC use relatives as
weaponery with and to Jackson. Why?”
Exhibit 2c2 is a December 15, 2009, letter from Seven Counties stating that Jackson was
a client. At the bottom of the letter, Jackson states “KY EEOC and KY HRC and Norton knew
of traumatized state confirmed by Seven Counties as they jewed and screwed Jackson around the
corridors.”
Exhibit 2d4 is a type-written medical note dated May 8, 1998, from Central State
Hospital. At the bottom of the note, Jackson writes “Cameras networked by Norton HR
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The Court has done its best to wade through Jackson’s exhibits in an attempt to better understand her
complaint. The Court notes, however, that it is not required to analyze the exhibits in an effort to construct a claim
for Jackson. See Olayemi Dele Jinadu v. Fitzgerald, No. 99-4259, 2000 U.S. App. LEXIS 23650, at *3-4 (6th Cir.
Sept. 15, 2000) (“The district court’s duty to construe Jinadu’s pro se pleadings liberally did not obligate it to
analyze attachments to Jinadu’s complaint in order to speculate about the claims Jinadu may be attempting to
bring.”).
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personnel and security guards that Jackson’s illness was laughable as they could do to Jackson
what they wanted to do to her and there was nothing she could do about it. Central State
Hospital had their way with her networked by Norton employees who knew about it.”
Jackson is seeking a myriad of different forms of relief including: one billion dollars; a
furnished waterfront condominium with all utilities paid; computer classes; $125,000.00 in life
insurance; a $125,000 retirement account; a prepaid, interest-bearing funeral account funded
with one billion dollars; a Christmas and a vacation club each with $125,000.00; ten round-trip
tour bus trips to various places in North America; and funding of one billion dollars a year to pay
for a masters degree and a PhD for a total of twelve years.
III. Analysis
A.
Norton
Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 12112 of the ADA, a covered entity shall not “discriminate
against a qualified individual on the basis of disability in regard to job application procedures,
the hiring, advancement, or discharge of employees, employee compensation, job training, and
other terms,
conditions, and privileges of employment.” A disability is defined as “a physical or mental
impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual; a record
of such an impairment; or being regarded as having such an impairment.” 42 U.S.C.
§ 12102.
To establish a prima facie case of discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA), “a plaintiff must show (1) that she is an individual with a disability; (2) who was
otherwise qualified to perform a job’s requirements, with or without reasonable accommodation;
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(3) who suffered an adverse employment action; (4) the employer knew or had reasons to know
of her disability; and (5) a non-disabled person was given the position.” Nance v. Goodyear Tire
& Rubber Co., 527 F.3d 539, 553 (6th Cir. 2008) (citing Monette v. Elec. Data Sys. Corp., 90
F.3d 1173, 1186 (6th Cir. 1996)).
Jackson’s allegations of employment discrimination fail under Iqbal. She alleges that she
is disabled; however, this is merely a legal conclusion that the Court is not required to accept as
true. The body of Jackson’s complaint is devoid of any factual assertions explaining how her
disabilities limit her major life activities. Additionally, while she alleges that Defendant Norton
failed to hire her because of her disability (or its perception thereof), she has not adequately
identified the job she was applying for in her complaint, explained why she was qualified to
perform it, nor alleged that Norton ultimately hired a non-disabled person for the position.
Likewise, she has wholly failed to allege any facts that establish that she was not given the
position because of a disability. Her complaint is devoid any set of conceivable facts that
suggest a plausible claim to relief. It is comprised simply of the type of speculative conjecture
that the Supreme Court has held a court need not accept as true on initial review.
Likewise, Jackson has failed to allege any facts that would show that Norton obtained
and wrongfully used her genetic information to deny her employment.
Additionally, after carefully reviewing Jackson’s allegations as described above and
considering her complaint as a whole, the Court concludes that the facts she alleges present a
fantastic and delusional scenario in which personnel that she encountered at Norton knew
exactly who she was and many significant details of her life for the past two decades. The
allegations made by Jackson are the type of claims which should be subject to dismissal because
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they rise to the level of the irrational and the paranoid. See Prewitt v. United States Postal Serv.,
754 F.2d 641, 641 (5th Cir. 1985) (“[W]e stand at the gate of the realms of fantasy. We decline
to enter in.”).
B.
EEOC
Jackson’s allegations against the EEOC stem from her belief that it improperly handled
her employment discrimination claims against Norton. “There is no private cause of action for
the improper investigation or processing of a discrimination charge.” Reed v. EEOC, No.
96-1275, 1996 U.S. App. LEXIS 29032 (6th Cir. Oct. 30, 1996) (citing Scheerer v. Rose State
College, 950 F.2d 661, 663 (10th Cir. 1991)); Gillis v. United States Dep’t of Health and Human
Servs., 759 F.2d 565, 574 (6th Cir. 1985); McCottrell v. EEOC, 726 F.2d 350, 351 (7th Cir.
1984). “When the EEOC fails to act, delays, or errs in its processing of a complaint, the
complainant’s remedy, as provided by statute, is to bring a de novo lawsuit against his employer
in the district court.” Verboom v. Dep’t of Defense, No. 93-3005, 1993 U.S. App. LEXIS 20221,
at *3-4 (6th Cir. Aug. 5, 1993) (citing Occidental Life Ins. Co. v. EEOC, 432 U.S. 355, 365-66
(1977)); see, e.g., Rhoades v. Ohio Civil Rights Comm’n, No. 1:07 CV 0802, 2007 U.S. Dist.
LEXIS45523 (N.D. Ohio June 22, 2007) (holding that plaintiff could neither maintain a claim
against the EEOC nor the Ohio Civil Rights Commission for any breach of its duty to investigate
or adjudicate his discrimination charges). Conclusory allegations that administrative agencies
conspired with private employers to thwart a discrimination complaint, like the ones in Jackson’s
complaint, also fail to set out a cognizable cause of action. Milhous v. EEOC, No. 97-5242,
1998 U.S. App. LEXIS 6042 (6th Cir. Mar. 24, 1998). Jackson has failed to state a claim on
which relief may be granted against the EEOC.
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IV. Conclusion
Consistent with this Memorandum Opinion, the Court will enter a separate Order
dismissing Jackson’s claims against Defendants for failure to state a claim and as frivolous
pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B).
Date:April 13, 2011
cc:
Plaintiff, pro se
4411.008
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