Lambert v. Ware et al

Filing 10

ORDER AND REASONS granting 7 Partial Motion to Dismiss plaintiff's hostile work environment and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims. Signed by Chief Judge Sarah S. Vance on 1/10/13. (jjs, )

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA
VICKI LAMBERT

CIVIL ACTION

VERSUS

NO: 12-2058

JULIA WARE, ET AL.

SECTION: R
ORDER AND REASONS

Before the Court is defendants’ motion to dismiss
plaintiff’s hostile work environment and intentional infliction
of emotional distress claims. For the following reasons,
defendants’ motion is granted.
I.

BACKGROUND
Vicki Lambert worked as a medical assistant in defendant’s

clinic until she was fired in May 2012. Julia Ware was Lambert’s
supervisor.

Shortly after the clinic terminated Lambert, Lambert

filed this suit against Ware and the clinic. Lambert alleges,
among other claims, that defendants created a hostile work
environment and intentionally inflicted emotional distress.
In her complaint, plaintiff alleges that Ware consistently
harassed her about her weight, threatened her job weekly, lashed
out at her, and harassed her outside of the office by texting and
calling her.1 Plaintiff alleges that this caused her severe
emotional injuries as well as mental and emotional distress.2

1

R. Doc. 1-5 at 3-4.

2

Id.

Defendants now move to dismiss these claims pursuant to
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a
claim upon which relief can be granted.
II.

MOTION TO DISMISS STANDARD
To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, the plaintiff

must plead enough facts “to state a claim to relief that is
plausible on its face.”

Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1960

(2009)(quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570
(2007)). A claim is facially plausible when the plaintiff pleads
facts that allow the court to “draw the reasonable inference that
the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.”

Id. at

1949. A court must accept all well-pleaded facts as true and must
draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff.
Lormand v. U.S. Unwired, Inc., 565 F.3d 228, 239 (5th Cir. 2009);
Baker v. Putnal, 75 F.3d 190, 196 (5th Cir. 1996).

But the Court

is not bound to accept as true legal conclusions couched as
factual allegations.

Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1949.

A legally sufficient complaint must establish more than a
“sheer possibility” that plaintiff's claim is true. Id. It need
not contain detailed factual allegations, but it must go beyond
labels, legal conclusions, or formulaic recitations of the
elements of a cause of action.

Id.

In other words, the face of

the complaint must contain enough factual matter to raise a
reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence of
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each element of the plaintiff's claim.

Lormand, 565 F.3d at 257.

If there are insufficient factual allegations to raise a right to
relief above the speculative level, or if it is apparent from the
face of the complaint that there is an insuperable bar to relief,
the claim must be dismissed. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555; Jones v.
Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 215 (2007); Carbe v. Lappin, 492 F.3d 325,
328 n.9 (5th Cir. 2007).
III. DISCUSSION
A.

Plaintiff Does Not State A Claim For Hostile Work
Environment
Plaintiff does not contest defendants’ motion to dismiss her

hostile work environment claim. In order to establish this claim
under either Louisiana law or Title VII, a plaintiff must allege,
inter alia, that she belongs to a protected group or class and
was discriminated against on the basis of that status. Hare v.
Paleo Data, Inc., 89 So.3d 380, 387 (La. Ct. App. 2012); Turner
v. Baylor Richardson Med. Ctr, 476 F.3d 337, 347 (5th Cir. 2007).
Plaintiff’s complaint does not make any allegation that she
belongs to a protected class, much less that she was
discriminated against because of her membership in that class.
Accordingly, this claim is dismissed.

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B.

Plaintiff Does Not State a Claim for Intentional Infliction
of Emotional Distress
To state a claim for intentional infliction of emotional

distress plaintiff must allege: (1) that the conduct of the
defendant was extreme and outrageous, (2) that the emotional
distress suffered by the plaintiff was severe; and (3) that the
defendant desired to inflict severe emotional distress or knew
that severe emotional distress would be certain or substantially
certain to result from his conduct. White v. Monsanto Co., 585
So. 2d 1205, 1209 (La. 1991). Defendant argues that plaintiff has
not adequately pled the first or third elements.
(1)

Outrageous Conduct

Plaintiff has not properly alleged the first element because
the conduct alleged is not “so outrageous in character, and so
extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of
decency, and to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable
in civilized community.” Id. In her petition, plaintiff alleges
that Ware: (1) consistently harassed her about her weight and
made derogatory comments, (2) called her into her office on a
weekly basis and threatened to terminate her if she did not do
certain tasks or work on her off days, (3) harassed her outside
of the office by texting and calling her, (4) misled plaintiff
into calling in prescriptions for patients who were Ware’s
friends and relatives, (5) lashed out at her when she brought up
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discrepancies in her paycheck, and (6) dropped off plaintiff’s
personnel file at her home mailbox after her termination.3
These allegations fail to state a viable claim for
intentional infliction of emotional distress under Louisiana law.
Plaintiff’s status as an employee may entitle her to greater
protection from insult by a supervisor than from a stranger, but
“a disciplinary action in a workplace environment is ordinarily
not actionable . . . because a disciplinary action’s purpose is
to cause some degree of distress.” Groff v. Southwest Beverage
Co., Inc., 997 So. 2d 782, 786-87 (La. Ct. App. 2008). Louisiana
has limited the cause of action in work place settings to those
that involve “a pattern of deliberate, repeated harassment over a
period of time.” Nicholas v. Allstate Ins. Co., 765 So. 2d 1017,
1026-27 (La. 2000).
Here, plaintiff’s allegations describe friction between a
supervisor and her employee. Intentional inflection of emotional
distress claims will not lie for “mere employment disputes since
an employer must be free to demote, transfer, discipline, and
terminate employees even though such actions will undoubtably be
unpleasant and cause emotional distress.” Griffith v. Louisiana
808 F. Supp. 2d 926, 935 (E.D. La. 2011); see Washington v.
Davis, No. 01-1863, 2001 WL 1287125, at *8 (E.D. La. Oct. 23,
2001) (plaintiff failed to state a claim when complaint alleged

3

R. Doc. 1-5 at 4.
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“she was subjected to harassment, retaliation, and a hostile work
environment”). Instead, plaintiff’s allegations are no more than
“mere insults, indignities, threats, annoyances, petty
oppressions [and] other trivialities.” White, 585 So. 2d at 1209.
Further, “an employer may call upon an employee to do more work
than other employees . . . without engaging in extreme and
outrageous conduct.” Deus v. Allstate Ins. Co., 15 F.3d 506, 51415 (5th Cir. 1994); Guichard v. Louisiana, No. 11-535, 2011 WL
3900051, at *5-6 (E.D. La. Sept. 6, 2011) (“Conduct in the
workplace, even if calculated to cause some degree of mental
anguish, will rarely be so severe that it will rise to the level
of ‘outrageous conduct.’”) (citation omitted).
Accordingly, plaintiff fails to allege facts that satisfy
the first element of extreme and outrageous behavior. See, e.g.,
Bertaut v. Folger Coffee Co., No. 06-2437, 2006 WL 2513175, at
*4, (E.D. La. Aug. 29, 2006) (plaintiff failed to state a claim
where she alleged she was subjected to “harassment, retaliation,
and a hostile work environment, and that as a result, she has
suffered physical illness, wrongful termination, irreparable
loss, grievous humiliation”).
(2)

Intent to Inflict Emotional Distress

Also missing from plaintiff’s complaint are any facts
alleging defendants desired to inflict severe emotional distress
or knew that severe emotional distress would be certain or
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substantially certain to result from their conduct. White, 585
So. 2d at 1209; Richardson v. Home Depot USA, 808 So. 2d 544, 548
(La. Ct. App. 2001) (holding that plaintiff failed to state a
claim where she failed to allege facts indicating that
defendants’ conduct towards her was intended or calculated to
cause severe emotional distress). To be actionable, an employer’s
conduct must be “intended or calculated to cause severe motional
distress, not just some lesser degree of fright, humiliation,
embarrassment, or worry.” Almerico v. Dale, 927 So. 2d 586, 592593 (La. Ct. App. 2006). Plaintiff does not allege facts that
directly or by plausible inference suggest that defendants
intended to cause her severe emotional distress or knew that
severe emotional distress would result their conduct.
Accordingly, plaintiff fails to state a claim for which
relief can be granted and her claim is dismissed.
IV.

CONCLUSION
For the above reasons, defendant’s partial motion to dismiss

plaintiff’s claims of hostile work environment and intentional
infliction of emotional distress is GRANTED.
New Orleans, Louisiana, this 10th day of January, 2013.
__
_________________________________
SARAH S. VANCE
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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