SPRETER v. AMERICOURCEBERGEN CORPORATION et al

Filing 26

OPINION. Signed by Judge Joseph E. Irenas on 1/10/2013. (dmr)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY

JANE SPRETER,
HONORABLE JOSEPH E. IRENAS

Plaintiff,

CIVIL ACTION NO. 12-2187
(JEI/KMW)

v.
AMERISOURCEBERGEN
CORPORATION and
AMERISOURCEBERGEN DRUG
CORPORATION,

OPINION

Defendants.

APPEARANCES:
CONSOLE LAW OFFICES
Stephen G. Console, Esq.
Caren N. Gurmankin, Esq.
110 Marter Avenue, Suite 105
Moorestown, NJ 08057
Counsel for Plaintiff
BLANK ROME LLP
Stephen M. Orlofsky, Esq.
Larry R. Wood, Jr., Esq.
Harrison Lee, Esq.
301 Carnegie Center, 3rd Floor
Princeton, NJ 08540
Counsel for Defendants

IRENAS, Senior District Judge:
This is a retaliation and employment discrimination case.
Plaintiff Jane Spreter alleges that Defendants retaliated
against her for opposing discriminatory conduct and that she
herself was the subject of sex and race discrimination.
1

Presently before the Court is Spreter’s Motion to Dismiss
Defendants’ Counterclaim for Failure to State a Claim pursuant
to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). 1

(Dkt. No. 19)

For the following

reasons, the Motion will be denied.

I.
For the purposes of this Motion, the Court accepts as true
the facts as alleged in the Counterclaim.

In January 1981, a

predecessor to Defendant AmerisourceBergen Drug Corporation
hired Plaintiff, Jane Spreter, as a secretary in its Human
Resources department in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In 1985,

Spreter was promoted to Human Resources Manager and then was
promoted again to Human Resources Director of the East Region in
1990.

She remained in that role for approximately twenty years,

during which time she was based in AmerisourceBergen’s
Thorofare, New Jersey office.
In May 2010, Spreter began reporting directly to Anthony
Caffentzis, Regional Vice President, East Region, who replaced
Spreter’s previous supervisor, James Frary.
11)

(Countercl. ¶¶ 10-

In April 2011, approximately one year after she started

reporting to Caffentzis, Spreter underwent her performance

1

The Court has jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331 over the
federal claims and supplemental jurisdiction over all state claims pursuant
to 28 U.S.C. § 1367.

2

evaluation for the year.

(Id. ¶ 12)

As part of the evaluation,

Spreter completed a self-review, in which she acknowledged that
the period from May 1, 2010 to April 30, 2011 was “by far the
most difficult of [her] career.”

(Id. ¶ 13)

This difficulty

was due, in part, to the fact that Caffentzis had started moving
the East Region in a new direction.

Spreter described these

changes as Ahuge shifts in values and priorities” from the
practices that her previous supervisor, Frary, had employed.
(Id. ¶ 14, Ex. A)

She also recognized that she would have “to

better understand the new direction in order to be effective
going forward.”

(Id. Ex. A)

On April 7, 2011, Caffentzis gave Spreter her performance
evaluation, on which she received an overall rating of APartially
Meets Expectations.@

(Id. ¶ 16)

An employee receives that

rating when she does “not fully or consistently meet[] critical
job requirements and improvement is needed in some areas.”
Ex. A)

(Id.

In Spreter’s case, the concerns centered on her

leadership and her ability to adapt to change.

(Id.)

Specifically, Caffentzis noted that Spreter was “struggling with
change and differences in terms of how things were done before.”
(Id.)
Around April 12, 2011, Spreter met with Jay Webster, Senior
Human Resources Director, with whom she had a reporting
relationship.

(Id. ¶ 19)

Spreter and Webster discussed her
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performance evaluation, and Webster explained that, while
Spreter had performed well in certain areas, she also had
difficulty conforming to the practices put in place since
Caffentzis replaced Frary.

(Id. ¶ 20)

The following day,

Spreter talked to Webster again about her performance evaluation
and her disconnect from her role as Human Resources Director,
East Region.

(Id. ¶¶ 21-22)

Spreter said that she understood

why she had received a rating of “Partially Meets Expectations”
and that she realized that she had been very negative that year.
(Id. ¶¶ 22-23)

At the meeting, Webster asked Spreter to

consider whether a role in AmerisourceBergen’s Human Resource
Department in Chesterbrook, Pennsylvania, would be a better fit
for her, and Spreter agreed to do so.

(Id. ¶¶ 24-25)

On April 29, 2011, Spreter met with Webster and Caffentzis.
At that meeting, she was formally offered the option of being
reassigned as Human Resources Director in the Corporate Human
Resources team based in Chesterbrook, Pennsylvania or,
alternatively, taking a severance package.
B)

(Id. ¶¶ 26-27, Ex.

The new position was substantially similar to Spreter’s

position at the time, and she would have retained responsibility
for several important initiatives.

(Id. ¶¶ 31, 37)

Further,

her salary, job grade, bonus eligibility, benefits, eligibility
for stock options, and title of “Director” all would have
remained the same.

(Id. Ex. B)
4

The most significant difference between the two positions
was the change in location.

The new position would have

required Spreter to work from the Chesterbrook, Pennsylvania
office, which is approximately 13.4 miles further from Spreter’s
home than the Thorofare, New Jersey office.
C & D)

(Id. ¶¶ 39-42, Exs.

This distance would have increased Spreter’s commuting

time by approximately 20 minutes.

(Id. Exs. C & D)

Spreter was

asked to make a decision regarding the position by May 6, 2011.
(Id. Ex. B)
On May 5, 2011, Spreter sent an email to Caffentzis
informing him that she did not want to accept either the new
position or the severance package and that she was resigning.
(Id. Ex. E)

Between April 29, 2011, and May 5, 2011, Spreter

did not contact Webster or Caffentzis other than to confirm that
her bonus level and stock options benefits would not change with
the new position and did not express any concerns she had with
the reassignment offer.

(Id. ¶¶ 46-48)

On April 11, 2012, Spreter initiated this action.
No. 1)

(Dkt.

The Complaint alleges discrimination and retaliation in

violation of Title VII and the New Jersey Law Against
Discrimination (“NJLAD”), respectively, as well as violation of
Spreter’s equal rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1981.

Spreter claims

that she repeatedly opposed AmerisourceBergen’s allegedly
discriminatory hiring and promoting practices and that
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AmericourceBergen retaliated against her when it offered her the
new position.

She also claims that she herself suffered

discriminated due to her race and gender.
Defendants in response filed an Answer and Counterclaim.
(Dkt. No. 10)

Defendants seek a declaratory judgment declaring

that Spreter voluntarily resigned from her employment and that
she did not suffer any adverse employment action.
Spreter now moves to dismiss Defendants’ counterclaim for
failure to state a claim pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6).

II.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) provides that a
court may dismiss a complaint “for failure to state a claim upon
which relief can be granted.”

In order to survive a motion to

dismiss, a complaint must allege facts that raise a right to
relief above the speculative level.

Bell Atlantic Corp. v.

Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007); see also Fed. R. Civ. P.
8(a)(2).
When considering a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the reviewing
court must accept as true all allegations in the complaint and
view them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.
Phillips v. County of Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 231 (3d Cir.
2008).

Where a Rule 12(b)(6) motion seeks to dismiss

counterclaims, the allegations must be viewed in the light most
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favorable to the non-moving party, the defendant.

Video

Pipeline, Inc. v. Buena Vista Home Entm’t, Inc., 210 F. Supp. 2d
552, 556 (D.N.J. 2002).

In reviewing the allegations, a court

is not required to accept sweeping legal conclusions cast in the
form of factual allegations, unwarranted inferences, or
unsupported conclusions.

Morse v. Lower Merion Sch. Dist., 132

F.3d 902, 906 (3d Cir. 1997).

The complaint must state

sufficient facts to show that the legal allegations are not
simply possible, but plausible.

Phillips, 515 F.3d at 234.

“A

claim has facial plausibility when the [non-movant] pleads
factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable
inference that the [moving party] is liable for the misconduct
alleged.”

Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009).

When evaluating a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, the
Court considers “only the allegations in the complaint, exhibits
attached to the complaint, matters of public record, and
documents that form the basis of a claim.”

Lum v. Bank of

America, 361 F.3d 217, 221 n.3 (3d Cir. 2004).

A document that

forms the basis of a claim is one that is “integral to or
explicitly relied upon in the complaint.” Id. (quoting In re
Burlington Coat Factory Sec. Litig., 114 F.3d 1410, 1426 (3d
Cir. 1997)).

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III.
Spreter argues that AmerisourceBergen’s counterclaim is
redundant and that disposition of her claim will render the
counterclaim moot.
A court may dismiss a defendant=s counterclaim for
declaratory relief “where it is clear that there is a complete
identity of factual and legal issues between the complaint and
the counterclaim.”

Aldens, Inc. v. Packel, 524 F.2d 38, 51-52

(3d Cir. 1975); see also Principal Life Ins. Co. v. Lawrence
Rucker 2007 Ins. Trust, 674 F. Supp. 2d 562, 566 (D. Del. 2009).
The “court should dismiss such counterclaims only when there is
no doubt that they will be rendered moot by adjudication of the
main action.”

Lawrence Rucker, 674 F. Supp. 2d at 566; see also

Teamsters Pension Trust Fund of Phila. & Vicinity v. Transworld
Port & Distrib. Servs., Inc., No. 09-3479 (RBK/KMW), 2010 WL
4269380, at *3 (D.N.J. Oct. 25, 2010).
This standard is not met here.

Contrary to Spreter’s

argument, it is not at all clear that disposition of her claims
will render Defendants’ counterclaim moot.

The question of

whether Spreter was constructively discharged is an element of
all three of her claims, 2 and Spreter is correct that, to win on

2

To establish a retaliation claim under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 1981, or the
NJLAD, Spreter must show that (1) she engaged in protected activity, (2) her
employer took an adverse employment action against her, and (3) there was a
causal connection between her participation in the protected activity and the
adverse employment action. Estate of Oliva ex rel. McHugh v. New Jersey, 604

8

her claims, she has the “burden to show that she was
constructively discharged from her employment.”

(P.’s Br. 8)

However, if the Court denies Spreter relief, the Court will not
necessarily reach the question of constructive discharge in
making its determination.

If Spreter’s claims fail on any other

element, the Court could deny relief without determining whether
Spreter was constructively discharged or resigned voluntarily,
leaving Defendants’ counterclaim undecided.

Thus, Spreter’s

motion will be denied.

IV.
For the reasons stated above, Plaintiff Spreter’s Motion
will be denied.

Date:

The Court will issue an appropriate Order.

January 10, 2013

/s/ Joseph E. Irenas

_

Joseph E. Irenas, S.U.S.D.J.

F.3d 788, 798 (3d Cir. 2010); Abramson v. William Paterson Coll. of N.J., 260
F.3d 265, 286 (3d Cir. 2001).
To establish her disparate treatment claims, Spreter must show “(1)
s/he is a member of a protected class; (2) s/he was qualified for the
position s/he sought to attain or retain; (3) s/he suffered an adverse
employment action; and (4) the action occurred under circumstances that could
give rise to an inference of intentional discrimination.” Makky v. Chertoff,
541 F.3d 205, 214 (3d Cir. 2008).

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