STOVALL v. GRAZIOLI et al

Filing 44

OPINION. Signed by Judge Renee Marie Bumb on 6/10/2019. (rtm, )

[Dkt. No. 38]
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
CAMDEN VICINAGE

FLAVIA STOVALL,
Plaintiff,
Civil No. 16-4839 (RMB/KMW)
v.
JAMES GRAZIOLI, et al.,

OPINION

Defendants.

RENÉE MARIE BUMB, United States District Judge:
This matter comes before the Court upon a Motion to Dismiss
Plaintiff Flavia Stovall’s Amended Complaint, filed by the
office of the Attorney General of New Jersey, on behalf of all
Defendants [Dkt. No. 11].

Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint [Dkt.

No. 29] attempts to assert discrimination claims under Title VII
of the Civil Rights Act, the New Jersey Law Against
Discrimination (“NJLAD”), and the Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment.

This Court previously dismissed

Plaintiff’s initial Complaint, noting a failure to explain how
the underlying conduct provides Plaintiff with an entitlement to
relief. [See Dkt. Nos. 25, 26]. Upon Defendants’ motion, the
Court finds that Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint fails to remedy
the deficiencies outlined in the Court’s prior Opinion.

Therefore, Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss will be GRANTED and
Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint will be DISMISSED WITHOUT
PREJUDICE.

I.

LEGAL STANDARD
To withstand a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of

Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), “a complaint must contain 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, 678 (2009)(quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S.
544, 570 (2007)). “A claim has facial plausibility when the
plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw
the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the
misconduct alleged.” Id. at 662. “[A]n unadorned, the defendantunlawfully-harmed-me accusation” does not suffice to survive a
motion to dismiss. Id. at 678. “[A] plaintiff’s obligation to
provide the ‘grounds’ of his ‘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.” Twombly, 550
U.S. at 555 (quoting Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286
(1986)).
In reviewing a plaintiff’s allegations, the district court
“must accept as true all well-pled factual allegations as well
as all reasonable inferences that can be drawn from them, and

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construe those allegations in the light most favorable to the
plaintiff.” Bistrian v. Levi, 696 F.3d 352, 358 n.1 (3d Cir.
2012).

When undertaking this review, courts are limited to the

allegations found in the complaint, exhibits attached to the
complaint, matters of public record, and undisputedly authentic
documents that form the basis of a claim. See In re Burlington
Coat Factory Sec. Litig., 114 F.3d 1410, 1426 (3d Cir. 1997);
Pension Benefit Guar. Corp. v. White Consol. Indus., Inc., 998
F.2d 1192, 1196 (3d Cir. 1993).

II.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY & DISCUSSION
Plaintiff Flavia Stovall is an African American woman who

has been employed by the New Jersey Judiciary, Camden Vicinage
(the “Camden Vicinage”) since December 1998 and was 59 years old
at the time she filed this action. See Am. Compl., at ¶ 4. As
stated in her Amended Complaint, Defendants in this action are
her employer (the Camden Vicinage) and two of her supervisors
(Jeffrey Wiesemann and Luis Perez).

Although two additional

defendants are listed in the case caption (James Grazioli and
Gilberto Velasquez), they are not listed as defendants in
Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint. See Am. Compl., at ¶¶ 5-7. This
action is the latest in a long line of disputes between
Plaintiff and her employers, including the Camden Vicinage. In
addition to suing her employer in both state and federal court

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on multiple occasions, Plaintiff has also filed numerous
internal complaints and EEOC complaints against the Camden
Vicinage. See Compl. ¶¶ 16-20.
Plaintiff, who at the time was proceeding pro se, filed her
initial Complaint in this matter on August 9, 2016, bringing
claims for (1) discrimination and retaliation in violation of 42
U.S.C. §§ 2000e, et seq. (“Title VII”); (2) discrimination and
retaliation in violation of N.J.S.A. § 10:5-1., et seq. (the
“NJLAD”); (3) “malicious acts”; (4) violation of the Equal
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment—brought pursuant
to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (“Section 1983”); and (5) intentional
infliction of emotional distress.

In response, Defendants moved

to dismiss Plaintiff’s initial complaint.

On June 19, 2017,

while the first motions to dismiss were pending, Plaintiff
retained Clifford G. Stewart as counsel.
Ultimately, on August 29, 2018, this Court dismissed
Plaintiff’s initial Complaint.

Plaintiff’s Complaint was

construed liberally, because it was filed while Plaintiff was
proceeding pro se, but the Court found that it failed to meet
the basic pleading requirements under the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure.

In relevant part, this Court stated:

“Plaintiff’s Complaint consists of 91 paragraphs—many of
which contain subparagraphs—of single spaced text. In
it, Plaintiff delves into minute details of dozens of
interactions
she
had
with
several
Defendants.
Plaintiff’s complaint reads more like a daily log of her
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issues with management than a short and plain statement
of any grounds for legal relief. It is unclear from
Plaintiff’s excessively detailed Complaint what conduct,
and by which Defendants, she alleges is legally
actionable—i.e., discriminatory or retaliatory as
opposed to simply rude or unfair—and what conduct is
simply provided as background information. Moreover,
Plaintiff refers often to her former suits and EEOC
complaints in a manner that makes it unclear where this
Complaint begins and those already concluded matters
end.
In
the
end,
Plaintiff’s
Complaint
is
so
“excessively voluminous and unfocused” that it “defies
any attempt to meaningfully answer or plead to it.”
Binsack v. Lackawanna Cty. Prison, 438 F. App'x 158, 160
(3d Cir. 2011). Accordingly, the Complaint will be
dismissed, without prejudice.
“Plaintiff will be afforded an opportunity to amend the
Complaint, this time with the assistance of counsel. Any
amended complaint should comport with Rule 8’s
requirement of “simple, concise, and direct” averments
and need not delve into such explicit detail that it
becomes overly burdensome for the Court or Defendants to
determine the grounds on which Plaintiff seeks relief.
Should she choose to amend and continue to pursue this
matter, Plaintiff should focus on the facts that she
believes give rise to a cause of action in this suit,
specifically identifying which Defendants are alleged to
have taken which acts and on what grounds those acts
provide Plaintiff with an entitlement to relief.”
[See Dkt. No. 25, at 5-6].   With the assistance of counsel,
Plaintiff filed her Amended Complaint on September 28, 2018.

III. DISCUSSION
On November 14, 2018, Defendants filed a Motion to Dismiss
the Amended Complaint, arguing that, once again, it fails to
comply with the Court’s pleading rules. See Defendants’ Brief in
Support of the Motion to Dismiss (the “MTD”)[Dkt. No. 38-1], at
6.

In relevant part, Defendants argue as follows:
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“Plaintiff's Amended Complaint may be an improvement on
the initial Complaint in length, but it contains some of
the same flaws as the initial Complaint in substance.
Many of the paragraphs do not include dates -- making it
impossible to identify incidents that may have occurred
outside of the statute of limitations. (See, e.g., ¶¶ 9
and 10). Some paragraphs are not limited to a single set
of circumstances, as required by Fed. R. Civ. P. 10.(See,
e.g., ¶¶ 12, 20, 22 and 31). Many paragraphs contain
general and conclusory statements only, with no specific
facts to support  them. (See, e.g., 16, 17, 18 and 31).
Similar to the initial Complaint, the Amended Complaint
does not identify conduct that may be legally
actionable, as opposed to conduct that Plaintiff
disagreed with or found to be rude. (See, e.g., ¶ 23;
alleging that Plaintiff's work hours were changed).”

This Court agrees with Defendants.

Indeed, the statement

of facts in Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint contains an extensive
listing of occurrences in the workplace that Plaintiff found
objectionable. See Am. Compl, at ¶¶ 10-38.

Yet, conspicuously

absent from the statement of facts is any specific allegation of
discriminatory conduct linked to the allegedly objectionable
occurrences.
Rather than alleging which specific actions were
discriminatory in nature, Plaintiff makes broad and conclusory
statements that she was discriminated against based on race,
claiming that “[a] reasonable, African American women [sic]
would find Defendant’s actions hostile and abusive.” Id. at ¶¶
43, 48.

Although Plaintiff does make some generalized

allegations that her supervisor “singled out Plaintiff for
mistreatment and did not treat white employees of the same title
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as Plaintiff similarly,” she does not provide any specifics,
about when she was single out for mistreatment. See id. at ¶ 58.
Without information about when conduct occurred, neither this
Court nor Defendants can assess vital concerns, such as
timeliness of the claims.

As such, Plaintiff’s Amended

Complaint once again fails to meet the basic standards of notice
pleading.
The Court will afford Plaintiff one further opportunity to
amend her complaint to address the deficiencies outlined in
Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss.

In doing so, the Court reminds

Plaintiff that any amendment must include the approximate dates
when alleged conduct occurred and provide context for how that
conduct creates grounds for an entitlement to relief under the
law.
IV.

CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss

will be GRANTED.

Accordingly, Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint

will be DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE.

Plaintiff will be afforded

thirty (30) days leave to amend her complaint.

An Order

consistent with this Opinion shall issue on this date.

DATED: June 10, 2019

s/ Renee Marie Bumb
RENÉE MARIE BUMB
United States District Judge 
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