Rosa v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Corrections

Filing 125

MEMORANDUM re MOTION for Partial Summary Judgment 104 , MOTION for Summary Judgment 111 and REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS 121 (Order to follow as separate docket entry) Signed by Honorable Sylvia H. Rambo on 5/9/24. (ma)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA
LUIS ROSA,
Plaintiff,
v.
COMMONWEALTH OF
PENNSYLVANIA, DEPARTMENT
OF CORRECTIONS, et al.,
Defendants.

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Civil No. 1:19-CV-1452

Judge Sylvia H. Rambo

MEMORANDUM
Before the court is the Report and Recommendation (“R&R”) (Doc. 121)
submitted by Magistrate Judge Martin C. Carlson concerning cross motions for
summary judgment filed by Plaintiff Luis Rosa (Doc. 104) and Defendants
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (“DOC”) and
Pennsylvania Parole Board (“Parole Board”) (Doc. 111). For the reasons set forth
below, the court will adopt the R&R and grant Defendants’ motion for summary
judgment.
I.

BACKGROUND

Magistrate Judge Carlson’s R&R thoroughly details the background of this
case (see Doc. 121, pp. 2-9) and, therefore, the court will provide an abbreviated
version. Plaintiff is a Hispanic male who, in 2017, was employed by the Parole Board
as the Director of Reentry and Quality Assurance. In October 2017, a partial merger
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occurred between the Parole Board and DOC, resulting in Plaintiff becoming the
Acting Deputy Secretary for ReEntry within the DOC. Around the same time, an
anonymous letter was sent to the DOC alleging that Plaintiff engaged in workplace
misconduct, and following an investigation, the Secretary of the DOC, John Wetzel,
removed Plaintiff from his post.
In December 2017, while the investigation was ongoing, Wetzel directed that
all staff undergo sexual harassment training. The training was conducted on
December 13, 2017, and allegedly contained sexually explicit images and material
that Plaintiff and others found offensive – so much so that they considered the
training itself to be sexual harassment. Plaintiff voiced his concerns to Wetzel, who
seemed displeased by the complaint but took no further action.
Approximately four months later, on April 25, 2018, and coinciding with the
conclusion of the investigation into Plaintiff’s workplace conduct, Wetzel notified
Plaintiff by letter that he was being terminated from his role as Acting Deputy
Secretary for Reentry as part of a change in leadership.
In early 2019, Plaintiff filed a complaint with the United States Equal
Opportunity Employment Commission (“EEOC”), which on January 22, 2019,
notified the DOC of the complaint and served it with a Notice of Charge of
Discrimination. Plaintiff then filed this instant lawsuit against the DOC alleging race
discrimination and retaliation in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a), 3(a).
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Concurrently, Plaintiff sought employment with other state entities between 2019
and 2021, including with the Parole Board and the Department of State, to no avail,
allegedly in retaliation for voicing his concerns about the sexual harassment training.
In August 2020, Plaintiff filed a complaint with the EEOC against the Parole Board,
which issued him a notice of right to sue in September 2020. Plaintiff then filed suit
against the Parole Board for retaliation, and thereafter successfully moved to
consolidate the two cases in September 2021. (Docs. 59-62.)
It is against this backdrop that the parties filed cross motions for summary
judgment.1 (Docs. 104, 111.) In his R&R addressing these motions, Magistrate
Judge Carlson recommends that the court grant the DOC’s motion in its entirety and
close this case. Specifically, he recommends that the motion be granted as to the
race discrimination claim against the DOC because Plaintiff failed to produce any
evidence of a causal link between his race and his termination. (Doc. 121 at pp. 1920.) Instead, he relied on several instances where racial remarks were made by
certain individuals within the Parole Board as evidence of race discrimination
generally, but those remarks were temporally remote to his termination and were not
made by individuals within the DOC or by decision makers. (Doc. 121, at p. 19.)
Magistrate Judge Carlson also recommends that the court grant the motion with

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Plaintiff moved for summary judgement as to the retaliation claim against the Parole Board and
partial summary judgment as to the retaliation claim against the DOC.
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respect to the retaliation claims against the DOC, explaining that the only evidence
of retaliation produced by Plaintiff was hearsay and too temporally remote from the
adverse employment action to infer causation. (Doc. 121, at pp. 20-22.)
Plaintiff has filed objections to the R&R, and Defendants have filed a response
to those objections. (Docs. 122, 124.) The matter is thus fully briefed and ripe for
resolution.
II.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

When objections are timely filed to a magistrate judge’s report and
recommendation, the district court must conduct a de novo review of those portions
of the report to which objections are made. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1); Brown v. Astrue,
649 F.3d 193, 195 (3d Cir. 2011). Although the standard is de novo, the extent of
review is committed to the sound discretion of the district judge, and the court may
rely on the recommendations of the magistrate judge to the extent it deems proper.
Rieder v. Apfel, 115 F. Supp. 2d 496, 499 (M.D. Pa. 2000) (citing United States v.
Raddatz, 447 U.S. 667, 676 (1980)). For those sections of the report and
recommendation to which no objection is made, the court should, as a matter of good
practice, “satisfy itself that there is no clear error on the face of the record in order
to accept the recommendation.” FED. R. CIV. P. 72(b), advisory committee notes;
see also Univac. Dental Co. v. Dentsply, Intern., 702 F. Supp. 2d 465, 469 (M.D.
Pa. 2010) (citations omitted). Regardless of whether objections are made, the district
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court may accept, not accept, or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or
recommendations made by the magistrate judge. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1); L.R. 72.31.
III.

DISCUSSION

Plaintiff’s primary objection to the R&R is that Magistrate Judge Carlson
erred in granting summary judgment as to the race discrimination and retaliation
claims against the DOC. (Doc. 122, at p. 12.) However, Plaintiff does not provide
substantive arguments supporting this position but instead primarily restates and
reargues positions he previously presented in his briefing. Since mere disagreement
with a report and recommendation is not a basis to decline to adopt it, the court
construes the objections as general objections, and thus is limited “to ascertaining
whether there is ‘clear error’ or ‘manifest injustice’” on the face of the record.
Boomer v. Lewis, No. 3:06-cv-0850, 2009 WL 2900778, at *1 (M.D. Pa. Sept. 9,
2009). The court finds no such error or injustice here, and thus will adopt it with
respect to the race discrimination and retaliation claims against the DOC.
Plaintiff also objects to the R&R on the basis that it does not directly address
his retaliation claim against the Parole Board and, therefore, Plaintiff argues that the
parties should proceed to trial on that claim. (Doc. 122, at p. 22.) While it is true that
the R&R refers to a singular “Defendant” and does not expressly address the
retaliation claim against the Parole Board, it is obvious that it was a mere oversight

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resulting from the consolidation of the two cases.2 Because Defendants have moved
for summary judgment on all claims—including the retaliation claim against the
Parole Board—the court will consider the arguments here.
In the motion, Defendants argue that summary judgment should be granted
against Plaintiff as to his retaliation claim against the Parole board because he has
failed to show that the Parole Board retaliated against him by preventing him from
obtaining Commonwealth employment due to his complaint regarding the sexual
harassment training. In order to establish a Title VII retaliation claim, Plaintiff must
show that (1) he engaged in a protected activity; (2) subsequent to participation in
the activity, he was subjected to an adverse employment action; and (3) there is a
causal connection between the protected employment activity and the adverse
employment action. Marra v. Phila Hous. Auth., 497 F.3d 286, 300 (3d Cir. 2007).
If Plaintiff has made these showings, then the burden of production shifts to the
Parole Board to present a legitimate, non-retaliatory reason for having taken the
adverse action. Id. If it does so, the burden shifts back to Plaintiff to demonstrate
that the Parole Board’s proffered reason was pretextual. Id.
Plaintiff argues that he engaged in a protected activity when he complained to
Wetzel about the content of the sexual harassment training. As Magistrate Judge

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As noted previously, this case began as two separate actions against the DOC and the Parole
Board which were later consolidated. Due to an administrative error, however, the caption of the
case was not amended to reflect that the Parole Board is a defendant in this consolidated action.
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Carlson noted in his R&R with respect to this claim as against the DOC, it is
questionable whether complaints about the content of a sexual harassment training
would constitute protected activity at all. (Doc. 121.) Even assuming that this is
protected activity under Title VII, however, Plaintiff has failed to produce any
evidence in the record, aside from inadmissible hearsay, that there is a causal
connection between his complaints about the training and his failure to be rehired by
the Commonwealth years later. Instead, the record suggests that the
Commonwealth’s decision not to rehire him related to its investigation into his
workplace conduct rather than to any action taken by the Parole Board or its
employees. The court will therefore grant Defendants’ motion for summary
judgment as to this claim.
IV.

CONCLUSION

For the reasons provided above, the court will adopt the R&R in full and grant
the motion for summary judgment as to the claims against the DOC and will also
grant the motion for summary judgment as to the claim against the Parole Board. An
appropriate order shall follow.
/s/ Sylvia H. Rambo
Sylvia H. Rambo
United States District Judge

Date: May 9, 2024

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