Williams v. E.I. Dupont de Nemours and Co, Inc.

Filing 111

ORDER denying 108 Motion to Strike. Signed by Judge S. Thomas Anderson on 12/12/16. (Anderson, S.)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE
WESTERN DIVISION
______________________________________________________________________________
MELISSA G. WILLIAMS,
Plaintiff,
v.
E. I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS AND
COMPANY, INC.
Defendant.

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Case No. 2:15-cv-02111-STA-dkv

ORDER DENYING DEFENDANT’S MOTION TO STRIKE
Before the Court is Defendant E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Co., Inc.’s Motion to Strike
(ECF No. 108) filed on November 4, 2016. Plaintiff Melissa G. Williams has responded in
opposition. For the reasons set forth below, Defendant’s Motion is DENIED.
BACKGROUND
On February 16, 2015, Plaintiff filed a Complaint alleging claims of discrimination and
retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Scheduling Order, as
amended, set December 28, 2015, as the deadline for completing all written discovery. The
parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment followed on February 19, 2106. After the close of
discovery and while the parties were briefing their Rule 56 motions, Plaintiff filed a motion to
extend (ECF No. 82) the deadlines for amending her pleadings and completing discovery. For
cause Plaintiff stated that Defendant had terminated her employment in March 2016. Plaintiff
sought leave to amend her complaint to add a discrimination claim based on her termination.
Before Plaintiff could amend her pleadings, however, Plaintiff first had to pursue her

administrative remedies. Plaintiff therefore needed more time to exhaust her administrative
remedies as to the termination claim. The Court granted Plaintiff’s motion and ordered counsel
to confer about new deadlines for Plaintiff to file an amended complaint and for the parties to
pursue discovery on Plaintiff’s new allegations. The Court also decided to continue the trial
date, which had been set for June 27, 2016. In the mean time, the parties completed their
briefing on the cross-motions for summary judgment. Following several short extensions of
time, Plaintiff filed her First Amended Complaint (ECF No. 98) on September 27, 2016. The
next day the Court entered an order denying Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment and
granting Defendant’s motion for summary judgment on all of the claims relief in Plaintiff’s
original Complaint, specifically her causes of action for gender discrimination, hostile work
environment, and retaliation.
In the Motion now before the Court, Defendant requests that the Court strike paragraphs
11 through 31 of Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint. According to Defendant, these factual
allegations are identical to allegations contained in Plaintiff’s previous pleadings, factual
contentions supporting claims the Court dismissed in its September 2016 summary judgment
ruling.

Defendant argues then that the facts alleged in these paragraphs are immaterial,

impertinent, and scandalous.

As such, the Court should strike them from Plaintiff’s First

Amended Complaint. Plaintiff has filed a response in opposition. Plaintiff argues that the
paragraphs which Defendant seeks to strike are relevant to her Family Medical Leave Act
(“FMLA”) claims and otherwise provide factual background for the new claims asserted in her
First Amended Complaint. Defendant has not shown that the paragraphs are immaterial or
impertinent much less scandalous. Plaintiff contends then that striking the paragraphs under
Rule 12(f) would be improper.
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STANDARD OF REVIEW
Rule 12(f) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure allows a court to “strike from a
pleading an insufficient defense or any redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous
matter.”1 The language of Rule 12(f) is permissive and not mandatory. The Sixth Circuit has
recently stated that Rule 12(f) motions to strike “are viewed with disfavor and are not frequently
granted.”2 A motion to strike serves the purpose “to avoid the expenditure of time and money
that must arise from litigating spurious issues by dispensing with” them early in the case. 3 As
such, a court should grant a motion to strike “if it appears to a certainty that [the moving party]
would succeed despite any state of the facts which could be proved in support of the [claim for
relief or] defense and are inferable from the pleadings.”4 Generally, “courts should not tamper
with the pleadings unless there is a strong reason for so doing.”5
ANALYSIS
The Court holds that Defendant has not satisfied the elevated standard to strike
paragraphs 11 through 31 from Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint.

As an initial matter,

Defendant’s Motion to Strike does not actually test the sufficiency of the amended pleadings.
For example, Defendant does not argue that the facts fail to state a claim upon which relief can
1

Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(f).

2

Operating Eng’rs Local 324 Health Care Plan v. G & W Const. Co., 783 F.3d 1045,
1050 (6th Cir. 2015) (citations omitted).
3

Id. (citing Kennedy v. City of Cleveland, 797 F.2d 297, 305 (6th Cir. 1986)).

4

Id. (citing Williams v. Jader Fuel Co., 944 F.2d 1388, 1400 (7th Cir. 1991)).

5

City of New York v. Fedex Ground Package Sys., Inc., 314 F.R.D. 348, 354 (S.D.N.Y.
2016) (citing Lipsky v. Commonwealth United Corp., 551 F.2d 887, 893 (2d Cir. 1976)).
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be granted or that Defendant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law on the facts alleged or that
the facts are so vague or ambiguous that Defendant cannot reasonably prepare a response. The
grounds for Defendant’s Motion appear to be the fact that some of the factual allegations in the
First Amended Complaint were also set out in Plaintiff’s original pleadings, and the Court has
now granted Defendant judgment as a matter of law on the claims in Plaintiff’s original
pleadings. Defendant merely argues that the facts are the kind of immaterial, impertinent, or
scandalous allegations the Court should strike.
The Court cannot say, however, that the paragraphs run afoul of Rule 12(f) and advance
facts that are impertinent or scandalous. Plaintiff argues that the facts in paragraphs 11 through
31 are material to her FMLA claims, which she has raised for the first time in her First Amended
Complaint. Plaintiff also alleges that the facts are relevant background information to her
termination. “As the master of the complaint, the plaintiff may decide what claims to bring and
how to [allege] them.”6 While it is true that the Court already addressed the relevance of some
of these same facts in deciding the parties’ motions for summary judgment, those rulings
concerned whether Plaintiff could prove the separate elements of distinct claims for relief, claims
which the Court has now dismissed from the controversy. Whatever doubt may exist about the
materiality of the allegations to Plaintiff’s remaining claims, allowing Plaintiff to frame her
remaining claims by including appropriate background material in her amended pleadings is
consistent with Rule 8(a).
What is more, striking these paragraphs would not serve the aims of Rule 12(f), which
exists “to avoid the expenditure of time and money” that could result in litigating extraneous
issues. The Court must stress here that only Plaintiff’s claims in the First Amended Complaint
6

Energy Conversion Devices Liquidation Tr. v. Trina Solar Ltd., 833 F.3d 680, 688 (6th
Cir. 2016).
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survive at this stage of the case. The parties have already engaged in discovery concerning many
of these same facts, and so it is not clear how including the facts in the amended pleadings will
expand the scope of relevant discovery or increase the burden on Defendant. To the extent then
that Defendant wishes to avoid incurring some additional expense during the re-opened
discovery period, Defendant has options available under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
other than a Rule 12(f) Motion to Strike. Therefore, Defendant’s Motion to Strike is DENIED.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
s/ S. Thomas Anderson
S. THOMAS ANDERSON
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Date: December 12, 2016.

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