Taylor v. Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company

Filing 33

MEMORANDUM OPINION & ORDER: For the above stated reasons, the Court GRANTS Lockheed's Partial Motion to Dismiss (ECF No. 29 ) and DISMISSES all of Taylor's claims except for her failure to accommodate claim. (Ordered by Judge Mark Pittman on 1/6/2025) (jnp)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS
FORT WORTH DIVISION
NINA TAYLOR,
Plaintiff,
v.

No. 4:24-cv-00626-P

LOCKHEED MARTIN
AERONAUTICS COMPANY,
Defendant.
MEMORANDUM OPINION & ORDER
Before the Court is Defendant Lockheed Martin Aeronautics
Company’s (“Lockheed”) Partial Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s Second
Amended Complaint (ECF No. 29). For the reasons below, the Court will
grant the Motion.

BACKGROUND
Plaintiff Nina Taylor has been employed by Lockheed since 2018 as
a crate packer. In December 2022, Taylor was diagnosed with mental
disabilities. Taylor informed Lockheed of her diagnosis and requested
an accommodation. Lockheed granted her the accommodation and
instructed other employees to communicate with her primarily in
written form. Taylor alleges that her supervisor has failed to comply
with the accommodation and occasionally orally speaks to her before
sending her an email summarizing their conversation. Additionally,
Taylor asserts that Lockheed has retaliated against her by denying her
multiple requests to move to a different position within the company and
allowing her supervisor to violate the accommodation. Taylor filed a
discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (“EEOC”) alleging discrimination based on Lockheed’s
failure to accommodate her disability. The EEOC denied her claim and
Plaintiff filed this lawsuit alleging five causes of action against
Lockheed.

LEGAL STANDARD
Rule 12(b)(6) allows defendants to move to dismiss an action if the
plaintiff fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. See FED.
R. CIV. P. 12(b)(6). In evaluating Rule 12(b)(6) motions, courts accept all
well-pleaded facts as true and view them in the light most favorable to
the plaintiff. See Inclusive Cmtys. Project, Inc. v. Lincoln Prop. Co., 920
F.3d 890, 899 (5th Cir. 2019) (quoting Campbell v. Wells Fargo Bank,
N.A., 781 F.2d 440, 442 (5th Cir. 1986)). “Further, ‘all questions of fact
and any ambiguities in the controlling substantive law must be resolved
in the plaintiff’s favor.’” Id. (quoting Lewis v. Fresne, 252 F.3d 352, 357
(5th Cir. 2001)). However, courts are not bound to accept as true legal
conclusions couched as factual allegations. See In re Ondova Ltd., 914
F.3d 990, 993 (5th Cir. 2019). The well-pleaded facts must permit the
court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct. See Hale v.
King, 642 F.3d 492, 499 (5th Cir. 2011) (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556
U.S. 662, 678 (2009)). That is, the complaint must allege enough facts to
move the claim across the line from conceivable to plausible. See Turner
v. Pleasant, 663 F.3d 770, 775 (5th Cir. 2011) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v.
Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). Determining whether the
plausibility standard has been met is a “context-specific task that
requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and
common sense.” Id. (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 663–64).

ANALYSIS
Taylor brings five claims against Lockheed: (1) Failure to
Accommodate in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
(“ADA”); (2) Harassment, Retaliation, and Failure to Transfer in
violation of the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act (“TCHRA”); (3)
Retaliation in violation of the ADA; (4) Hostile Work Environment in
violation of the ADA; and (5) Hostile Work Environment in violation of
the TCHRA. ECF No. 26. Lockheed moves to dismiss all of Taylor’s

2

claims, except for her failure to accommodate claim, for failing to
exhaust her administrative remedies. 1 ECF No. 29 at 1.
“Failure to exhaust is not a procedural ‘gotcha’ issue.” McClain v.
Lufkin Indus., Inc., 519 F.3d 264, 272 (5th Cir. 2008). Allowing
unexhausted claims to proceed would “thwart the administrative
process and peremptorily substitute litigation for conciliation.” Id. at
273. Therefore, the Court must dismiss any claims that fail to show
administrative exhaustion where required. See id. at 272.
Before bringing a claim under the ADA, a plaintiff must file a charge
of discrimination with the EEOC. Young v. City of Hous., 906 F.2d 177,
179 (5th Cir. 1990). Following an investigation, the EEOC may issue a
Right to Sue Letter. Upon receipt of the letter, a plaintiff may bring a
discrimination suit extending “as far as, but no further than, the scope
of the EEOC investigation which could reasonably grow out of the
administrative charge.” Fine v. GAF Chem. Corp., 995 F.2d 576, 577–78
(5th Cir. 1993) (citation and internal quotations omitted). Since the
“provisions of [the ADA] were not designed for the sophisticated, and
most complaints are initiated pro se, the scope of an EEOC complaint
should be construed liberally.” Pacheco v. Mineta, 448 F.3d 783, 788–89
(5th Cir. 2006).
But this liberal construction has limits. For instance, a charge must
still state a claim’s basic facts. Fine, 995 F.2d at 578. The test is whether
a plaintiff’s allegations logically grow out of the initial charge, such that
the charge placed the employer on notice of the claims against them.
Manning v. Chevron Chem Co., LLC, 332 F.3d 874, 879 (5th Cir. 2003).
If a charge failed to provide such notice, the plaintiff’s administrative
remedies are not exhausted. See id.
Here, as discussed above, the Parties dispute whether Taylor’s
claims logically flow from the EEOC charge. Taylor’s EEOC charge
states, in its entirety:

1Lockheed

also argues that Taylor’s hostile work environment claims
should be dismissed for failure to state a claim. Because the Court finds that
they should be dismissed for failure to exhaust administrative remedies, the
Court need not and, thus, does not analyze that claim.

3

I believe I was denied a reasonable accommodation for
my disability. Assistant Associate Manager Sarah Saenz
continuously ignored my reasonable accommodation
requests. Subsequently my disability was aggravated to
the point I had to take a medical leave from work.
...
No reason given for Sarah’s disregard to my reasonable
accommodation.
...
I believe I have been discriminated against because of
my disability in violation of the Americans with
Disabilities Act of 1990, as amended, the City of Fort
Worth’s Fair Employment Ordinance No. 7278, as
amended, and Texas Labor Code Ch. 21 because:
I was hired in 2018. I am a Crater Packer A in Fort
Worth, Texas. I had no problems until Sarah Saenz became
my manager in or around October 2021. In or around
December 2022. I was diagnosed with mental disabilities.
Management and HR approved my doctor’s reasonable
accommodation request. Sarah was to communicate to me
primarily in written format. After a short period of time
Sarah began to ignore my accommodation and did not
communicate with me via email or written form. This
aggravated my disabilities. I complained, but nothing
changed. In July 2023. I felt I had no choice but to take a
medical leave. I returned to work on October 23. 20[2]3. My
supervisor ignored my accommodations. I complained to
our labor relations department, and I was told to resubmit
my reasonable accommodation request again. I did so and
on October 26, 2023, all of my accommodations were
denied.
ECF No. 30 at 3.
Besides her failure to accommodate claim that is not at issue, Taylor
brings four claims against Lockheed under the TCHRA and ADA, two
for retaliation and failure to transfer and two for creating a hostile work
environment. See ECF No. 26. Lockheed argues that these claims should
be dismissed because Taylor’s EEOC charge contains no facts to support
these claims, does not mention these claims, and because she did not
check the appropriate boxes for these claims. ECF No. 29 at 2–8, 11–13.
Taylor, in her Response, asserts that she was not required to include
4

every fact in her charge and that her allegation that her supervisor
ignored her accommodations is sufficient to incorporate her claims. ECF
No. 31. Additionally, Taylor asserts that all her ADA claims logically
flow from the charge because she alleged discrimination in violation of
the ADA. Id.
To state a retaliation claim, Taylor “must show (1) that [s]he
engaged in a protected activity, (2) that there was an adverse
employment action, and (3) that a causal link existed between the
protected activity and the adverse employment action.” Holtzclaw v.
DSC Commc’ns Corp., 255 F.3d 254, 260 (5th Cir. 2001) (citation
omitted). Additionally, to support a hostile work environment claim,
employees must allege more than discrete acts of discrimination for
their EEOC charge. Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101,
115 (2002). Discrimination and hostile work environment claims are
distinct. See id. A hostile work environment’s “very nature involves
repeated conduct.” Id. Thus, a hostile work environment “cannot be said
to occur on any particular day. It occurs over a series of days or perhaps
even years and, in direct contrast to discrete acts.” Id. A workplace
becomes hostile when “it is ‘permeated with discriminatory
intimidation, ridicule, and insult, that is sufficiently severe or pervasive
to alter the conditions of the victim's employment.’” Alaniz v. ZamoraQuezada, 591 F.3d 761, 771 (5th Cir. 2009) (quoting Harris v. Forklift
Sys., Inc, 510 U.S. 17, 21 (1993)).
Even construing Taylor’s EEOC charge liberally, her claims do not
flow logically from the EEOC charge. Beginning her retaliation and
failure to transfer claims do not logically flow because: (1) she did not
check the appropriate box; (2) her charge does not mention retaliation
nor her requests to transfer; (3) she does not allege that the supervisor’s

actions changed from before her medical leave 2 to after; and (4) there
are no facts in the charge that suggest any adverse actions that were
2The Court liberally construes the medical leave as her protected event.

The Court does so because, if receiving or requesting an accommodation is a
protected event, then every failure to accommodate claim also becomes a
retaliation claim. This would be an inappropriate result because they are
distinct claims with distinct elements.

5

taken were causally related to her medical leave. While Taylor argues
that her statement in the charge that she was discriminated against in
violation of the ADA is sufficient to put Lockheed on notice of all
potential ADA claims; that assertion is plainly wrong. See, e.g.,
Haferbier v. IMER USA, Inc., No. 4:24-CV-00315-P, 2024 WL 3094616
(N.D. Tex. June 20, 2024) (Pittman, J.) (explaining that employees must
allege more than generalities to support distinct claims). Similarly, with
the hostile work environment claims, Taylor’s claims do not logically
flow from her EEOC charge because: (1) she did not check the
appropriate box; (2) the charge does not mention a hostile work
environment or anything close to such a claim; and (3) the alleged facts
support her failure to accommodate claim, but do not show a workplace
that is permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult.
Therefore, the Court finds that Taylor’s EEOC charge did not provide
Lockheed with the required notice that she may pursue these claims
against it because they do not logically flow from the allegations
contained therein. Accordingly, Lockheed’s Motion is GRANTED.

CONCLUSION
For the above stated reasons, the Court GRANTS Lockheed’s Partial
Motion to Dismiss (ECF No. 29) and DISMISSES all of Taylor’s claims
except for her failure to accommodate claim.
SO ORDERED on this 6th day of January 2025.

6