King v. Chipotle Mexican Grill of Colorado, LLC et al

Filing 15

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER granting 4 PARTIAL MOTION by Chipotle Mexican Grill of Colorado, LLC, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. to Dismiss Count II of Plaintiff's Complaint. Signed by Judge Robert C. Chambers on 3/2/2017. (cc: attys; any unrepresented parties) (mkw)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR
THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF WEST VIRGINIA
HUNTINGTON DIVISION

KAITLYN KING,
Plaintiff,
v.

CIVIL ACTION NO. 3:17-0804

CHIPOTLE MEXICAN GRILL OF
COLORADO, LLC, and
CHIPOTLE MEXICAN GRILL, INC.,
Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Pending before the Court is Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss Count II pursuant to Federal
Rule 12(b)(6) (ECF No. 4). For the following reasons, the Court GRANTS Defendants’ Motion
to Dismiss (ECF No. 4).
I.

Background
Plaintiff filed suit against Defendants for employment discrimination, alleging that

Defendant fired Plaintiff once learning about her pregnancy. Defendants hired Plaintiff on or
about March 20, 2014 to work in the Huntington and Barboursville locations. Pl.’s Compl., ECF
No. 1-1, at ¶ 4. According to Plaintiff, she performed the duties required of her satisfactorily as
a Kitchen Manager, and Plaintiff was being processed for promotion to Service Manager before
her termination. Id. at ¶ 5. Plaintiff allegedly advised her manager, Ms. Misty Phillips, in early
October of 2015 that Plaintiff was pregnant. Id. at ¶ 6. A short time later, on October 17, 2015,
Phillips fired Plaintiff without explanation. Id. at ¶ 7. Phillips allegedly told Plaintiff that she
could re-apply for her job after having her baby. Id.

Plaintiff brought suit for employment discrimination in the Circuit Court of Cabell County,
West Virginia in December of 2016. Pl.’s Compl., ECF No. 1-1. Defendants timely removed
the case to federal court claiming diversity jurisdiction. See Notice of Removal, ECF No. 1.
Plaintiff’s complaint alleges two causes of action: the first alleges a violation of the West Virginia
Human Rights Act for sex discrimination; and the second alleges a common law tort of Intentional
Infliction of Emotional Distress (IIED). Pl.’s Compl., ECF No. 1-1. Defendants challenge the
second cause of action for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule 12(b)(6). Defs.’ Partial Mot.
to Dismiss, ECF No. 4.
II.

Legal Standard
Federal Rule 8(a) requires a complaint to include “a short and plain statement of the claim

… showing entitle[ment] to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). To overcome a motion to dismiss
under Federal Rule 12(b)(6), a complaint must also be plausible. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550
U.S. 544, 546 (2007).

This standard requires a plaintiff to set forth the “grounds” for an

“entitle[ment] to relief” that is more than mere “labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation
of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Id. at 555 (internal quotations and citations
omitted). 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) (internal
quotations and citation omitted). Facial plausibility exists when a claim contains “factual content
that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct
alleged.” Id. (citation omitted).
Accepting the factual allegations in the complaint as true (even when doubtful), the
allegations “must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level ….” Twombly,
550 U.S. at 555 (citations omitted). If the allegations in the complaint, assuming their truth, do

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“not raise a claim of entitlement to relief, this basic deficiency should … be exposed at the point
of minimum expenditure of time and money by the parties and the court.” Id. at 558 (internal
quotations and citations omitted). Finally, “[a]lthough for the purposes of a motion to dismiss we
must take all of the factual allegations in the complaint as true, we are not bound to accept as true
a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (internal quotations
and citation omitted).
III.

Discussion
Plaintiff’s second cause of action sets forth an IIED claim, alleging that “Defendants’

conduct in effecting Plaintiff’s termination was atrocious, utterly intolerable in a civilized
community, and so extreme and outrageous to exceed all possible bounds of decency.” Pl.’s
Compl., ECF No. 1-1, at ¶ 1.1 By Defendants’ intentional conduct, Plaintiff allegedly suffered
emotional distress amounting to stress, fear, depression, sleeplessness, and difficulty in
maintaining personal relationships. Id. at ¶ 3.
To plead a successful claim for IIED in West Virginia, a plaintiff must assert four elements:
(1) conduct by the defendant which is atrocious, utterly intolerable
in a civilized community, and so extreme and outrageous as to
exceed all possible bounds of decency; (2) the defendant acted with
intent to inflict emotional distress or acted recklessly when it was
certain or substantially certain such distress would result from his
conduct; (3) the actions of the defendant caused the plaintiff to suffer
emotional distress; and (4) the emotional distress suffered by the
plaintiff was so severe that no reasonable person could be expected
to endure it.
Travis v. Alcon Labs. Inc., 504 S.E.2d 419, 425 (W. Va. 1998). The determination of whether
conduct rises to the level of required outrageousness is for the Court. See Love v. Georgia-Pacific

Plaintiff’s complaint is not numbered sequentially throughout the entire document.
Rather, each section begins the numbering from the beginning. The Court follows the Plaintiff’s
numbering when referencing each allegation.
1

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Corp., 550 S.E.2d 51, 61 (W. Va. 2001). For cases involving employment disputes, West Virginia
requires more than an employee’s termination to constitute outrageous conduct. See Dzinglski v.
Weirton Steel Corp., 445 S.E.2d 219, 226 (W. Va. 1994). However, a plaintiff can maintain a
cause of action for IIED against an employer when “the employee’s distress results from the
outrageous manner by which the employer effected the discharge.” Id.
Plaintiff’s complaint contains sparse details on how Defendants discharged her
employment. The only outrageous conduct factually alleged is that Phillips advised Plaintiff to
re-apply for her job after having her baby. Pl.’s Compl., ECF No. 1-1, at ¶ 7. The allegations
under Count II contain conclusory legal statements asserting a claim for IIED without explaining
any factual circumstances for support. See id. at ¶¶ 1-3. Plaintiff’s Response likewise fails to
allege facts to support the outrageousness of Defendants’ conduct when terminating Plaintiff.
With the high standard of IIED established by West Virginia courts, the Court cannot deem
the mere act of firing Plaintiff with the statement that she should re-apply for her job after having
her baby as outrageous. This Court dismissed a similar claim for IIED in Nester v. Hampton Inn
Princeton, which involved a plaintiff being terminated after alerting the employer of her
pregnancy. Civ No. 1:13-03336, 2013 WL 2468576, at *7-8 (S.D.W. Va. June 7, 2013). In that
case, the complaint contained more information than here, alleging that the defendant fired the
plaintiff by text message and made statements showing disparate treatment towards pregnant
employees. Id. at *8. That conduct, however, could not rise to the level of outrageous conduct
required in West Virginia for purposes of an IIED claim, and the Court dismissed the count. Id.
(citing cases in West Virginia of disparate treatment, retaliatory treatment, and continued
harassment that failed to reach the outrageous level required). Plaintiff’s sparse factual details
surrounding her termination cannot sustain a claim for IIED because Plaintiff fails to allege the

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outrageous manner in which she was terminated. One statement asking Plaintiff to re-apply may
show disparate treatment but does not show outrageous conduct.

Accordingly, the Court

GRANTS Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss (ECF No. 4) and DISMISSES Count II.
IV.

Conclusion
Accordingly, the Court finds that Plaintiff failed to allege sufficient facts to support an

IIED claim in West Virginia. Therefore, the Court GRANTS Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss
Count II (ECF No. 4).
The Court DIRECTS the Clerk to send a copy of this Order to counsel of record and any
unrepresented parties.

ENTER:

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March 2, 2017