JEFFREY L. SCHMEHL, District Judge.
Before the Court is the partial motion to dismiss and motion to strike of Defendants, City of Reading, Vaughn Spencer, Gregory Smith, Carole Snyder and Felix Freytiz (in his capacity as an employee of the City of Reading) (hereinafter "Reading defendants") and the motion to dismiss of Defendants, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Justus James and Felix Freytiz (in his capacity as President of AFSCME Local 2763) (hereinafter "union defendants"). Plaintiff, Susan Frymoyer (hereinafter "Plaintiff") has filed opposition to both motions, and Defendants have filed reply briefs. Having read the parties' briefing, I will grant the motions of all defendants in their entirety.
Plaintiff was hired as a part time employee with the City of Reading in March of 2007, and became a full time employee of the City in March of 2008. (Compl., ¶ 8.) Plaintiff claims that in 2007, she informed her supervisor that she suffered from neck and back problems that required her to take pain medication, medication for sleep, Vicodin, Trazone and Zanaflex. (
In January of 2015, AFSCME, through Defendants James and Freytiz, and Gregory Smith, City of Reading Human Resources Manager, asked Plaintiff to leave the Payroll Department, which she refused to do. (
Plaintiff brings claims against the defendants under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 ("Rehab Act"), Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"), Pennsylvania Human Relations Act ("PHRA"), and the Older Worker's Benefit Protection Act ("OWBPA").
To survive a motion to dismiss under Rule 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
A motion to strike is brought under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12 (f), which allows the court to strike "from any pleading any insufficient defense or any redundant, immaterial, impertinent or scandalous matter."
The City defendants move to dismiss the complaint in part and also move to strike a line from the complaint. The union defendants seek to strike the complaint and have it stricken with prejudice as to them. For the reasons that follow, I will grant the City defendants' partial motion to dismiss, will grant the Union defendants' motion to dismiss and will grant the City defendants' motion to strike.
In her response to the City defendants' motion to dismiss, Plaintiff concedes that Counts II and IV as to Defendants Spencer, Smith, Snyder and Freytiz must be dismissed, as well as Count VII as to the City of Reading. Further, in her response to the Union defendants' motion to dismiss, Plaintiff concedes that Counts II and IV must be dismissed as to all Union defendants. Accordingly, Counts II and IV are stricken as to all defendants except the City of Reading, and Count VII is stricken from the complaint in its entirety.
The only remaining claims in the City defendants' motion to dismiss are the claims contained in Counts VI and IX of Plaintiff's Complaint, which assert liability under the PHRA against each City of Reading employee/official in their individual capacity, including Spencer, Smith, Snyder, and Freytiz. The City defendants argue that these PHRA claims contained in Counts VI and IX as to Freytiz fail as a matter of law because he is not a supervisory employee. In response, Plaintiff argues that, despite being a non-supervisory employee, Freytiz entered into a conspiracy with supervisory employees and therefore may be held liable under the PHRA.
"The PHRA allows individual supervisors to be held liable for aiding and abetting an employer's violation of the PHRA."
Plaintiff argues that the
The City defendants also move to have the second sentence of Paragraph 12 of Plaintiff's Complaint stricken, including footnote one. That paragraph reads as follows:
(Compl., ¶ 12.) The City defendants claim that the allegation that Mayor Spencer is under investigation by the FBI is wholly irrelevant to Plaintiff's claims, as is the allegation that his special assistant pled guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery and related charges. In response, Plaintiff argues that these allegations "speak to facts related to the tenor and actions of [Mayor Vaughn's] administration which effected (sic) the climate under which City employees, like Plaintiff, worked." (Dkt No. 10, p. 12.)
I find that the allegations Plaintiff has set forth relating to Mayor Spencer's investigation by the FBI do nothing to further Plaintiff's claims in this employment discrimination action. These allegations have "no essential or important relationship to [Plaintiff's] claim for relief" and may cause prejudice to Mayor Spencer in this matter or may cause confusion of the issues. Accordingly, I grant the City defendants' motion to strike and the second sentence of paragraph 12 is stricken from Plaintiff's Complaint, along with footnote one.
The Union defendants' motion to dismiss argues that Plaintiff's claims against James and Freytiz (in his union capacity) under the ADEA and PHRA should be dismissed due to Plaintiff's alleged failure to exhaust her administrative remedies. Plaintiff argues that she should be held to have exhausted her administrative remedies under the ADEA and PHRA because her EEOC intake questionnaire and formal charge, when read together, make reference to the Union defendants. In response, the Union defendants argue that the relevant document to consider in determining whether a plaintiff has exhausted administrative remedies is the charge document only and not the intake questionnaire, and since Plaintiff did not mention the union defendants in the charge document, she failed to exhaust her administrative remedies and this court lacks jurisdiction over the union defendants.
It is undisputed that "[a] plaintiff `must exhaust all required administrative remedies before bringing a claim for judicial relief.' To bring a claim under Title VII, a plaintiff must file a charge of discrimination with the EEOC and procure a notice of right to sue. The same is required to bring a claim under the PHRA."
The law of the Third Circuit is clear that in order to determine whether a plaintiff has exhausted her administrative remedies as to certain defendants, the operative document is the formal charge, not the intake questionnaire.
There is an exception to the general rule that a discrimination claim may only be brought against a party named as a respondent in an administrative charge where an unnamed respondent received notice of the charge and shares a commonality of interest with the named party.
Therefore, I find that by listing the City of Reading only in the formal charge, they were the only party responding party involved in that proceeding. Accordingly, Plaintiff failed to exhaust her administrative remedies as to the Union defendants, and this Court lacks jurisdiction over any claims against the Union defendants under the ADEA or the PHRA.
For the foregoing reasons, the City defendants' Partial Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff's Complaint is granted and the Union defendants' Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff's Complaint is granted, and Defendants AFSCME, Justus James and Felix Freytiz (only in his capacity as President of the Union) are dismissed from this action.