Filed: Apr. 22, 2011
Latest Update: Feb. 22, 2020
Summary: UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 10-1753 MARGARET TEMPLETON, Plaintiff – Appellant, v. FIRST TENNESSEE BANK, N.A., A Subsidiary of First Horizon National Corporation; METLIFE BANK, N.A., d/b/a MetLife Home Loans, formerly First Horizon Home Loan Corporation Central Operations, Defendants – Appellees. - EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Amicus Supporting Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore.
Summary: UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 10-1753 MARGARET TEMPLETON, Plaintiff – Appellant, v. FIRST TENNESSEE BANK, N.A., A Subsidiary of First Horizon National Corporation; METLIFE BANK, N.A., d/b/a MetLife Home Loans, formerly First Horizon Home Loan Corporation Central Operations, Defendants – Appellees. - EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Amicus Supporting Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. W..
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UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 10-1753
MARGARET TEMPLETON,
Plaintiff – Appellant,
v.
FIRST TENNESSEE BANK, N.A., A Subsidiary of First Horizon
National Corporation; METLIFE BANK, N.A., d/b/a MetLife Home
Loans, formerly First Horizon Home Loan Corporation Central
Operations,
Defendants – Appellees.
-------------------------------------
EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION,
Amicus Supporting Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Baltimore. William D. Quarles, Jr., District
Judge. (1:09-cv-03280-WDQ)
Submitted: March 23, 2011 Decided: April 22, 2011
Before SHEDD, DAVIS, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded by unpublished
per curiam opinion.
Joyce E. Smithey, RIFKIN, LIVINGSTON, LEVITAN & SILVER, LLC,
Annapolis, Maryland, for Appellant. Ronald W. Taylor, VENABLE
LLP, Baltimore, Maryland; Lesley Pate Marlin, VENABLE LLP,
Washington, D.C.; Carson Sullivan, PAUL HASTINGS JANOFSKY &
WALKER, LLP, Washington, D.C.; Richard S. Cozza, PAUL HASTINGS
JANOFSKY & WALKER, LLP, Chicago, Illinois, for Appellees. P.
David Lopez, General Counsel, Vincent J. Blackwood, Acting
Associate General Counsel, Carolyn L. Wheeler, Assistant General
Counsel, Gail S. Coleman, Attorney, U.S. EQUAL EMPLOYMENT
OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Office of General Counsel, Washington,
D.C., for Amicus Supporting Appellant.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
2
PER CURIAM:
Margaret Templeton appeals the district court’s order
dismissing her retaliation claims, brought pursuant to Title VII
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C.A.
§§ 2000e to 2000e-17 (West 2003 & Supp. 2010), and Md. Code
Ann., State Gov’t Title 20 (LexisNexis 2009 & Supp. 2010),
against First Tennessee Bank, N.A. and Metlife Bank, N.A. 1 The
district court dismissed Templeton’s retaliation claims, in part
because it found that too much time had elapsed between
Templeton’s protected activity and Defendants’ refusal to rehire
Templeton more than two years after her resignation. For the
following reasons, we affirm in part and vacate in part and
remand to the district court.
We review the district court’s dismissal of
Templeton’s retaliation claims de novo. See Coleman v. Maryland
Ct. of App., 626 F.3d 187, 190 (4th Cir. 2010) (Fed. R. Civ. P.
12(b)(6) motion), pet. for cert. filed,
79 U.S.L.W. 3480 (Feb.
8, 2011) (No. 10-1016); Independence News, Inc. v. City of
Charlotte,
568 F.3d 148, 154 (4th Cir. 2009) (Fed. R. Civ. P.
12(c) motion). Accordingly, we “accept as true all of the
factual allegations contained in the complaint.” Erickson v.
1
Templeton does not challenge the district court’s
dismissal of her state law claims for negligent supervision and
retention and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
3
Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007) (per curiam); see Edwards v. City
of Goldsboro,
178 F.3d 231, 243 (4th Cir. 1999) (recognizing
that, in reviewing the district court’s grant of a Rule 12(c)
motion, this court applies the same standard as when it reviews
a dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6)).
A complaint “need only give the defendant fair notice
of what the claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.”
Erickson, 551 U.S. at 93 (alteration and internal quotation
marks omitted). To survive a motion to dismiss, however, the
complaint must “state[ ] a plausible claim for relief” that
“permit[s] the court to infer more than the mere possibility of
misconduct” based upon “its judicial experience and common
sense.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal,
129 S. Ct. 1937, 1950 (2009).
In this regard, while a Title VII plaintiff is not
required to plead facts that constitute a prima facie case in
order to survive a motion to dismiss, see Swierkiewicz v. Sorema
N.A., 534 U.S. 506, 510-15 (2002), “[f]actual allegations must
be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative
level.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly,
550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007);
see Francis v. Giacomelli,
588 F.3d 186, 193 (4th Cir. 2009)
(“[N]aked assertions of wrongdoing necessitate some factual
enhancement within the complaint to cross the line between
possibility and plausibility of entitlement to relief.”)
(internal quotation marks omitted). In other words, the Supreme
4
Court’s holding in Swierkiewicz “left untouched the burden of a
plaintiff to allege facts sufficient to state all the elements
of her claim.” Jordan v. Alternative Res. Corp., 458 F.3d 332,
346 (4th Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also
Dickson v. Microsoft Corp.,
309 F.3d 193, 213 (4th Cir. 2002)
(“[T]he Supreme Court's holding in Swierkiewicz . . . did not
alter the basic pleading requirement that a plaintiff set forth
facts sufficient to allege each element of his claim.”).
We have reviewed the record and the briefs filed with
this court and conclude that the district court erred when it
determined that Templeton’s retaliation claims should be
dismissed at the motion to dismiss stage because too much time
had elapsed between Templeton’s harassment complaint and
Defendants’ refusal to rehire her. Because Templeton resigned
her employment shortly after she complained of harassment,
Templeton was retaliated against, if at all, upon the employer’s
first opportunity to do so, i.e., when Templeton expressed her
interest in being rehired approximately two years after her
resignation. See Price v. Thompson, 380 F.3d 209, 213 (4th Cir.
2004) (assuming, without deciding, “that in the failure-to-hire
context, the employer's knowledge coupled with an adverse action
taken at the first opportunity satisfies the causal connection
element of the prima facie case”); see also Dixon v. Gonzales,
481 F.3d 324, 335 (6th Cir. 2007) (“[A] mere lapse in time
5
between the protected activity and the adverse employment action
does not inevitably foreclose a finding of causality. This is
especially true in the context of a reinstatement case, in which
the time lapse between the protected activity and the denial of
reinstatement is likely to be lengthier than in a typical
employment-discrimination case.”); McGuire v. City of
Springfield, Ill., 280 F.3d 794, 796 (7th Cir. 2002) (holding
that although a ten-year delay between protected activity and
the adverse employment action “was exceedingly long[,] . . . the
reason a long wait often implies no causation . . . d[id] not
apply” in that case because the employer had no earlier
opportunity to retaliate).
According to the complaint filed in this case,
Templeton made clear when she resigned her employment that she
was doing so, at least in part, because management allegedly
failed to remedy the sexual harassment about which she
complained and failed to prevent ensuing retaliation by the
alleged harasser. Coupled with her allegation that Defendants
would not rehire Templeton because (according to one management
official) she had “issues with management,” we find that it is
at least plausible that Defendants’ refusal to rehire Templeton
in 2008 was causally-related to Templeton’s previous harassment
complaint. See Lettieri v. Equant, Inc., 478 F.3d 640, 650-51
(4th Cir. 2007) (recognizing that intervening events that can
6
reasonably be viewed as exhibiting retaliatory animus by the
employer can establish a causal link between complaint and
adverse employment action, even absent temporal proximity).
Accordingly, we vacate that portion of the district
court’s order dismissing Templeton’s retaliation claims and
remand for further proceedings. 2 We affirm the remainder of the
district court’s order. We dispense with oral argument because
the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the
materials before the court and argument would not aid the
decisional process.
AFFIRMED IN PART,
VACATED IN PART,
AND REMANDED
2
By this disposition, we intimate no view as to the
appropriate resolution of Templeton’s retaliation claims.
7
