Baez v. Amazon.com Servs.

659 F.Supp.3d 339

Vivian Alicia Cruz BAEZ, Plaintiff, v. AMAZON.COM SERVICES, LLC, Defendant.

21-cv-4195 (KAM) (RER)

United States District Court, E.D. New York

Signed March 7, 2023

Vivian Alicia Cruz Baez, Staten Island, NY, Pro Se.

Eli Z. Freedberg, Thelma Akpan, Littler Mendelson, P.C., New York, NY, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

KIYO A. MATSUMOTO, United States District Judge:

Plaintiff Vivian Alicia Cruz Baez, proceeding pro se, brings the instant complaint against Defendant Amazon.com Services LLC, alleging violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, codified at 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-2000e-17 ("Title VII"), and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, codified at 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-634 ("ADEA").

Presently before the Court is Defendant's motion to dismiss the Amended Complaint (ECF No. 19) for failure to exhaust administrative remedies and failure to state a claim pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). (ECF No. 29.) For the reasons set forth below, Defendant's motion to dismiss is granted and the Amended Complaint is dismissed in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

The following facts, set forth in the Amended Complaint and the attached exhibits, are presumed true for purposes of considering Defendant's motion. See Nicosia v. Amazon.com, Inc., 834 F.3d 220, 230-31 (2d Cir. 2016) (holding that courts may consider on a motion to dismiss "any written instrument attached to [the complaint] as an exhibit or any statements or documents incorporated in it by reference" and other documents "integral" to the complaint).

Plaintiff, born in 1966, was a former employee of Defendant Amazon.com Services LLC ("Amazon").¹ She was terminated from her position at Amazon on March 15, 2021. Plaintiff is of Hispanic national origin, and was 54 years old at the time of her termination. (ECF No. 19 ("Am. Compl.") at 18²; ECF No. 30-3 ("EEOC Charge") at 7.)

On July 2, 2021, Plaintiff filed a "Charge of Discrimination" with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"), alleging discrimination based on national origin, retaliation, and age, in relation to termination of her employment on March 15, 2021. (EEOC Charge at 7, 9.) On July 21, 2021, Plaintiff received a "notice of suit rights" (also referred to as a notice of right to sue) from the EEOC, which stated that she had 90 days after receipt of the notice to file a lawsuit in federal or state court based on the EEOC Charge. (Id.) Plaintiff then filed her Complaint in this action on July 23, 2021. At a pre-motion conference with this Court on November 4, 2021 regarding Defendant's anticipated motion to dismiss, this Court granted Plaintiff leave to file an amended complaint to give Plaintiff "the opportunity to add additional facts supporting her claims of discrimination and retaliation on the basis of age and national origin." (11/04/2021 Minute Entry.)

Plaintiff filed an Amended Complaint on December 8, 2021, bringing an action for discrimination in employment pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, codified at 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-2000e-17, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 ("ADEA"), codified at 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-634. The Amended Complaint identifies "termination of [her] employment," "retaliation," and "other acts: discrimination (age, national origin)" as the discriminatory conduct at issue. (Am. Compl. at 3-4.) The Court will summarize the specific incidents that are relevant to Plaintiff's claims in this action, largely derived from Plaintiff's EEOC Charge and repeated in and supplemented by allegations in her Amended Complaint.

July 15, 2020

Plaintiff alleges in her EEOC Charge that on July 15, 2020, an unknown "African American Male" employee verbally abused her. (EEOC Charge at 7.) In her Amended Complaint, she further alleges that the employee was telling her "Fuck you," intimidating her, and invading the station where Plaintiff was working as a packer. (Am. Compl. at 9.) Plaintiff brought the issue to the attention of individual "Ryan," who did not know the employee's name. (Id. at 27.) Plaintiff filed a formal discrimination claim against the employee via a written statement on August 2, 2020. She further spoke with a Human Resources representative at the time named "Heather." (EEOC Charge at 7.) Plaintiff asserts that "Heather stated that she was going to follow up with an investigation," but that Plaintiff believes "that she did not do anything because the guy who verbally abused [Plaintiff] was still working there and harassing [Plaintiff]." (Id.)

December 1, 2020

In her Amended Complaint, Plaintiff recounts an incident from December 1, 2020, which she did not include nor even reference in her EEOC Charge. Plaintiff alleges that "a group of Amazon employees" pushed her and her daughter and threatened to physically attack them. (Am. Compl. at 9, 28-29.) The group allegedly said, "fucking bitch, fucking latin" and "I scent [sic] you face bitch," and one of the women attacked Plaintiff's daughter and pulled her hair. (Id.) Plaintiff alleges that "911 was called and was told that a group was attacking and threatening," and that she wrote a statement to a Miss Cristina at Human Resources, who investigated the incident. (Id. at 28-29.)

February 16, 2021; February 23, 2021

On February 16, 2021, "the managers Clyde and Tatiana Cruz" threatened to fire Plaintiff and her daughter "for insubordination." (EEOC Charge at 8.) The managers accused both Plaintiff and her daughter of not working the designated areas, and said that Plaintiff "had left and had not worked at the station that [she] was assigned to work." (Id.) Plaintiff states that the reason she was not at her designated area was because "the machines were not working properly as [Plaintiff] had repeatedly reported." (Id.) Plaintiff believes that both she and her daughter were terminated "because [her] daughter applied for a promotion and since they did not want to promote her, because they knew that [Plaintiff and her daughter] were good employees and they wanted to bring their people." (Id.) In her Amended Complaint, Plaintiff alleges that on February 16, 2021, an employee, Ryan Tenney, "threatened" Plaintiff and her daughter that he was going to write them up, "with a high loud voice and basically humiliated [Plaintiff and her daughter] in front of other associates." (Am. Compl. at 48.) From the record before the Court, it is unclear whether Plaintiff is referring to the same February 16, 2021 incident as the incident with "the managers Clyde and Tatiana Cruz."

Plaintiff further alleges in her EEOC Charge that individual "Clyde" told Plaintiff on or before February 16, 2021 that "they only hired people who spoke English and that they only gave that position to younger employees." (EEOC Charge at 8.) In her Amended Complaint, Plaintiff describes the incident as follows:

"Alex Clive Williams assigned at the time to the position of (Process Assistant) in the single and smartpac Dept. responded to me in a discriminatory way for asking him to reapply for an Ambassador position that it would be difficult for [Plaintiff] to be accepted because managers prefer to move up to positions . . . young people who speak perfect English."

(Am. Compl. at 10.)

Plaintiff next alleges in her EEOC Charge that on February 23, 2023, Tenney took Plaintiff to HR, where she asked for an interpreter and "was told that there was no one." Plaintiff states that Tenney and Samiul Karim from Human Resources told Plaintiff she was being fired and told Plaintiff that she needed to leave the building. Plaintiff then went to another HR office and was asked to write a statement about what happened on February 16, 2021. (EEOC Charge at 8; Am. Compl. at 11.) Plaintiff alleges that Mike Tanelli from Human Resources was "telling [Plaintiff] to write that [she] was insubordinate and that [she] had refused to work where [she] was supposed to be working." (EEOC Charge at 8; Am. Compl. at 11.) Plaintiff further asserts that when she asked Mr. Tanelli if he wanted her to write a statement regarding the "intimidation" from Tenney and Karim, Mr. Tanelli told Plaintiff not to do so. (Am. Compl. at 11.) Plaintiff acknowledges that she was not fired that day, but alleges that "they continued with the acts of retaliation" against Plaintiff and her daughter." (EEOC Charge at 8.)

Plaintiff alleged in her EEOC Charge that she was written up on February 28, 2021 to prevent her from transferring from her location. (Id.) Plaintiff was ultimately terminated on March 15, 2021.

With as liberal a reading of pro se Plaintiff's pleading and exhibits as possible, the Court construes the bases of Plaintiffs' national origin and age discrimination claims as the following events described in her Amended Complaint:

• Ever since reporting the July 15, 2020 incident to her supervisor (Ryan Tenney) and to HR, Tenney "want[ed] to humiliate [Plaintiff], be offensive," and was "basically hostile" to Plaintiff and her daughter, (see Am. Compl. at 48), further evinced by his threat to write Plaintiff up on February 16, 2021 and their conversation on February 23, 2021. Plaintiff states that she "feel[s] discriminated against because of [her] age and the way [she] speaks[s]," and that Tenney "has used threats, verbal intimidation on a routine basis at work." (Id.)

• The December 1, 2020 incident;

• Alex Clive Williams' comments to Plaintiff on February 16, 2021.

Defendant moved to dismiss the Amended Complaint and the motion was fully briefed as of March 4, 2022. The Court notes that Plaintiff did not submit a memorandum of law in opposition to Defendant's motion to dismiss, but rather submitted the following paragraph:

The facts of my opposition are as follows are that, I was intimidated, discriminated against and verbally abused. I was affected emotionally. I also brought the complaints and incidents; and they did not take my complaints into attention. The retaliation, discrimination, intimidation, harassment and unsafety environment continued going on;

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