Doe v. Elson S Floyd Coll. of Med. at Wash. State Univ.

JANE DOE, Plaintiff, v. ELSON S FLOYD COLLEGE OF MEDICINE AT WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY, Defendant.

No. 2:20-cv-00145-SMJ

United States District Court, E.D. Washington

August 3, 2021

ORDER DISMISSING CASE

SALVADOR MENDOZA JR. United States District Judge

Before the Court are Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment ECF No. 129, Plaintiff's Motion to Dismiss Count Two with Prejudice, ECF No. 136, Plaintiff's Motion to Remand, ECF No. 137, and Plaintiff's Motion to Strike Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, ECF No. 138. The Court finds oral argument unnecessary. Having reviewed the file, the Court grants Plaintiff's motion to dismiss, denies Plaintiff's motion to remand, denies Plaintiff's motion to strike, and grants in part and denies as moot in part Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff was accepted and attended several years at Defendant's medical school. She initially sued Defendant in the Spokane County Superior Court, alleging twenty causes of action including six due process violations, two violations of her right to privacy, harassment, seven gender discrimination claims, three disability rights violations, and the tort of outrage. ECF No. 2-2. Defendant subsequently removed the suit to federal court. ECF No. 2. The Court granted Plaintiff leave to amend her complaint. ECF No. 80. The operative complaint alleges two causes of action: violation of admissions contract and violation of the Rehabilitation Act (Pub. L. 93-112). ECF No. 94. The relevant facts are incorporated below.

COUNT TWO

Both Plaintiff and Defendant move to dismiss Count Two Plaintiff's Rehabilitation Act claim, with prejudice. See ECF Nos. 129, 136. Defendant argues that the Court should dismiss the claim on summary judgment, because Plaintiff only moved to dismiss after Defendant filed its summary judgment motion-and even then, it took her three weeks to do so. See ECF No. 156. Plaintiff has made a habit of seeking to amend or dismiss her claims once Defendant challenges them on the merits. See ECF Nos. 31, 34, 41, 43, 74, 94, 129 & 136. And Plaintiff failed to file a notice of to-be-adjudicated claims by the deadline, forcing Defendant to guess at what claims Plaintiff planned to pursue at trial. See ECF No. 109 at 8.

When multiple motions are presented to the Court, “it has discretion to decide the order in which it [will] consider and decide them.” Hoptowit v. Spellman, 753 F.2d 779, 782 (9th Cir. 1985). After the filing of a Motion for Summary Judgment by the opposing party, “an action may be dismissed at the plaintiff's request only by court order, on terms that the court considers proper.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 41. “A district court should grant a motion for voluntary dismissal under Rule 41(a)(2) unless a defendant can show that it will suffer some plain legal prejudice as a result.” Smith v. Lenches, 263 F.3d 972, 975 (9th Cir. 2001). “‘[L]egal prejudice' means ‘prejudice to some legal interest, some legal claim, some legal argument.'” Id. at 976 (quoting Westlands Water Dist. v. United States, 100 F.3d 94, 97 (9th Cir. 1996)). “Plain legal prejudice, however, does not result simply when a defendant faces the prospect of a second lawsuit or when plaintiff merely gains some tactical advantage.” Hamilton v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., 69 F.2d 143, 145 (9th Cir. 1982).

Courts can consider several factors when deciding a Rule 41 motion to dismiss, including 1) the defendant's effort and expense in preparing for trial; 2) any excessive delay or lack of diligence on the part of the plaintiff in prosecuting the action; 3) insufficiencies in the plaintiff's explanation of the need for a dismissal; and 4) the fact that a summary judgment motion has been filed by the defendant.

Cent. Montana Rail, Inc. v. BNSF Ry. Co., 2010 WL 11534149, at *2 (D. Mont. Apr. 13, 2010) (internal quotation marks omitted), aff'd sub nom. Cent. Montana Rail v. BNSF Ry. Co., 422 Fed. App'x 636 (9th Cir. 2011).

The Court appreciates Plaintiff's unorganized filings, missed deadlines, and ever-evolving claims have created extra-and avoidable-work for Defendant. Yet, Defendant does not point to any “plain legal prejudice.” See Smith, 263 F.3d at 975. No matter the Court's disposition, Defendant has already expended the labor on the motion for summary judgment. “[E]xpense incurred in defending against a lawsuit does not amount to legal prejudice.” Westlands Water Dist. v. United States, 100 F.3d 94, 97 (9th Cir. 1996); see also Pohl v. MH Sub I, LLC, 407 F.Supp.3d 1253 (N.D. Fla. 2019) (“This Court has found no such authority, holding that inability to seek attorneys' fees and costs constitutes clear legal prejudice”).^[1] Both parties seek to dismiss the Count Two with prejudice. The Court thus grants Plaintiff's motion to dismiss and denies Defendant's motion for summary judgment as to Count Two as moot.

MOTION TO REMAND

With the dismissal of Count Two, no federal law claims remain. See ECF No. 94. Plaintiff argues that this Court no longer has subject-matter jurisdiction, and so should remand this case back to state court. This argument fails.

The jurisdiction of the federal courts is limited, and the party invoking the Court's jurisdiction bears the burden of establishing why it exists. United States v. Orr Water Ditch Co., 600 F.3d 1152, 1157 (9th Cir. 2010). The Court may exercise supplemental jurisdiction over a party's state law claims to the extent they are “so related to claims in the action within [the court's] original jurisdiction that they form part of the same case or controversy ....” 28 U.S.C. § 1376(a). “A state law claim is part of the same case or controversy when it shares a ‘common nucleus of operative fact' with the federal claims and the state and federal claims would normally be tried together.” See Bahrampour v. Lampert, 356 F.3d 969, 978 (9th Cir. 2004) (quoting Trs. of the Constr. Indus. & Laborers Health & Welfare Tr. v. Desert Valley Landscape Maint., Inc., 333 F.3d 923, 925 (9th Cir. 2003)).

In her motion, Plaintiff claimed that this Court must decline to continue to exercise jurisdiction after all federal law claims have been dismissed. But Plaintiff misstated the standard-which she admits in her reply-which grants the Court discretion over continued supplemental jurisdiction. After acquiring supplemental jurisdiction over a state law claim, a court may decline to exercise jurisdiction if

(1) The claim raises a novel or complex issue of state law, (2) the claim substantially predominates over the claim or claims over which the district court has original jurisdiction, (3) the district court has dismissed all claims over which it has original jurisdiction, or (4) in exceptional circumstances, there are other compelling reasons for declining jurisdiction.

28 U.S.C. § 1367(c). “In the usual case in which all federal-law claims are eliminated before trial, the balance of the factors . . . will point toward declining to exercise jurisdiction over the remaining state-law claims.” Carnegie-Mellon Univ. v. Cohill, 484 U.S. 343, 350 n.7 (1988), superseded by statute on other grounds as stated in Stanford v. MemberWorks, Inc., 625 F.3d 550, 561 (9th Cir. 2010). Ultimately, the “decision whether to exercise [supplemental] jurisdiction after dismissing every claim over which it had original jurisdiction is purely discretionary . . . [and] may not be raised at any time as a jurisdictional defect.” Carlsbad Tech. Inc. v. HIFBio, Inc., 556 U.S. 635, 639-40 (2009).

This Court has validly exercised supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiff's state law claims, which are part of the same case or controversy as Plaintiff's now-dismissed federal law claims. 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a). And it will exercise its discretion to continue to do so, thus ruling on Defendant's motion for summary judgment as to Count One. This case has been pending in this Court for a year and a half, and the parties have conducted substantial motions practice. See ECF Nos. 1, 6, 22, 31, 35, 41, 43, 47, 60, 81, 82, 96, 104, 129, 136, 137 & 138. In the interest of fairness, convenience, and judicial economy, continued jurisdiction in this matter is proper. See Acri v. Varian Assoc., Inc., 114 F.3d 999, 1001 (9th Cir. 1997); see also In re Nucorp Energy Sec. Litig., 772 F.2d 1486, 1491 (9th Cir. 1985) (district court “was right in not imposing unnecessarily on a state court or on [defendant] a repetition of pleadings, motions, discovery, and other pre-trial proceedings.”); Graf v. Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Ry. Co., 790 F.2d 1341, 1347-48 (7th Cir. 1986), overruled on other grounds by Hughes v. United Airlines, Inc., 634 F.3d 391 (7th Cir. 2011) (“Judicial economy, the essential policy behind the modern doctrine of [supplemental] jurisdiction . . . supports the retention of [supplemental] jurisdiction where substantial judicial resources have already been committed, so that sending the case to another court will cause a substantial duplication of effort”). Given the stage of this case and the resources expended, remand at this juncture would be “a waste.” See Schneider v. TRW, Inc., 938 F.2d 986, 994 (9th Cir. 1991). Plaintiff asks to remand on the eve of trial, when the case is ripe for decision via dispositive motion. Accordingly, the Court denies Plaintiff's motion to remand and motion to strike Defendant's motion for summary judgment.

COUNT ONE

Finally Defendant moves for summary judgment on Count One, Plaintiff's Violation of Admissions Contract claim. ECF No. 129. For the reasons explained, the Court grants the motion as to Count One.

A. Motion to Strike Deposition Transcripts

Contained in Defendant's reply to the motion for summary judgment is a motion to strike deposition transcripts and citations thereto filed by Plaintiff. ECF No. 154 at 9. Defendant...