Imbrunone v. Sch. Dist. of City of Hamtramck

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MICHELLE IMBRUNONE, Plaintiff, v. SCHOOL DISTRICT OF THE CITY OF HAMTRAMCK, et al., Defendants.

CIVIL No. 22-12346

United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, Southern Division

August 24, 2023

OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART DEFENDANT, HAMTRAMCK FEDERATION OF TEACHERS' MOTION TO DISMISS (ECF NO. 25)

LINDA V. PARKER, U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE.

Michelle Imbrunone (“Plaintiff”) initiated this civil rights lawsuit due to her termination of employment against the following Defendants: School District of the City of Hamtramck (“School District”); certain members of the Board of Education of the School District: Evan Major Salah Hadwan, Moortadha Obaid, Showcat Chowdhury, and Regan Watson (collectively, “School Board Defendants”) and the Hamtramck Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO (“HFT”). (ECF No. 1.) On January 4, 2023 Plaintiff filed an Amended Complaint against the same parties alleging numerous claims under federal and Michigan law. (ECF No. 21.)

The matter is presently before the Court on “Defendant Hamtramck Federation of Teachers' Motion to Dismiss Per Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6)” (ECF No. 25.) The motion is fully briefed. (ECF Nos. 28, 31.) Finding the facts and legal arguments sufficiently presented by the parties, the Court is dispensing with oral argument with respect to the parties' motions pursuant to Eastern District of Michigan Local Rule 7.1(f). For the reasons that follow, the Court is granting in part and denying in part Defendant's motion.

STATEMENT OF FACTS

HFT is a teacher's union that acts as the exclusive bargaining representative for all teachers employed by the School District. In January 2020, Plaintiff was hired by the School District to serve as its Director of Human Resources. In this role, Plaintiff was supervised by the Superintendent of Schools, Jaleelah Ahmed (“ Ahmed”). Upon Plaintiff's hiring, she signed an employment contract, which included the following provisions:

A. The initial term of the contract was January 6, 2020 through June 30, 2022;

B. An additional year was added to the contract each year her evaluation was satisfactory;

C. Her employment would not be terminated except for reasons that were not arbitrary or capricious; and, D. A paragraph entitled “Binding Arbitration” ....

(ECF No. 21 ¶ 21, Pg ID 428.) For the 2019-2020 school year, Plaintiff received an “effective” rating on her evaluation. In July 2021, Plaintiff was promoted to Executive Director of Human Resources and District Support Services, while Ahmed remained as Plaintiff's immediate supervisor. For the 2020-2021 school year, Plaintiff received a “highly effective” rating on her evaluation, which is the highest rating an employee can receive. As a result of Plaintiff's satisfactory evaluations, her employment contract was extended until June 30, 2024.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools closed and began virtual learning through the end of the 2020-2021 school year. According to Plaintiff, “[s]tressors related to fear of contagion, school closures, and virtual instruction caused many Michigan teachers to retire earlier than they would have otherwise.” (Id. ¶ 28, Pg ID 430.) Due to the increase in retirements, vacant positions opened in other school districts that paid more than the Defendant School District. As a result, several School District teachers applied and obtained employment in other school districts. According to Plaintiff, the HFT used the ongoing teacher resignations “as leverage” to improve its members' compensation and other aspects of employment with the School District. Plaintiff also alleges that the HFT used the ongoing resignations “as a pretext for ending the School District's ability to involuntarily transfer teachers.”^[1](Id. ¶ 31, Pg ID 431.)

At an unspecified date, Ahmed directed Plaintiff to use the School District's right to involuntary transfers to improve the academic achievement of students by initiating the transfer of nine School District teachers during the summer before the 2021-2022 school year. Plaintiff implemented the transfers and also implemented the voluntary resignation of “a popular teacher” due to tenure charges by the School District's Board of Education. The President of the HFT, Toni Coral (“Coral”), then notified the School Board Defendants that School District teachers had or planned to leave their positions with the School District “because they did not like [Plaintiff] and the way she did her job, among other things.” (ECF No. 21 ¶¶ 39, 42, Pg ID 432, 433.) Coral also made posts on Facebook notifying members of HFT that she was in communication with the School Board Defendants on their behalf and allegedly “publicly blaming [Plaintiff]” for the resignation of teachers. (Id. ¶ 45, Pg ID 433-34.) Additionally, Coral organized meetings to allegedly “coordinate the activities” of HFT members who blamed both Ahmed and Plaintiff regarding the recent resignations, and “praised HFT members for their efforts.” (Id. ¶ 46.)

In response to the HFT's “encouragement,” HFT members allegedly published false statements against Plaintiff to the general public, Board of Education, and the press. The statements included remarks that Plaintiff was “cold, “intimidating,” and “bullying,” along with blaming the teacher resignations at the start of the 2021-2022 school year. The statements were published in local and regional newspapers, state-wide media outlets, and on Facebook.

On a separate occasion, Ahmed directed Plaintiff to involuntarily transfer two additional teachers to assist with the rise in students with disabilities in Hamtramck Public Schools, which would provide students with teachers who were certified under federal and state law. However, the School Board Defendants prevented the transfer of teachers, which Plaintiff opposed.

The School Board Defendants repeatedly directed Ahmed to terminate Plaintiff and told Ahmed that the termination was “because the HFT did not like [Plaintiff] and they did not want to lose the HFT's financial and political support.” (Id. ¶ 42, Pg ID 428.) Ahmed declined to terminate Plaintiff absent any evidence of wrongdoing, and instead, suggested alternatives. In response, the School Board Defendants threatened to terminate Ahmed's employment. On an unspecified date, the School Board Defendants entered the School District Buildings to solicit complaints from School District Staff against Plaintiff.

On October 28, 2021, the School Board Defendants placed Plaintiff on paid leave pending an investigation.^[2]At some point, the School Board Defendants notified Plaintiff that her employment agreement would not be renewed, effective June 30, 2022, because she violated School Board policies: the specific policies were not identified. On June 27, 2022, Plaintiff filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) alleging discrimination based on sex, age, race, and color. The EEOC issued a right to sue letter on July 14, 2022.

LEGAL STANDARD

A motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) tests the legal sufficiency of the complaint. RMI Titanium Co. v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 78 F.3d 1125, 1134 (6th Cir. 1996). To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint need not contain “detailed factual allegations,” but it must contain more than “labels and conclusions” or “a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action ....” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). A complaint does not “suffice if it tenders ‘naked assertions' devoid of ‘further factual enhancement.'” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 557).

As the Supreme Court provided in Iqbal and Twombly, “[t]o survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'” Id. (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570). “A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556). “Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.” Majestic Bldg. Maint., Inc. v. Huntington Bancshares Inc., 864 F.3d 455, 458 (6th Cir. 2017) (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678.) Moreover, the plausibility standard “does not impose a probability requirement at the pleading stage; it simply calls for enough facts to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence of illegal [conduct].” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556.

In deciding whether the plaintiff has set forth a “plausible” claim, the court must accept the factual allegations in the complaint as true. Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007). This presumption is not applicable to legal conclusions, however. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 668.

Ordinarily, the court may not consider matters outside the pleadings when deciding a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. Weiner v. Klais & Co., Inc., 108 F.3d 86, 88 (6th Cir. 1997) (citing Hammond v. Baldwin, 866 F.2d 172, 175 (6th Cir. 1989)).

A court that considers such matters must first convert the motion to dismiss to one for summary judgment. See Fed. R. Civ. P 12(d). However, “[w]hen a court is presented with a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, it may consider the [c]omplaint and any exhibits attached thereto, public records, items appearing in the record of the case and exhibits attached to [the] defendant's motion to dismiss, so long as they are referred to in the [c]omplaint and are central to the claims contained therein.” Bassett v. Nat'l Collegiate Athletic Ass'n, 528 F.3d 426, 430 (6th Cir. 2008).

ANALYSIS

In the motion, the HFT moves to dismiss the following...