Jackson v. City of Cleveland

CARLA SUZANNE JACKSON v. CITY OF CLEVELAND

No. E2015-01279-COA-R3-CV

COURT OF APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT KNOXVILLE

Assigned on Briefs April 4, 2016

AUGUST 22, 2016

Appeal from the Circuit Court for Bradley County

No. V-14-586

Lawrence H. Puckett, Judge

Plaintiff, who had served as a police officer for the City of Cleveland Police Department since 1990, was fired on September 12, 2011, eleven months after filing a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Four months after her termination, Plaintiff filed suit in federal court asserting, inter alia, claims of sexual discrimination, hostile work environment, and retaliation against the City of Cleveland under the Tennessee Human Rights Act. She asserted that the discriminatory acts continued until January 18, 2012, when she was interviewed by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation for allegedly filing false timesheets while employed by the Department. All claims in the federal court action were dismissed without prejudice on August 13, 2013. On August 12, 2014, Plaintiff commenced this action in the Circuit Court for Bradley County asserting the same state-law claims. After answering the complaint, the city filed a motion for summary judgment seeking the dismissal of all claims based on the one-year statute of limitations. Plaintiff opposed the motion contending the action was timely filed due to the combined effect of the continuing violation doctrine, see Booker v. The Boeing Co., 188 S.W.3d 639, 649 (Tenn. 2006), and 28 U.S.C. § 1367(d), which suspends the running of the state statute of limitations while a federal suit is pending and for 30 days after dismissal. The trial court dismissed all claims as time-barred upon the finding that they arose from the discrete act of terminating Plaintiff's employment in September 2011. We affirm.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Circuit Court Affirmed

FRANK G. CLEMENT, JR., P.J., M.S., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which THOMAS R. FRIERSON, II and KENNY W. ARMSTRONG, JJ., joined.

W. Gerald Tidwell, W. Adam Izell, and Todd A. Davis, Chattanooga, Tennessee, for the appellant, Carla Suzanne Jackson.

Ronald D. Wells and Keith H. Grant Chattanooga, Tennessee, for the appellee, City of Cleveland.

OPINION

Carla Suzanne Jackson ("Plaintiff") began working as a reserve police officer for the City of Cleveland Police Department ("the Department") in 1990. She was hired as a fulltime police officer in 1992. In October 2010, Plaintiff mailed a charge of discrimination to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") claiming she was being subjected to sexual discrimination. The Department terminated Plaintiff's employment on September 12, 2011.¹

On January 24, 2012, Plaintiff filed a complaint in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee ("federal complaint") against the City of Cleveland ("Defendant") claiming she was subjected to repeated retaliatory and discriminatory conduct by other members of the Department. The federal complaint alleged claims under both federal and state law. Subsequently, Plaintiff filed a motion to voluntarily dismiss her federal claims and asked the federal court to remand her state-law claims to state court. The court granted Plaintiff's motion with respect to the federal claims but determined that it could not remand the case to state court because Plaintiff had not previously filed the case in state court. The federal court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiff's state-law claims and dismissed the complaint without prejudice on August 13, 2013.

On August 12, 2014, Plaintiff filed a complaint in the Circuit Court of Bradley County, Tennessee ("state complaint") in which she alleged that the Department discriminated against her because of her sex and retaliated against her because she filed a charge with the EEOC.² With one exception, every incident referenced in Plaintiff's state complaint occurred before her employment was terminated on September 12, 2011. The lone post-termination incident is addressed in two paragraphs of the state complaint:

19. In retaliation for filing a complaint of sexual harassment with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on February 14, 2011, an offense report was prepared by [a lieutenant in the Department] making false and misleading allegations against the plaintiff regarding timesheet and [sic] discrepancies in 2008 and 2009. The plaintiff was never informedof the report and had no knowledge of the report until July 2011 when the plaintiff stumbled on the report by accident. Police department policy states that any employee is to be informed whenever an employee is under an internal affairs investigation . . . .

. . . .

31. Since [Plaintiff's] termination, the [Department] has undertaken to continue an investigation into falsification of timesheets which has no factual basis or truth regarding the allegations of falsification of timesheets two and three years earlier and prior to her complaint. The [Department] undertook a course of action that is retaliatory in nature by requesting that an investigation be conducted and said investigation is being conducted by the department through the use of the Tennessee Bureau of investigation [sic]. [On] January 18, 2012, the plaintiff was interviewed regarding the allegations of falsification of timesheets. The plaintiff alleges that department [sic] is motivated to retaliate against the plaintiff in that out of this motivation the department referred the allegations for further investigation by the District Attorney's office. . . .

After answering the state complaint, Defendant filed a "Motion to Dismiss and/or for Summary Judgment," arguing that Plaintiff's claims accrued on September 12, 2011 and were therefore barred by the one-year statutes of limitations in the Tennessee Human Rights Act ("THRA") and Governmental Tort Liability Act ("GTLA").³ See Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 4-21-311(d), 29-20-305(b). Plaintiff filed responses to the motion, arguing that the Department's conduct amounted to a continuing discriminatory act and that her claims did not accrue until she was interviewed by the TBI on January 18, 2012.

Plaintiff's responses included a letter that the Chief of Police sent to the District Attorney General for the 10th Judicial District. The letter states that Plaintiff submitted several timesheets that were inconsistent with the time she worked and concludes by stating: "In light of the current circumstances surrounding [Plaintiff's] complaints with the City Manager and the EEOC, I [the Chief of Police] am asking that you [the districtattorney general] review these timesheets and document evidence for the possibility of a criminal investigation."

The trial court treated Defendant's motion as a motion for summary judgment. Based upon the entire record, the court found that "because Plaintiff's complaint arises from a discreet act of discrimination, her allegedly wrongful and discriminatory discharge from employment, the continuing tort doctrine does not apply to extend the statute of limitations." The court found that Plaintiff's claims were barred by the statute of limitations and granted summary judgment to Defendant. Plaintiff appealed.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

This court reviews a trial court's decision on a motion for summary judgment de novo without a presumption of correctness. Rye v. Women's Care Ctr. of Memphis, MPLLC, 477 S.W.3d 235, 250 (Tenn. 2015) (citing Bain v. Wells, 936 S.W.2d 618, 622 (Tenn. 1997)). Accordingly, this court must make a fresh determination that the requirements of Tenn. R. Civ. P. 56 have been satisfied. Id.; Hunter v. Brown, 955 S.W.2d 49, 50-51 (Tenn. 1997). In so doing, we consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party and draw all reasonable inferences in that party's favor. Godfrey v. Ruiz, 90 S.W.3d 692, 695 (Tenn. 2002).

Summary judgment should be granted when "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Tenn. R. Civ. P. 56.04. When defendants move for summary judgment based on an affirmative defense such as the statute of limitations, they must establish the elements of the affirmative defense before the burden shifts to the nonmovant. See Carr v. Borchers, 815 S.W.2d 528, 532 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1991) ("Since . . . a statute of limitations defense is an affirmative defense and no prima facie showing of the running of the statute of limitations is made by the record, the burden of establishing that the statute has run is upon the defendant."); Campbell v. Grand Trunk Western R. Co., 238 F.3d 772, 775 (6th Cir. 2001) ("Because the statute of limitations is an affirmative defense, the burden is on the defendant to show that the statute of limitations has run. If the defendant meets this requirement then the burden shifts to the plaintiff to establish an exception to the statute of limitations.").

Once the moving party has made a properly-supported motion, the burden shifts to the nonmoving party to "set forth specific facts at the summary judgment stage showing that there is a genuine issue for trial." Rye, 477 S.W.3d at 265 (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis in original). A disputed fact is "material" if it "must be decided in order to resolve the claim or defense at which the motion is directed." Byrd v. Hall, 847 S.W.2d 208, 215 (Tenn. 1993). A "genuine issue" exists if "a reasonable jury could legitimately resolve that fact in favor of one side or the other." Id.

ANALYSIS

Plaintiff asserts claims for discriminatory termination, hostile work environment, retaliation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and malicious harassment. Defendant contends that all of these claims are time-barred under...