Roberson v. City of Goldsboro

Page 526

564 F.Supp.2d 526

Rick R. ROBERSON, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF GOLDSBORO, Defendant.

No. 5:07-CV-429-D.

United States District Court, E.D. North Carolina, Western Division.

May 15, 2008.

David G. Schiller, Schiller & Schiller, Raleigh, NC, for Plaintiff.

Donna R. Rascoe, Cranfill Sumner & Hartzog, LLP, Raleigh, NC, Norwood P. Blanchard, III, Cranfill Sumner & Hartzog, LLP, Wilmington, NC, for Defendant.

ORDER

JAMES C. DEVER III, District Judge.

On October 1, 2007, plaintiff Rick Roberson ("Roberson") filed this action in Wake County Superior Court against his former employer, defendant City of Goldsboro, North Carolina ("the City"). Roberson, an African-American male, alleges that the City discriminated against him based on his race and age in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII'), 42 U.S.C. § 1981, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 ("ADEA"). Roberson also alleges that the City wrongfully discharged him in violation of North Carolina public policy. On November 2, 2007, defendant removed the action to this court. On February 12, 2008, Roberson amended his complaint to allege a race discrimination claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and a due process claim under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution and Article I, Section 19 of the North Carolina Constitution. Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), defendant moves to dismiss plaintiffs section 1981 race discrimination claim and his due process claim. As explained below, the court grants defendant's motion to partially dismiss the amended complaint.

I.

According to the amended complaint, the City of Goldsboro employed Roberson as its Director of Human Resources Management from August 2001 through December 15, 2005. Am. Compl. ¶ 6. Roberson ably performed his duties and never received any written warning about his job performance or conduct. Id. ¶¶ 7-8. Nonetheless, Goldsboro City Manager Joe Huffman terminated Roberson's employment with the City without cause. Id. ¶ 9.

On April 4, 2005, the Mayor of Goldsboro and the Goldsboro City Council adopted the City of Goldsboro Personnel Policy ("the Policy"). Id. ¶ 11; see City of Goldsboro, N.C., City Council Minutes 3 (Apr. 4, 2005) (on file with court).¹ The Policy states in relevant part:

An employee may be suspended, demoted or terminated by the City Manager for failure in the performance of duties or personal conduct. After coordination with the Human Resources Management Director, the department head shall provide the employee with a written notice of the recommended disciplinary action, the recommended effective date, the reason for the action and the appeal rights available to the employee.

Policy, Art. VII, § 2 (Disciplinary Action); see Am. Compl. ¶¶ 11-12. The City did not provide Roberson written notice of his proposed discharge and did not permit Roberson to pursue the grievance procedure described in the Policy. Am. Compl ¶¶ 13-14; see Policy, Art. VIII (Complaint Process and Grievance Procedure). According to Roberson, the City replaced him with a substantially younger person. Am. Compl. ¶¶ 16-17. Additionally, according to Roberson, other white (and younger) department heads for the City committed serious infractions and received no disciplinary action. Id. ¶ 15.

Roberson alleges that the City discriminated against him based on his race and age in violation of Title VII (see id. ¶¶ 18-20), section 1981 (see id. ¶¶ 21-23), section 1983 (see id. ¶ 24-27), and the ADEA (see id. ¶¶ 28-31). Roberson also alleges that the City wrongfully discharged him in violation of North Carolina public policy. See id. ¶¶ 32-35. Lastly, Roberson alleges that in failing to provide him certain appeal rights following the termination of his employment, the City violated Roberson's due process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 19 of the North Carolina Constitution. See id. ¶¶ 36-12. The City seeks to dismiss plaintiffs section 1981 race discrimination claim (i.e., second claim for relief in the amended complaint) and his due process claim (i.e., sixth claim for relief in the amended complaint).

II.

In analyzing a motion to dismiss a complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for "failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted," a court must determine whether the complaint is legally and factually sufficient. See Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 1968-70, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007); Giarratano v. Johnson, 521 F.3d 298 (4th Cir.2008); Goodman v. Praxair, Inc., 494 F.3d 458, 464 (4th Cir.2007) (en banc); Kloth v. Microsoft Corp., 444 F.3d 312, 319 (4th Cir.2006); accord Erickson v. Pardus, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 2197, 2200, 167 L.Ed.2d 1081 (2007) (per curiam). "[W]hen ruling on a defendant's motion to dismiss, a judge must accept as true all of the factual allegations contained in the complaint." Erickson, 127 S.Ct. at 2200. Nonetheless, the court "need not accept the legal conclusions drawn from the facts" and "need not accept as true unwarranted inferences, unreasonable conclusions, or arguments." Kloth, 444 F.3d at 319 (quotation omitted).

In considering the motion to partially dismiss the amended complaint, the court notes that the amended complaint quoted portions of the City's Policy. See Am. Compl. ¶ 12. Defendant also quoted portions of the Policy in its motion to dismiss the amended complaint and attached a portion of the Policy to its motion as Exhibit 1. See Def.'s Mot. to Dismiss Ex. 1; Def.'s Mem. in Supp. of Mot. to Dismiss 5 [hereinafter "Def.'s Mem."]. On April 8, 2008, the court ordered defendant to submit a complete copy of the Policy. Defendant did so, and the court has reviewed the entire Policy. In so doing, the court has not converted defendant's motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment. See Clark, 142 Fed.Appx. at 660-61; Phillips v. LCI Int'l Inc., 190 F.3d 609, 618 (4th Cir.1999); Whitesell, 446 F.Supp.2d at 421-22; accord 5A Wright & Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1327 ("[W]hen the plaintiff fails to introduce a pertinent document as part of her pleading, ... the defendant may introduce the document as an exhibit to a motion attacking the sufficiency of the pleading; that certainly will be true if the plaintiff has referred to the item in the complaint and it is central to the affirmative case.").

III.

A.

To the extent plaintiff seeks to use section 1981 to allege a race discrimination claim against the City, such a claim fails because section 1983 "provides the exclusive federal damages remedy for the violation of rights guaranteed by [section] 1981 when the claim is pressed against a state actor." Jett v. Dallas Indep. Sch. Dist, 491 U.S. 701, 735, 109 S.Ct. 2702, 105 L.Ed.2d 598 (1989). Plaintiff concedes that the City is a state actor. See Pl.'s Mem. in Resp. to Def.'s Mot. to Dismiss 1 [hereinafter "Pl.'s Resp."]. Nevertheless, plaintiff argues that Congress created a direct cause of action against municipalities under section 1981 when it added section 1981(c) in 1991. See 42 U.S.C. § 1981(c) ("The rights protected by this section are protected against impairment by nongovernmental discrimination and impairment under color of State law") (emphasis added); see Pl.'s Resp. 3-4.

The Fourth Circuit has analyzed 42 U.S.C. § 1981(c) and held that Jett remains good law. See Dennis v. County of Fairfax, 55 F.3d 151, 156 & n. 1 (4th Cir.1995); see also Lewis v. Robeson County, 63 Fed.Appx. 134, 138 (4th Cir. 2003) (per curiam) (unpublished); Farmer v. Ramsay, 43 Fed.Appx. 547, 553 n. 8 (4th Cir.2002) (unpublished); Childress v. City of Richmond, 907 F.Supp. 934, 940 (E.D.Va.1995), aff'd, 134 F.3d 1205 (4th Cir.1998) (per curiam) (en banc). Accordingly, section 1983 remains the exclusive remedy for federally-guaranteed rights when suit is brought against a state actor. Thus, defendant's motion to dismiss plaintiffs section 1981 claim in the amended complaint is granted.

B.

The court next addresses plaintiffs due process claim in count six of the amended complaint. Roberson alleges that he had a property interest in continued employment with the City, as created by the City's Policy and adopted by ordinance, and that the City violated his due process rights by failing to provide him certain appeal rights following the termination of his employment. See Am. Compl. ¶¶ 36-42.

"The procedural safeguards of the due process clause extend to plaintiffs continued employment only if [he] had a property interest in that employment." Pittman v. Wilson County, 839 F.2d 225, 226 (4th Cir.1988); see Whitesell, 446 F.Supp.2d at 423. "[I]n order to possess a property interest in one's employment ... 'a person clearly must have more than an abstract need or desire for it. He must have more than a unilateral expectation of it. He must, instead, have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it.'" Pittman, 839 F.2d at 227 (quoting Bd. of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548(1972)).

The court looks to state law to determine whether Roberson had a property interest in his job. See, e.g., Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 538, 105 S.Ct. 1487, 84 L.Ed.2d 494 (1985); Knight v. Vernon, 214 F.3d 544, 553 (4th Cir.2000); Whitesell, 446 F.Supp.2d at 423. In Knight, the Fourth Circuit analyzed whether a person had a property interest in her job under North Carolina law "thus entitling her to procedural due process." Knight, 214 F.3d at 553. The Fourth Circuit observed that "North Carolina is an at-will employment state." Id. (citing Kurtzman v. Applied Analytical Indus., Inc., 347 N.C. 329, 331, 493 S.E.2d 420, 422 (1997)). "Thus, in North Carolina, `an employer's personnel manual or policies are not part of an employee's contract of employment unless expressly included in that contract.'" Id. at 553 (quoting Soles v. City of Raleigh Civil Serv. Comm'n, ...