Smith v. Howard Univ.

605 F.Supp.3d 103

Michaela SMITH, Plaintiff,

v.HOWARD UNIVERSITY, Defendant.

Case No. 21-cv-00920 (APM)

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

Signed May 25, 2022

Amy Norris, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff.

Daniel I. Prywes, Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP, Washington, DC, Nathiya Nagendra, Office of the General Counsel, Washington, DC, Zachary I. Shapiro, Howard University, Washington, DC, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Amit P. Mehta, United States District Court Judge

I.

Plaintiff Michaela Smith brings this action against Defendant Howard University ("Howard" or "the University") following her removal from the Howard College of Medicine ("HCOM") by both expulsion and dismissal. See Def.'s Notice of Removal, ECF No. 1, Compl., ECF No. 1-1 [hereinafter Compl.]. Plaintiff's expulsion arose from an Honor Council Committee's finding that she had changed an exam answer during a post-exam process that allowed students to challenge their grade based on their original responses. Id. ¶ 80. Separately, HCOM's Committee on Promotions and Graduation ("Promotions Committee") dismissed her from the school because the finding of academic dishonesty caused her to receive an overall failing grade during a repeat year. Id. ¶¶ 62–70.

Plaintiff advances two causes of action. In Count One, she alleges breach of contract. Specifically, she claims that HCOM (1) wrongfully expelled her by failing to comply with its stated procedures for adjudicating alleged disciplinary infractions before the Honor Council, and (2) improperly dismissed her by not reviewing her appeal from the Promotions Committee's decision. Id. ¶¶ 29, 32–48, 54–61, 74–77, 85, 87–88. In Count Two, Plaintiff asserts a violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Id. ¶¶ 91–98. As to that claim, Plaintiff contends that gender-based animus was the reason HCOM refused to consider her appeal from the Promotion Committee's dismissal decision. Id. ¶¶ 94, 96.

The University moves to dismiss. First, the University argues that Plaintiff fails to state a claim for breach of contract because (1) she did not take a procedurally perfected appeal from the expulsion and dismissal decisions and (2) her pleading does not identify a material breach. Def.'s Mot. to Dismiss, ECF No. 9 [hereinafter Def.'s Mot.], Def.'s Mem. of P. & A. in Supp. of Def.'s Mot., ECF No. 9-1 [hereinafter Def.'s Mem.], at 17–22. Second, it contends that Plaintiff's Title IX claim fails because (1) the statute of limitations has run and (2) she has not stated a plausible claim of gender discrimination. Id. at 22–31. For the reasons that follow, the University's motion is denied.

II.

A.

The court begins with Plaintiff's Title IX claim and the University's timeliness challenge. Title IX provides in pertinent part: "No person ... shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." 20 U.S.C. § 1681(a). Title IX does not contain an express private right of action; therefore, it contains no defined statute of limitations for a claim such as the one brought by Plaintiff. The Supreme Court, however, has recognized an implied private right of action to enforce Title IX. See Gebser v. Lago Vista Indep. Sch. Dist. , 524 U.S. 274, 280–81, 118 S.Ct. 1989, 141 L.Ed.2d 277 (1998) (describing the development of the implied private right of action). To identify the applicable limitations period for an implied private right of action, courts must " ‘borrow’ the most suitable statute or other rule of timeliness from ... the most closely analogous statute of limitations under state law." DelCostello v. Int'l Bhd. of Teamsters , 462 U.S. 151, 158, 103 S.Ct. 2281, 76 L.Ed.2d 476 (1983).

The parties disagree as to the "most closely analogous" District of Columbia law from which to "borrow." Plaintiff insists that the District of Columbia's three-year limitations period governing personal injury claims is controlling. Pl.'s Opp'n to Def.'s Mot., ECF No. 11 [hereinafter Pl.'s Opp'n], at 12.¹ The University, on the other hand, urges the court to apply the one-year limitations period for claims brought under the District of Columbia Human Rights Act ("DCHRA"). See Def.'s Mem. at 23–24; Def.'s Notice of Suppl. Authority, ECF No. 13; Def.'s Second Notice of Suppl. Authority, ECF No. 15. The difference matters in this case. Plaintiff did not file suit until March 22, 2021. Assuming her claim began to accrue on July 26, 2019—the date the University's Provost affirmed Plaintiff's expulsion—Plaintiff's Title IX claim would be untimely if a one-year limitations period applies but timely if governed by a three-year limitations period.

The D.C. Circuit has not definitively answered which limitations period applies to Title IX claims.² Other Circuits have held that personal injury actions are "most closely analogous" to Title IX claims and applied the corresponding limitations period under state law. See, e.g. , Stanley v. Trs. of Calif. State Univ. , 433 F.3d 1129, 1135–36 (9th Cir. 2006) ; Curto v. Edmundson , 392 F.3d 502, 504 (2d Cir. 2004) ; see also Doe v. Howard Univ. , No. 20-cv-1769 (CJN), 594 F.Supp.3d 52, 58–59 (D.D.C. Mar. 28, 2022) (citing cases). Judges in this District, until recently, had uniformly held the same. They concluded that the District of Columbia's three-year, catch-all limitations period for personal injury claims under D.C. Code § 12-301(8) govern claims brought under Title IX. See, e.g. , Hajjar-Nejad v. George Washington Univ. , 873 F. Supp. 2d 1, 15 (D.D.C. 2012) ; Mwabira-Simera v. Howard Univ. , 692 F. Supp. 2d 65, 71 (D.D.C. 2010) ; Richards v. Duke Univ. , 480 F. Supp. 2d 222, 237-38 (D.D.C. 2007) ; cf. Cavalier v. Cath. Univ. of Am. , 306 F. Supp. 3d 9, 42 (D.D.C. 2018) (acknowledging that both parties agreed that a three-year limitations period applied to a Title IX claim).

A recent decision, however, takes a different tack. In Doe v. Howard University , a court in this District held that the DCHRA's one-year limitations period applies to Title IX claims—the very position the University advocates here. See Doe , 594 F.Supp.3d at 61–62. The court in Doe declined to follow the course charted by various courts of appeals, reasoning that "[v]ery few ... actually grapple[d] with which analogous state law (and its right of action) is most similar to Title IX (and its implied right of action)." Id. at 59. The court observed instead that Title IX gender discrimination claims "do not seem analogous to personal-injury claims under D.C. law." Id. at 59. That observation was predicated in part on Supreme Court precedent limiting institutional liability for certain types of Title IX claims to cases where the school was "deliberately indifferent" to a teacher's or student's acts of gender-based harassment. See id. (first citing Davis v. Monroe Cnty. Bd. of Educ. , 526 U.S. 629, 642, 119 S.Ct. 1661, 143 L.Ed.2d 839 (1999) ; and then citing Gebser , 524 U.S. at 283, 118 S.Ct. 1989 ). Such liability was "something different than a personal-injury claim," the court stated. Id. The court also relied on a D.C. Court of Appeals decision, Jaiyeola v. District of Columbia , 40 A.3d 356 (D.C. 2012), which holds that the DCHRA, and not a personal injury tort, is the most closely analogous District of Columbia law to § 504 of the federal Rehabilitation Act. See Doe , 594 F.Supp.3d at 60–61 (citing Jaiyeola , 40 A.3d at 365–69 ). The Jaiyeola court applied the DCHRA's one-year limitations period to the plaintiff's disability discrimination claim instead of the three-year period applicable to personal injury claims. Jaiyeola , 40 A.3d at 365. Finding Jaiyeola persuasive, the court in Doe similarly concluded that "the DCHRA is the most closely analogous statute of limitations for [the plaintiff's] Title IX claims." 594 F.Supp.3d at 61 ; see also Stafford v. George Washington Univ. , No. 18-cv-2789 (CRC), 578 F.Supp.3d 25, 40–42 (D.D.C. Jan. 4, 2022) (holding the DCHRA provided the closest state law analogue to a claim under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits race discrimination in educational programs and activities receiving federal funds).

Although the reasoning in Doe is not without force, it must give way to D.C. Circuit precedent. In Carney v. American University —which the court in Doe did not cite—the D.C. Circuit confronted the issue of whether a three-year or a one-year limitations period applied to a retaliation claim brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1981. Carney , 151 F.3d 1090, 1096 (D.C. Cir. 1998). The defendant argued that "the District's one-year statute of limitations for certain enumerated intentional torts, D.C. Code Ann. § 12-301(4), not its three-year residual statute of limitations for other personal injury claims, id. § 12-301(8), represents the most ‘analogous’ statute of limitations for purposes of section 1981 actions." Id. The D.C. Circuit disagreed, holding that the three-year limitations period governed. "For statute of limitations purposes," the Circuit explained, "the Supreme Court treats section 1981 claims like claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983," and the Court has held that "claims under section 1983 are governed by the residual or general personal injury statute of limitations (like section 12-301(8) ), rather than the statute of limitations for enumerated intentional torts (like section 12-301(4) )." Id. Accordingly, the court in Carney held that " section 12-301(8) 's three-year statute of limitations applies to all section 1981 claims." Id. Notably, the court so held even though it recognized that the plaintiff's race discrimination claim under the DCHRA "might be barred by the DCHRA's one-year" limitations period. Id.

The court can discern no material distinction between section 1981 and Title IX for purposes of the "most closely analogous" state law inquiry. In Goodman v. Lukens Steel Co. , the Supreme Court...