Zuniga v. City of Dallas

1

KARLA SOLIS ZUNIGA, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF DALLAS, TEXAS, Defendant.

Civil Action No. 3:23-CV-2308-D

United States District Court, N.D. Texas, Dallas Division

January 23, 2024

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

SIDNEY A. FITZWATER, SENIOR JUDGE

Plaintiff Karla Solis Zuniga (“Zuniga”) sues her former employer, the City of Dallas, Texas (the “City”) under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”), 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. asserting hostile work environment and retaliation claims. The City moves under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) for partial dismissal, seeking to dismiss Zuniga's hostile work environment claim. For the reasons that follow, the court grants the motion and also grants Zuniga leave to replead.

I

Between July 19, 2021 and August 8, 2023, Zuniga, a female, was employed by the City as a Senior Geographic Information System Technician within the Dallas Police Department (“DPD”), working under supervisor Sergeant Dwight G. Beaty (“Beaty”).^[1] According to Zuniga's complaint, she was sexually harassed by her colleague, Oladapo Alli (“Alli”) who also reported to Beaty.

The first alleged instance of harassment occurred in early October 2022, when Zuniga informed Beaty about an international trip that she intended to take in December 2022 to meet her boyfriend's family for the first time. Alli was in Beaty's office at the time. Zuniga asserts that Alli “decided to interject himself into [her] vacation request to her boss,” offering to take her on the trip and telling her that she “needed a ‘Plan B' in case things did not work out with her boyfriend.” Compl. (ECF No. 1) at ¶ 23(C). According to Zuniga Beaty “failed to tell Alli to stop and be quiet,” and she left Beaty's office, upset. Id. at ¶ 23(D)-(E).

In mid-October 2022, according to Zuniga's complaint, Alli approached her at her cubicle and squeezed her shoulder with his hand. Zuniga turned around and, in a loud voice, told Alli to stop touching her. But Alli ignored her, instead stating that her shoulder felt “bony.” Id. at ¶ 24(H). Zuniga alleges that, “irate,” she loudly warned Alli never to touch her again and to stop talking to her. Id. at ¶ 24(I). Other DPD employees allegedly heard Zuniga say this, although Beaty was not in the office.

Zuniga alleges that, on November 15, 2022, Beaty approached her, holding a cell phone with Alli on the speakerphone, and told her that Alli wanted to speak with her. Zuniga repeatedly shook her head no. When Beaty told Alli that she did not want to speak with him, Alli allegedly told Beaty to have Zuniga stop by his office to “see ‘Big Daddy' before she left work.” Id. at ¶ 25(I). According to Zuniga's complaint, she told Alli over the speakerphone to “F--k off, you piece of s--t, stop talking to me like that.” Id. at ¶ 25(J).

Zuniga informed Beaty that she would “complain”-a term she asserts is DPD parlance for formally complaining to her chain of command-if Alli did not stop his behavior. When Beaty relayed this to Alli, Alli allegedly responded, “If she complains, I am going to say she called me a ni--er.” Id. at ¶ 25(L)-(M). Zuniga, Beaty, and two other DPD employees heard Alli's response. Zuniga alleges that, a few minutes later, she emailed Beaty's supervisor, stating:

I am writing to address an issue with Oladapo Alli[] that has been on-going. Today was the “last straw” and I am not going to put up with it anymore. [Alli] stated I should stop by and “see daddy” (referring to himself) before I left the office. I find it very offensive and he has said similar things in the past. There were several witnesses including Sgt. Beaty. Please have Sgt. Beaty address the issue and ensure it never happens again or I will escalate.

Id. at ¶ 25(N). The supervisor allegedly never responded. A few minutes after Zuniga sent her email, Beaty responded by email that he would “address this with Alli in the morning.” Id. at ¶ 27.

Zuniga alleges that, beginning the following day, November 16, 2022, Beaty stopped speaking to her, which was new behavior, considering that Beaty had been “talkative” with her before. Id. at ¶ 28(A). She asserts that, at this point, the behavior toward her of Beaty and others in management “turned adverse, even hostile.” Id. at ¶ 30.

On November 18, 2022 Beaty emailed Zuniga about her December 2022 vacation request and informed her that, if she wanted to take vacation, she would have to take Leave Without Pay. This did not surprise Zuniga, because she had previously taken Leave Without Pay at Beaty's suggestion. But according to Zuniga, directly on the heels of her complaint about Alli's behavior, Beaty made this leave request much more difficult than her previous one. For instance, in his email, he warned her that taking Leave Without Pay without first receiving authorization “would require a control number to be generated and investigated by [DPD's Internal Affairs Division (“IAD”)] for Administrative violations.” Id. at ¶ 30. Zuniga alleges that this kind of investigation could have led to workplace discipline, up to and including termination. She asserts that she perceived Beaty's warning to be a threat to her employment as a result of her choice to oppose Alli's sexual harassment.

On November 21, 2022 Zuniga submitted a “Citizen Complaint Form” to Detective Bronda Davis of DPD's IAD. Zuniga alleges that, one day later, Beaty emailed her to inform her of additional requirements for her Leave Without Pay request. One requirement was that she send a memo to the Chief of Police detailing her request. Zuniga asserts that she was not required to write such a memo before taking her previous Leave Without Pay, and that when she pointed this out to Beaty, he did not deny it.

On the morning of November 30, 2022, Zuniga allegedly emailed Major Stephen Williams (“Williams”), an officer in her chain of command, to inquire about the status of her leave request. Williams informed her that he would “check to see where the memo was”-which Zuniga alleges calls into question whether Beaty had forwarded Zuniga's memo. Id. at ¶ 34. Because Zuniga was allegedly “on pins and needles about the matter,” she scheduled a meeting with a DPD Peer Support Coordinator during her lunch break, which lasted several hours. Id. at ¶ 35.

Zuniga alleges that Beaty called her on the afternoon of November 30 to inform her that Williams was looking for her. This was the first time she had heard Beaty's voice speaking to her since November 16, and after this phone call, Beaty never spoke aloud to her again. When Zuniga arrived at Williams' office, he instructed her to edit portions of her memo and complete a Leave of Absence Request form, and he informed her that he would get her leave approved the following day. The next day, Williams entered Beaty's office and closed the door. When he left Beaty's office, he allegedly immediately told Zuniga that her leave had been approved.

On December 27, 2022 Beaty allegedly sent Zuniga a message via Facebook Messenger that stated: “I found an old photo of you [emoji],” and provided a URL. Id. at ¶ 42 (brackets in original).^[2] Zuniga clicked the link, which took her to a webpage requesting that she log into her Facebook account. Zuniga alleges that she was concerned that the link was a phishing attempt by Beaty so that he could attempt to access her personal Facebook account. Zuniga sent a screenshot of Beaty's message to IAD Detective Victor Guzman (“Guzman”), informing him that she believed Beaty had attempted to hack her Facebook account. According to Zuniga, Beaty never disclosed to her how he found the “old photo” of her, nor did he ever provide any business reason to have searched for it.

According to Zuniga's complaint, in December 2022 and January 2023, she encountered numerous difficulties from Beaty related to work projects. On December 23, 2022 Beaty assigned Zuniga two tasks via email, which she completed using source material he had attached. Five days later, Beaty reopened one of the completed tasks and instructed her to use different source material to complete it. At 10:39 p.m. that night, Zuniga allegedly informed Beaty that the new source material had not been included in his original task email. Zuniga then redid the task. According to Zuniga, when she opened her email during business hours the next day, she noticed that Beaty had sent her two emails at 12:48 a.m. and 12:49 a.m., respectively. These emails instructed her to redo another completed task (which he had reopened), using a format unlike she had ever used before and information he had not provided when he originally assigned the task. On January 3, 2023, while Zuniga was redoing that task, she allegedly emailed Beaty to ask for clarification, but he never responded. That same day, Beaty allegedly assigned Zuniga a task for which she had never received training, and he did not respond when Zuniga asked him whether someone could show her how to do the task.

On January 4, 2023 Zuniga allegedly emailed Beaty to inform him that she had not had time to complete a task for an ongoing project between DPD and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”), which needed to be completed for an upcoming meeting with the DEA. She alleges that Beaty had previously assigned her to this DEA project and told her she was responsible for managing tasks related to it. According to the complaint, Beaty stated in his response to her email that he was unaware of the task to which she was referring and that “he was unsure why [she] was discussing her tasks with the DEA.” Id. at ¶¶ 53-54. Beaty instructed her that, going forward, any request from the DEA or other outside agencies should be referred through her chain of command. Later that day, Zuniga emailed Beaty, stating:

I wanted to be sure I was going to be tasked

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