Khamis v. Wormuth
- Virginia Demarchi
- 5:24-cv-02565
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 5
In Khamis v. Wormuth, Judge DeMarchi dismissed Khamis’s gender-discrimination claim under Title VII, allowing her to amend it.
Sinaa Khamis must clarify and amend her gender-discrimination claim if she wishes to proceed with it; the order addressed only that claim and did not dismiss the action as a whole.
What happened
Sinaa Khamis sued Daniel Driscoll, the Secretary of the Army, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Her third amended complaint asserted claims for sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and retaliation. The Secretary asked the court to dismiss only the gender-discrimination claim.
The court found that Khamis’s gender-discrimination theory and supporting facts were unclear. It was not clear whether she alleged standalone gender discrimination or discrimination based on sex, religion, and national origin, or how the facts supporting that claim differed from her other claims. The court exercised its discretion to consider the Secretary’s second motion to dismiss even though the adverse-employment-action argument could have been raised earlier.
In Khamis v. Wormuth, Judge Virginia K. DeMarchi granted the Secretary’s partial motion to dismiss with leave to amend. Khamis could continue with the gender-discrimination claim only by clarifying her legal theory and supporting facts, and the court ordered any amended complaint filed by June 17, 2025.
The detailed version
- Khamis v. Wormuth · No. 5:24-cv-02565
- Virginia Demarchi
- May 13, 2025
Background
Sinaa Khamis brought this Title VII action against Daniel Driscoll in his official capacity as Secretary of the Army. Driscoll was substituted for Christine Wormuth as Secretary under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 25(d). Khamis’s third amended complaint was the operative complaint and asserted three claims: sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and retaliation.
The Secretary moved under Rule 12(b)(6), which allows dismissal for failure to state a legally sufficient claim, to dismiss only claim 2, the gender-discrimination claim. Khamis opposed the motion and requested another opportunity to amend.
Court’s analysis
The Secretary argued that the complaint did not plausibly allege gender or sex discrimination, either by itself or combined with other protected factors such as religion or national origin. The Secretary also argued that the complaint did not plausibly allege an adverse employment action.
The court noted that Khamis’s claim 2 was nearly identical to the version in her earlier complaint. Although the Secretary generally could not raise in a later motion an objection that was available during the earlier motion, the court exercised its discretion to consider the new argument because it found no prejudice to Khamis and believed doing so would help resolve the case efficiently.
The court concluded that Khamis’s theory of liability and supporting allegations remained unclear. The complaint did not make clear whether claim 2 alleged standalone gender discrimination or discrimination based on a combination of sex, religion, and national origin. It also did not clearly identify which facts supported claim 2 or whether those facts differed from the allegations supporting her other claims. The court further observed that Khamis’s opposition relied on theories and assertions that were not included among the allegations supporting claim 2.
Ruling
Judge Virginia K. DeMarchi granted the Secretary’s partial motion to dismiss with leave to amend. The court did not state that Khamis’s entire case was dismissed. The order permitted Khamis to proceed with claim 2 if she clarified the theory of liability and the factual allegations supporting it. The court ordered her to file an amended complaint no later than June 17, 2025.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.