Escalante v. San Francisco Community College District, and Board of Trustees

Background

Carolyn Escalante, proceeding without a lawyer, sued the San Francisco Community College District, its Board of Trustees, individual district employees, Maria M. Lampasona, and defendants associated with Service Employees International Union, Local 1021. She sued individual defendants in both their personal and official capacities.

Escalante alleged that, after she refused an instruction that she characterized as improper, Sunny L. Clark gave her a false and damaging performance evaluation in 2011. She also alleged that district employees later refused to amend or correct that evaluation. Regarding her medical condition, Escalante alleged that Joseph A. Guiriba assigned her work requiring her to lift boxes weighing approximately 40 pounds or more despite his knowledge of her peripheral neuropathy. She alleged that this work caused an implant to rupture, resulting in an infection and hospitalization. She also alleged that district employees required regular attendance despite her medical appointments and later disciplined her based on absences and tardiness.

The first amended complaint asserted nine causes of action, including claims under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the California Family Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, California’s Information Practices Act, the Unruh Civil Rights Act, the federal Civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute, and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The § 1983 claim alleged that defendants violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments by assigning strenuous work and disregarding her medical restrictions. Escalante sought declaratory and injunctive relief, compensatory damages, and punitive damages.

Legal standard

The court applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which allows dismissal when a complaint does not state a legally recognized claim supported by enough factual allegations. The court was required to accept well-pleaded factual allegations as true and interpret a self-represented plaintiff’s complaint less strictly than a lawyer-drafted complaint, but conclusory statements and unsupported legal conclusions were not enough.

District defendants

The court held that the District and the individual district defendants sued in their official capacities were protected by Eleventh Amendment immunity. The court also concluded that Escalante’s requested injunction was unsupported and too indefinite because her allegations concerned past events, did not show a real and immediate threat of future harm, and did not clearly identify what the injunction would prohibit. The court dismissed the District, the Board of Trustees, and the individual SFCCD Defendants in their official capacities without leave to amend. In the conclusion, the court characterized all federal claims against those defendants as dismissed with prejudice.

For the individual district defendants sued in their personal capacities, the court considered qualified immunity, which protects public officials from civil damages unless their conduct violated a clearly established statutory or constitutional right. The court dismissed Escalante’s § 1983 claim without leave to amend because the alleged constitutional violations were not legally cognizable and could not be cured with additional facts. The court dismissed the Americans with Disabilities Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, and Civil RICO claims against those defendants with leave to amend because the complaint did not specifically identify the conduct violating each statutory right. The court also concluded that the allegations did not establish that the alleged conduct violated clearly established federal law, but it could not say at the pleading stage that amendment of those statutory claims would be entirely futile.

The court separately dismissed the claims against Maria M. Lampasona, outside counsel for the district defendants, without leave to amend. It held that California’s litigation privilege protected the communications attributed to Lampasona because they concerned the subject matter of the litigation. The court rejected Escalante’s arguments that the privilege did not apply because Lampasona had not entered an appearance or because service of process had not been completed. It also rejected the asserted Family and Medical Leave Act exception, stating that malicious prosecution is the sole exception identified by the governing authority.

Union defendants

The court dismissed Escalante’s Family and Medical Leave Act claims against the union defendants without leave to amend. The court held that the complaint did not plausibly allege that the union defendants were her employers, as required for those claims. The complaint repeatedly identified the District as her employer and the union as her union, and the requirement that she join the union as a condition of employment did not establish an employer-employee relationship.

The court dismissed Escalante’s § 1983 claim against the union defendants without leave to amend. It found the claim legally meritless because the Eighth Amendment generally applies to punishment in the criminal process, and Escalante had not identified authority allowing an Eighth Amendment claim based on supervisors assigning strenuous work in a case unrelated to criminal proceedings. The court also found that the allegations did not show that the work assignment rose to the level of a substantive due process violation.

The court dismissed the Americans with Disabilities Act accommodation claim against the union defendants with leave to amend because the complaint did not allege that those defendants had any involvement in decisions about Escalante’s work schedule or accommodations.

The court dismissed the Civil RICO claims against the union defendants with leave to amend. It held that the complaint did not identify the alleged racketeering acts with the particularity required for fraud-based claims, did not adequately allege a pattern of racketeering activity, and did not explain how the alleged acts caused the claimed loss of approximately $45,000 in wages. The court also stated that a standalone claim under the federal Hobbs Act could not proceed because that criminal statute does not provide a private right of action.

State-law claims and disposition

Because the court dismissed all claims over which it had original federal-question jurisdiction, it declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state-law claims against the union defendants and the district defendants sued in their personal capacities. Those state-law claims were dismissed without prejudice, meaning the order did not bar them from being brought again in the circumstances allowed by law.

The order’s specific dispositions were:

- All federal claims against the District, the Board of Trustees, Lampasona, and the individual SFCCD Defendants in their official capacities were dismissed with prejudice. - The § 1983 claim against the individual SFCCD Defendants in their individual capacities was dismissed without leave to amend. - The Family and Medical Leave Act and § 1983 claims against the union defendants were dismissed without leave to amend. - The Family and Medical Leave Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, and Civil RICO claims against the individual SFCCD Defendants were dismissed with leave to amend. - The Americans with Disabilities Act and Civil RICO claims against the union defendants were dismissed with leave to amend. - All state-law claims were dismissed without prejudice.

The court allowed Escalante to file an amended complaint limited to the federal claims for which leave to amend was granted and stated that she could include the currently alleged state-law claims against the union defendants and district defendants sued in their individual capacities, but the court would not exercise supplemental jurisdiction over those claims unless she adequately pleaded a federal claim.