Thomas v. The Regents of the University of California
- Susan Illston
- 3:19-cv-06463
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 9
In Thomas v. Regents, Judge Illston granted defendants’ motion to dismiss, allowed amendment of some claims, and dismissed two claims without leave to amend.
Renee Thomas’s five claims were affected: the Title IX, Unruh Act, and negligence claims could be amended, while the California Education Code section 66271.8 and negligent-infliction-of-emotional-distress claims were dismissed without leave to amend. The defendants obtained dismissal of the complaint at this stage.
What happened
In Thomas v. The Regents of the University of California, Renee Thomas alleged that the University of California, Berkeley, its governing body, and two women’s soccer coaches discriminated against her because of her gender. She said the women’s team released five players while the men’s team released one, and that male players with similar playing time were retained.
The court found that the complaint did not provide enough facts connecting the different numbers of releases to gender discrimination. It also found that comparing playing time alone did not show that the male and female players were similarly situated, especially because the teams had different coaching staffs. The court therefore dismissed the Title IX claim and the related state-law claims for violation of the Unruh Act and negligence, but allowed Thomas to amend those claims. Thomas conceded that her claim under California Education Code section 66271.8 and her negligent-infliction-of-emotional-distress claim could not be stated; those claims were dismissed without leave to amend.
Judge Susan Illston granted defendants’ motion to dismiss. The court allowed an amended complaint addressing the Title IX, Unruh Act, and negligence claims by March 20, 2020, and did not decide defendants’ additional arguments about immunity or lack of duty.
The detailed version
- Thomas v. The Regents of the University of California · No. 3:19-cv-06463
- Susan Illston
- Mar. 9, 2020
Background
Renee Thomas sued the Regents of the University of California, Jim Knowlton, and Neil McGuire after McGuire released her and four other players from the University of California, Berkeley women’s soccer team. Thomas alleged that the defendants discriminated against her because of her gender. She compared the five women released from the women’s team with one male player released from the men’s team and with three male freshmen who had played fewer minutes but returned the following season.
Thomas asserted five claims: a Title IX claim against the Regents; a claim under California Education Code section 66271.8; a claim under the Unruh Act against Knowlton and McGuire; negligence; and negligent infliction of emotional distress. Defendants moved to dismiss all five claims for failure to state a claim.
Rule 12(b)(6) standard
The court applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which requires dismissal when a complaint does not allege enough facts to plausibly support legal relief. The court generally had to accept the complaint’s factual allegations as true and draw reasonable inferences for Thomas, but it did not have to accept conclusory statements or unreasonable inferences.
The court granted both sides’ requests for judicial notice of certain soccer records and statistics. It took notice of the teams’ records and the statistics but did not infer from the records why the women’s team performed poorly in one season or better the next.
Title IX claim
The court held that Thomas had not plausibly alleged that she was treated differently because of her gender. Her theory relied mainly on the fact that five women were released while one man was released and on the players’ playing time. The court found that the complaint did not explain why decisions by the separately coached men’s and women’s teams could reasonably be compared or establish that the male players were similarly situated to Thomas in all material respects.
The court also noted that the complaint did not allege sex-based differences in other athletic factors, such as equipment, scheduling, travel allowances, coaching, facilities, medical services, housing, dining, or publicity. Because the complaint did not plausibly connect the release decision to gender discrimination, the court dismissed the Title IX claim.
The court granted Thomas leave to amend so she could allege additional facts supporting an unequal-treatment claim. At the hearing, her counsel identified possible additional allegations, including alleged abusive behavior by women’s-team coaches and a possible connection to the “Varsity Blues” scandal. The court did not decide whether those possible allegations would establish a claim.
State-law claims
Thomas conceded that she could not state a claim under California Education Code section 66271.8 and that she could not state a negligent-infliction-of-emotional-distress claim. The court dismissed those claims without leave to amend.
The Unruh Act and negligence claims relied on the same alleged unequal treatment as the Title IX claim. Because Thomas had not plausibly alleged unequal treatment, the court dismissed those claims with leave to amend. The court did not reach defendants’ additional arguments that statutory immunity applied to the Unruh Act claim or that the negligence claim failed because defendants owed no duty.
Disposition
The court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss. The Title IX, Unruh Act, and negligence claims were dismissed with leave to amend, while the California Education Code section 66271.8 claim and negligent-infliction-of-emotional-distress claim were dismissed without leave to amend. The amended complaint was due by March 20, 2020.
Read the full 9-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.