McKinney v. Oakland Unified School District
- Jacquelyn Corley
- 3:20-cv-06792
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In McKinney v. Oakland Unified School District, Judge Corley partly denied and partly granted defendants’ motion to dismiss, allowing some claims to continue while ending others.
Cleveland McKinney, whose First Amendment retaliation claim and contaminated-water workplace-safety claim were allowed to proceed, while his mold-office theory was dismissed with leave to amend and his sixth and seventh FEHA claims were dismissed without leave to amend. Defendants Sifuentes, Scott, and the Oakland Unified School District were affected by the partial denial and partial grant of their motion.
What happened
In McKinney v. Oakland Unified School District, defendants asked the court to dismiss parts of Cleveland McKinney’s complaint. The court decided the motion based on the written submissions and canceled the scheduled hearing.
The court denied dismissal of McKinney’s First Amendment retaliation claim against Sifuentes and Scott, and denied dismissal of his California Labor Code section 6310 claim based on complaints about contaminated water and unsafe working conditions. The court dismissed the section 6310 claim to the extent it was based on complaints about a moldy office, but allowed McKinney to amend that part. It also granted defendants’ unopposed request to dismiss McKinney’s sixth and seventh FEHA claims without leave to amend.
Judge Corley ordered that any amended complaint be filed within 20 days. The order therefore left some claims or theories pending while dismissing others, and it set an initial case-management conference.
The detailed version
- McKinney v. Oakland Unified School District · No. 3:20-cv-06792
- Jacquelyn Corley
- Dec. 1, 2020
Background
Defendants moved to dismiss part of Cleveland McKinney’s complaint. A motion to dismiss asks whether the complaint contains allegations sufficient for the claims to proceed. The court reviewed the written submissions, found oral argument unnecessary, vacated the December 3, 2020 hearing, and ruled on the motion.
First Amendment retaliation claim
Defendants argued that McKinney’s First Amendment retaliation claim against Sifuentes and Scott was barred by Eleventh Amendment immunity because he sued them in their official capacities. The court denied that part of the motion. Because the complaint did not specify the defendants’ capacities, the court presumed that the named officials were sued in their personal capacities.
California Labor Code section 6310 claim
The court denied dismissal of the section 6310 claim to the extent it was based on McKinney’s complaints about contaminated water at his place of employment. The court found that McKinney adequately alleged that he complained about unsafe working conditions. His allegations included that the water posed a health risk to students and faculty, that the Oakland Unified School District knew about the contamination, that it did not remediate the problem, and that it kept the issue secret from the public for a year.
McKinney also suggested that the section 6310 claim was based on complaints about a moldy basement office. The court found that he adequately alleged making those complaints but had not alleged facts plausibly showing that he was terminated or otherwise discriminated against because of them. The court dismissed the section 6310 claim to that extent, with leave to amend.
FEHA claims
Defendants’ unopposed motion to dismiss McKinney’s sixth and seventh FEHA causes of action was granted without leave to amend.
Disposition and next steps
The motion to dismiss was denied in part and granted in part. Any amended complaint had to be filed within 20 days of the order. The court also set an initial case-management conference for January 21, 2021, and stated that the order disposed of Docket No. 9.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.