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

Background

Carolyn Escalante proceeded without a lawyer and filed a third amended complaint against defendants associated with the San Francisco Community College District and Service Employees International Union, Local 1021. The defendants moved to dismiss that complaint.

The court described two earlier dismissal orders. The first had dismissed with prejudice certain federal claims against the district, its Board of Trustees, one individual defendant, and individual district defendants sued in their official capacities. It also dismissed a civil-rights claim against individual district defendants sued in their individual capacities and Family and Medical Leave Act and civil-rights claims against the union defendants. Other claims were dismissed with permission to amend.

In the second order, the court dismissed all federal claims without permission to amend except the Family and Medical Leave Act claims identified as the second and fifth causes of action in the second amended complaint. The court instructed Escalante to replead only those claims, against the same individual defendants, and only in their individual capacities. It also instructed her not to add defendants or replead claims previously dismissed without permission to amend.

Discussion

The court applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which permits dismissal when a complaint does not state a legally valid claim supported by enough factual allegations. Because Escalante’s state-law claims depended on the court’s supplemental jurisdiction over them, the court addressed the federal claims first.

The court dismissed the claims against the union defendants because none had been named in the permitted Family and Medical Leave Act causes of action in the second amended complaint. Those claims had previously been dismissed without permission to amend.

The court again dismissed claims against the college district, the Board of Trustees, and individual district defendants sued in their official capacities. It relied on Eleventh Amendment immunity, which generally protects state agencies from private lawsuits in federal court, and stated that California community college districts have that protection. Individual defendants sued in their official capacities share the district’s immunity.

As to the Family and Medical Leave Act claims, the court treated them as interference claims rather than retaliation or discrimination claims. It stated that such a claim requires allegations showing eligibility for protection, a covered employer, entitlement to leave, sufficient notice of the intent to take leave, and denial of benefits to which the employee was entitled.

The court found that the third amended complaint was nearly identical to the second amended complaint and added no facts curing the previously identified problems. Escalante alleged that her leave had been improperly calculated and that defendants fabricated reasons and altered records to reduce her leave. But the court concluded that, even accepting her calculations, she had not identified a particular adverse employment action that materially interfered with her effort to use Family and Medical Leave Act rights or denied her leave.

Escalante also alleged that she was disciplined during a November 16, 2017 meeting and in a November 27, 2017 letter for taking protected leave or having covered absences. The court noted that the attached November 30, 2017 letter described a written reprimand and listed tardiness and absences but did not mention the Family and Medical Leave Act. The court further found that Escalante had not adequately alleged that the listed absences involved protected leave or that she sought or took such leave close in time to the alleged disciplinary action. The court therefore dismissed the Family and Medical Leave Act claims without leave to amend.

The court also dismissed the civil-rights claims that had already been dismissed and that Escalante was not permitted to replead. It dismissed the constitutional claims without leave to amend because the complaint did not allege specific acts violating clearly established constitutional rights and instead relied on conclusory allegations involving the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Disposition

Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss. The court dismissed all of Escalante’s federal claims without leave to amend. Because no viable federal claim remained, the court declined supplemental jurisdiction over the state-law claims and dismissed those claims without prejudice to being raised in state court. The court denied as moot Escalante’s pending motions, directed the clerk to enter judgment for the defendants, and ordered the case closed.