Jackson v. Genentech, Inc.
- Yvonne Rogers
- 4:21-cv-05265
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Jackson v. Genentech, Inc., Judge Rogers granted in part and denied in part Genentech’s motion to dismiss, allowing some claims and permitting amendment of others.
Clarence Jackson may continue litigating the failure-to-accommodate and wrongful-termination claims, while his disability-termination, age-discrimination, and race-discrimination claims were dismissed with leave to amend. Genentech, Inc.’s motion was granted in part and denied in part.
What happened
Clarence Jackson sued Genentech, Inc., asserting disability, age, and race discrimination claims and a wrongful-termination claim. Genentech asked the court to dismiss or strike the claims or require a more definite statement.
The court allowed Jackson’s disability-discrimination claim based on failure to accommodate and his wrongful-termination claim to proceed. It dismissed the disability-discrimination claim based on termination, age-discrimination claim, and race-discrimination claim, but allowed Jackson to amend those claims. The court also denied as moot Genentech’s request to strike or require a more definite statement and granted Genentech’s unopposed request for judicial notice of the administrative charges.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ordered Jackson to file an amended complaint by October 18, 2021, and referred the case for an early settlement conference. The court also continued the initial case-management conference to January 31, 2022.
The detailed version
- Jackson v. Genentech, Inc. · No. 4:21-cv-05265
- Yvonne Rogers
- Sept. 29, 2021
Background
Clarence Jackson filed this action against Genentech, Inc. on July 8, 2021. The pending motion asked the court to dismiss claims, strike material, or alternatively require a more definite statement. The claims addressed disability discrimination, including failure to accommodate and termination, as well as age discrimination, race discrimination, and wrongful termination.
Rulings on the Motion to Dismiss
The court granted in part and denied in part Genentech’s motion to dismiss.
The court denied the motion as to Jackson’s disability-discrimination claim based on failure to accommodate. It stated that Jackson did not need to allege discriminatory intent to state a failure-to-accommodate claim. The court also concluded that an investigation of Jackson’s termination charge could reasonably have uncovered the alleged failure to accommodate, given the allegation that he requested the accommodation one month before receiving notice of termination.
The court denied the motion as to the wrongful-termination claim. It found that Jackson’s filing of a second administrative charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission equitably extended the applicable statute of limitations, so the claim was not dismissed as time-barred.
The court dismissed with leave to amend the remaining claims for disability discrimination based on termination, age discrimination, and race discrimination. The opinion does not provide the full reasoning for dismissing those claims in the excerpt provided.
Other Rulings and Next Steps
The court denied as moot the motion to strike or for a more definite statement. It granted, as unopposed, Genentech’s request for judicial notice of the administrative charges.
Jackson was ordered to file an amended complaint by October 18, 2021, and Genentech was ordered to respond by November 8, 2021. The matter was referred to Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Corley for an early settlement conference. The initial case-management conference was continued to January 31, 2022. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’s order terminated Docket Number 17.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.