Soboyede v. KLDiscovery

Background

Akeem Adebayo Soboyede alleged that KLDiscovery discriminated against him because he was born in Nigeria and based on his Nigerian national origin. He alleged that, during an August 2014 interview, a KLDiscovery employee asked where he was originally from and about the origin of his accent. He claimed that KLDiscovery did not hire him for document-review projects from August 2014 through July 2017 despite his applications and inquiries.

Soboyede alleged that KLDiscovery offered him a document-review position in July 2017 after he said he planned to file employment-discrimination charges. He claimed KLDiscovery removed him from the project after about one week and later did not offer him other positions. He alleged that these actions were discriminatory and retaliatory.

Soboyede filed a discrimination charge with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights in February 2018 and cross-filed it with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He amended the charge in September 2018 to add a reprisal claim. The agencies later issued no-probable-cause and right-to-sue documents. Soboyede then sued under Sections 1981 and 1982, Title VII, and the Minnesota Human Rights Act, and sought punitive damages.

Motion and legal standards

KLDiscovery moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which allows dismissal when a complaint does not state a legally sufficient claim. The court accepted well-pleaded factual allegations as true for purposes of the motion but did not accept conclusory statements or legal conclusions presented as facts. The court also considered the administrative charges and related agency documents because the complaint referred to them. The court assumed, for purposes of its analysis, that service of process was proper.

National-origin discrimination claims

The court dismissed the Section 1981 claim because Section 1981 protects against certain intentional discrimination based on race, ancestry, or ethnic characteristics but does not authorize claims based only on national origin. It dismissed the Section 1982 claim for the same basic reason: Section 1982 does not authorize claims based on national origin.

For Title VII, the court held that Soboyede’s alleged discriminatory discharge was not exhausted because neither administrative charge mentioned that KLDiscovery hired and then discharged him. The court also held that alleged refusals to hire before May 4, 2017—300 days before his February 28, 2018 charge—were untimely. The court rejected his arguments that the refusals were continuing acts, were timely because they were related to later claims, or qualified for equitable tolling or equitable estoppel.

The court considered any Title VII refusal-to-hire claims occurring on or after May 4, 2017, but found them insufficient. The court held that the 2014 question about the origin of Soboyede’s accent was too remote to support an inference that later hiring decisions were based on national origin. The complaint included no other factual allegations suggesting that national origin influenced KLDiscovery’s decisions, including no allegation that similarly situated employees outside his protected class were treated differently. The court therefore dismissed the Title VII national-origin discrimination claim.

Under the Minnesota Human Rights Act, the court held that Soboyede could seek relief only for alleged discrimination occurring within the applicable one-year period beginning February 28, 2017. It found that the 2014 interview allegation was barred by that time limit. Applying the same analysis used for the Title VII claim, the court held that Soboyede had not alleged facts supporting an inference of national-origin discrimination and dismissed the Minnesota Human Rights Act discrimination claim.

Retaliation and reprisal claims

The court understood Soboyede to allege two retaliatory actions: his removal from the July 2017 project after he said he planned to file charges, and KLDiscovery’s later failure to hire him after he repeated that intention.

The court dismissed the Section 1981 retaliation claim because such a claim must be based on racial discrimination, while Soboyede alleged that his complaints concerned national-origin discrimination. The court dismissed the Section 1982 retaliation claim for the same reason.

The court held that the Title VII retaliation claim based on Soboyede’s discharge was not exhausted because his administrative charges did not mention that he had been hired and discharged. It also dismissed the Title VII retaliation claim based on later failures to hire because Soboyede did not plausibly allege a connection between his statements about filing charges and KLDiscovery’s later hiring decisions. He did not allege that KLDiscovery employees made negative comments about his plans or facts showing that those statements influenced the decisions, and timing alone was insufficient.

The court applied the same retaliation framework to the Minnesota Human Rights Act reprisal claim. It found no plausible connection between Soboyede’s pre-hiring statements and his discharge, noting that KLDiscovery hired him after those statements and that he did not allege the decisionmakers knew about them. It also found no plausible connection between his post-discharge statements and later failures to hire.

Punitive damages and disposition

The court held that punitive damages were not an independent claim. Because it dismissed the underlying Section 1981, Section 1982, Title VII, and Minnesota Human Rights Act claims, it also dismissed the separate punitive-damages claim.

The court ordered that KLDiscovery’s motion to dismiss was GRANTED. It ordered that Soboyede’s counter-motion to dismiss was DENIED. The court directed that judgment be entered accordingly. The opinion did not state that either motion was granted or denied with or without prejudice.