Ntamere v. Amerihealth Adminstrators Inc

Background

Anthony E. Ntamere brought the case without a lawyer against Amerihealth Administrators Inc. (AHA), Independence Blue Cross, LLC (IBC), the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, and several individuals. He alleged racial discrimination, retaliation, defamation, and due-process violations under federal and Minnesota law.

The dispute arose from a July 2019 workplace training in Minnesota. Ntamere alleged that Jeffrey Kearns used a racial slur during the training and said that he recorded the incident and reported it. AHA investigated but concluded that it could not corroborate the allegation and that the recording was inconclusive. AHA placed Ntamere on probation for recording the training in violation of company policy. After Ntamere made critical posts about the company on its internal platform in June 2020, AHA placed him on probation again and terminated his employment.

Ntamere later filed charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. The agencies did not find a violation based on the information before them. He then filed this lawsuit. The defendants who moved to dismiss were AHA, IBC, Michele Schumacher, John Clayton, Jeffrey Kearns, and Tashima Waller. Ntamere also asked for permission to file a surreply, meaning an additional written response to the defendants’ motion.

Personal jurisdiction

The court dismissed all claims against Clayton, Waller, and Schumacher without prejudice for lack of personal jurisdiction. Personal jurisdiction is a court’s authority to exercise power over a particular defendant. The court found that the allegations showed, at most, that Clayton and Waller attended one training in Minnesota and did not adequately show purposeful connections with the state. The complaint did not allege that Schumacher was in Minnesota or had sufficient contacts with the state.

The court reached a different conclusion for Kearns. It found that the alleged racist comment during a work training in Minnesota created a sufficiently substantial connection between Kearns, Minnesota, and the claims to support specific personal jurisdiction. The court therefore did not dismiss Kearns for lack of personal jurisdiction, although it dismissed the claims against him on other grounds.

Federal claims

The court dismissed Ntamere’s claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against AHA with prejudice for failure to state a claim. Section 1983 generally requires action under color of state law. The court found no allegation that AHA was a state actor or acted together with a state actor. It also found that Count One did not identify specific misconduct by AHA and instead focused on the handling of Ntamere’s complaints by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The court dismissed Ntamere’s § 1981 racial-discrimination claim against IBC, AHA, Kearns, Clayton, and Waller with prejudice for failure to state a claim. Section 1981 protects the right to make and enforce contracts without racial discrimination. The court found that Ntamere adequately alleged a contractual interest because an at-will employment relationship can qualify as a contract for purposes of § 1981. But it found that he did not plausibly allege that the defendants acted because of his race or that a racially motivated breach of his employment relationship caused his injuries. The court also noted that he did not identify a similarly situated person of another race who received more favorable treatment. Separately, it ruled that coworkers are generally not proper § 1981 defendants absent allegations that they had supervisory authority, which Ntamere had not made concerning Kearns, Clayton, and Waller.

The court dismissed Ntamere’s § 1981 retaliation claim against IBC and AHA with prejudice for failure to state a claim. It found that the conduct for which Ntamere was disciplined and terminated—secretly recording coworkers, using the internal platform to revisit the dispute, and continuing to post after being warned—not plausibly constituted protected activity. The court also found that Ntamere did not plausibly allege that the employment actions were taken because he engaged in protected activity.

State-law claims and other motion

After dismissing the federal claims, the court dismissed Counts Four through Seven, which were based on state law, without prejudice because it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over them. Subject-matter jurisdiction is the court’s legal authority to hear a type of case. The court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction, meaning authority to hear related state-law claims, after all federal claims were dismissed at an early stage. The court also denied Ntamere’s motion to file a surreply. The court stated that it would consider the document he had already submitted but did not need additional arguments.

Disposition

Judge Menendez ordered that defendants’ motion to dismiss was GRANTED as follows: claims against Clayton, Waller, and Schumacher were dismissed without prejudice for lack of personal jurisdiction; the § 1983 claim against AHA, the § 1981 discrimination claim, and the § 1981 retaliation claim were dismissed with prejudice for failure to state a claim; and the state-law claims were dismissed without prejudice for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Ntamere’s motion to file a surreply was DENIED. The court ordered judgment to be entered accordingly.