Kinney v. Public Consulting Group, Inc.
- Edgardo Ramos
- 1:22-cv-02458
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Kinney v. Public Consulting Group, Judge Ramos converted defendants’ dismissal motion into summary judgment and set a response deadline.
Joseph Kinney, the defendants, and the employees Kinney sought to represent were affected by the court’s conversion of the motion and the response deadline, but the order did not decide the underlying worker-notice claims.
What happened
In Kinney v. Public Consulting Group, Inc., Joseph Kinney alleged that Public Consulting Group, Inc. and Staffing Solutions Organization, LLC failed to provide notice required by federal and New York worker-adjustment laws after his employment ended.
The defendants asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit for failure to state a claim. They later submitted documents and affidavits about Kinney’s employment and reductions in the contact-tracing workforce.
Judge Ramos treated the dismissal motion as a motion for summary judgment because the court was considering material outside the lawsuit’s pleadings. The court allowed Kinney to respond to the defendants’ arguments and exhibits by December 23, 2022; it did not decide the underlying claims in this order.
The detailed version
- Kinney v. Public Consulting Group, Inc. · No. 1:22-cv-02458
- Edgardo Ramos
- Nov. 29, 2022
Background
Joseph Kinney sued Public Consulting Group, Inc. and Staffing Solutions Organization, LLC after the termination of his employment. He brought the lawsuit on behalf of himself and others he claimed were similarly situated. Kinney alleged that the defendants did not provide the 60 days of notice required by the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act or the 90 days of notice required by the New York Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.
Motion and Supplemental Materials
The defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which allows dismissal for failure to state a legally sufficient claim. The court then ordered supplemental briefing about exceptions for temporary workers under the federal and state laws. In support of their position, the defendants submitted documents and affidavits, including Kinney’s offer letter, communications about workforce reductions, and public notices concerning the end of the New York State Virtual Call Center for contact tracing.
Court’s Action
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(d) requires a court to treat a dismissal motion as a motion for summary judgment when the court considers material outside the pleadings and does not exclude that material. Summary judgment is a procedure for deciding whether the undisputed materials show that a party is entitled to judgment. The court converted the defendants’ motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment because of the documents and other materials submitted during the case. Judge Edgardo Ramos gave Kinney until Friday, December 23, 2022, to respond to the defendants’ arguments and exhibits. This order did not decide whether Kinney’s claims under the federal or New York worker-adjustment laws would succeed.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.