Jones v. City of Philadelphia Housing Department , 573 F. App'x 138 ( 2014 )

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
___________
No. 13-4661
___________
IRVING COURTLY JONES,
Appellant
v.
CITY OF PHILADELPHIA HOUSING DEPARTMENT
____________________________________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. Civil Action No. 2-12-cv-04104)
District Judge: Honorable J. William Ditter, Jr.
____________________________________
Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
July 15, 2014
Before: JORDAN, COWEN and BARRY, Circuit Judges
(Opinion filed: July 16, 2014)
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OPINION
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PER CURIAM
Irving Courtly Jones appeals from the District Court’s order dismissing his
complaint. We will affirm.
Jones alleges that he is an African-American male and 56 years of age. He filed
suit against the City of Philadelphia Housing Department (the “City”) raising claims of
race and gender discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
and age discrimination in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.
Jones’s claims are based on the City’s decision not to hire him after he applied for the
position of “Property Evaluator 1.” Jones concedes that he did not meet the listed
requirement for the position of having one year of experience with a bank or mortgage
company, but he contends that various aspects of his experience and education (including
a law degree) should compensate and that the City discriminated against him in
concluding otherwise. On the City’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the District Court dismissed
Jones’s complaint for failure to state a claim but granted him leave to amend. Jones filed
an amended complaint, which the City also moved to dismiss, and the District Court
dismissed his amended complaint with prejudice. Jones appeals.1
The District Court held that Jones’s conclusory allegations fail to raise a plausible
inference of discrimination, and we agree for the reasons explained more thoroughly by
1
We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We exercise plenary review over the
dismissal of a complaint under Rule 12(b)(6). See Great W. Mining & Mineral Co. v.
Fox Rothschild LLP, 615 F.3d 159, 163 (3d Cir. 2010). We will affirm if, leaving
conclusory assertions aside, the well-pleaded factual allegations do not state a plausible
claim for relief. See id. at 177 (citing, inter alia, Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009)).
Jones raised additional claims in his amended complaint, including a claim that the City
discriminated against him for his membership in the Communist Party, but he has waived
those claims by not arguing them on appeal and, in any event, the District Court properly
dismissed them for the reasons it explained.
2
the District Court. The only relevant factual matter contained in Jones’s amended
complaint is that he applied for the position at issue but that the City did not hire him.
Jones’s assertions that the City’s decision was the product of discrimination are wholly
conclusory.2 Jones has raised no meaningful challenge to the District Court’s conclusion
to that effect on appeal, and he instead devotes the majority of his brief to repeating his
conclusory assertions.
Jones does raise two arguments that we will briefly address, but they lack merit.
First, Jones appears to take issue with the standard set forth in Iqbal by arguing that it
“made the average poor person’s case a frivolity and rendered the law useless below a
certain economic level.” (Appellant’s Br. at 10.) We need not and do not address that
attack on the merits of the Iqbal standard. It is enough to say that we are not free to
depart from it and that, as explained above, we agree with the District Court that Jones’s
amended complaint fails to satisfy it. Second, Jones appears to suggest that the District
Court should have considered his present claims together with the different claims he
asserted in Jones v. City of Philadelphia Fire Department, E.D. Pa. Civ. No. 2-12-cv-
06916. We affirmed the dismissal of Jones’s complaint in that case as well, see Jones,
549 F. App’x at 73, and the cases are otherwise unrelated.
2
Jones, who we again note alleges that he has a law degree, has filed other complaints
premised on alleged discrimination that have suffered from similar deficiencies. See,
e.g., Jones v. City of Phila. Fire Dep’t, 549 F. App’x 71, 73 (3d Cir. 2014) (affirming
dismissal of discrimination complaint); Jones v. Camden City Bd. of Educ., 499 F. App’x
3
For these reasons, we will affirm the judgment of the District Court.
127, 129 (3d Cir. 2012) (same).
4