Rodríguez-Vives v. Puerto Rico Firefighters Corps

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 13-1587
KATHY RODRÍGUEZ-VIVES,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
PUERTO RICO FIREFIGHTERS CORPS OF
THE COMMONWEALTH OF PUERTO RICO,
Defendant, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Daniel R. Domínguez, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Torruella, Baldock,* and Kayatta, Circuit Judges.
Enrique J. Mendoza Méndez, with whom Juan R. Dávila Díaz
and Mendoza Law Offices were on brief, for appellant.
Michelle Camacho-Nieves, Assistant Solicitor General of
Puerto Rico, with whom Margarita Mercado-Echegaray, Solicitor
General, was on brief, for appellee.
February 18, 2014
*
Of the Tenth Circuit, sitting by designation.
KAYATTA, Circuit Judge. Plaintiff Kathy1 Rodríguez-Vives
sued the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in 2005, claiming that
defendant Puerto Rico Firefighters Corps of the Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico ("the Corps") refused to hire her as a firefighter
because of her gender. As part of a 2009 settlement of that suit,
the Corps agreed to employ her as a "transitory" firefighter until
the next training academy was held, to admit her to the academy,
and to hire her as a firefighter if she graduated. She thereafter
again sued the Corps, alleging that, during her transitory
employment, the Corps subjected her to various forms of abuse in
retaliation for her earlier suit. This alleged post-settlement
mistreatment, she argued, constituted both sex discrimination and
retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of
1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-2, 2000e-3. The district court granted
the Corps's motion to dismiss her new complaint for failure to
state a claim. Rodríguez-Vives appeals only the dismissal of her
claim of unlawful retaliation. We hold that her complaint states
a plausible claim of unlawful retaliation under Title VII, and we
therefore vacate the district court's order.
1
At times Rodríguez-Vives has also spelled her first name
"Katty" and that is how her name was spelled on the docket in
earlier litigation discussed later in this opinion. We refer to
her as "Kathy" in this opinion because that is how her name was
spelled on the district court docket in this case and how she has
referred to herself in this appeal.
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I. Background
Finding this to be a case amenable to disposition under
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), the district court
dismissed Rodríguez-Vives's complaint before the parties could
engage in the discovery necessary to provide a fuller picture of
what actually occurred. We therefore take as true the factual
allegations in Rodríguez-Vives's complaint, drawing all reasonable
inferences in her favor. Schatz v. Republican State Leadership
Comm., 669 F.3d 50, 55 (1st Cir. 2012).
Rodríguez-Vives applied unsuccessfully to be a
firefighter in the Corps in 2001. In 2005 she sued the Corps,
alleging that the Corps's failure to hire her was discriminatory.
Her complaint asserted a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for denial of
her right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment of the
United States Constitution, and a claim under state law.
Specifically, she alleged that, after meeting the minimum
requirements to apply for a position with the Corps, she passed a
physical agility test and was selected for several in-person
interviews. Despite being placed on an eligibility list for
admission to the next training session for new firefighters, known
as a firefighter academy, she was not admitted.
On February 5, 2009, Rodríguez-Vives and the Corps signed
a settlement agreement resolving that first suit. The Corps agreed
to employ her as a "transitory" firefighter until the next training
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academy was held, at which point it promised that she would be
admitted, trained, and, if she completed the academy successfully,
hired to a career position as a firefighter. In return she waived
all claims that she could have brought against the Corps.
Rodríguez-Vives began working for the Corps on March 2,
2009. After being ordered to work at several different stations by
various supervisors, she was assigned permanently to a fire station
in Coamo where she claims she was subjected to a series of abuses
that gave rise to this lawsuit. Her supervisor, a sergeant,
"constantly said in front of [her] that he did not know why he had
to end up stuck with her in his [s]tation" and "commented on
various [occasions] that [she] was incompetent, dumb, inept, [and]
that she did things backward." On one occasion when Rodríguez-
Vives was cooking at the station the sergeant threw the pans she
was using in the trash. On August 18, 2009, the sergeant
threatened Rodríguez-Vives with disciplinary action for making an
entry in the station's journal despite the fact that she had
followed the instructions she had received for making entries in
the journal. On August 27, he shouted at her about her entries in
the journal and also threw it at her. After Rodríguez-Vives
complained about this conduct her captain held a meeting with the
sergeant, but the sergeant continued to engage in the same
objectionable conduct after the meeting. Soon thereafter, the
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Sergeant saw her in the parking lot of the Coamo station and
accelerated his car, showering her with dust.
During Rodríguez-Vives's time at the Coamo fire station
the only duties given to her were cooking, cleaning, and keeping
the station's journal. These tasks were "supposed to be equally
shared among all firefighters" but in the Coamo station they were
not. Rodríguez-Vives was not issued uniforms or emergency kits as
other firefighters were. She did not receive training given to
other firefighters who, like her, had not attended a training
academy. She was also not allowed in fire vehicles to get lunch.
Finally, a male volunteer firefighter, who had not attended the
academy, was allowed to "go out to deal with incidents" while
Rodríguez-Vives was not. As a result of these actions Rodríguez-
Vives suffered "severe psychological damages" that required
treatment.
On December 22, 2009, Rodríguez-Vives filed a complaint
with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging under
Title VII that she had been discriminated against on account of her
sex and retaliated against for her earlier lawsuit. She received
a right to sue letter on May 11, 2011, and filed a complaint on
August 2, 2011. She later filed an amended complaint containing
the allegations described above. The Corps then moved to dismiss
her complaint for failure to state a claim. The district court
granted the motion on March 31, 2013. Rodríguez-Vives timely
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appealed, challenging only the dismissal of the retaliation portion
of her complaint.
II. Analysis
The district court dismissed Rodríguez-Vives's complaint
for failure to state a claim of retaliation under Title VII,
holding that she had not sufficiently alleged that she had
previously opposed a practice made unlawful by Title VII or that
she suffered an adverse employment action. We conclude that the
district court was wrong on both points. Before addressing either
point, however, we first address the Corps's argument that we need
not consider the sufficiency of Rodríguez-Vives's complaint because
the 2009 settlement bars her from bringing this claim.
A. Effect of the 2009 Settlement
The Corps argues that Rodríguez-Vives is really
complaining that the Corps has, in effect, failed to perform its
obligations under the settlement agreement. Pointing to the
district court's retention of jurisdiction to enforce the
settlement, Amended Judgement of February 24, 2009, Rodríguez-Vives
v. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Case No. 3:05-cv-02136-DRD, Dkt.
No. 74, the Corps maintains that Rodríguez-Vives's only remedy was
to file a motion to enforce the settlement in that previously
closed action. Failing to do so, the Corps argues, somehow gives
rise to a res judicata bar to this action.
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As the district court correctly recognized, the 2009
settlement agreement bars Rodríguez-Vives from bringing now a
related claim that could have been brought prior to the date of the
settlement, or arising out of events occurring prior to that date.
Rodríguez-Vives, though, rests this action on the Corps's conduct
after the date of the settlement. Thus the settlement agreement
provides no bar to this retaliation claim, nor could it. See
Graham Cnty. Soil & Water Conservation Dist. v. U.S. ex rel.
Wilson, 545 U.S. 409, 419 (2005) (noting in the statute of
limitations context that a cause of action for retaliation
generally accrues "when the retaliatory action occurs"); Alexander
v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 51-52 (1974) (holding in the
arbitration context that an employee may retrospectively waive
Title VII claims as part of a settlement but that "an employee's
rights under Title VII may not be waived prospectively"); 14 Penn
Plaza LLC v. Pyett, 556 U.S. 247, 265 (2009) (noting that Gardner-
Denver was "correct in concluding that federal antidiscrimination
rights may not be prospectively waived" but holding that agreement
to arbitrate a Title VII claim was not a waiver).
Nor can we see any reason why Rodríguez-Vives, in seeking
a remedy for the alleged post-settlement acts, was limited to
enforcement of the settlement agreement. Suppose the Corps had
intentionally run over Rodríguez-Vives with a truck to prevent her
from being able to perform her new position. No reasonable person
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would argue that her remedies would be limited to filing a motion
to enforce the settlement agreement. Like an action for assault
and battery, a retaliation claim is a "separate and independent
cause of action" that stands or falls on its own. Jones v.
Walgreen Co., 679 F.3d 9, 20 (1st Cir. 2012) (internal quotation
marks omitted). Moreover, interpreting the settlement agreement as
limiting Rodríguez-Vives's rights to bringing an enforcement action
rather than asserting her statutory right to protection from post-
settlement retaliation would constitute a form of pre-retaliation
waiver, which is prohibited under Title VII. See Gardner-Denver,
415 U.S. at 51-52; 14 Penn Plaza LLC, 556 U.S. at 265.
This is not to say that the settlement agreement is
irrelevant to this suit. If facts not apparent on the face of the
settlement agreement show that the settlement agreement is properly
interpreted to place on Rodríguez-Vives's post-settlement duties as
a transitory firefighter the restrictions about which she complains
in her complaint, such a showing would likely be material to
determining whether the restrictions were retaliatory. The
possibility of such a defense, though, is inadequate to allow a
defendant to prevail on a motion to dismiss when the plaintiff
alleges a materially different version of the facts. Nor does the
interpretation and implementation of the settlement agreement have
any role in parrying the other allegations of retaliatory
harassment made by Rodríguez-Vives, such as her claims that the
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sergeant threw the station's journal at her and that he verbally
harassed her.
For all these reasons, we can find no basis in the
settlement agreement for insulating the Corps from the possibility
of Title VII liability for the alleged acts of unlawful retaliation
committed after the agreement was signed on February 5, 2009.
B. Sufficiency of Rodríguez-Vives's Complaint
To bring a successful retaliation claim under Title VII
"a plaintiff must first prove . . . [o]ne, she undertook protected
conduct[,] . . . [t]wo, her employer took a material adverse action
against her[,] . . . [a]nd . . . three, a causal nexus exists
between elements one and two." Medina-Rivera v. MVM, Inc., 713
F.3d 132, 139 (1st Cir. 2013) (citations omitted). The district
court held that Rodríguez-Vives's claim failed to allege the first
two elements sufficiently to entitle her to relief.
We review de novo the dismissal of a case under Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). See, e.g., Grajales v. Puerto
Rico Ports Auth., 682 F.3d 40, 44 (1st Cir. 2012). A complaint
need not allege every fact necessary to win at trial, but need only
include sufficient facts to make it "'plausible on its face.'"
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl.
Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). A complaint "must
contain more than a rote recital of the elements of a cause of
action," but need not include "detailed factual allegations."
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Rodríguez-Reyes v. Molina-Rodríguez, 711 F.3d 49, 53 (1st Cir.
2013). We have also recently cautioned that some courts apply the
plausibility standard "too mechanically" and fail to read
complaints "as a whole." García-Catalán v. United States, 734 F.3d
100, 101, 103 (1st Cir. 2013).
1. Plaintiff Adequately Alleges that She Opposed a
Practice Made Unlawful by Title VII.
Rodríguez-Vives's 2005 lawsuit did not allege a violation
of Title VII. Instead, suing under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, she alleged
that the Corps's refusal to hire her due to her sex violated the
Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. The
district court ruled, in effect, that the Corps could therefore
retaliate against Rodríguez-Vives for having brought the earlier
suit without violating the anti-retaliation provision of Title VII.
We cannot accept this conclusion.
While Title VII's anti-retaliation provision certainly
protects employees from retaliation for filing a Title VII suit, it
casts its protective cloak much more broadly. Specifically, it
also makes it "unlawful . . . for an employer to discriminate
against [an employee] . . . because [the employee] has opposed any
practice made an unlawful employment practice by [Title VII]
. . . ." 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a); see also Clark Cnty. Sch. Dist.
v. Breeden, 532 U.S. 268, 269 (2001) (per curiam). In Title VII,
"'oppose,' being left undefined by the statute, carries its
ordinary meaning: to resist or antagonize . . . ; to contend
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against; to confront; resist; withstand." Crawford v. Metro. Gov't
of Nashville & Davidson Cnty., 555 U.S. 271, 276 (2009)
(alterations in original) (citations and some internal quotation
marks omitted). It is well-established, for example, that it is
unlawful under Title VII to retaliate against employees for actions
falling far short of filing Title VII claims. Indeed, the
paradigmatic act of retaliation is firing an employee for
complaining to a superior about conduct that constitutes sex
discrimination. See, e.g., Tuli v. Brigham & Women's Hosp., 656
F.3d 33, 41-46 (1st Cir. 2011). Even employees who complain of
discrimination to their employers' customers are protected from
retaliation. See EEOC v. Crown Zellerbach Corp., 720 F.2d 1008,
1012-13 (9th Cir. 1983).
Rodríguez-Vives's opposition here was more, not less,
substantial than the opposition of the plaintiffs in Tuli and Crown
Zellerbach. Though we are aware of no case directly on point,
nothing in the language of the statute or common sense suggests
that she was nevertheless required to mention Title VII in order to
be protected from opposing the practices that Title VII renders
unlawful.
The Corps concedes that the 2005 suit "alleged
discriminatory hiring practices and procedures on the basis of
gender." Title VII makes it unlawful "for an employer . . . to
fail or refuse to hire . . . any individual . . . because of such
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individual's . . . sex . . . ." 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). The
conduct Rodríguez-Vives opposed was therefore precisely the kind of
discrimination Title VII was intended to combat. The opposition
for which she alleges she was punished therefore fell well within
the scope of the conduct that Congress sought to protect from
retaliation, whether or not she referred to Title VII (or exhausted
her Title VII remedies) in voicing that opposition.2
2. Plaintiff Adequately Alleges Employment Actions
Sufficiently Adverse to Constitute Retaliation.
The district court also found that the actions Rodríguez-
Vives alleged the Corps directed at her could not plausibly be seen
as materially adverse. Again, we disagree. In a retaliation case,
a plaintiff need only "show that a reasonable employee would have
found the challenged action materially adverse, which in this
context means it well might have dissuaded a reasonable worker from
making or supporting a charge of discrimination."3 Burlington
2
Nor is it necessary for Rodríguez-Vives to establish that
the allegations in her 2005 suit were correct. See Fine v. Ryan
Int'l Airlines, 305 F.3d 746, 752 (7th Cir. 2002) (an employee may
bring a retaliation claim where the complaint for which she was
retaliated against was not "completely groundless" (internal
quotation marks omitted)); Reed v. A.W. Lawrence & Co., Inc., 95
F.3d 1170, 1178 (2d Cir. 1996) (employee must have "good faith,
reasonable belief" that action she opposed violates Title VII
(internal quotation marks omitted)).
3
While the district court's opinion could be read to suggest
that the retaliatory actions needed to be related to Rodríguez-
Vives's gender, see Rodríguez-Vives v. P. R. Firefighters Corps of
P. R., 935 F. Supp. 2d 409, 421 (D.P.R. 2013), Burlington Northern
makes clear there is no such requirement. Burlington Northern, 548
U.S. at 68.
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Northern & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. White, 548 U.S. 53, 68 (2006)
(internal quotation marks omitted). Rodríguez-Vives's allegations
about her superiors' conduct are sufficient to state a claim
consistent with this standard of material adversity. A reasonable
person might well decide that it is not worth suing to obtain such
employment if she knew that, once she obtained it, she would be
subjected to the actions alleged in the complaint.
The actions about which Rodríguez-Vives complains fall
into two categories. First, she alleges that the Corps denied her
opportunities to accompany firefighters on calls even though the
Corps allowed a male volunteer firefighter to go on such calls.
Second, she alleges that the Corps subjected her to repeated
unpleasant and inequitable treatment.
As to the first category, the district court concluded
that the disparate treatment of Rodríguez-Vives and the male
volunteer was not improper because, while neither Rodríguez-Vives
nor the male volunteer had attended the training academy, Puerto
Rico law both prohibited a "transitory" firefighter like Rodríguez-
Vives from going on such calls and allowed volunteers to do so.
The only basis the district court articulated for that conclusion,
however, was a statute that creates a volunteer firefighter program
and provides for various details of its operation. See P.R. Laws.
Ann. tit. 25, § 331z. Nothing in the statute addresses whether
"transitory" firefighters like Rodríguez-Vives may fight fires. On
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appeal, the Corps itself also cites no authority at all to support
the claim that Puerto Rico law imposed on Rodríguez-Vives the
restrictions that were not applied to the volunteer firefighter.
We are therefore given no basis to find it implausible that harsher
restrictions were applied to Rodríguez-Vives as retaliation for her
having claimed to be a victim of sex discrimination.
As for the second category of actions Rodríguez-Vives
cites as examples of retaliation, many may well be the types of
"'petty slights or minor annoyances that often take place at
work,'" Billings v. Town of Grafton, 515 F.3d 39, 54 (1st Cir.
2008) (quoting Burlington Northern, 548 U.S. at 68), and thus "fall
outside the scope of the anti-discrimination laws." Id.
Nevertheless, cumulatively these allegations plausibly paint a
picture that would allow a factfinder to find the Corps's conduct
sufficient to deter a reasonable person from challenging the
Corps's discriminatory hiring practices had she known she would be
subjected to these abuses if successful. See Burlington Northern,
548 U.S. at 68.
In this regard, we note that several of the specific acts
alleged by Rodríguez-Vives by themselves go quite a ways toward
making out a claim. For example, the alleged refusal of Rodríguez-
Vives's superiors to allow her, like others, to travel on fire
vehicles to get lunch might be an adverse employment action on its
own. Cf. Burlington Northern, 548 U.S. at 69 ("[E]xcluding an
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employee from a weekly training lunch that contributes
significantly to the employee's professional advancement might well
deter a reasonable employee from complaining about
discrimination."). Similarly, Rodríguez-Vives's allegation that
she was assigned to cook and clean rather than to perform the same
jobs as others in the station, depending on the surrounding facts,
might make plausible a finding that there was an adverse employment
action. Compare Morales-Vallellanes v. Potter, 605 F.3d 27, 38
(1st Cir. 2010) (holding on summary judgment that reassignment to
duties which were not "more difficult, less prestigious, or
objectively inferior" was not an adverse employment action) with
Tart v. Illinois Power Co., 366 F.3d 461, 473 (7th Cir. 2004) (jury
could have found adverse employment action where plaintiffs were
reassigned to "jobs . . . [that] involved far less skill and
significantly harsher working conditions than the plaintiffs' prior
positions"). Given the cumulative weight of Rodríguez-Vives's
allegations, however, we need not decide whether each of these
individual allegations would, standing alone, be sufficient to
state a plausible claim of retaliation under Title VII.
We emphasize that this case is on appeal of a 12(b)(6)
motion, not a motion for summary judgment. "Although a plaintiff
must plead enough facts to make entitlement to relief plausible in
light of the evidentiary standard that will pertain at trial . . .
she need not plead facts sufficient to establish a prima facie
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case." Rodríguez-Reyes v. Molina-Rodríguez, 711 F.3d 49, 54 (1st
Cir. 2013). The Corps plausibly suggests innocent explanations for
much of the conduct about which Rodríguez-Vives complains, but it
is not for the district court or us to weigh now the merits of
these explanations against the merits of the explanations alleged
by Rodríguez-Vives. Rather, Rodríguez-Vives may proceed to
discovery because she has alleged sufficient facts to make the non-
innocent explanation of these facts plausible. See
Sepúlveda-Villarini v. Dep't of Educ. of P. R., 628 F.3d 25, 30
(1st Cir. 2010) ("A plausible but inconclusive inference from
pleaded facts will survive a motion to dismiss."). Similarly, the
Corps's apparently uncontested assertion that it hired Rodríguez-
Vives as a firefighter after she filed this lawsuit does not
require us to reject her description of events occurring prior to
that hiring.
Nor, contrary to the district court's suggestion,
Rodríguez-Vives 935 F. Supp. 2d at 414-15, was Rodríguez-Vives
required to provide the exact details of each incident, such as the
dates or the precise context of the abusive comments, to make her
claim plausible. See Ocasio-Hernández v. Fortuño-Burset, 640 F.3d
1, 10 (1st Cir. 2011) ("[A] court may not insist on the allegation
of specific facts that would be necessary to prove the claim at
trial." (internal quotation marks omitted)). Because it felt that
Rodríguez-Vives's allegations lacked detail the district court
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disregarded them as conclusory. A conclusory allegation, however,
is one which simply asserts a legal conclusion such as "I was
retaliated against" not a specific factual allegation, such as "my
supervisor threw a book at me," that merely lacks some surrounding
context. See Ocasio-Hernández, 640 F.3d at 13-14. We have held
that some factual allegations may be so "threadbare" that they are
in essence conclusory even if they include more than an assertion
that an element of a cause of action was satisfied. See
Peñalbert-Rosa v. Fortuño-Burset, 631 F.3d 592, 595-96 (1st Cir.
2011). But this is only the case where the bareness of the factual
allegations makes clear that the plaintiff is merely speculating
about the fact alleged and therefore has not shown that it is
plausible that the allegation is true. Id. Here, in contrast,
Rodríguez-Vives's complaint described actions of which she had
personal knowledge in sufficient detail to make them plausible.
III. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons we vacate the district court's
order dismissing Rodríguez-Vives's complaint and we remand this
case to the district court for further proceedings consistent with
this opinion. We award no costs.
So ordered.
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