Walczak v. MA Retirement Board

[NOT FOR PUBLICATION]
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
No. 97-1978
KATHLEEN WALCZAK,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
MASSACHUSETTS STATE RETIREMENT BOARD,
Defendant, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. Richard Stearns, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Selya, Circuit Judge,
Cyr, Senior Circuit Judge,
and Boudin, Circuit Judge.
Kathleen Walczak on brief pro se.
FEBRUARY 25, 1998
Per Curiam. We have carefully reviewed the record,
appellant's brief, and the appendices, and agree with the
district court that the complaint is legally frivolous under
28 U.S.C. 1915(e)(2)(B)(i). See Neitzke v. Williams, 490
U.S. 319, 327-28 (1989) (a legally frivolous complaint is one
which is based on "an indisputably meritless legal theory").
The judgment of that court is therefore affirmed for the
reason stated by the court in its Memorandum, dated June 2,
1997. We add that the following claims also are legally
frivolous.
1. As with the complaint, appellant's claim under
the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), 42 U.S.C.
12131 et seq., is "inextricably intertwined" with the state
court judgments regarding the denial of her application for
accidental disability retirement benefits. That is,
entertaining the claim would require a lower federal court to
review the state court judgments. This is prohibited under
the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. See District of Columbia Court
of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 476 (1983); Rooker v.
Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 415-16 (1923).
2. Even if appellant's Title VII claim were
amended to name the proper defendant, it still would be
legally frivolous. That is, nowhere in her response to the
order to show cause, in her brief filed in this court, or in
her state brief is there any indication that anyone at the
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Commission discriminated against her on the basis of race,
color, religion, gender, or national origin -- the practices
outlawed by Title VII. See 42 U.S.C. 2000e-2(a). Indeed,
what does appear clearly from appellant's pleadings is that
her former supervisors had conflicts with appellant and that,
at least in appellant's view, these conflicts were due to the
resentment of one of the supervisors over the hiring of
appellant as a counselor before that supervisor was hired as
one. Personnel actions motivated by personality conflicts or
cronyism do not violate Title VII. See DeNovellis v.
Shalala, 124 F.3d 298, 306 (1st Cir. 1997).
3. To the extent that appellant is asserting,
under 42 U.S.C. 1983, that the discrimination she endured
while employed at the Commission violated her constitutional
rights, her cause of action is barred by the three-year
statute of limitations. See Street v. Vose, 936 F.2d 38, 39
(1st Cir. 1991) (per curiam) (the Massachusetts three-year
statute of limitations applies to 1983 actions, citing
M.G.L.c. 260, 2A). Appellant's claim accrued, at the
latest, in August 1987, when she became disabled by the
discrimination and quit work. See id. at 40 (the limitations
period begins to run when a plaintiff "knows or has reason to
know of the injury which is the basis of the action")
(internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Thus, any
1983 action challenging what happened during appellant's
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tenure at the Commission should have been filed by August
1990 in order to be considered timely.
4. Finally, in her response to the order to show
cause why the complaint should not be dismissed, appellant
made conclusory allegations that the discrimination
"continued" after she left the Commission and still is
ongoing. Appellant, however, nowhere identified anyone
responsible for this harassment. Where a complaint fails to
name the individual defendants by name the complaint should
not be dismissed as frivolous "if the allegations in the
complaint allow for the specific persons to be subsequently
identified with reasonable certainty." Smith-Bey v. Hospital
Adm'r, 841 F.2d 751, 759 (7th Cir. 1988) (emphasis added).
Because the allegations in the response are far too
conclusory to permit identification of any particular
defendants with any certainty, the dismissal was not an abuse
of discretion. See id. at 758 (a court is not required to
"invent factual scenarios that cannot be reasonably inferred
from the pleadings"). See also Macias v. Raul A., 23 F.3d
94, 96-97 (5th Cir. 1994) (where a court would be required to
go beyond the allegations in a complaint and speculate that
an in forma pauperis plaintiff might be able to make a
nonfrivolous claim if he or she were given a second chance to
amend, the court may dismiss the complaint as frivolous).
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The judgment of the district court is affirmed,
except to the extent that the judgment shall state that the
dismissal is "without prejudice."
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