Opinion
Civil Action No. 00-2804 (RBW).
February 9, 2005.
ORDER
The plaintiff brought this action under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000(e) et seq. (2000) ("Title VII"), and the Equal Pay Act of 1963, 29 U.S.C. § 206(d) (2000) ("EPA") alleging disparate treatment discrimination by the defendant, in contrast to the treatment of her male co-workers. The defendant filed a Motion to Dismiss, or in the Alternative, for Summary Judgment, and on March 30, 2004, this Court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment. March 30, 2004 Order. Currently before the Court are (1) the Plaintiff's Motion to Vacate Judgment ("Pl.'s Mot.") and (2) the Defendant's Opposition to Plaintiff's Motion to Vacate Judgment ("Def.'s Opp'n"). For the reasons set forth below, this Court denies the plaintiff's motion.
I. Background
The facts of this case have been exhaustively discussed in this Court's prior Memorandum Opinion issued on March 30, 2004.Schroeder v. Tomlinson, Civ. No. 00-2804, slip. op. at 1-4 (D.D.C. March 30, 2004). Accordingly, the Court will only briefly review the facts relevant to the motion currently before the Court.On November 21, 2000, the plaintiff, Kathleen M. Schroeder, filed this action alleging violations of both Title VII and the EPA. Id. at 1-2. In support of her claims, the plaintiff asserted a number of acts which she contended showed discrimination through her employer's disparate treatment of her in contrast to the treatment of her male counterparts. Id. at 2-3. On February 6, 2004, the defendant moved to dismiss the EPA claim, pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1), for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and moved for summary judgment, pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c), on the plaintiff's Title VII claims based on the plaintiff's failure to exhaust her administrative remedies. Id.
After reviewing the defendant's motion, this Court first concluded that the Court of Federal Claims had exclusive jurisdiction over the plaintiff's EPA claims. As a result, the Court granted the defendant's motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Id. at 7-8. As to the plaintiff's Title VII claims, the Court concluded that the plaintiff failed to timely file her claims of discrimination, and that, despite the plaintiff's contention to the contrary, she could not employ the "continuing violation" theory of discrimination to avoid dismissal of her Title VII claims. Id. at 17. As this Court noted in its prior opinion, "[t]o rely on the continuing violation theory for reviving stale claims, the timely filed claim must itself be a viable Title VII claim." Id. at 15. In this case, the Court concluded that the plaintiff did not present a viable Title VII claim because she failed to establish a prima facie case of employment discrimination. Id.
The plaintiff now contends that the Court should vacate its prior judgment pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(e), because the Court "neglected" to consider the Supreme Court's decision inNat'l Passenger R.R. Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101 (2002). Pl.'s Mot. at 1. The plaintiff alleges that Morgan differentiates "between an isolated and discrete act of discrimination and a continuing pattern of conduct," and allows for acts outside of the statutory period to be considered in the latter situation. Id. After a careful review of the papers presented to the Court, it is clear the plaintiff's motion is without merit.
II. Standard of Review
Under Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(e), a motion to reconsider or vacate judgment need not be granted unless the Court finds (1) that there is an intervening change of controlling law; (2) that new evidence is available; or (3) that a need to correct a clear error or to prevent manifest injustice is present. See Anyanwutaku v. Moore, 151 F.3d 1053, 1057-58 (D.C. Cir. 1998). "A Rule 59(e) motion is not a second opportunity to present argument upon which the Court has already ruled, nor is it a means to bring before the Court theories or arguments that could have been advanced earlier." W.C. A.N. Miller Co.'s v. United States, 173 F.R.D. 1, 3 (D.D.C. 1997). "Motions under Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(e) are disfavored and relief from judgment is granted only when the moving party establishes extraordinary circumstances." Niedermeier v. Office of Baucus, 153 F. Supp. 2d 23, 28 (D.D.C. 2001) (citing Anyanwutaku, 151 F.3d at 1057). The movant bears the burden to "`clearly establish either manifest error of law or fact or . . . present newly discovered evidence.'" United States v. Western Elec. Co., 690 F. Supp. 22, 25 (D.D.C. 1988) (quoting FDIC v. Meyer, 781 F.2d 1260, 1268 (7th Cir. 1986)).
III. Analysis
The plaintiff's motion to vacate the judgment in this case does not satisfy the requisite standard for obtaining relief under Fed.R.Civ.P. 59. First, the plaintiff does not contend, nor could she, that new evidence is available, or that an intervening change of controlling law justifies consideration of her motion because the Supreme Court decided Morgan before this Court granted the motion for summary judgment in the present case. Rather, the plaintiff asserts that "[t]he Court neglected to consider the decision of the Supreme Court" inMorgan, and that the "ramifications" of the decision merit a reversal of the Court's judgment. Pl.'s Mot. at 1. Accordingly, it appears then that the plaintiff has filed this motion to prevent what she perceives as a clear error of law.The basis for the plaintiff's assertion is unclear, as this Court was aware of the Morgan decision before issuing its opinion in this case. Specifically, on July 16, 2002, the defendant filed a notice of supplemental authority directing this Court's attention to the then recently issued Supreme Court decision in Morgan. The plaintiff could have asserted her theory based on Morgan in response to the defendant's supplemental authority well in advance of this Court's decision, but she chose not to do so. This fact alone mandates that the Court deny the plaintiff's motion because a "Rule 59(e) motion is not . . . a means to bring before the Court theories or arguments that could have been advanced earlier." W.C. A.N. Miller Co.'s, 173 F.R.D. at 3.
Even assuming that the plaintiff's motion is properly presented to this Court, the Supreme Court's decision in Morgan does not require this Court to alter its prior decision. In the March 30, 2004 Memorandum Opinion, this Court held that the plaintiff failed to establish a prima facie case of discrimination under Title VII for the timely filed claim. Schroeder, Civ. No. 00-2804, slip op. at 15. Specifically, the plaintiff failed to establish that she and a male coworker, a Mr. Maniscalco, were similarly situated and therefore should have been paid an equal wage. Id. at 15. Because she failed to establish a prima facie case of employment discrimination for her timely filed claim, this Court concluded that such a claim could not form the basis of a continuing violation which could in turn revive stale claims.Id. at 15. Therefore, even if this Court had concluded that the plaintiff could employ the continuing violation theory as elaborated in Morgan, her Title VII claims would have failed to survive the defendant's summary judgement motion. Thus, there was no clear error of law that demands that this Court vacate its prior judgment.
In any event, Morgan actually supports this Court's prior opinion. In Morgan, a former African-American railroad employee filed an action under Title VII, alleging racial discrimination and retaliatory treatment by his employer. Morgan, 536 U.S. at 104-05. In addition, Morgan claimed that he had been subjected to a "racially hostile work environment throughout his employment."Id. In considering the opinion of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court held that "discrete discriminatory acts are not actionable if time barred, even when they are related to acts alleged in timely filed charges." Id. at 113. "Discrete acts such as termination, failure to promote, denial of transfer, or refusal to hire are easy to identify," and therefore "[e]ach incident . . . constitutes a separate actionable `unlawful employment practice.'" Id. at 114 (emphasis added). Because of the continuing nature of hostile work environment claims, the Court clearly distinguished these types of claims from those involving discrete acts of discrimination. As a result, the Supreme Court concluded that Morgan could only bring charges for discrete acts that transpired within the requisite time period, and the remaining untimely filed discriminatory claims were no longer actionable. Id. at 114-15.
In this case, the plaintiff did not assert any hostile work environment claims. Rather, she cites a number of discrete discriminatory acts. Compl. ¶ 2(a)-(g). Thus, the decision inMorgan does not provide any support for the plaintiff's argument. Because the acts the plaintiff alleged were all discrete acts of discrimination, this is simply not the type of case which permits a finding of continuing discrimination to allow the plaintiff to avoid the requirement that all claims be timely filed. See Morgan, 536 U.S. at 114 (reversing the Court of Appeals' application of "the continuing violations doctrine" to discrete acts of discrimination); see also Aceto v. England, 328 F. Supp. 2d 1, 7 (D.D.C. 2004) (describing the distinction recognized in Morgan between the hostile work environment claim and a discrete discriminatory act); Haynie v. Veneman, 272 F. Supp. 2d 10, 16 n. 3 (D.D.C. 2003) (indicating that hostile work environment claims are qualitatively different from discrete acts of discrimination and that a continuing violation theory could only be applied to hostile work environment claims); Singletary v. District of Columbia, 225 F. Supp. 2d 43, 61 n. 2 (D.D.C. 2002) (noting that Morgan bars application of the continuing violation theory to discrete acts of discrimination).
Based on the foregoing, it is clear that the plaintiff's motion to vacate judgment must be denied.
SO ORDERED.