Opinion
Civil Action No. 02-CV-8023.
October 20, 2004
ORDER
AND NOW, this day of October, 2004, upon consideration of Defendants' Motion for Reconsideration in Part of this Court's Memorandum and Order of August 19, 2004, and Plaintiff's Response thereto, it is hereby ORDERED that the Motion is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART and Summary Judgment is entered in favor of the Defendants and against Plaintiff on Count II of the Complaint.
The purpose of a motion for reconsideration is to correct manifest errors of law or to present newly discovered evidence. Max's Seafood Café v. Quinteros, 176 F.3d 669, 677 (3d Cir. 1999); Harsco Corp. v. Zlotnicki, 779 F.2d 906, 909 (3rd Cir. 1985); Frederick v. Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, 926 F.Supp. 63, 64 (E.D.Pa. 1996). A party filing a motion to reconsider must rely on at least one of the following grounds: (1) the availability of new evidence that was not available when the court granted the motion for summary judgment; (2) an intervening change in the controlling law; or (3) the need to correct an error of law or to prevent manifest injustice. Hartford Fire Insurance Company v. Huls America, Inc., 921 F.Supp. 278, 279 (E.D.Pa. 1995);Prousi v. Cruisers Division of KCS International, Inc., 1997 WL 793000 (E.D.Pa. 1991) at *3. Where evidence is not newly discovered, a party may not submit that evidence in support of a motion for reconsideration.Harsco, supra, citing DeLong Corp. v. Raymond International, Inc., 622 F.2d 1135, 1139-40 (3rd Cir. 1980). See Also: North River Ins. Co. v. CIGNA Reinsurance Co., 52 F.3d 1194, 1218 (3rd Cir. 1995).
In this case, Defendants assert that reconsideration of our August 19, 2004 Memorandum and Order is necessary to correct errors of law with respect to Plaintiff's hostile work environment and FMLA claims. In carefully reviewing our decision in conjunction with the legal precedents cited therein, we find that the nine incidents upon which Plaintiff bases her hostile work environment claim were not reflective of discriminatory animus against her by the defendants nor were they evidence of a pervasive and regular pattern of discrimination. Moreover, we now conclude that these incidents were also not such as would have detrimentally affected a reasonable person in Plaintiff's same position. Indeed, of the nine incidents cited by Plaintiff as indicative of a hostile work environment only one may be remotely construed as having racial overtones — that of Ms. Whisman accusing Plaintiff of having problems working with Ms. Ledger because she is white. Assuming that this remark was in fact racially motivated, we do not believe that a reasonable fact-finder could find from it that Plaintiff faced discrimination which was sufficiently severe and pervasive to establish a hostile work environment. See, e.g., Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 23, 114 S.Ct. 367 (1993);Sherrod v. Philadelphia Gas Works, 57 Fed. Appx. 68, 76, 2003 U.S. App. LEXIS 1428 (3d Cir. Jan. 29, 2003).
In reviewing our decision with regard to the plaintiff's FMLA claim, we discern no error. The Third Circuit's decision in Conoshenti v. Public Service Electric Gas Co., 364 F.3d 135 (3d Cir. 2004) was decided on April 13, 2004. Given that our decision was not issued until August 19, 2004 and in light of the provisions of Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(b) (governing amendment of pleadings to conform to evidence even after judgment), we are unpersuaded that Defendants are entitled to judgment as a matter of law because Plaintiff never specifically pled her FMLA claim as an "interference" claim. In summary, we agree with Defendants only that summary judgment should have also previously been granted with respect to Count II of the plaintiff's complaint charging hostile work environment. Defendants' reconsideration motion is therefore granted in part.