Clarke v. White Plains Hospital , 650 F. App'x 73 ( 2016 )

15-1637
Clarke v. White Plains Hospital
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY
ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF
APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT=S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER
IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN
ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION ASUMMARY ORDER@). A PARTY CITING TO A SUMMARY
ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.
1 At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit,
2 held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of
3 New York, on the 25th day of May, two thousand sixteen.
4
5 PRESENT:
6 AMALYA L. KEARSE,
7 DENNIS JACOBS,
8 BARRINGTON D. PARKER,
9 Circuit Judges.
10 _____________________________________
11
12 MARGUERITE ELLEN CLARKE,
13
14 Plaintiff-Appellant,
15
16 v. 15-1637
17
18 WHITE PLAINS HOSPITAL,
19
20 Defendant-Appellee,*
21
22
23 _____________________________________
24
25 FOR PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT: Marguerite Ellen Clarke, pro se, White
26 Plains, NY.
27
28 FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLEE: Francis Carling, Francis Carling Law
29 Offices, New York, NY.
* The Clerk of Court is respectfully directed to amend the official caption in this case to conform with the caption
above.
1
2 Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of
3 New York (Seibel, J.).
4 UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND
5 DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
6 Appellant Marguerite Ellen Clarke, pro se, appeals from a judgment in favor of White
7 Plains Hospital (“the Hospital”) in her suit under, inter alia, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of
8 1964 (“Title VII”), 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq.; the Age Discrimination in Employment Act
9 (“ADEA”), 42 U.S.C. § 621 et seq.; and the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), 42 U.S.C.
10 § 12101 et seq. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural
11 history of the case, and the issues on appeal.
12 We “review de novo a district court’s dismissal of a complaint pursuant to [Federal] Rule
13 [of Civil Procedure] 12(b)(6), construing the complaint liberally, accepting all factual allegations
14 in the complaint as true, and drawing all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff’s favor.”
15 Chambers v. Time Warner, Inc., 282 F.3d 147, 152 (2d Cir. 2002). The complaint must plead
16 “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly,
17 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007); see also Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). Although a court
18 must accept as true all the factual allegations in the complaint, that requirement is “inapplicable to
19 legal conclusions.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678.
20 We conclude that the district court properly dismissed Clarke’s complaint. Clarke’s
21 claims were subject to an exhaustion requirement, i.e., that they, or claims that are reasonably
22 related, first be asserted in administrative proceedings, see, e.g., Fitzgerald v. Henderson, 251 F.3d
23 345, 359 (2d Cir. 2001) (“If a claimant has failed to pursue a given claim in administrative
2
1 proceedings, the federal court generally lacks jurisdiction to adjudicate that claim.”); Brown v.
2 Coach Stores, Inc., 163 F.3d 706, 712 (2d Cir. 1998). However, her Title VII and ADEA claims
3 were not “reasonably related” to the alleged discrimination in her New York State Division of
4 Human Rights complaint, which was dual-filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity
5 Commission; it did not even mention Clarke’s race, national origin, or age. And Clarke presents
6 no argument to the contrary on appeal. To the extent that her ADA retaliation claim was
7 reasonably related, and therefore exhausted, Clarke argues that she engaged in a protected activity
8 by complaining that a unit supervisor was creating an intimidating and hostile work environment.
9 As the district court properly observed, however, Clarke failed to allege that the complaint she
10 made was “directed at conduct prohibited by [the ADA].” See Rojas v. Roman Catholic Diocese
11 of Rochester, 660 F.3d 98, 107–08 (2d Cir. 2011) (emphasis in original) (quoting
12 Galdieri-Ambrosini v. Nat’l Realty & Development Corp., 136 F.2d 276, 292 (2d Cir. 1998)).
13 We affirm the dismissal of Clarke’s ADA claims for discrimination and failure to
14 accommodate on the following bases. See In re Adderall XR Antitrust Litig., 754 F.3d 128, 134
15 n.4 (2d Cir. 2014) (We may “affirm on any ground that finds support in the record sufficient to
16 permit a conclusion of law, even one not relied on by the district court.”). Clarke failed to allege
17 that there were light-duty positions available for nurse technicians at the time of her June 2011
18 request for light duty, nor was the Hospital required to create a new position to accommodate
19 Clarke. See, e.g., Graves v. Finch Pruyn & Co., 457 F.3d 181, 187 (2d Cir. 2006); Norville v.
20 Staten Island Univ. Hosp., 196 F.3d 89, 99 (2d Cir. 1999). And Clarke’s complaint, which was
21 drafted by counsel and not deserving of the special solicitude due pro se litigants, did not allege
22 that she sought internal transfers in May and July 2012 as a reasonable accommodation, that the
3
1 Hospital should have perceived the requests as being for a reasonable accommodation, or even that
2 a recovery room position entailed light-duty work. See Graves, 457 F.3d at 184 (“[G]enerally, it
3 is the responsibility of the individual with a disability to inform the employer that an
4 accommodation is needed.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
5 Finally, Clarke contends that when the Hospital discharged her in October 2012, it
6 improperly considered several unexcused absences that were allegedly due to treatment for her
7 back injury. Clarke failed, however, to allege that the Hospital knew that these absences were due
8 to her back injury; she alleged only that she attempted, after the Hospital had decided to terminate
9 her employment, to explain that these absences should not have been considered unexcused.
10 Although Clarke asserted that the Hospital in fact knew of her back injury, that provided no basis
11 to infer any causal connection between that knowledge and her termination, as it was alleged that
12 the Hospital had known of the injury for nearly two years. See Clark Cty. Sch. Dist. v. Breeden,
13 532 U.S. 268, 273-74 (2001) (“The cases that accept mere temporal proximity between an
14 employer’s knowledge of protected activity and an adverse employment action as sufficient
15 evidence of causality to establish a prima facie case uniformly hold that the temporal proximity
16 must be very close . . . . Action taken . . . 20 months later suggests, by itself, no causality at all.”
17 (internal quotation marks omitted)). Accordingly, Clarke’s allegations were insufficient to “give
18 plausible support to a minimal inference of discriminatory motivation.” Vega v. Hempstead
19 Union Free Sch. Dist., 801 F.3d 72, 84 (2d Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks omitted).
20
21
4
1 We have considered Clarke’s remaining arguments and find them to be without merit.
2 Accordingly, we AFFIRM the district court’s judgment.
3 FOR THE COURT:
4 Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk
5