Case ID: f-appx_458/html/0620-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
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Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Ian Lamonte CORMIER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ALL AMERICAN ASPHALT, Defendant-Appellee.
    No. 10-55114.
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Argued and Submitted March 16, 2011.
    Filed Nov. 10, 2011.
    Stephen Tollafield, Assistant Director, Hastings College of the Law, San Francisco, CA, Gary A. Watt, Esquire, Archer Norris, Walnut Creek, CA, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
    Ian Lamonte Cormier, pro se.
    Shawn Martell Larsen, Esquire, Mark Joseph Payne, Esquire, Rutan & Tucker, LLP, Costa Mesa, CA, for Defendant-Ap-pellee.
    Before: HUG, W. FLETCHER, and M. SMITH, Circuit Judges.
   MEMORANDUM

Plaintiff Ian L. Cormier appeals the district court’s decision dismissing his Title VII race discrimination lawsuit against his former employer, All American Asphalt, for failure to state a claim. Cormier filed his complaint pro se. We review the district court’s dismissal for failure to state a claim de novo. Miller v. Yokohama Tire Corp., 358 F.3d 616, 619 (9th Cir.2004). A pro se complaint “is to be liberally construed, and ... must be held to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers.” Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94, 127 S.Ct. 2197, 167 L.Ed.2d 1081 (2007) (per curiam) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). We reverse.

The district court concluded that it would have had “little trouble” concluding that the allegations in Cormier’s complaint satisfy Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a) as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N. A., 534 U.S. 506, 122 S.Ct. 992, 152 L.Ed.2d 1 (2002). It concluded, however, that under Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007), and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009), Cormier’s non-eonclusory allegations did not plausibly suggest a right to relief. However, as we recently made clear in Starr v. Baca, 652 F.3d 1202, 1213-16 (9th Cir.2011), Swierkiewicz is still good law after Twom-bly and Iqbal. This is supported by the language of Twombly, which rejected the argument that its analysis “runs counter to Swierkiewicz.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 569-70, 127 S.Ct. 1955.

Even without relying on Swierkiewicz, Cormier has alleged sufficient non-conclu-sory facts, taken as true, to plausibly suggest an entitlement to relief. Cormier alleged that while Shannon Garcia, his dispatcher, refused to give him and at least one other African American forty-hour work weeks, a Mexican American man was given more than forty-hour work weeks. He alleged that this Mexican American was hired during the time Cormier was receiving the minimum number of hours per week he could be given while preventing him from claiming unemployment benefits. Cormier further alleged that, although he had many qualifications, he was placed under a Caucasian worker with a lower union level who had drug problems and had recently had a driving accident. He alleged that he was called the “N” word by foremen and leadmen while on the job. And he alleged that he approached the owner of the company, Mr. Alderman, to discuss what he perceived as racial discrimination, and that Mr. Alderman refused to speak to him. These allegations are neither bare nor conclusory and, assumed true, more than plausibly suggest an entitlement to relief.

REVERSED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.