Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_10-cv-02112/USCOURTS-azd-2_10-cv-02112-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 28:1441 Petition for Removal - Employment Discrimination

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

Jodi Strand, an Arizona resident, 

Plaintiff, 

vs.

John C. Lincoln Health Network, Inc., an

Arizona corporation; and John C. Lincoln,

LLC, an Arizona limited liability

company, 

Defendants. 

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No. CV-10-02112-PHX-NVW

ORDER

Before the Court is Defendant John C. Lincoln Health Network, Inc.’s Partial Motion

to Dismiss. (Doc. 6.) The Court will grant the motion.

I. Legal Standard

To state a claim for relief under Rule 8, a plaintiff must make “‘a short and plain

statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief,’ in order to ‘give the

defendant fair notice of what the . . . claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.’” Bell Atl.

Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (citations omitted). This “short and plain

statement” must also be “plausible on its face.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1949

(2009). A claim is plausible if it contains sufficient factual matter to permit a reasonable

inference that the defendant is liable for the conduct alleged. Id. A proper complaint needs

no “formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action,” see Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555,

but the plaintiff must at least “allege sufficient facts to state the elements of [the relevant]

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claim,” Johnson v. Riverside Healthcare System, LP, 534 F.3d 1116, 1122 (9th Cir. 2008).

All of the plaintiff’s plausible factual allegations are accepted as true and the pleadings are

construed in a light most favorable to the plaintiff. Knievel v. ESPN, 393 F.3d 1068, 1072

(9th Cir. 2005).

II. Alleged Facts

Plaintiff Jodi Strand has worked as a registered nurse at Defendant Lincoln Health’s

North Mountain Hospital since August 2005. At the time she was hired, she informed

Lincoln Health that she is allergic to latex. She has never had an allergic reaction to latex

at North Mountain Hospital, however, because it provides latex-free alternatives to products

that would normally contain latex.

In March 2008, while receiving physical therapy for an injury to her wrist, Strand was

exposed to latex products and suffered an allergic reaction requiring hospitalization. She

returned to work soon after, but was called into a meeting with human resources personnel

in April 2008 to discuss the extent of her allergy. At that meeting, one of Strand’s

supervisors asked Strand to submit a “Reasonable Accommodation Request Form,”

apparently as formal documentation of her need to avoid latex. Strand refused to submit a

Reasonable Accommodation Request Form at that time. Since then, some of Strand’s

coworkers and supervisors have commented or asserted that she should be “looking for

another job.”

In November 2008, Strand suffered chest pain while on duty, requiring hospitalization

to ensure that Strand was not suffering a heart attack. Strand does not state what caused this

chest pain, but claims that it was not a heart attack, and it was unrelated to her latex allergy.

When she returned to work, however, she was again called into a human resources meeting

and informed that she would be placed on administrative leave. At that meeting, Strand was

“coerced” to fill out the Reasonable Accommodation Request Form, requesting “latex free

gloves which are already available on the unit.”

Strand’s administrative leave began on or about November 21, 2008. For the next

several weeks, Lincoln Health required additional documentation on Strand’s allergy. This

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Strand’s complaint says that she filed with the Civil Rights Division on January 13,

2010, rather than January 13, 2009. In response to Lincoln Health’s motion to dismiss,

Strand asserted “2010” was a typo, and should have been “2009” — the same day she filed

with the EEOC.

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additional information apparently satisfied Lincoln Health, and it permitted Strand to return

to work on January 14, 2009, by which time she had suffered economic injuries such as loss

of wages and loss of vacation and sick leave time. Strand remains employed with Lincoln

Health to this day.

III. Procedural History

Strand filed a discrimination charge with the EEOC on January 13, 2009, claiming

that her treatment at work, especially the forced administrative leave, violated her rights

under the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). On the same day, she filed a similar

charge with the Arizona Attorney General’s Civil Rights Division.1

 On May 7, 2010, the

EEOC issued a right-to-sue letter. The record contains no information about what the Civil

Rights Division chose to do.

Strand filed this lawsuit in Maricopa County Superior Court on August 9, 2010,

asserting six causes of action: (1) violation of the ADA; (2) violation of the Arizona Civil

Rights Act (ACRA); (3) breach of contract, based on the otherwise unsubstantiated allegation

that “her employment with [Lincoln Health] constitutes an enforceable contract”; (4) breach

of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing implied in the alleged employment contract;

(5) “false light” invasion of privacy, based on the allegation that Lincoln Health “unlawfully

intercepted, disclosed, and used [Strand’s] private [medical] information”; and (6) “unlawful

disclosure of private information,” based on the same allegation. Lincoln Health removed

to this Court and has moved to dismiss causes of action two through six (i.e., everything

except Strand’s ADA claim).

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IV. Analysis

A. Strand’s ACRA Claim

The Court agrees with Lincoln Health that Strand’s ACRA claim is time-barred.

ACRA requires parties to file suit within one year of filing a discrimination charge with the

Civil Rights Division. A.R.S. § 41-1481(D) (“In no event shall any action be brought

pursuant to this article more than one year after the charge to which the action relates has

been filed.”). Strand filed with the Civil Rights Division on January 13, 2009. She did not

bring suit until August 9, 2010. Her ACRA claim must therefore be dismissed without leave

to amend.

B. Strand’s Contract Claims

As noted above, Strand’s contract-based claims rely on the allegation that “her

employment with [Lincoln Health] constitutes an enforceable contract.” In response to

Lincoln Health’s motion to dismiss, Strand clarifies that “Defendant’s actions and statements

created an express or implied contract.” Lincoln Health counters that the Arizona

Employment Protection Act, A.R.S. § 23-1501, renders all alleged employment contracts

unenforceable unless in writing and signed by both parties. Lincoln Health also argues that

Strand’s contract claims are time-barred by Arizona’s one-year statute of limitations for

employment contract actions. A.R.S. § 12-541(3).

The Court will not reach the issue of whether the Arizona Employment Protection Act

defeats Strand’s claim. That act specifically addresses whether a terminated employee can

sue for breach of contract. Strand was never terminated. The act might still apply, but the

Court has received no briefing on this issue. Accordingly, the Court will not decide it.

The Court will, however, dismiss Strand’s contract causes of action for failure to meet

the pleading requirements established in Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a). “To bring an action for the

breach of the contract, the plaintiff has the burden of proving the existence of the contract,

its breach and the resulting damages.” Graham v. Asbury, 112 Ariz. 184, 185, 540 P.2d 656,

657 (1975). Further, in Arizona, “employment contracts without express terms are

presumptively at will,” and it is the employee’s burden to overcome that presumption.

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Demasse v. ITT Corp., 194 Ariz. 500, 505, 984 P.2d 1138, 1143 (1999). Although Strand

need not prove these elements at the motion-to-dismiss phase, she must at least plausibly

allege them.

Here, Strand has not plausibly alleged the existence of a contract implied by words

or conduct. She has alleged only that “her employment with [Lincoln Health] constitutes an

enforceable contract” and that “Defendant’s actions and statements created an express or

implied contract.” Such “[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported

by mere conclusory statements,” are “not entitled to the assumption of truth.” Iqbal, 129 S.

Ct. at 1949, 1951. Strand has therefore not alleged “enough facts to state a claim to relief

that is plausible on its face.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570.

This is not a case in which the facts necessary to make her claim plausible are in the

defendant’s sole possession. See, e.g., Arista Records, LLC v. Doe 3, 604 F.3d 110, 120 (2d

Cir. 2010) (“[t]he Twombly plausibility standard . . . does not prevent a plaintiff from

pleading facts alleged upon information and belief where the facts are peculiarly within the

possession and control of the defendant” (internal quotation marks and citations omitted));

Brenes-Laroche v. Toledo Davila, 682 F. Supp. 2d 179, 187 (D.P.R. 2010) (“We understand

the difficulty faced by many civil rights litigants in Plaintiff’s position who are not armed

with sufficient facts, more likely to be found in Defendants’ possession, to survive Iqbal’s

pleading standard at this pre-discovery stage of litigation.”). If “actions and statements

created an express or implied contract,” as Strand alleges, then Strand should specify those

actions and statements, describe the contractual terms they created, and identify how Lincoln

Health breached those terms. Absent such specifics, she has not stated a plausible breach of

contract claim, especially in the context of an unwritten employment contract created by

words or conduct. The Court will dismiss that cause of action. And because the covenant

of good faith and fair dealing is implied in contracts, and therefore depends on the existence

of a contract, the Court will dismiss Strand’s good faith and fair dealing cause of action.

The Court will also dismiss Strand’s contract-based claims for failure to sue within

the one-year limitations period set forth in A.R.S. § 12-541(3). Strand obviously filed her

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complaint more than one year after returning from administrative leave — and being placed

on administrative leave is the only supposed breach of contract that the Court can discern

from the complaint — but she argues that her claim should be equitably tolled on account of

her pending civil rights charges with the EEOC and state Civil Rights Division. However,

Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, 421 U.S. 454 (1975), resolves this issue, laying down

the principle that EEOC proceedings, although a prerequisite to bring suit for employment

discrimination, do not toll the statute of limitations for separate causes of action arising from

the same facts. The Court will therefore dismiss Strand’s contracts claims. This dismissal

will be without leave to amend because the failure to file within the limitations period makes

any attempted amendment to this claim futile.

C. Strand’s False Light Cause of Action

According to the Restatement (Second) of Torts:

One who gives publicity to a matter concerning another that

places the other before the public in a false light is subject to

liability to the other for invasion of his privacy, if

(a) the false light in which the other was placed would be highly

offensive to a reasonable person, and

(b) the actor had knowledge of or acted in reckless disregard as

to the falsity of the publicized matter and the false light in which

the other would be placed.

Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652E (1977). Arizona has adopted this Restatement section,

Godbehere v. Phoenix Newspapers, Inc., 162 Ariz. 335, 342, 783 P.2d 781, 788 (1989), with

one important difference. According to the Restatement, “it is essential to the [false light

cause of action] that the matter published concerning the plaintiff is not true.” Restatement

(Second) of Torts § 652E cmt. a. In Arizona, however, “[a] false light cause of action may

arise when something untrue has been published about an individual, or when the publication

of true information creates a false implication about the individual.” Godbehere, 162 Ariz.

at 341, 783 P.2d at 787 (citation omitted; emphasis in original).

Strand relies on the true information/false implication theory for her false light claim.

Strand alleges that, soon after her April 2008 hospitalization, certain coworkers began

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suggesting that she should look for a new job. Strand therefore infers that her employer

disseminated information about her allergy to those who had no need to know, leading

certain coworkers to conclude that Strand was not qualified for her job. Lincoln Health

argues that Strand’s cause of action fails because her allergy was not published to the

“public,” but at most (taking Strand’s allegations as true) to a few members of the hospital

staff. Lincoln Health also argues that any such publication was qualifiedly privileged

because some coworkers had a legitimate need to know.

The Court finds as a matter of law that Lincoln Health’s dissemination of Strand’s

latex allergy to a small number of hospital employees was not to the “public,” and in any

event, it was justified — a latex allergy in a hospital could be a matter of life and death.

Also, publicization of a latex allergy is not “highly offensive” as a matter of law. A latex

allergy is a far cry from a venereal disease, for example. The Court will therefore dismiss

Strand’s false light claim without leave to amend.

D. Strand’s Public Disclosure of Private Information Cause of Action

Strand’s final cause of action relies on a tort that Arizona courts apparently have not

recognized explicitly: public disclosure of private facts. However, Arizona courts have

generally shown favor toward to the Restatement’s “invasion of privacy” torts, such as false

light. Public disclosure of private facts is also an invasion of privacy tort, and the Court

therefore assumes that Arizona would adopt the Restatement test:

One who gives publicity to a matter concerning the private life

of another is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his

privacy, if the matter publicized is of a kind that

(a) would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, and

(b) is not of legitimate concern to the public.

Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652D.

Similar to her false light claim, Strand claims that Lincoln Health illegitimately

publicized her medical conditions to coworkers. Lincoln Health argues that such publication,

if it happened, could not be highly offensive to a reasonable person. The Court has already

ruled as a matter of law that publicization of a latex allergy is not highly offensive, and that

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Lincoln Health did not disseminate information to the “public.” The Court will therefore

dismiss this claim without leave to amend.

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that John C. Lincoln Health Network, Inc.’s Partial

Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 6) is GRANTED.

DATED this 31st day of March, 2011.

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