Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-casd-3_16-cv-02844/USCOURTS-casd-3_16-cv-02844-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 28:1446nr Notice of Removal

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

CHRISTINE SHUROW,

Plaintiff,

v.

GINO MORENA ENTERPRISES, LLC, 

et al.,

Defendants.

Case No.: 3:16-cv-02844-L-KSC

ORDER GRANTING WITH 

PREJUDICE DEFENDANTS’ 

MOTION [Doc. 5] TO DISMISS

Pending before the Court is Defendants Gino Morena Enterprises, LLC and Alicia 

Spitler’s (collectively “Defendants”) motion to dismiss Plaintiff Christine Shurow’s 

(“Plaintiff”) Complaint [Doc. 1]. The Court decides the matter on the papers submitted 

and without oral argument. See Civ. L. R. 7.1(d)(1). For the reasons stated below, the 

Court GRANTS Defendants’ motion. 

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I. BACKGROUND

This case arises out of an employment relationship between Plaintiff and 

Defendants. Plaintiff began working for Defendant Geno Morena Enterprises (“GME”) 

in 2007 as a barber at Eielson Air Force Base. GME promoted her to the position of 

Assistant Manager in 2008. In March of 2011, Plaintiff transferred to GME’s operation 

on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton (“GME Pendleton”). Though slated to begin 

work at Pendleton as a full time Assistant Manager, Plaintiff had to work part time for 

several months before receiving a promotion to full time Assistant Manager in October 

2011, a position she held until late 2014. While working at GME Pendleton, Plaintiff 

made several complaints about working conditions and Labor Code violations. Plaintiff 

alleges Defendants responded to these complaints with harassment and retaliation. 

Around July 2014, Plaintiff injured her elbow when she accidentally hit it against a 

door jamb. Her doctor diagnosed her with an elbow strain and told her to take three days 

off work. After a subsequent visit, Plaintiff’s doctor cleared her for return to work. 

However, soon after her return to work, her doctor told her to take two weeks off, and 

renewed this direction three times. Plaintiff presented her doctor’s notes to Defendant 

Spitler (“Spitler”), a general manager at GME Pendleton, who in turn told Plaintiff that 

her management position would be safe on medical leave for twelve weeks. Despite this 

assurance, Defendants informed Plaintiff after eight weeks of medical leave that she 

would no longer have a management position. 

Plaintiff’s doctor subsequently permitted her to return to work, first under the 

condition that she be permitted to ice her elbow fifteen minutes per hour as needed, and 

later simply “as needed.” Defendants found these conditions either “too restrictive” or 

“too vague” and therefore refused to allow Plaintiff to return to work and later denied her 

request for leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act and terminated her 

employment.

Plaintiff filed a complaint with the Superior Court of California, County of San 

Diego, alleging state law claims for (1) disability discrimination; (2) disability 

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harassment; (3) failure to accommodate disability; (4) failure to engage in the interactive 

process of accommodation of a disability; (5) failure to prevent, correct and remedy 

discrimination and harassment; (6) violation of the whistleblowing law; (7) retaliation in 

violation of FEHA, FMLA, and the CLRA; (8) retaliation for complaints of OSHA 

violations; (9) retaliation for complaints of harassment and discrimination; (10) failure to 

pay wages due; (11) failure to provide meal and rest periods; (12) failure to provide an 

accurate itemized statement of wages and hours; (13) waiting time penalties; (14) 

violation of California Business and Professions Code §17200; (15) wrongful 

termination; (16) intentional infliction of emotional distress; and (17) negligent infliction 

of emotional distress. (See Compl. [Doc. 1–2].) Defendants removed to this Court and 

now move to dismiss. (See Rem. Not. [Doc. 1]; MTD [Doc. 5].) Plaintiff opposes (See 

Opp’n [Doc. 6].) 

 

II. LEGAL STANDARD 

The court must dismiss a cause of action for failure to state a claim upon which 

relief can be granted. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) 

tests the complaint’s sufficiency. See N. Star Int’l v. Ariz. Corp. Comm’n., 720 F.2d 578, 

581 (9th Cir. 1983). The court must assume the truth of all factual allegations and 

“construe them in the light most favorable to [the nonmoving party].” Gompper v. VISX, 

Inc., 298 F.3d 893, 895 (9th Cir. 2002); see also Walleri v. Fed. Home Loan Bank of 

Seattle, 83 F.2d 1575, 1580 (9th Cir. 1996). 

As the Supreme Court explained, “[w]hile a complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6) 

motion to dismiss does not need detailed factual allegations, a plaintiff’s obligation to 

provide the ‘grounds’ of his ‘entitlement to relief’ requires more than labels and 

conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” 

Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 1964-65 (2007) (internal citations and

quotation marks omitted). Instead, the allegation in the complaint “must be enough to 

raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Id. at 1965. A complaint may be 

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dismissed as a matter of law either for lack of a cognizable legal theory or for insufficient 

facts under a cognizable theory. Robertson v. Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc., 749 F.2d 530, 

534 (9th Cir. 1984).

III. DISCUSSION

The dispositive question presented by Defendants’ motion is whether the Federal 

Enclave Doctrine bars Plaintiff’s claims. Camp Pendleton is a federal enclave 

established no later than December 31, 1942. Stiefel v. Bechtel Corp., 497 F. Supp. 1138, 

1145 (S.D. Cal. 2007). Under the Federal Enclave Doctrine, state law is inapplicable 

unless it both predates the federal government’s acquisition of the property and is not 

inconsistent with federal law. Pac. Coast Dairy v. Dep. of Agric. of Cal., 318 U.S. 285, 

294 (1943); U.S. Const. art. 1 §8 cl. 17. Here, Plaintiff does not dispute the fact that all 

of her causes of action are based on California state laws that either postdate Camp 

Pendleton’s enclave status or are inconsistent with federal law.1 Rather, Plaintiff presents 

several arguments as to why the Federal Enclave Doctrine is inapplicable or an exception 

applies. 

Plaintiff’s first argument is that the Federal Enclave Doctrine does not govern a 

number of the claims here because she could amend her complaint to show that the 

conduct underlying her claims occurred off base. Specifically, she claims to be able to 

allege facts showing that (1) GME’s human resources department is located off base; (2) 

the decision to terminate her employment was made by management off base; and (3) 

Plaintiff was off base when she learned that GME had terminated her employment. 

 

1 The Court notes that, to the extent Plaintiff’s first and second causes of action are based on the 

California Constitution, they fail because the California Constitution nowhere addresses discrimination 

or harassment based on a physical disability. 

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The main

2 problem with this argument is that, even if these facts were true, they 

would not take Plaintiff’s claims outside of the Federal Enclave Doctrine. In the context 

of claims by employees against contractor employers operating on a federal enclave, the 

Doctrine applies if the plaintiff’s place of employment was located on the federal 

enclave. Lockhart v. MVM, Inc., 175 Cal. App. 4th 1452, 1458–60 (2009) (holding 

federal enclave doctrine applies on materially identical facts); see also Powell v. Tessada 

& Assocs., 2005 WL 578103 (C.D. Cal. 2005) (same); Taylor v. Lockheed Martin Corp., 

78 Cal. App. 4th 472, 481 (2000) (same). Because Plaintiff’s place of employment was 

located on Camp Pendleton, the Federal Enclave Doctrine applies. 

Next, Plaintiff contends that, inasmuch as she is seeking emotional distress 

damages, the Federal Enclave Doctrine does not bar her claims. More specifically, she 

argues that by enacting 16 U.S.C. § 457 Congress limited the Federal Enclave Doctrine 

such that it does not apply to state law claims to the extent they seek damages for 

emotional distress. Congress repealed 16 U.S.C. § 457 on December 19, 2014 and 

replaced it with 28 U.S.C. 28 U.S.C. §5001. Though there are significant cosmetic 

differences, the statutes appear substantively identical. The current version reads 

(a) Death.--In the case of the death of an individual by the neglect or wrongful act of 

another in a place subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States within a State, 

a right of action shall exist as though the place were under the jurisdiction of the State in 

which the place is located.

(b) Personal injury.--In a civil action brought to recover on account of an injury 

sustained in a place described in subsection (a), the rights of the parties shall be governed 

by the law of the State in which the place is located.

28 U.S.C. § 5001. 

Resolution of Plaintiff’s argument requires interpretation of the words “personal 

injury” as used in the title of subsection b, and “injury” as used in the body. Because the 

 

2 Even if meritorious, Plaintiff’s argument would not provide a grounds for denying Defendants’ motion

to dismiss. Rather, it is only relevant to the inquiry of whether the Court should grant leave to amend. 

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quoted language in the body of subsection b is ambiguous, it is proper to look to the 

language in the title for guidance. Brotherhood of R.R. Trainmen v. Baltimore & O.R. 

Co., 331 U.S. 519, 528–29 (1947). The Court sees only two feasible interpretations of

the words “personal injury” as used in § 5001: (1) a physical injury sustained by one’s 

person or (2) any injury a person might sustain. 

The second interpretation is overbroad. It is co-extensive with the injury in fact 

requirement of Article III Section II of the U.S. Constitution for standing to sue. If the § 

5001 exception to the Federal Enclave Doctrine were coextensive with Article III 

standing, then § 5001 would swallow the entire Federal Enclave Doctrine. Such a result 

would be inconsistent with the more than eighty years of Federal Enclave Doctrine 

jurisprudence since Congress enacted 16 U.S.C. § 457. Indeed, If Congress had 

abolished the doctrine, there would be no needs for the courts to continue analyzing its 

applicability to cases. Accordingly, the Court follows Kelly v. Lockheed Martin Servs. 

Grp., 25 F. Supp. 2d 1, 7–9 (D.P.R. 1998), and holds that § 5001 creates an exception 

allowing recovery only for damages stemming from a physical injury to one’s person. 

Because Plaintiff does not allege Defendants’ conduct caused her such physical injury, 

her claims do not fit under § 5001 (b). 

Plaintiff’s last argument in opposition is that her whistle blowing claims based on 

Cal. Labor Code §§ 1102.5 and 6310 are not subject to the Federal Enclave Doctrine

because Congress authorized California to enforce these Labor Code provisions on 

federal enclaves. In support, Plaintiff cites Taylor, 78 Cal. App. 4th at 483–86. The 

court in Taylor held that the Secretary of Labor, under a congressional delegation of 

power, authorized the application of state workplace safety laws on federal enclaves 

where the federal government does not actively exercise its jurisdiction. Id. Because the 

U.S. Air Force officials on the base at issue in Taylor allowed state OSHA inspectors to 

come on base and respond to the plaintiff’s complaints about his employment 

termination, the court reasoned that the Air Force did not actively exercise its jurisdiction 

and therefore permitted the application of state workplace safety laws. Id.

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This case is distinct from Taylor in that Plaintiff makes no allegation that the 

federal government did not actively exercise its jurisdiction as to occupational safety 

laws. In the absence of such allegations, state occupational safety laws are not exempt 

from the Federal Enclave Doctrine. Stiefel v. Bechtel corp., 497 F. Supp. 2d 1138, 1150–

51 (S.D. Cal. 2007). Accordingly, the Court finds that the Federal Enclave Doctrine 

precludes Plaintiff’s claims under California Labor Code Sections §§ 1102.5 and 6310. 

IV. CONCLUSION AND ORDER

Because the Federal Enclave Doctrine bars all of Plaintiff’s state law claims, the 

Court GRANTS WITH PREJUDICE Defendant’s motion to dismiss. 

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

 

Dated: May 1, 2017

 

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