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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

COLLEEN DENISE WALKER,

Plaintiff,

v.

CA EMPLOYMENT DEVELOPMENT 

DEPT.,

Defendant.

Case No. 17-cv-00071-JCS 

ORDER DISMISSING SECOND 

AMENDED COMPLAINT PURSUANT 

TO 28 U.S.C. § 1915

Re: Dkt. No. 11

Plaintiff Colleen Denise Walker, pro se and in forma pauperis, filed this action alleging 

employment discrimination by her former employer, the California Employment Development 

Department (“EDD”). Walker amended her complaint once before the Court had reviewed its 

sufficiency, and the Court thereafter dismissed her first amended complaint under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1915(e)(2)(B) for failure to state a claim on which relief may be granted. See Order Dismissing 

Am. Compl. (dkt. 10).1 In that order, the Court held that “it is not enough for Walker to merely 

assert that her treatment at EDD was improperly motivated by” her membership in a protected 

class, i.e., “her race, her fiancé‟s national origin, or by her status as a veteran—she must explain 

what happened that supports that conclusion” in order the satisfy the pleading standard of 

plausibility articulated by the Supreme Court in Bell Atlantic Corporation v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 

554 (2007), and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2008). Order Dismissing Am. Compl. at 11. The 

Court granted Walker leave to amend her complaint if she was “aware of facts supporting the 

conclusion that her treatment at EDD was motivated by her membership in a protected class.” Id.

Walker has now filed a second amended complaint (dkt. 11), and the Court now reviews 

that complaint to determine whether it states a claim on which relief may be granted. See 28 

 

1 Walker v. CA Emp’t Dev. Dep’t, No. 17-cv-00071-JCS, 2017 WL 1246993 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 5, 

2017).
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United States District Court

Northern District of California

U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B); Marks v. Solcum, 98 F.3d 494, 495 (9th Cir. 1996). The second amended 

complaint asserts a claim under the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that Walker was 

subject to discrimination on the basis of her fiancé‟s Iranian national origin. 2d Am. Compl. ¶¶ 3, 

9. The second amended complaint does not, however, add any factual allegations to support the 

conclusion that Walker‟s fiancé‟s national origin was the cause of her alleged mistreatment. 

As noted in the Court‟s previous order, “a Title VII plaintiff must generally present 

„actions taken by the employer from which one can infer, if such actions remain unexplained, that 

it is more likely than not that such action was based upon race or another impermissible 

criterion.‟” Order Dismissing Am. Compl. at 8 (quoting Bodett v. CoxCom, Inc., 366 F.3d 736, 

743 (9th Cir. 2004)). Because Walker has not presented any factual allegations supporting an 

inference that any adverse action was based on her fiancé‟s national origin, or on any other 

“impermissible criterion” under Title VII, her complaint must once again be dismissed for failure 

to state a claim. In light of Walker‟s failure to resolve the deficiencies identified in the previous 

order, the Court finds that further amendment would be futile, and hereby DISMISSES this action 

without leave to amend.

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The case management conference previously set for June 30, 2017 is hereby VACATED, 

and the Clerk is instructed to close the file.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: June 27, 2017

______________________________________

JOSEPH C. SPERO

Chief Magistrate Judge

 

2 Walker has consented to the jurisdiction of the undersigned magistrate judge for all purposes 

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(c).