Plaintiff's complaint fails to allege sufficient factual foundations to support either of these claims. There is no basis upon which to determine whether RJRN exercised control over plaintiff's working conditions or Planters' employment policies and practices. In fact, the only mention of RJRN in the complaint is the allegation that RJRN was incorporated in Delaware and has an office in New York. Likewise, the complaint fails to allege facts that could establish a basis for piercing the corporate veil between RJRN and Planters for the purpose of holding RJRN liable for Planters' misrepresentations or breaches of contract. Those facts include plaintiff's participation in a retirement plan offered to employees of RJRN, the fact that plaintiff was offered the opportunity to participate in an RJRN employee stock ownership program, was entitled to take advantage of corporate wide education initiatives offered by RJRN, and received RJRN correspondence informing Planters' employees of RJRN's corporate goals.
Planters are a single entity.
Moreover, defendants submitted an affidavit averring that RJRN took no part in hiring, discharging or making any other personnel decisions regarding Planters, and that RJRN and Planters had separate corporate officers, books and accounts. Accordingly, since there is no possibility, based on the pleadings, that plaintiff can state a cause of action against RJRN in state court, the district court correctly denied plaintiff's motion to remand to the state court and granted the motion to dismiss RJRN as a party to the action. Plaintiff asked New whether an incident taking place approximately one year earlier, in which plaintiff had testified in an internal investigation about his former supervisor's racist remarks about African-American employees in the company, had anything to do with his termination. New said that it had not. Plaintiff did not consult a lawyer, although advised to do so by the release.