Opinion ID: 75971
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the grant of judgment on the pleadings in riccard iii

Text: 50 (ORDER 4) 51 In Riccard III, when the district court dismissed with prejudice the fraudulent misrepresentation count in the third amended complaint in response to Prudential's motion to dismiss, it also dismissed without prejudice a count alleging further retaliation and discrimination, and in doing so, the court directed Riccard to replead with greater detail, clearly asserting the acts that qualify as statutorily protected activity and adverse employment actions, as well as the dates on which these acts (and any acts related to them) occurred. 12 52 Attempting to satisfy the court, Riccard filed a fourth amended complaint, re-pleading the retaliation claim in greater detail. Specifically, he restyled the count further retaliation and rewrote it to allege that Prudential and its representatives had retaliated against him by: (1) refusing to reinstate him to the same or equivalent position to the one he held before being injured, and specifically indicat[ing] in 1997, 1998, and 1999 that they were not going to [do so] because he had filed the discrimination charges with the EEOC and the Florida Commission on Human Rights in 1996; (2) cancelling his appointments for insurance licenses with Prudential in July 1997, thereby evidencing its intent to prevent Riccard from coming back to work because he had filed the 1996 discrimination charges; (3) making specific statements in 1998 and 1999 coercing [him] to retire instead of returning to work, such as threatening him in 1999 while he was out on long-term disability with examinations by doctor after doctor unless he retired; and (4) refusing to allow the third party administrator for Prudential's worker's compensation coverage to settle a worker's compensation claim Riccard had against Prudential, and refusing to allow that administrator to pay for his medical care. Prudential then moved for a judgment on the pleadings, which the district court granted. The court determined that, accepting Riccard's allegations as true, he could not state a claim for retaliation because the first two retaliatory acts he alleged were outside the statute of limitations, and the third and fourth acts he alleged did not amount to adverse employment actions, an essential element of his prima facie case. 53 Riccard argues that the district court erred in granting judgment on the pleadings against him. Judgment on the pleadings is appropriate where there are no material facts in dispute and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Cannon v. City of West Palm Beach, 250 F.3d 1299, 1301 (11th Cir.2001). 54 Taking each of the retaliatory acts alleged in the complaint in turn, we look first to the allegations of a failure to reinstate presented by the first three retaliatory acts. Under both the ADEA and the ADA, a Florida resident complaining of retaliation must file a charge with the appropriate agency not more than 300 days after the alleged unlawful practice occurred. Maynard v. Pneumatic Prods. Corp., 256 F.3d 1259, 1263 (11th Cir.2001). Each discrete discriminatory act starts a new clock for filing charges alleging that act. Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, ___ U.S. ___, 122 S.Ct. 2061, 2072, 153 L.Ed.2d 106 (2002). Discrete acts are acts such as refusal to hire or failure to promote, and each retaliatory adverse employment decision constitutes a separate actionable `unlawful employment practice.' Id. at 2073; see also EEOC v. Joe's Stone Crabs, Inc., 296 F.3d 1265, 1271-72 (11th Cir.2002) (failure to hire acts were discrete events and did not constitute a continuing violation that extended the limitations period). 55 According to the complaint, Prudential's retaliatory failure to reinstate Riccard first occurred in 1997 and reoccurred again in 1998 and 1999. Because the failure to reinstate is a discrete retaliatory act akin to a refusal to hire or promote and Riccard did not file his EEOC charge that serves as the basis for the retaliation count until October 19, 1999, the district court correctly dismissed as outside the statute of limitations the 1997 and 1998 failure to reinstate claims presented in Riccard's first allegation, as well as the 1997 cancelled license claim presented in his second allegation. The 1999 failure to reinstate claim presented in the first allegation, however, and the coercive threats claim, at least those threats made in 1999, presented in the third allegation would not be barred as a matter of law on statute of limitations grounds, and the court should have allowed the retaliation claim to proceed to discovery insofar as those allegations were concerned. 13 56 We now turn to the fourth retaliatory act Riccard alleged as a basis for his retaliation claim — Prudential's refusal, as long as Riccard's discrimination litigation was ongoing, to allow the third party administrator for its worker's compensation coverage to settle a worker's compensation claim Riccard had against it or to agree to pay for his medical care. The district court again relied on our decision in Gupta v. Florida Board of Regents to determine that this alleged act could not serve as the basis for a retaliation claim. 212 F.3d 571 (11th Cir.2000). We held in Gupta that the failure to settle the plaintiff employee's discrimination claim itself cannot constitute an adverse employment action because it does not alter the employee's compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment.... Id. at 589. The situation here is distinguishable because Riccard alleged that Prudential retaliated for his filing of the discrimination claim by refusing, in bad faith, to settle a different claim, one for worker's compensation. Riccard's claim that Prudential allegedly refused, in bad faith, to settle was independent from his discrimination and retaliation claim. Construing the complaint in the light most favorable to Riccard, as we must, Prudential's claimed refusal to allow Riccard's allegedly valid worker's compensation claim to settle or to let him receive medical benefits to which he allegedly was lawfully entitled in retaliation for the discrimination lawsuit he filed against it potentially alters privileges of employment and thus could constitute an adverse employment action. Thus, the district court erred in determining that the bad faith hindrance of the settlement of a worker's compensation claim or payment of medical benefits could not as a matter of law constitute an adverse employment action and serve as the basis of a retaliation claim. 57 We reverse the judgment on the pleadings in Riccard III to the extent that it determined that the 1999 failure to reinstate claim, the 1999 coercive threats claim, and the failure to settle the worker's compensation claim could not serve as the basis for, and were not enough to state, a retaliation claim, and we remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion. 58