United States District Court, D. Kansas
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
ERIC
F. MELGREN UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
The
Court is presented with Defendants Aeroflex Wichita, Inc.
(“Aeroflex”) and Lori Cromwell's Partial
Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings for Counts 4, 6, 7, and
8 of Plaintiff Linda Williams' complaint (Doc. 17). For
the reasons that follow, the motion is granted.
I.
Factual and Procedural Background[1]
In
1999, Aeroflex hired Williams as a file clerk. In 2000,
Aeroflex transferred her to the position of customer service
representative, where she was under Cromwell's
supervision. Williams alleges that, over the next 17 years,
Cromwell repeatedly subjected her to racially targeted
harassment, abuse, and general humiliation. This included
racist comments about her hairstyle in front of her peers,
derogatory remarks about her intelligence, and an incident
where Cromwell threw a stack of papers on the floor and
ordered Williams to pick them up. Williams further alleges
that Cromwell enforced several company policies specifically
against her, as when Cromwell repeatedly sent her home for
violating the dress code while ignoring white employees who
wore similar clothing. In addition to the dress code
discrimination, Williams alleges that Cromwell denied her
time off more often than her coworkers, monitored her work
far more closely than that of the other employees, and
falsely informed her that her coworkers had complained she
was wasting too much time on lunch, when they had said no
such thing. Williams also claims that Cromwell warned her,
“I want you to know I am watching you, ” a threat
in retaliation for her complaints. Even after Aeroflex gave
her a new supervisor in 2017, Williams alleges that Cromwell
has continued to harass her.
Williams
filed this suit against Aeroflex and Cromwell for violations
of Title VII (Counts 1-3), Cromwell for intentional
infliction of emotional distress (Count 4) and negligent
infliction of emotional distress (Count 5), and Aeroflex for
negligent retention/hiring, training, and supervision (Counts
6-8). The defendants now move for judgment on the pleadings
on Counts 4, 6, 7, and 8 under Rule 12(c), arguing that these
claims fail as a matter of law.
II.
Legal Standard
The
standard for evaluating judgment on the pleadings is the same
as that for a motion under Rule 12(b)(6).[2] Under Rule
12(b)(6), a defendant may move for dismissal when the
plaintiff has failed to state a claim upon which relief can
be granted.[3] Upon such motion, the court must decide
“whether the complaint contains ‘enough facts to
state a claim to relief that is plausible on its
face.'”[4] A claim is facially plausible if the
plaintiff pleads facts sufficient for the court to reasonably
infer that the defendant is liable for the alleged
misconduct.[5] The court is required to accept the
factual allegations in the complaint as true, but is free to
reject legal conclusions.[6] The plausibility standard reflects the
requirement in Rule 8 that pleadings provide defendants with
fair notice of the nature of claims and the grounds on which
the claim rests.[7]
III.
Analysis
A.
Negligent Retention, Supervision, and Training
Williams claims that Aeroflex was negligent in retaining and
failing to train and supervise Cromwell, which caused her
emotional and physical harm. Aeroflex moves to dismiss,
arguing that Williams' status as an employee prevents her
from recovering for negligent retention, supervision, and
training.
Every
employer has a duty to “hire and retain only safe and
competent employees.”[8] To establish a breach of this
duty (negligent retention), the plaintiff must show that the
employer had reason to believe that the employee's
dangerous “quality or propensity” created an
undue risk to others and kept the employee on
anyway.[9] The harm sued for must have been within
such risk.[10]
Negligent
supervision and training are in the same vein as negligent
retention. Negligent supervision requires that the employer
fail to supervise their employee while having “reason
to believe that the employment of the employee would result
in an undue risk of harm to others.”[11]Similarly, an
employer may also be responsible for injury caused by the
employee that could have been prevented with better
training.[12]
An
employee who has been injured by a coworker cannot recover
against her employer for negligent retention, supervision or
training; recovery is generally limited to third
parties.[13]This is based on the principle that
“an employer is not responsible for its employee's
unauthorized acts committed outside the scope of the
employee's duties, ” and the employee's duties
do not include the way she treats other
employees.[14] For the same reason, harassment by a
coworker will not constitute an actionable injury for the
purposes of negligent supervision or training.[15]
While
the conduct she alleges is reprehensible, the fact remains
that Ms. Williams is an employee and thus precluded from
recovery. Williams attempts to distinguish her case from the
general rule by noting that Cromwell was no ordinary worker,
but a supervisor in a position of power over her. However,
she cites no authority showing why this distinction is
important. Indeed, the complained-of coworker was a
supervisor in many of the cases holding that an employee
cannot recover for negligent retention, supervision, or
training.[16]
For
example, in Wood v. City of Topeka, [17] the court
granted summary judgment to the employer on the
employee's claim that the employer was liable for the
negligent retention and supervision of a supervisor who
discriminated against him based on his age. In Fiscus v.
Triumph Group Operations, [18] the plaintiffs argued
their employer negligently trained and supervised its
employee with respect to sexual harassment. The court refused
to recognize the employees' claims, because that would be
an overexpansion of the law: “this cause of action, if
recognized, ‘would necessarily arise any time a middle
level supervisor engaged in discriminatory conduct. We think
it unlikely that the Kansas courts would adopt a liability
rule with such broad implications.'”[19] It is clear
that Kansas law precludes recovery by an employee for the
employer's negligent training, supervision, or retention.
Aeroflex is thus entitled to dismissal on Counts 6-8.
B.
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
Williams
also claims that Cromwell has committed the tort of
intentional infliction of emotional distress against her.
Cromwell responds that the allegations are not extreme and
outrageous enough to support a finding of intentional
infliction of emotional distress as a matter of law, and thus
judgment should be granted in her favor.
Intentional
infliction of emotional distress requires four elements:
“(1) The conduct of defendant must be intentional or in
reckless disregard of plaintiff; (2) the conduct must be
extreme and outrageous; (3) there must be a causal connection
between defendant's conduct and plaintiff's mental
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