Jeffrey Rheiner v. Connecticut Deptartment of Education, E.C. Goodwin Technical High School (2010)

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION ON MOTION TO DISMISS

The plaintiff Jeffrey Rheiner brings this action against the State of Connecticut for damages for discrimination in his employment at E.C. Goodwin Technical High School.   He alleges that he has been discriminated against because he has a disability and because he provided support and assistance to a co-worker who also filed a discrimination complaint.

The defendant moves to dismiss portions of the plaintiff's Superior Court action on the grounds that the doctrine of sovereign immunity bars certain of the plaintiff's claims.   Underlying the defendant's motion is the argument that the plaintiff must properly exhaust his administrative remedies through the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO) before he can file suit in Superior Court on such claims.

The plaintiff filed two complaints with the CHRO. The first complaint is # 0510223, filed initially on December 13, 2004, and amended on June 8, 2005, and again on November 22, 2005.   That complaint is still under investigation and is still pending with the CHRO. See CHRO letter dated July 30, 2009.   The CHRO has not released jurisdiction.   Thus as to the allegations in that administrative complaint, the plaintiff has not exhausted his administrative remedies, so any claim of discrimination in the current Superior Court complaint that involves a claim that can fairly be gleaned from the first CHRO complaint must be dismissed.

THE FIRST ADMINISTRATIVE COMPLAINT

In the initial CHRO complaint # 0510223 dated December 13, 2004, the plaintiff alleged that he has been retaliated against in teaching assignments and had been refused approval for field trips because of his support of a discrimination complaint filed by a colleague named Lili Kinsman.¹

On June 8, 2005, the plaintiff filed an amendment to his original administrative complaint # 0510223.   In the amendment, he alleged retaliation via a poor performance evaluation/letter of counseling dated April 29, 2005.   He noted in his amendment that it was the first time in twenty-one years that he had received a negative performance review.

On November 22, 2005, the plaintiff filed an additional amendment to CHRO complaint # 0510223 in which he alleged that he was being discriminated against based on a disability, not based solely his employer's intent to retaliate against him for supporting the Kinsman complaint.   The plaintiff alleged the following:

He suffers from a disability affecting his vision.

His employer is aware of his disability.

His disability is being worsened by on-the-job stress.

He requires certain accommodations at work because of his vision problem, such as enhanced lighting, enlarged text in print and on computer screens, a speech program for the computer, additional clerical help, more time to complete paperwork, rest periods, decreased size of his afternoon classes, and time off for medical care and treatment.

He requested reasonable accommodations beginning in May 2005, and there was some discussion of enhanced lighting and enhanced computer applications which never materialized.

He assisted another employee (Kinsman) with her charge of discrimination.

He alleges that his employer has discriminated against him on the basis of his disability and through retaliation against him by refusing the plaintiff's requests for reasonable accommodations, denying him certain teaching assignments and duties, and excluding him from certain activities.   He also alleges that he has been harassed by supervisors.

As specific instances of retaliation in September and October 2005, the plaintiff claims that the defendant humiliated him by requiring that he participate in a team-building exercise that required one team member to assist another team member who had been blindfolded, which the plaintiff says was especially humiliating to him because of his vision difficulties.   On another day shortly thereafter, a supervisor prevented one of the plaintiff's colleagues from assisting the plaintiff to enter certain data into the plaintiff's computer.   The next month, the same supervisor humiliated him by demanding to know why the plaintiff was present at an evening awards dinner to which, it turns out, the plaintiff had been invited.

THE SECOND ADMINISTRATIVE COMPLAINT

Almost three years later, the plaintiff filed a second CHRO complaint-# 0910229 dated August 21, 2008.   As to the second administrative complaint, but not the first administrative complaint, the CHRO has released jurisdiction via a “right-to-sue” letter dated May 28, 2009.   In Paragraph 12 of the second CHRO complaint, the plaintiff sets forth a number of general allegations, with no dates, no descriptions, and no names attached to them, that he was harassed and retaliated against in a variety of ways including (1) being placed on an intervention plan, (2) being subject to hyper-scrutiny and unfair evaluation and criticism;  (3) being given unsatisfactory observation ratings, (4) being given unwarranted verbal and written discipline, and falsely accused of improprieties, (5) discriminatorily monitored at the workplace and (7) sic there is no (6), involuntarily removed from his classroom and stripped of his teaching responsibilities.   Affidavit of August 18, 2008, CHRO Complaint # 0910229.

Also there are two allegations in the second administrative complaint # 0910229 that are specifically included in the first administrative complaint # 0510223:  that the plaintiff was required to take part in the blindfold team-building exercise on August 25, 2005;  and that “Mr. Anderson” rudely commented on the plaintiff's attendance at an evening awards dinner on October 19, 2005.

The plaintiff also alleges a number of incidents that occurred in 2005 that had not been specifically alleged in the first CHRO complaint.   These are:

the defendant's request in February 17, 2005, for “unrealistic information on a budget”;

constant harassing comments from “Mr. Rockett,” which the plaintiff reported to the administration on March 2, 2005, with no intervention by the administration thereafter;

rude comments to the plaintiff from “Mr. Sinclair” on March 14, 2005;

rude comments to the plaintiff from “Mr. Anderson” occurring on or around June 16, 2005;

refusal for permission to attend a Senior Class Advisors Committee luncheon on or about June 16, 2005;

refusal on August 25, 2005 (the same day as the blind-fold team building exercise) to allow the plaintiff an indoor break from brightly lit outdoor sun.

There is only one specific act of discriminatory conduct in the second administrative complaint that is alleged to have recently occurred:  the plaintiff alleges that he was required by the defendant to enter an “active construction site” on March 18 and 19, 2008, in order to complete a kitchen inventory, even though there had been directives to staff to avoid the construction area.

THE SUPERIOR COURT COMPLAINT

The operative court complaint in this case appears to be that of December 2, 2009, entitled Amended Complaint.

In Count One of that complaint, the plaintiff claims that the defendant has discriminated against him on the basis of his disability.   The specifications of discrimination are:

a. being placed on an intervention plan and subject to hyper-scrutiny and unfair evaluation and criticism;

b. being given unsatisfactory observation ratings, unwarranted verbal and written discipline, and falsely accused of improprieties;

c. discriminatorily monitored at the workplace and involuntarily removed from his classroom and stripped of his teaching responsibilities;

d. being verbally attacked, harassed, and embarrassed by Stephen Anderson, the school's principal, at a social evening event for the teacher, nurse, principal and alumni of the year;

e. being harassed regarding the culinary budget in that administration officials requested unrealistic information on a budget for additional money;

f. being requested to enter into an unsafe and dangerous construction area despite numerous emails to parents and students stating that no member of the staff and no students were to enter the construction area.

In Count Two of the court complaint, the plaintiff claims that the defendant has discriminated against him in retaliation for his earlier CHRO complaints.   Count Two alleges the identical specifications of negligence as are contained in Count One.

THE LAW OF ADMINISTRATIVE EXHAUSTION

Conn. Gen.Stat. § 46a-100 provides:

Any person who has timely filed a complaint with the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities in accordance with Section 46a-82 and who has obtained a release from the commission in accordance with Section 46a-83a or 46a-101, may also bring an action in the superior court for the judicial district in which the discriminatory practice is alleged to have occurred or in which the respondent transacts business ․

Conn. Gen.Stat. § 46a-101(a) provides:

No action may be brought in accordance with section 46a-100 unless the complainant has received a release from the commission in accordance with the provisions of this section.

These statutes read together require the plaintiff to procure a release of jurisdiction from the CHRO before initiating any court action based on his administrative complaint.

Conn. Gen.Stat. § 46a-82(f) requires that any administrative complaint with the CHRO be filed within one hundred eighty days of the alleged act of discrimination.

THE MOTION TO DISMISS

The defendant moves to dismiss the allegations or counts of the court complaint for which the plaintiff has not received a release of jurisdiction from the CHRO. The defendant also moves to dismiss any allegations that occurred beyond one-hundred and eighty days from the date the second administrative complaint was filed-August 21, 2008.

The plaintiff opposes the motion, essentially alleging that he is entitled in his second administrative complaint to incorporate all of the allegations in his first administrative complaint and that the CHRO's release of jurisdiction should be read to incorporate them as well.   The plaintiff offers no authority for this proposition.

However one might feel about the lengthy administrative process, see. e.g. Angelsea Productions, Inc. v. Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, 236 Conn. 681, 674 A.2d 1300 (1996) (Angelsea I ), courts have consistently upheld the requirement that complainants exhaust their administrative remedies or obtain a release of administrative jurisdiction from the CHRO as a prerequisite to Superior Court jurisdiction over the complainant's claims.   See Angelsea Productions, Inc. v. Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, 248 Conn. 392 (1999) (Angelsea II ).

In furtherance of the policy expressed in the statutory scheme, the complainant cannot be allowed to do an end-run around this requirement by restating or incorporating allegations from his first administrative complaint into his second administrative complaint in order to attempt to confer jurisdiction on this court.

The question then becomes whether the allegations in the second administrative complaint are “new” allegations not covered by the first administrative complaint.   In order to determine this, the court must fully review the substance of the two administrative complaints and give them a fair reading on order to determine what it was that the CHRO could reasonably be put on notice to investigate by the two complaints.   See, e.g. Ware v. State of Connecticut, 118 Conn.App. 65, 983 A.2d 853 (2009).   Moreover the court must also examine the second administrative complaint to discern whether any of the conduct alleged in it occurred more than one hundred eighty days before the administrative complaint was filed.

While the court's analysis is hampered by the generality and vagueness of certain of the allegations, particularly those in paragraph 12, of the second administrative complaint, the court finds that the only conduct of the defendant in the second administrative complaint that 1) is not also present in the first administrative complaint, or 2) occurred within one hundred eighty days of its filing, is the employer's direction to the plaintiff regarding the inventory to be performed in the off-limits construction area.

Because the principles of sovereign immunity and exhaustion of administrative remedies are intertwined, the court must grant the defendant's motion to dismiss those claims over which the plaintiff has failed to exhaust his administrative remedies.   At this point, the plaintiff has failed to exhaust all claims in his Amended Complaint in this court action except for those involving the specification in Count One and Count Two concerning the direction to complete the inventory.   That alleged discriminatory conduct alone is neither contained in the first administrative complaint nor outside the one hundred and eighty day time period preceding the filing of the second administrative complaint.

PUNITIVE DAMAGES AND INTEREST.

The state cannot be held liable for punitive damages in this situation.   Ware v. State of Connecticut, supra, 87-88.

As for the issue of interest, the court discerns no allegation that would give rise to an award of interest.   For example, there is no allegation that the plaintiff lost money because he was denied a promotion or that he suffered any reduction or diminution in salary or benefits as a result of the alleged discriminatory practices of the defendant.

CONCLUSION

The Motion to Dismiss is granted as to all specifications of discriminatory conduct in the Amended Complaint except those dealing with the defendant's requirement that he conduct an inventory in the off-limits construction area.   The Motion to Dismiss is granted as to claims for punitive damages and interest.

Patty Jenkins Pittman, Judge

FOOTNOTES

FN1. The Kinsman complaint was alleged to have the same CHRO number, # 0510223, and was filed by Kinsman in March 2004..  FN1. The Kinsman complaint was alleged to have the same CHRO number, # 0510223, and was filed by Kinsman in March 2004.

Pittman, Patty Jenkins, J.