Skip to main content

Motion to Dismiss Employee's National Origin Discrimination Claim Denied When Employee Has Well-Plead Facts


Radek v. Target Corp. - United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division


Facts:  Esmeralda Radek ("Radek") worked at a Target store in Illinois beginning in early 2012.  Prior to being hired, she passed a background check and nothing was mentioned in regard to issues with her social security number.  About a year after she worked for Target, Radek received a promotion and a "great" performance review.  In early 2014, the Target store manager at the location in which Radek work received a letter claiming that Radek was using a fraudulent social security number and stealing items from the store and selling them on eBay.

About a week after receipt of the letter, a Target human resources representative accused Radek of using a fraudulent social security number.  Radek was asked to verify her social security number and Radek explained why there might be an issue (as she had been born in Texas and moved to Illinois, thus the issuing state might not be correct).  However, the next day, Radek was terminated for using a fraudulent social security number.  Radek alleged that her store had previously targeted Hispanic employees and accused them of using fraudulent social security numbers.  (Although several of these employees were terminated, they were apparently re-hired after it was confirmed their social security numbers were valid.)

After filing a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") and receiving her right to sue letter, Radek brought her suit against Target for national origin discrimination under Title VII and national origin and race discrimination under 42 U.S.C. Section 1981.  Target subsequently filed a motion to dismiss.

Holding:  As readers might know, the federal rules provide that when a court considers a motion to dismiss, all well-pleaded allegations in the complaint are accepted as true and courts draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff.

Radek's National Origin Claim

To prevail upon a Title VII discrimination claim, Radek must have plead that Target had implemented a specific adverse employment action against her on the basis of her protected class.  Target argued that the discrimination claim should be dismissed as Radek was not terminated based upon her race or national origin but instead because she apparently did not have a valid social security number.  In this case, the Court agreed with Target and held that Title VII does not forbid discrimination based upon actual citizenship or immigration status.  However, Radek plead that Target had a pattern of making "false allegations" against Hispanic employees, which included accusing them of using fraudulent social security numbers.  In this instance, Target never complained about Radek's social security number (and even withheld portions of her pay for social security taxes).  The Court held that the facts, as plead by Radek, were sufficient to allow her allegation that she was targeted and terminated because she was Hispanic, to proceed.

Radek's 42 U.S.C. Section 1981 Claim

Turning to Radek's other claim, the Court noted that Target had a pattern of making "false allegations" against Hispanic employees including allegations that these employees used fraudulent social security numbers (as a pretext for terminating their employment).  Based upon the facts, as plead in Radek's petition, the Court held that Target's motion to dismiss as to this portion of the complaint was denied.

Judgment:  The Court allowed a majority of Radek's national origin claim to proceed ahead on the grounds that as plead, she had raised sufficient facts to establish that she had been targeted and terminated by her employer because she was Hispanic, not because of her alleged use of a fraudulent social security number.

The Takeaway:  I always like to caution readers that the Court in this case did not rule on the merits of Radek's claims nor the defenses raised by Target at this point.  Instead, this was a matter of the Court applying the federal rules and determining if Radek had plead, at a minimum, sufficient facts to support her claims against Target.  Without getting into the merits of the claims or defenses or even considering the veracity of anything plead thus far, I think the Court came to the correct conclusion that a majority of Radek's claim was allowed to proceed ahead.  That is the benefit for the plaintiff in these instances:  With a court being required to draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff when considering a motion to dismiss, so long as the plaintiff has properly plead sufficient facts to support its allegations, it is likely that a motion to dismiss will not succeed.

Majority Opinion Judge:  Judge Lee

Date:  December 19, 2017

Opinion:  http://hr.cch.com/eld/RadekTarget121917.pdf

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum, it was noted that emplo
Post a Comment
Read more

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

A few years ago, I remember when the “Fight for $15” movement was taking off around the country.  Lo and behold, it appears that a $15/hour minimum wage is not the stopping point, which should be no surprise.  As the below article notes, New York is aggressively moving to ramp up hourly wage rates even higher.  While all the  below articles are worth a read, I called particular attention to that one. As always, below are a couple article that caught my eye this week. Disney World Workers Reject Latest Contract Offer Late last week, it was announced that workers at Disney World had rejected the most recent contract offer from the company, calling on their employer to do better.  As Brooks Barnes at The New York Times writes, the unions that represent about 32,000 workers at Disney World reported their members resoundingly rejected the 5 year contract offer which would have seen workers receive a 10% raise and retroactive increased back pay.  While Disney’s offer would have increased pa
Post a Comment
Read more

Utah Non-Compete Bill Falters in House

Last month, a non-compete bill sponsored by Representative Brian Greene (Republican from Pleasant Grove) & up for vote in the Utah House failed to make it through the Legislature.  The bill sought to ban enforcement of non-competes if they came after a worker was already employed, given no compensation (such as a bonus or promotion) for signing the non-compete, and laid off within six months.  However, by a 22 - 49 vote, the bill was resoundingly defeated after some business groups lobbied to kill the non-compete bill.  One group in particular, The Free Enterprise Utah coalition, argued that the Utah State Legislature should hold off on any changes to non compete laws in the state until a survey about non competes was done among Utah businesses.  Representative Greene had countered this claim and argued that a survey was not needed to show that the current non compete laws in the states allowed many businesses, including some small high tech companies in the state, to per
Post a Comment
Read more