Public Entity & Civil Rights Litigation

This federal civil rights and employment discrimination action was brought by the plaintiff, a correctional officer employed at Luzerne County Correctional Facility (LCCF), against her employer, Luzerne County, and two of her supervisors, one of whom was the division head and the other was the warden. While the plaintiff was on a five-day preplanned vacation, she alleges that the warden announced that he was dealing with the plaintiff’s sexual activities and relationships. The Division Head took no corrective action or attempted to intervene during or after the warden’s comments. 

In her complaint, the plaintiff alleges that over the course of years she was subjected to workplace sexual harassment and a hostile work environment, such as offensive and demeaning statements made by her supervisors to her co-workers. She brought claims of violation of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PHRA), 43 P.S. § 951 et seq. She further claimed, because she was a municipal employee, this same conduct constituted a violation of her Fourteenth Amendment equal protection rights, made actionable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, as well as related state law claims.

The defendants filed a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to partially dismiss the complaint for failure to a state claim upon which relief may be granted. Regarding municipal liability claims under § 1983, the plaintiff sought to hold Luzerne County liable for the conduct of the individual defendants. The court analyzed this under the Monell standard, when execution of government’s policy or custom inflicts the injury that the government entity is responsible under § 1983. In this matter, the plaintiff did not rely on the affirmative implementation or execution of a policy, but relied on the county policy strictly prohibiting unlawful discrimination or harassment. The court found that, beyond the vague assertions that existing policies were inadequate, the plaintiff failed to point to prior incidents that the county and its governing officials had actual or constructive knowledge of the purported policy deficiencies upon which the plaintiff’s § 1983 Monell claims are based upon. 

 

_{Case Law Alerts, 2nd Quarter, April 2023 is prepared by Marshall Dennehey to provide information on recent developments of interest to our readers. This publication is not intended to provide legal advice for a specific situation or to create an attorney-client relationship. Copyright © 2023 Marshall Dennehey, all rights reserved. This article may not be reprinted without the express written permission of our firm.}