United States District Court, D. Connecticut
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION ON PLAINTIFF'S MOTION FOR
RECONSIDERATION
WARREN
W. EGINTON, SENIOR UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Plaintiff
has moved for reconsideration of this Court's decision,
which denied as futile his motion to amend [ECF No. 54]. The
Court had previously granted defendants' motion to
dismiss [ECF No. 44] after determining that plaintiff's
allegations were an example of legal conclusions presenting
only a sheer possibility that defendants acted unlawfully.
See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). For
the following reasons, plaintiff's motion for
reconsideration will be denied.
After
finding plaintiff's complaint worthy of dismissal, the
Court allowed plaintiff 14 days to move to amend if he could
allege plausible claims of race, color, or nationality-based
discrimination. The Court granted plaintiff three extensions
of time in which to move to amend, but plaintiff neglected to
move to amend his complaint within the extended deadline.
Nevertheless, the Court subsequently provided plaintiff with
a further extension of time to move to amend his complaint.
The
Court then denied plaintiff's motion to amend, holding
that:
Plaintiff maintains that defendants have subjected him to
various acts of discrimination on the basis of race, color,
and national origin. Nevertheless, the proposed amended
complaint once again fails to allege any facts that give rise
to an inference of discrimination; or to allege that
similarly situated employees outside plaintiff's
protected class were treated more favorably. Indeed, the
proposed complaint does not mention any comparators with
similar criminal convictions. Instead, plaintiff's
complaint consists mostly of labels, conclusions, and
formulaic recitations of the elements of his various causes
of action. See E.E.O.C. v. Port Authority of New York and
New Jersey, 768 F.3d 247, 253 (2d Cir. 2014)
(“Twombly and Iqbal require that a
complaint support the viability of its claims by
pleading sufficient nonconclusory factual matter to set forth
a claim that is plausible on its face.”). To make
matters worse, plaintiff's list of legal conclusions
extends seventy-one pages. It is not a short and plain
statement.
Although a discrimination complaint need not allege each
element of a prima facie case, it must assert facts
sufficient to render its claims plausible. Id. at
254. Here, after setting aside the repeated conclusory
statements that are no more than recitals of the elements of
a cause of action or “labels and conclusions, ”
the allegations of the proposed amended complaint fail to
create a plausible inference of liability. See Ashcroft
v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 677-681 (2009).
Plaintiff's allegations are compatible with and can be
explained by increased scrutiny associated with his criminal
conviction rather than by invidious discrimination, as crimes
of dishonesty are rarely accompanied by promotion to a more
supervisory role. See Bell Atlantic Corp. v.
Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 567 (2007) (finding complaint did
not suggest an illicit accord because it was plausibly
explained by lawful behavior). The proposed amended complaint
has not nudged plaintiff's claims across the line from
conceivable to plausible. See Id. at 547.
Accordingly, plaintiff's motion to amend will be denied.
[ECF
No. 54, at 2-3].
After
plaintiff's motion to amend was denied, judgment entered
in defendants' favor, and the case was closed.
Subsequently, plaintiff filed the instant motion for
reconsideration.
At the
outset, defendants submit that plaintiff's motion is
untimely, as neither his motion for reconsideration nor his
motion for extension of time was filed within the deadline.
The instant motion could be denied on this basis alone.
Moreover,
plaintiff merely argues that his allegations, which the Court
already considered, lead conclusively to an inference of
discrimination. Yet reconsideration is appropriate only where
the moving party identifies controlling decisions or data
that the court overlooked and that could reasonably be
expected to alter the court's decision. See Shrader
v. CSX Transp. Inc., 70 F.3d 255, 257 (2d Cir. 1995).
“The major grounds justifying reconsideration are an
intervening change of controlling law, the availability of
new evidence, or the need to correct a clear error or prevent
manifest injustice.” Virgin Atlantic Airways, Ltd.
v. National Mediation Bd., 956 F.2d 1245, 1255 (2d Cir.
1992) (internal citation omitted). A motion for
reconsideration may not be used simply to relitigate an issue
that has been decided adversely to the movant.
Metropolitan Entertainment Co., Inc. v. Koplik, 25
F.Supp.2d 367, 368 (D. Conn. 1998). Accordingly, even if
plaintiff's motion for reconsideration had been timely,
it would still be denied.
CONCLUSION
For the
foregoing reasons, plaintiff's motion for reconsideration
is ...