D-15 Motion to Dismiss Denied by U.S. District Court

Community Consolidated School District 15 was informed in June that the United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois denied their motion to dismiss a federal lawsuit filed by former D-15 assistant principal Elizabeth Wong. 

alleges Wong was terminated in retaliation for reporting her former supervisor Edward Nelson’s drinking and sexual harassment to district administrators.  It further alleges two administrators intentionally interfered with her employment at the district resulting in her termination. 

all four courts of the lawsuit in December 2011.

Wong’s attorneys, in turn, and included irrelevant claims ignoring established law.  They filed an amended lawsuit that included Title VII and American with Disabilities Act (ADA) discrimination claims after receiving notice of the right to sue from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).   

Court documents confirm a status hearing for the federal case was held May 9 in which D-15 did not object to the filing of the amended complaint provided a ruling was made on their motion to dismiss the original lawsuit. 

The Court’s ruling to deny the motion was filed June 12 and is attached to this article.  

In its statement, the Court concluded the best course of action was to address the district’s legal arguments later on if a motion for summary judgment is appropriate in the case.  The decision was made because D-15’s “opening and reply briefs depend heavily on many disputed issues of fact which we cannot resolve on a motion to dismiss”.  

The statement continued with the fact that District 15 “undermines their legal arguments in many places by resting them on a version of the facts slanted in their favor.  This effort to stretch the facts, while perhaps understandable, nonetheless casts doubt on all of  (their) arguments, a few of which may not rely on factual assertions.” 

Specifically mentioned was the district's argument that Wong only complained of Nelson's sexual harassment of her and never of other employees.  The Court ruled the assertion was simply not true and points to several instances in the lawsuit.

In addition, it found that allegations of an administrator's (alleged) willingness to lie and fabricate incidents on Wong's performance evaluation were sufficient enough to survive a motion to dismiss.

In its conclusion, the Court recognized that the district will be able to “raise all these issues again on a motion for summary judgment, at which time the evidence will be more fully developed.”  

District 15 has since filed a second motion to dismiss the new discrimination claims in the amended complaint. Relevant documents are included with this article.

Regardless of the outcome, both parties have been advised to “diligently move forward with discovery without waiting this Court’s ruling on this second motion.” 

During the discovery phase, attorneys are able to obtain documents and other items not in their possession including taking depositions from witnesses.