Manikhi v. Mass Transit Administration8/24/2000
[Sexual Harassment - Hostile Work Environment. Review of complaint on motion to dismiss. Allegations based on Title VII, § 1983, Maryland Constitution, Article 24, and false imprisonment sustained as to certain defendants.]
The petitioner, Jacqueline Manikhi (Manikhi), alleges that she was the victim of sexual harassment by a co-worker that continued over a period of years. Undertaking to assert multiple theories of liability, she sued her employer, two supervisors, three union officials, and the co-worker in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. The issue before us is the legal sufficiency of the allegations in certain counts of an amended complaint.
The employer is the respondent, Mass Transit Administration (MTA), a unit of the Department of Transportation of the State of Maryland. The events with which we are concerned are said to have occurred at night at the MTA facility on Kirk Avenue near Twenty-fifth Street in Baltimore City where buses that are not in service are cleaned, refueled, and parked on a large, open air lot. The alleged harasser is Francisco "Roy" Ovid (Ovid), another respondent. Manikhi and Ovid were classified as "A-Cleaners" of buses; both worked the night shift at the Kirk Avenue facility. The respondents, Vernon Parsons (Parsons) and Wade Moragne-el (Moragne-el), collectively, the "MTA Officials," are alleged to have been, respectively, the foreman of the night shift at Kirk Avenue and, as of 1995, the chief superintendent of that facility. Charles Pettus, Ennis Fonder, and Nelson Zollicoffer, the remaining respondents, are officials of Local 1300 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, A.F. of L.-C.I.O., and they are collectively referred to as "the Union Officials." The complaint seeks compensatory and punitive damages and counsel fees. There is no specific request for prospective relief.
The only count that survived dismissal on the face of the pleadings in the circuit court was one charging battery by Ovid. It was tried to a jury and resulted in a judgment for the defendant, apparently based on Manikhi's failure to convince the jury that a battery had occurred within the one-year period of limitations for that tort. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed the dismissal. Manikhi v. Mass Transit Admin., 127 Md. App. 497, 733 A.2d 372 (1999). We granted Manikhi's petition for certiorari. 356 Md. 495, 740 A.2d 613 (1999). This certiorari review concerns Manikhi's allegations of violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, of 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and of Articles 24 and 40 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, as well as counts labeled "False Imprisonment" and "Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress." When discussing a particular claim, infra, we shall identify the respondents against whom the claim is asserted.
Inasmuch as the instant appeal is from the grant of a motion to dismiss for insufficient allegations in a complaint, we would ordinarily proceed directly to summarizing those allegations before determining whether they "contain a clear statement of the facts necessary to constitute a cause of action." Maryland Rule 2-305. In the instant matter, however, there is a complication. Before we can determine whether the amended complaint states one or more causes of action, we must first determine whether an affidavit by Manikhi, which she purported to incorporate into her amended complaint, forms part of that amended complaint.
I.
The complaint initially filed by Manikhi was over sixty pages in length, consisting of 241 paragraphs. MTA moved to strike that complaint, arguing that it was "rambling" and constituted "an assemblage of opinions, argument, recitations of evidentia
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