ALLENTOWN – A federal judge has denied the Easton Area School District’s attempt to dismiss counts from a lawsuit filed by an ex-varsity high school wrestling coach who alleged he faced discriminatory and racist conduct, including being fired, because he is Black.
Jamarr Billman of Allentown first filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on June 10, 2020 versus Easton Area School District, of Easton.
Billman worked as a wrestling coach for EASD’s junior varsity wrestling team for the 2006-2007, 2007-2008, and 2008-2009 school years. In June 2016, Billman was hired by defendant EASD as its head wrestling coach to coach its varsity wrestling team.
“Soon after Coach Billman was hired and repeatedly throughout Coach Billman’s employment, defendant EASD’s Athletic Director, James Pokrivsak, Jr., proudly identified himself as racist, and made a mockery of it. Also, defendant EASD’s Assistant Football Coach, Joe McIntyre, who is white and the parent of an EASD wrestler, cornered Billman and told him that he has no respect for him,” the suit stated.
Though Billman reported his concerns of Coach McIntyre’s harassment towards him to members of defendant EASD’s Administration, it failed to investigate his reports, the lawsuit claimed.
Billman said he was also provided much less money for his athletic program budget than other coaches who are white, was paid less than his fellow coaches who are white, and was also threatened with bodily harm and labeled the n-word by the irate grandfather of a white wrestler who was disqualified from participating in a wrestling tournament.
“On March 16, 2018, two days after Billman received a notice of termination, one of defendant EASD’s Assistant Superintendents, Alyssa Emili, who is now also serving as the Director of Human Resources, attended a ‘Fire Billman Party,’ together with the wrestler who did not make weight, the wrestler’s grandfather who had choked Coach Billman and called him a ‘n—r’, and his father,” the suit alleged.
However, Billman was not terminated at that time. But, he alleged that he continued to have parents of certain white wrestlers complain and threaten him, and because of his being black, received no protection or assistance from the district in the process.
He also accused the district of pressuring his supervisor Elaine Arnts, the Assistant Athletic Director, to change her original positive assessment and evaluation of Billman into a negative one to satisfy district officials.
After receiving a highly unfavorable performance review in May, counsel for Billman reached out to counsel for the district to see if they would resolve the plaintiff’s claims before going to court.
Subsequently, the district fired Billman, which he claimed is retaliation for notifying it of his intention to file a lawsuit.
The district filed a motion to dismiss certain counts from Billman’s suit on Aug. 10, leading him to file an amended complaint on Aug. 24 without calling for punitive damages.
The district claimed that Billman’s allegations relating to alleged discriminatory acts under the PHRA and Title VII are time-barred, since they occurred more than 300 days before Billman dual-filed a charge of discrimination.
UPDATE
In a memorandum opinion issued on April 22, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Judge Gene E.K. Pratter denied the district’s motion to dismiss portions of the amended complaint, or in the alternative, the motion to strike.
“The Court construes the motion as a motion to strike and will deny the motion because the paragraphs EASD seeks to strike from the amended complaint contain appropriate background information and provide contextual support for Mr. Billman’s hostile work environment claim,” Pratter said.
Pratter further elaborated on the reasons for the information not being struck from the complaint.
“Although these 2018 events did occur outside of the statutory time period before Billman first filed charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, the Court will not strike this information from the amended complaint. Billman sufficiently alleges in his amended complaint discriminatory conduct that occurred within the required statutory period to support his claims, and EASD does not otherwise argue that Billman has failed to state a claim or that any counts in his amended complaint should be dismissed as time-barred,” Pratter said.
“The prior conduct Billman describes in his amended complaint is background information that provides context for his claims and describes the hostile work environment that he claims he was subjected to over an extended period of time. This is permissible information to include in a complaint.”
Pratter pointed out that Billman “alleges conduct in his amended complaint that could be considered independently discriminatory from the 2018 events, including the fact that his job was terminated for a second time in May 2020.”
“Billman asserts in his complaint that white parents continued to threaten him in February 2019. Billman also alleges that various discriminatory acts occurred in 2019 and that, because of his race, EASD failed to provide protection for him and allowed certain parents to attend wrestling matches to intimidate him,” Pratter stated.
“To alleviate his concerns about reporting Pokrivsak, EASD did assign Arnts to be Billman’s supervisor. In this role, Arnts reviewed Billman’s performance; Billman alleges that, from March 2019 until April 2020, he never received any verbal or written warnings concerning his job performance.”
Pratter said the Court was “not persuaded that it would be proper to strike any portion of Billman’s amended complaint.”
“Furthermore, it would be inappropriate to dismiss any of the claims in the amended complaint, especially considering that EASD’s motion only asked the Court to dismiss certain paragraphs of the amended complaint which contained background information, not to dismiss any claims in Billman’s amended complaint. To be sure, any time-barred allegations will be treated as background and not the basis on which Billman brings his claims,” Pratter concluded.
For counts of race-based discrimination, harassment and retaliation under Title VII and the PHRA, plus another federal civil rights violation, the plaintiff is seeking back pay, front pay, compensatory damages, attorney’s fees and any other relief the Court deems proper, plus a trial by jury.
The plaintiff is represented by John S. Harrison and Erika A. Farkas of Broughal & DeVito, in Bethlehem.
The defendant is represented by Sharon M. O’Donnell of Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin, in Camp Hill.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania case 5:20-cv-02730
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com