In an entertaining opinion, Judge Virginia Emerson Hopkins used a bull-fighting analogy in the course of denying a motion to dismiss employment discrimination claims. See Harris v. Koch Foods of Ashland, LLC, No. 1:15-CV-2181-VEH, 2016 WL 3997247 (N.D. Ala. Jul. 26, 2016). Tracy Harris sued her employer for violations of Title VII and the Equal Pay Act. Judge Hopkins entered her opinion after Koch moved to dismiss the third complaint filed by Harris.
Like a matador waving her red cape, Harris’s filing of a new complaint induced Defendants … to charge in with a partial motion to dismiss in the hope that they could gore a count or two. But la matadora is too swift, or at least the bulls charged too soon. The motion will be DENIED.
Judge Hopkins’s opinion proceeds to take swipes at both parties — criticizing a “bizarre argument” by the defendants, while calling certain assertions by the plaintiff “ludicrous” and “laconic.” At the end of the day, however, Judge Hopkins found sufficient detail and legal merit in Ms. Harris’s third complaint to survive the motion to dismiss.