Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Deserie D. Jones, proceeding pro se, sued the Regents of the University of California/UC San Diego Health in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, Case No. 3:25-cv-03682-CAB-SBC. She alleged that on February 7, 2025, coworker Abram Arpallan made an explicit sexual comment to her, that coworker Roy Blue reported the incident to manager Jon Russe, and that UCSD Health failed to investigate or remove Arpallan. She further alleged that her manager then subjected her to dismissive and hurtful behavior signaling that gender-based sexual harassment would not be addressed, and that UCSD Health breached a mediated 2017 settlement in which it allegedly promised not to retaliate against her for reporting discrimination or harassment.
Her complaint asserted five claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act—retaliation, gender discrimination, hostile work environment, violation of the opposition clause, and failure to prevent harassment, retaliation, and discrimination—plus a failure-to-prevent claim under California's Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) and a sixth claim for breach of the 2017 settlement agreement. On April 13, 2026, UCSD Health filed a partial motion to dismiss the first, fourth, fifth, and sixth claims. Jones filed no opposition. The court found the motion was served by email that day and noticed for a May 18, 2026 hearing, making her opposition due May 4, 2026 under Civil Local Rule 7.1(e)(2).
The Court’s Holding
The court partially granted the motion. It held that the public's interest in expeditious resolution of litigation, the court's need to manage its docket, and the risk of prejudice to the defendant all weighed in favor of granting the unopposed motion under Ghazali v. Moran, while emphasizing that Jones's pro se status did not excuse her from following the same procedural rules as other litigants. The court nevertheless independently evaluated the merits of the motion rather than treating the absence of an opposition as automatically dispositive.
On the first claim, retaliation, the court found allegations of "unfair scrutiny, exclusion, and unjustified negative treatment" too conclusory to plausibly state a claim under Ashcroft v. Iqbal and dismissed that claim with leave to amend. On the fourth claim, the court held that reporting unsafe patient care is not opposition to discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin and therefore cannot support a Title VII opposition-clause claim; reporting the coworker's sexually inappropriate comment could qualify, but the alleged resulting hostility and dismissive leadership comments were pleaded too conclusorily, so that claim was also dismissed with leave to amend.
The fifth claim's Title VII theory was dismissed without leave to amend because failure to prevent harassment is not a standalone Title VII cause of action but an element of a hostile-work-environment claim; the unchallenged FEHA failure-to-prevent claim remained. On the sixth claim, although federal allegations could support supplemental jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1367, the court found the settlement allegations too conclusory—Jones supplied neither the agreement nor specific duties or terms—and dismissed that claim with leave to amend.
Key Takeaways
- By October 30, 2026, Jones must either file a First Amended Complaint or notify the court that she wishes to proceed on her remaining claims; failure to do so may subject the complaint to dismissal for failure to prosecute.
- The surviving claims are Title VII gender discrimination, Title VII hostile work environment, and failure to prevent harassment under FEHA.
- The first, fourth, and sixth claims were dismissed with leave to amend, while the fifth claim's Title VII theory was dismissed without leave to amend and cannot be revived through amendment.
- The court independently reviewed the merits despite the lack of opposition and did not resolve the second and third claims, which UCSD Health had not challenged in this motion.
- The unopposed motion was granted under the Ghazali factors, but the court's insistence on merits review shows that unopposed status alone did not decide the case.
Why It Matters
The order separates pleading deficiencies from legal incapacity: conclusory retaliation, opposition-clause, and settlement allegations may be repaired through amendment, while no amendment can create a standalone Title VII failure-to-prevent action. It also preserves the FEHA version of that theory because UCSD Health did not challenge it, leaving Jones a viable path forward on three claims.
The settlement ruling is deliberately limited: the court recognized potential supplemental jurisdiction but made no final jurisdictional determination, identifying the missing agreement and unspecified contractual duties as obstacles. The decision narrows the case without ending it and gives Jones a defined deadline to amend or proceed on the surviving claims.