United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
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No. 10-2908
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Suzanne Clark, *
*
Appellant, *
* Appeal from the United States
v. * District Court for the
* Southern District of Iowa.
Iowa State University; Iowa State *
Board of Regents; Gregory L. Geoffroy, *
President, Iowa State University, in *
both his official and his individual *
capacities; Marlene Callahan, *
Supervisor, Medical Records, Thielen *
Student Health Center, Iowa State *
University, in both her official and her *
individual capacities, *
*
Appellees. *
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Submitted: March 17, 2011
Filed: July 7, 2011
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Before RILEY, Chief Judge, LOKEN and COLLOTON, Circuit Judges.
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COLLOTON, Circuit Judge.
Suzanne Clark was terminated from her position as a clerk-typist at Iowa State
University on February 25, 2009. She filed a lawsuit, claiming that those responsible
for the termination violated her rights under federal statutes, the Due Process and
Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, and Iowa law. The district
court dismissed Clark’s complaint in its entirety, and denied a motion to alter or
amend the judgment. Clark appeals the dismissal of her due process claim, the denial
of her post-judgment motion, and the dismissal of the state-law claims. We affirm in
part and reverse in part.
Clark’s third amended complaint named as defendants Iowa State University
(“ISU”), the Iowa State Board of Regents, and two ISU employees – Gregory
Geoffroy, president of ISU, and Marlene Callahan, Clark’s supervisor – in their
official and individual capacities. The complaint alleged four claims against all the
defendants: a claim under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”),
“freestanding” claims under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the
Fourteenth Amendment, and a claim for wrongful discharge under Iowa law. The
complaint also asserted against ISU a claim under the Age Discrimination Act of 1975
(“ADA”). Clark sought compensatory damages or, in the alternative, reinstatement.
Clark moved for partial summary judgment, and the defendants moved to
dismiss the complaint. The district court granted the motion to dismiss, and denied
Clark’s motion as moot. The district court dismissed Clark’s “freestanding” due
process and equal protection claims for failure to state a claim on which relief could
be granted, reasoning that “claims against State entities and their officials for due
process and equal protection violations may, in fact, only be asserted under the
auspices of [42 U.S.C.] § 1983.” See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). The court declined to
construe Clark’s “freestanding” claims as claims under § 1983, because Clark had
expressly disavowed any reliance on that provision. The court dismissed the claim
under the ADA for failure to exhaust administrative remedies and on the ground that
the ADA is inapplicable to claims for unlawful employment practices. The court
determined that the ADEA claims were barred by Eleventh Amendment immunity,
failure to exhaust administrative remedies, or the statute of limitations, and could not
be asserted against Geoffroy and Callahan in their individual capacities. After
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explaining its dismissal of the federal claims, the court dismissed Clark’s state-law
claim against Geoffroy and Callahan in their individual capacities for lack of subject-
matter jurisdiction.
Clark moved to alter or amend the judgment, pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure 59(e) and 60, and to amend her complaint, pursuant to Rule 15(a)(2). She
submitted a proposed “third amended complaint (amended version),” which alleged
a “freestanding” due process claim against ISU and the Board of Regents, a due
process claim under § 1983 against Geoffroy and Callahan in their official and
individual capacities, and a state-law wrongful discharge claim against Geoffroy and
Callahan in their individual capacities. The district court denied relief, observing that
Clark’s argument for relief from judgment merely reasserted the contentions that the
court previously had considered and rejected. The court also denied Clark’s motion
to amend her complaint. Noting that Clark had filed four versions of the complaint,
two of which had been dismissed following arguments by the parties, the court
concluded that Clark already had sufficient opportunity to plead a viable claim, and
that granting Clark’s motion to amend would prejudice the defendants. Clark appeals
the dismissal of her due process claim, the dismissal of her state-law wrongful
discharge claim against Geoffroy and Callahan in their individual capacities, and the
denial of her post-judgment motion.
We review de novo the district court’s order dismissing Clark’s complaint, and
we review the denial of her post-judgment motion for abuse of discretion. We affirm
the dismissal of Clark’s “freestanding” due process claim for the reasons stated in the
district court’s opinion. We likewise conclude, for the reasons stated by the district
court in its order, that the court did not abuse its discretion by denying Clark’s post-
judgment motion.
On the state-law claim against Geoffroy and Callahan in their individual
capacities, however, we conclude that the judgment must be reversed and the case
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remanded for further proceedings. The district court reasoned that it “ha[d] no basis
upon which to exercise its supplemental jurisdiction” over Clark’s state-law claims,
because “there [was] no claim in this action over which the Court ha[d] original
jurisdiction.” Earlier in the order, however, the court specifically dismissed Clark’s
“freestanding” due process and equal protection claims on the merits for failure to
state a claim upon which relief could be granted. A dismissal for failure to state a
claim involves an exercise of original jurisdiction, so the court had authority to
exercise supplemental jurisdiction over a state-law claim derived from a common
nucleus of operative fact. See Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 514 (2006)
(“[W]hen a court grants a motion to dismiss for failure to state a federal claim, the
court generally retains discretion to exercise supplemental jurisdiction, pursuant to 28
U.S.C. § 1367, over pendent state-law claims.”). We have no basis to say how the
court would have exercised its discretion under 28 U.S.C. § 1367 if the court believed
that it had authority to do so. See Webb v. Bladen, 480 F.2d 306, 309-10 (4th Cir.
1973). Therefore, we will remand for further proceedings on that question.
The judgment of the district court is affirmed in part and reversed in part, and
the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. Clark’s
summary request that the case be reassigned to a different judge on remand is denied.
LOKEN, Circuit Judge, concurring.
I concur -- but very reluctantly because, in my view, after plaintiff burdened
defendants and the court with four legally deficient complaints, it likely would have
been an abuse of discretion to exercise supplemental jurisdiction. It is unfortunate that
counsel for defendants failed to do their homework and did not advise the district
court that it needed to exercise its 28 U.S.C. § 1367 jurisdiction.
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