Mcdaniel V Preserve Property Management Company Llc
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND
___________________________________
)
ALISON MCDANIEL, )
)
Plaintiff, )
)
v. ) C.A. No. 23-292 WES
)
PRESERVE PROPERTY MANAGEMENT )
COMPANY, LLC, et al., )
)
Defendants. )
___________________________________)
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
WILLIAM E. SMITH, Senior District Judge.
Before the Court is Defendants’ Motion for Partial Summary
Judgment (“Defendants’ Motion”), Dkt. No. 47. The Court has
already resolved most of Defendants’ Motion, see Mem. & Order (Apr.
17, 2025), Dkt. No. 67; the sole issue remaining is Defendants’
challenge to Count VI of Plaintiff Alison McDaniel’s Operative
Complaint, Dkt. No. 43. For the reasons explained below, the Court
GRANTS IN PART and DENIES IN PART the remaining portion of
Defendants’ Motion.
I. BACKGROUND
The Court’s initial ruling on Defendants’ Motion detailed the
background facts, procedural history, and legal standards relevant
to this summary judgment decision, and they are incorporated by
reference here. In that ruling, the Court deferred adjudication
of Defendants’ Motion as to its challenge to Count VI of McDaniel’s
Operative Complaint, which charges Defendants with unlawful
retaliation under Rhode Island’s Fair Employment Practices Act
(“FEPA”), R.I. Gen. Laws § 28-5-7. The Court elected to defer its
decision because the parties did not brief a threshold issue of
statutory interpretation: whether independent contractors, like
McDaniel, are protected by FEPA’s anti-retaliation provision.
The Court directed the parties to file supplemental briefing
on this issue. Mem. & Order 19. The matter has been briefed by
the parties, and by the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights
(“RICHR”) – the agency responsible for administering FEPA – as
amicus curiae. See generally Defs.’ Suppl. Mem. Supp. Mot. Partial
Summ. J. (“Defs.’ Suppl. Mem.”), Dkt. No. 68; Pl.’s Mem. L. Opp’n
Defs.’ Suppl. Mem., Dkt. No. 73; Br. Amicus Curiae R.I. Comm’n
Hum. Rts. (“Br. Amicus Curiae”), Dkt. No. 74; Defs.’ Opp’n Br.
Amicus Curiae, Dkt. No. 76.
II. DISCUSSION
The Court concludes that (1) FEPA’s anti-retaliation
provision protects independent contractors, (2) Defendant Preserve
at Boulder Hills (“PBH”) is not a covered employer under FEPA, and
(3) Defendant Preserve Property Management Company (“PPMC”) is not
entitled to summary judgment on McDaniel’s FEPA retaliation claim
for any of its identified reasons. Accordingly, PBH is entitled
to summary judgment on Count VI, but PPMC is not.
A. FEPA’s Anti-retaliation Provision Protects Independent
Contractors
FEPA provides in relevant part:
It shall be an unlawful employment practice . . . [f]or
any employer or employment agency, labor organization,
placement service, training school or center, or any
other employee referring source to discriminate in any
manner against any individual because he or she has
opposed any practice forbidden by this chapter, or
because he or she has made a charge, testified, or
assisted in any manner in any investigation, proceeding,
or hearing under this chapter.
R.I. Gen. Laws § 28-5-7(5).
Defendants argue that the Rhode Island Supreme Court would
“unequivocally” interpret this language to mean “that with respect
to employers, FEPA extends protection only to prospective
employees, applicants for employment and employees and not to an
independent contractor.” Defs.’ Suppl. Mem. 3 (emphasis in
original). The Court disagrees.
Under Rhode Island law, “[i]t is a well-established principle
of statutory interpretation that when the language of a statute is
clear and unambiguous, th[e] Court must interpret the statute
literally and must give the words of the statute their plain and
ordinary meanings.” Olamuyiwa v. Zebra Atlantek, Inc., 45 A.3d
527, 534 (R.I. 2012) (citation modified) (collecting cases). And
when the Court “examine[s] an unambiguous statute, there is no
room for statutory construction and [the Court] must apply the
statute as written.” Id. (citation modified) (collecting cases).
Here, the text is clear and unambiguous. The identified
covered entities are prohibited from discriminating against “any
individual,” so long as that individual has engaged in protected
conduct. R.I. Gen. Laws § 28-5-7(5). By clearly establishing the
same protection for every “individual,” without regard to that
individual’s employment status, the Rhode Island General Assembly
left no room for a narrower judicial interpretation. See
Olamuyiwa, 45 A.3d at 536 (collecting cases supporting the
proposition that the Court cannot “contort the language of an
unambiguous statute”).
The statutory context also proves that the General Assembly
meant what it said when it wrote the words “any individual.”
Throughout the entirety of Section 28-5-7, the General Assembly
used specific terms to refer to discrete categories of individuals
protected by a given provision. See, e.g., § 28-5-7(1)-(3)
(identifying the relevant protected party as an “applicant for
employment,” an “employee,” a “prospective employee,” an
“applicant,” a “member,” or a “prospective member”). In contrast,
the legislature used the catch-all phrase “any individual”
multiple times throughout the statute, clearly in an attempt not
to distinguish among categories of individuals. See § 28-5-
7(2)(i), (4), (5). The Court must account for this textual
difference, because “when a document uses a term in one place and
a materially different term in another, ‘the presumption is that
the different term denotes a different idea.’” Stanley v. City of
Sanford, 145 S. Ct. 2058, 2064 (2025) (quoting Sw. Airlines Co. v.
Saxon, 596 U.S. 450, 458 (2022)); see also State v. Clark, 974
A.2d 558, 571 (R.I. 2009) (“The legislature is presumed to have
intended each word or provision of a statute to express a
significant meaning, and the court will give effect to every word,
clause, or sentence, whenever possible.”) (citation modified).
Finally, recent Title VII precedent also supports the Court’s
conclusion. In Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, the
U.S. Supreme Court confronted lower court interpretations of the
phrase “any individual” which worked to apply different legal
standards for some individuals but not others. 145 S. Ct. 1540,
1546 (2025). The Court unanimously reversed that interpretation,
holding that “[b]y establishing the same protections for every
‘individual’ – without regard to that individual’s membership in
a . . . group – Congress left no room for courts to impose special
requirements . . . .” Id. Although that case dealt with Title
VII’s anti-discrimination provision and a different legal
question, the principle remains the same.
Defendants’ counterargument fails to persuade the Court to
reach a different conclusion. Defendants argue that the Court
should interpret the term “individual” differently depending on
the type of covered entity being sued. When the entity sued is an
employer, they contend that “any individual” means strictly
“employee,” and say that their position aligns with legislative
intent because “[e]xtending anti-retaliation protections to
independent contractors would create an anomalous framework
wherein individuals who possess no direct claims or substantive
rights under FEPA would nonetheless be entitled to derivative
procedural protections designed specifically to safeguard those
non-existent rights.” Defs.’ Suppl. Mem. 9. But “[t]he best
evidence of [legislative] intent can be found in the plain language
used in the statute.” Martone v. Johnston Sch. Comm., 824 A.2d
426, 431 (R.I. 2003). And Defendants’ argument fails on its own
terms, because as noted by RICHR, good reasons support this policy
choice. Specifically, some complainants or witnesses might be a
broad range of non-employee individuals (e.g., customers, site
visitors, postal delivery workers); broad protection from
retaliation encourages all parties with information to report
unlawful behavior and assist with RICHR investigations. See Br.
Amicus Curiae 9-10.
B. PBH is not a Covered Employer under FEPA
The Court next turns to another threshold issue raised by
Defendants concerning Count VI. That is, Defendants argue that
PBH is not a “covered employer” under FEPA and therefore cannot be
held statutorily liable for retaliation.
FEPA defines an “employer” as an entity that “employs four
(4) or more individuals,” or “any person acting in the interest of
an employer directly or indirectly.” R.I. Gen. Laws § 28-5-
6(9)(i). And as Defendants point out, “it is undisputed that PBH
has never had any employees.” Defs.’ Suppl. Mem. 11.
Previously, Plaintiff asked the Court to treat PBH and PPMC
as an “integrated employer,” such that both would be subject to
liability under FEPA. Pl.’s Mem. L. Opp’n Defs.’ Mot. 13-19, Dkt.
No. 58-1. Under this Title VII doctrine, “two nominally separate
companies may be so interrelated that they constitute a single
employer subject to liability.” Torres-Negron v. Merck & Co., 488
F.3d 34, 41 (1st Cir. 2007) (citing NLRB v. Browning-Ferris Indus.,
Inc., 691 F.2d 1117, 1122 (3d Cir. 1982)). The doctrine “may apply
in cases where ‘liability is sought to be imposed on the legal
employer by arguing that another entity is sufficiently related
such that its actions . . . can be attributable to the legal
employer.’” Id. at 41 (quoting Engelhardt v. S.P. Richards Co.,
472 F.3d 1, 4 n.2 (1st Cir. 2006)).
The Court, in its initial decision, voiced skepticism about
“whether the ‘integrated employer’ doctrine, relevant to Title VII
actions, also applies to FEPA claims.” Mem. & Order 20 n.1. For
that reason, the Court also directed the parties to provide
briefing on this issue. Id.
Rather than provide additional briefing, McDaniel argued that
liability is not limited to “covered employers” because “any
individual” may bring a retaliation claim. Pl.’s Mem. L. Opp’n
Defs.’ Suppl. Mem. 10. This reading has no textual support.
Section 28-5-7(5) explicitly confines liability to “any employer
or employment agency, labor organization, placement service,
training school or center, or any other employee referring source.”
Because McDaniel’s new liability argument fails, and because
her previous argument as to the applicability of the integrated
employer doctrine has no support in Rhode Island case law, the
Court finds that PBH is not an “employer” within the meaning of
FEPA. Thus, PBH is entitled to summary judgment on Count VI.
C. PPMC’s Arguments Fail
Having resolved the above threshold matters, the Court
proceeds to Defendant PPMC’s merits-based arguments against Count
VI. These arguments fail at this stage.
To succeed on this retaliation claim, McDaniel must show that
“(1) she engaged in protected activity; (2) she suffered some
materially adverse action; and (3) the adverse action was causally
linked to her protected activity.” Stratton v. Bentley Univ., 113
F.4th 25, 41-42 (1st Cir. 2024) (quoting Dixon v. Int’l Bhd. Of
Police Officers, 504 F.3d 73, 81 (1st Cir. 2007)). McDaniel’s
claim is premised on PPMC having filed a criminal report against
her in December 2023, following her filing a charge of
discrimination and this lawsuit. Operative Compl. ¶¶ 257-266.
PPMC attacks McDaniel’s claim on two grounds. First, it says
the claim fails because McDaniel, as a matter of law, did not
engage in a protected activity. Defs.’ Suppl. Mem. 4-5. This is
so, PPMC contends, because (1) FEPA’s anti-discrimination
provision only prohibits employers from discriminating against
employees, (2) McDaniel was not an employee, and so (3) McDaniel’s
charge of discrimination and lawsuit “did not oppose any practice
that was forbidden by FEPA.” Id. at 5. This argument falls short.
For one thing, McDaniel’s retaliation claim is not tied to the
success or failure of her claim for unlawful discrimination. See
Fantini v. Salem State Coll., 557 F.3d 22, 32 (1st Cir. 2009)
(noting that in a retaliation claim under Title VII, a plaintiff
alleging participation in a protected activity “need not prove
that the conditions against which [s]he protested actually
amounted to a violation of Title VII” (alteration in original)
(quoting Wimmer v. Suffolk Cnty. Police Dep’t, 176 F.3d 125, 134
(2d Cir. 1999))). And regardless, there is no dispute that
McDaniel “has made a charge” under FEPA and participated in related
investigations and proceedings. See R.I. Gen. Laws § 28-5-7(5).
Second, PPMC argues that McDaniel’s retaliation claim fails
because she cannot show that she suffered a materially adverse
action. Defs.’ Suppl. Mem. 5-6. A materially adverse action is
one which “well might have dissuaded a reasonable worker from
making or supporting a charge of discrimination.” Burlington N.
& Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. White, 548 U.S. 53, 68 (2006) (citation
omitted). PPMC points to language in McDaniel’s Operative
Complaint to argue that her retaliation claim was explicitly tied
to her having been Defendants’ employee, and thus it is no longer
viable because the Court has found that she was an independent
contractor. Defs.’ Suppl. Mem. 5-6 (citing Operative Compl. @ 43).
But the Court has not previously read the Operative Complaint to
be so limited and declines to do so now. See Mem. & Order 18 (Mar.
11, 2024), Dkt. No. 42 (finding that McDaniel stated a plausible
claim for retaliation and making no reference to her employment
status). And irrespective of how McDaniel styled her Operative
Complaint, her claim for relief is judged against the Burlington
“reasonable worker” standard.
Iv. CONCLUSION
For the reasons explained above, the Court concludes that PBH
is entitled to summary judgment on Count VI, but PPMC is not. The
Court thus GRANTS IN PART and DENIES IN PART the remaining portion
of Defendants’ Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, Dkt. No. 47.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Weemue
Senior District Judge
Date: July 22, 2025
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