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A federal judge has denied an online charter school’s motion to dismiss a civil rights lawsuit brought by a teacher, ruling the school was properly served.
The teacher, June Toliver, filed the lawsuit against Indiana Connections Career Academy in April, alleging the school discriminated against her by giving her a heavier-than-normal workload despite a brain tumor and surgery that impaired her ability to work. Toliver also accused the school of discriminating against her because of her race.
The school filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, alleging Toliver failed to perfect service in a manner permitted by Rule 4 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Specifically, the school argued Toliver’s claims should be dismissed with prejudice because it was improperly served via certified mail sent to its registered agent. Conceding service via certified mail is permitted under Indiana law, the school argued state law shouldn’t apply to the federal lawsuit.
Toliver responded she was “perplexed” by the argument because the school cited “no legal authority whatsoever” in support of its position.
“The Court shares Ms. Toliver’s confusion regarding the legal basis for ICCA’s Motion to Dismiss,” Indiana Southern District Court Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson wrote in the July 7 order. “Despite alleging that service in this case is ‘improper’ and ‘in violation’ of Rule 4, ICCA did not meaningfully develop any argument supporting these assertions or cite any authority supporting its requested relief.”
The school’s argument was waived, Magnus-Stinson wrote, but she still addressed the sufficiency of service.
For defendants such as the school, Magnus-Stinson wrote, Rule 4 says service can be made by “personal service upon an officer, managing or general agent, or other agent authorized by appointment or law to receive service of process,” or by “any method for service provided under state law for both the state in which the federal court adjudicating the claim sits and for the state in which service is to be made.”
“Rule 4 does not create a hierarchy or priority between the different methodologies for service,” she wrote, concluding Toliver complied with the requirements of Indiana Trial Rule 4.6.
Magnus-Stinson also wrote the school’s request for dismissal with prejudice “wholly lacks merit.”
“Even if the Court determined that Ms. Toliver had failed to effectuate service properly and that dismissal was warranted, dismissal with prejudice would be inappropriate,” she wrote.
According to an amended complaint filed in April, the school’s former principal asked Toliver to share private medical information about her brain tumor diagnosis and symptoms with students and their families.
Toliver submitted a request for reasonable accommodations authorized by her neurosurgeon, including extended deadlines to complete tasks. According to the complaint, the doctor warned that Toliver’s ability to concentrate, walk, read and do other things would be limited.
After undergoing surgery to remove the tumor in June 2020, the complaint says Toliver returned to work and was notified she would have 445 students and three courses.
Toliver requested a reduced workload that would be equivalent or less than that of her nondisabled colleagues and, according to the complaint, felt the “disparate and inequitable” treatment may have also been due to her race because she was the only Black teacher at the time.
The school denied the request, the complaint says, and told Toliver that a new teacher would be hired to take over one of her courses, and that her workload wouldn’t be reduced until that position was filled.
Eventually, a teacher from a partner school was added, but the complaint says that still left Toliver with 363 students and three course preps, which was “inequitable, excessive and non-manageable.”
During the fall 2020 semester, the complaint says Toliver began to experience mental, emotional and physical decline in the form of heightened stress, aura seizures, major memory loss and focus issues, major anxiety, panic and depressive disorder.
In another accommodations request, a neurosurgeon wrote that Toliver wasn’t able to perform “most essential functions” of the job and that she was diagnosed with epilepsy and couldn’t drive.
In December 2020, the complaint says the school gave Toliver a poor performance evaluation and said she needed improvement.
After about two months on emergency FMLA, Toliver returned to work in April 2021 and finished the spring semester.
She went back to school in July, according to the complaint, and learned she would have 395 students and three courses, which the lawsuit alleges was again “significantly higher and more excessive” than her white and nondisabled colleagues.
In January 2022, Toliver filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Toliver received a notice of right to sue from the EEOC in February 2023. She did so in the case of June Toliver v. Indiana Online Learning Options, Inc. d/b/a Pearson IOLO-Indiana Connections Academy, 1:23-cv-630.
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