Jones v. Rising Phoenix Holdings Corporation, et al

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF HAWAI‘I
SHIRLEY ANN JONES,
Plaintiff,
vs.
RISING PHOENIX HOLDINGS
CORPORATION, et al.,
Defendants.
Civil No. 25‐00178 MWJS‐RT
ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANTS’
MOTIONS TO DISMISS FIRST
AMENDED COMPLAINT WITH
PREJUDICE
INTRODUCTION
Before the court are Defendants’ motions to dismiss pro se Plaintiff Shirley Ann
Jones’ first amended complaint. The motions are GRANTED, and the complaint is
dismissed with prejudice and without further leave to amend.
DISCUSSION
A. 	Jones Did Not Timely Respond to the Motions
One independently sufficient reason to grant Defendants’ motions to dismiss is
that Jones did not timely submit any opposition to them and did not offer any adequate
explanation for having not done so.
1. By order dated October 1, 2025, this court granted Defendants’ motions to
dismiss Plaintiff Shirley Ann Jones’ initial complaint in this case. Dkt. No. 32. The
court explained, at length, why the complaint did not state a claim upon which relief
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might be granted. But recognizing that Jones is proceeding pro se, and further
recognizing that it was at least possible that Jones might remedy the deficiencies in the
complaint, the court granted her leave to amend. Id. at PageID.221.
Jones timely filed a first amended complaint, Dkt. No. 33, but this new pleading
did not adequately address the deficiencies this court’s order had identified. And so
Defendants filed the pending motions to dismiss, in which they identify in
painstaking—and persuasive—detail the various ways in which the new complaint
continues to suffer the same deficiencies as the prior one. Dkt. Nos. 34, 35.
The court imposed a deadline of December 4, 2025, for Jones to file an opposition
to the motions to dismiss, with replies due on December 18, 2025. Dkt. No. 36. But on
November 21, 2025, Jones filed a motion for a 45‐day extension of her time to file her
opposition. Dkt. No. 38. Jones did not suggest that she was suffering from any health‐
related impediment to filing a timely opposition. Instead, she represented that she
“require[d] additional time to research and address the multiple legal issues raised,”
and that she “need[ed] additional time to organize exhibits, review case law, and
address the factual and legal issues raised by Defendants.” Id. at PageID.421. Given
that Jones is proceeding pro se, the court ordinarily would be solicitous toward such a
request. But in her request, Jones represented that “Defendants have stated they do not
oppose this request for an extension.” Id. at PageID.421.
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This representation proved to be untrue. As Defendants explained in their
opposition to the request for an extension, the “first time that Defendants’ counsel
became aware that Plaintiff was requesting an extension to file her oppositions was
when Defendants’ counsel received the Extension Request via [C]M/ECF on
November 24, 2025.” Dkt. No. 39, at PageID.424. And when “Defendants’ counsel sent
an email to Plaintiff shortly thereafter inquiring about the basis for the assertion that
Defendants stated no objection to the request for an extension,” Jones did not respond.
Id. Defendants’ counsel also “confirmed with the Defendants that they also had no
communication with Plaintiff regarding this request.” Id. Given Jones’
“misrepresentation to the Court about Defendants’ position, and Plaintiff’s failure to
correct this misstatement when Defendants’ counsel brought it to her attention,”
Defendants opposed the requested extension. Id. at PageID.425.1
Jones’ motion for a 45‐day extension was referred to the Honorable Rom Trader,
U.S. Magistrate Judge. On November 28, 2025, Judge Trader denied Jones’ request.
1 	As Defendants explain, Jones’ misrepresentation was especially concerning
because Jones appears to have made a misrepresentation when previously asking for an
extension. In that earlier request, Jones claimed she had “attempted to confer with the
Defendants regarding this extension but received no reply.” Dkt. No. 39, at PageID.425.
“Defendants’ counsel sent an email to Plaintiff after receiving that request because
counsel had not received any request to confer with Plaintiff.” Id. And so “Defendants’
counsel asked that Plaintiff direct any future correspondence regarding this case to the
undersigned Defendants’ counsel.” Id. Accordingly, “if Plaintiff wanted to confer
regarding the latest extension requested, she knew where that request should have been
directed,” and she “did not do that.” Id.
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Dkt. No. 40. Judge Trader noted that while Jones had represented that “Defendants
have stated they do not oppose this request for an extension,” Defendants “contend this
is not true.” Id. On this record, Judge Trader found Jones’ “statement to the Court that
Defendants did not oppose the Motion to be a material misrepresentation.” Id. Judge
Trader admonished Jones that “like all other litigants, she is required to be candid and
forthright in all representations to the Court and counsel.” Id.
Jones did not request any further review of Judge Trader’s denial of her
extension request, nor she did file any opposition to the motions to dismiss by her
deadline of December 4, 2025. On December 18, 2025, Defendants’ filed a reply brief in
support of their motions. Dkt. No. 41. In their reply, Defendants explained that on
December 11, 2025, Jones left a voicemail message for Defendants’ counsel regarding
her extension motion and asking for a return call. Id. at PageID.431. Defendants’
counsel attempted to return Jones’ call at the number she provided, but the call would
not go through. Defendants’ counsel then sent an email to Jones the same day,
explaining the attempt to return the call. Jones did not respond. Id. On December 16,
2025, Jones sent Defendants’ counsel an email asking whether they would oppose her
refiling her request for a 45‐day extension. Defendants’ counsel “responded by
identifying concerns about the circumstances, including the misstatement about
Defendants’ position” as to the prior extension motion. Id. By December 18, 2025, the
deadline for Defendants’ reply brief, Jones had not responded to that email. And Jones
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did not renew her extension request. Defendants filed their reply brief detailing this
history and asking that their motions be granted on their unopposed arguments.
2. On December 21, 2025—after Defendants had filed their reply brief—Jones
submitted a motion for leave to file an opposition out of time. Dkt. No. 42. In this new
motion, Jones acknowledged that she did not file a timely opposition by the December 4
deadline, but did not explain why she made a factual misrepresentation in her earlier
extension motion. Instead, Jones offered a new reason why an extension was
warranted: according to Jones, her “failure to timely file resulted from excusable
neglect and good cause, including a recent hospitalization . . . and pro se
communication difficulties while attempting to confer with defense counsel about an
extension.” Id. at PageID.441. Jones provided a medical record indicating a medical
visit on December 11, 2025, at which she was diagnosed with a “[f]all from slip, trip, or
stumble,” along with a head injury, acute on chronic back pain, and a lumbar herniated
disc. Dkt. No. 42‐1, at PageID.446. But Jones did not explain why a medical visit that
postdated her deadline for filing an opposition brief would have prevented her from
making a timely filing on December 4, 2025—particularly since, in her earlier extension
request filed November 21, 2025, Jones had not reported any health issues. Nor did
Jones explain what “communication difficulties” would have prevented her from filing
a timely opposition brief.
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The court did not immediately deny Jones’ request, but instead informed Jones
that if she sought consideration of an untimely opposition, she must first file her
proposed opposition no later than January 12, 2026. Dkt. No. 43. Jones filed a
declaration on January 12, 2026—which largely repeated information included in prior
submissions—and an opposition on January 13, 2026, in which she contends that she
has cured the deficiencies in her initial complaint and briefly describes the reasons why
she believes she should be allowed to proceed to discovery in this case. Dkt. Nos. 44
and 45. In her proposed opposition, Jones contends that her request for an extension
should have been granted, and that “the denial of additional time has significantly
hindered [her] ability to respond to two simultaneous motions, raising concerns about
Abuse of Discretion and a violation of [her] Due Process right to be meaningfully
heard.” Dkt. No. 45, at PageID.461. Jones does not, however, address the fact that
Judge Trader had found that she made a material misrepresentation in connection with
that earlier extension request. Nor, apart from noting her status as a pro se litigant,
does she identify any good cause for her failure to timely file an opposition on
December 4, 2025. And she does not address the fact that Defendants’ arguments in
their current motions to dismiss are not novel, but instead largely summarize
deficiencies the court identified in its earlier order from October 1, 2025—and then
explains why those same deficiencies exist in the first amended complaint—which
means Jones had since at least October 1, 2025, to consider how to address them.
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3. The court need not resolve whether the magistrate judge’s denial of Jones’
request for a 45‐day extension under these circumstances qualifies as a non‐dispositive
motion—which by statute is subject to more deferential review—because Judge
Trader’s decision was appropriate even under de novo review. See 28 U.S.C.
§ 636(b)(1)(A). Jones did not offer a sufficient reason why a 45‐day extension was
warranted, she made no request for a shorter extension, and she made a material
misrepresentation while seeking an extension. And while Jones has provided medical
records dated December 11, 2025, she has not explained why anything in these medical
records would support her contention that she could not file a timely opposition—
particularly given that her November 21, 2025 request did not identify any health‐
related reasons for her requested extension. Accordingly, the court concludes that there
is no appropriate basis, at this late stage, to allow Jones to file her untimely opposition
brief now, and DENIES her request for leave to file an untimely opposition.
And given that it was appropriate for Judge Trader to deny the requested
extension—and given that Jones did not file a timely opposition on December 4, 2025,
and this court has declined to grant Jones leave to file an untimely opposition—
Defendants are correct that the court may grant their motions to dismiss on the ground
that Jones has failed to oppose their arguments. That conclusion is further supported
by the fact that in her more recent request for leave to file an untimely opposition, Jones
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still has not accounted for her prior material misrepresentation, and still has not offered
any explanation for why she could not have made a timely filing on December 4, 2025.
For these reasons, Defendants’ motions to dismiss are GRANTED.
B. 	The First Amended Complaint Did Not Address the Deficiencies
Identified in the Initial Complaint
A second independently sufficient reason why Defendants’ motions to dismiss
should be granted is that they are convincing on the merits. And even if the court were
to consider the arguments in Jones’ untimely submissions—and even if the court were
to construe them liberally in light of Jones’ status as a pro se litigant—none of her
arguments provide basis for denying Defendants’ motions.
As an initial matter, Defendant “Tidal Basin Group” correctly notes that in its
first motion to dismiss, it explained that “Tidal Basin Group” is merely a trade name,
not a legal entity, and so is not properly named as a party. Dkt. No. 34, at PageID.257
n.1. Although the court’s initial order granted Jones leave to amend against “Tidal
Basin Group,” out of an abundance of caution and to ensure she had a “full opportunity
to come forward with any facts supporting her effort to name Tidal Basin Group as a
defendant,” Dkt. No. 32, at PageID.211, Jones’ first amended complaint continues to
name “Tidal Basin Group” as a defendant —but still offers no basis for doing so. And
her untimely submissions similarly offer no basis. See generally Dkt. Nos. 44, 45. Nor do
those untimely submissions suggest any possibility that Jones might provide a sufficient
basis for proceeding against this trade name if given further leave to amend.
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Next, as Defendants explain in their motions, the first amended complaint does
not adequately address Jones’ failures to exhaust administrative remedies as to any
claim other than race discrimination and retaliation. Dkt. No. 34‐1, at PageID.267‐73,
Dkt. No. 35‐1, at PageID.357. Nor does the first amended complaint adequately address
Jones’ failure to exhaust any claim relating to the termination of her employment. As
the court’s earlier order explained, it is appropriate here to consider exhaustion because
Jones herself has made allegations about exhaustion in her complaint, has attached
exhaustion‐related documents to that complaint, and has not disputed the authenticity
of EEOC documents attached to Defendants’ initial motions to dismiss. Dkt. No. 32, at
PageID.209. And in her untimely opposition papers, Jones does not offer any
persuasive argument to the contrary, and does not give any reason to believe that she
could cure these deficiencies through any further leave to amend.
Furthermore, Defendants’ motions correctly note that the court’s initial order
granted the Individual Defendants’ motion to dismiss on Jones’ Title VII, ADEA, and
ADA claims against the Individual Defendants with prejudice and without leave to
amend—and did so because those statutes require suit against an employer rather than
individual employees. Yet the first amended complaint continues to assert these claims
against these Individual Defendants, and Jones’ untimely opposition provides no
reason why these claims should be allowed despite the court’s earlier ruling.
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Finally, the first amended complaint—as with the initial complaint—improperly
relies on conclusory assertions, both in opining about the motivations of Defendants
and in generally grouping Defendants and asserting that they collectively violated
Jones’ rights. The court’s earlier order detailed the reasons why this kind of pleading
was not sufficient, and the first amended complaint does not adequately address the
deficiency. Nothing in Jones’ untimely submissions offers any persuasive argument to
the contrary. Nor does it give any reason to believe that Jones could possibly cure these
deficiencies through further leave to amend.
Given the above, the court concludes that even assuming Jones’ untimely
opposition papers had been allowed, Defendants’ motions to dismiss are still
GRANTED because they are persuasive on the merits.
CONCLUSION
In her most recent filings, Jones expresses the frustration that, in her view,
“Defendants want to hide behind technicalities,” and she explains that she is “asking for
the right to go to Discovery so that [she] can see the emails and records that prove what
they did to [her] and [one of her colleagues].” Dkt. No. 45, at PageID.461. These
frustrations are understandable, as the pleading standards the Supreme Court of the
United States articulated in Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), and Ashcroft v.
Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009), can present challenges for self‐represented litigants. And it
may well be that Jones’ first amended complaint could have survived the less
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demanding pleading standards that apply in Hawai‘i state court. See, e.g., Bank of Am.,
N.A. v. Reyes‐Toledo, 143 Hawai‘i 249, 262, 428 P.3d 761, 773 (2018) (expressing the
concern that the pleading standard articulated in Twombly and Iqbal “is restrictive as it
results in decreased access to the courts for citizens,” and rejecting those standards for
state courts). But in federal court, a litigant cannot bypass the requirements of the
pleading stage merely because they believe discovery would be fruitful; they are not
entitled to discovery unless their complaint survives the pleading stage.
Because Jones’ first amended complaint does not survive the pleading stage here,
and because her submissions—even taking into account her untimely opposition
papers—do not suggest any reason to conclude that further leave to amend would
result in the curing of deficiencies in the first amended complaint, Defendants’ motions
to dismiss the first amended complaint are GRANTED. The first amended complaint is
dismissed with prejudice and without further leave to amend.
Furthermore, Jones’ motion for leave to file an untimely opposition is DENIED,
though as explained above, Defendants’ motions would properly be granted even if her
untimely filings were considered on the merits.
//
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//
//
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IT IS SO ORDERED.
DATED: January 28, 2026, at Honolulu, Hawai‘i.
Civil No. 25‐00178 MWJS‐RT, Shirley Ann Jones v. Rising Phoenix Holdings Corporation, et
al.; ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANTS’ MOTIONS TO DISMISS THE FIRST
AMENDED COMPLAINT WITH PREJUDICE
/s/ Micah W.J. Smith
Micah W.J. Smith
United States District Judge
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