Ayers v. Gabis
| Decision Date | 23 September 2021 |
| Docket Number | 20-11735 |
| Parties | DANE DOMNIC AYERS, Plaintiff, v. SARAH GABIS, JESSICA MARIE LASHIER, JOSHUA D. WEST, WALLED LAKE POLICE DEPARTMENT, WOLVERINE LAKE POLICE DEPARTMENT, GARY GILBERT HENDERSON, MATHEW LAGGAT, ANGELA MEIXNER, MARK A. AMBROSE, JOSEPH A. GOLDEN, and KEVIN CARLSON, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan |
OPINION AND ORDER ADOPTING MAGISTRATE JUDGE'S REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION, OVERRULING PLAINTIFF'S OBJECTIONS, GRANTING MOTIONS TO DISMISS, DENYING MOTIONS TO AMEND COMPLAINT, AND DISMISSING COMPLAINT
The plaintiff proceeding without an attorney has filed a complaint in which he attempts to raise a variety of claims that accuse the defendants of interfering by various means with his efforts to obtain a job with a janitorial company. The case was referred to Magistrate Judge Curtis Ivy, Jr. to screen for merit and to conduct all pretrial proceedings. Three defendants filed motions to dismiss, in which another defendant concurred. The plaintiff twice moved to amend his complaint. Magistrate Judge Ivy filed a report on April 2 2021 recommending that the motions to dismiss be granted, the second motion to amend the complaint (which superseded the first motion) be denied as futile, and the complaint be dismissed in full because it failed to state any plausible claims. The plaintiff filed objections to the report and recommendation, to which some of the defendants responded. After conducting a fresh review, it is clear that the complaint does not state any federal claims for which relief can be granted, the proposed amended complaint does not cure the defects in the plaintiff's first effort, and there is no good reason to retain supplemental jurisdiction over the plaintiff's state law claims. Therefore, the Court will overrule the plaintiff's objections, adopt the magistrate judge's recommendation, grant the motions to dismiss deny the motions to amend the complaint, and dismiss the case.
This case appears to be an outgrowth of an earlier lawsuit that plaintiff Dane Ayers filed in this Court under the Americans with Disabilities Act and a corresponding state law alleging that a janitorial company refused to hire him because of a disability. See Ayers v. Enviro-Clean Services, Inc, et al., 19-10314, Compl., ECF No. 1, PageID.2-9. Ayers named Enviro-Clean and the Walled Lake School District as defendants. The Court had dismissed that case for failure to exhaust administrative remedies on a timely basis, but that decision was vacated by the court of appeals and the case was remanded. A motion to dismiss was denied in part recently and the case remains pending.
According to the documents filed in that case, Ayres is a former Walled Lake High School student now in his mid-twenties who suffers from an autism spectrum disorder. He alleged that on June 13 2017, he noticed a sign posted at the Walled Lake Central High School announcing employment opportunities and he entered the school to inquire. He was directed to apply for a janitorial position through the Enviro-Clean website, which he did. Ayers said that Enviro-Clean scheduled an interview for June 20, 2017. However, on June 14, 2017, Ayers received a letter from Walled Lake Central High School accusing him of trespassing. The letter referred to a previous letter from 2016 that told him that he had no permission to be on school property.
The defendant school district alleged that Ayers was well known to its personnel “due to his behaviors, ” which consisted of an arrest for attacking his parents with a kitchen knife, aggression toward law enforcement officers who had to draw their pistols because he refused to drop a pocketknife, impersonation of law enforcement officers, and stalking a female law enforcement officer. Ayers v. Enviro-Clean, 19-10314, Mot. To Dismiss, ECF No. 22, PageID.86. Ayers alleged in that case that Walled Lake Central High School Assistant Principal Eric Henderson directed Enviro-Clean to cancel his scheduled interview and reject his employment application, and that Henderson contacted the police to initiate criminal trespassing charges against him. Ayers received a citation for criminal trespass on June 15, 2017. His interview with Enviro-Clean was cancelled. He alleged in that case that the defendants' conduct amounted to unlawful disability discrimination.
In the present case, Ayers appears to focus on the ensuing criminal trespass prosecution, naming as defendants the prosecuting attorney (Sarah Gabis), public defenders (Jessica Lahsier and Joshua West), the Walled Lake and Wolverine Lake police departments, Walled Lake Central's assistant principal Gary Henderson, Oakland County Deputy Sheriff Matthew Laggat, Enviro-Clean's lead custodian Angela Meixner, Oakland County appellate public defender Mark Ambrose, and private attorneys Joseph Golden and Kevin Carlson. He identified his federal claims as “6th Amendment Violation; Entrapment; Malicious Prosecution; Legal Malpractice; Conspiracy; Fraud; Defamation; [and] Discrimination of Disability.” Compl., ECF No. 1, PageID.7. His factual narrative in support of those claims indicated that he entered a “public building” to inquire about a job and was directed to apply online, he submitted his application and moved through the hiring process to a scheduled interview, he received a trespass ticket, and his interview was cancelled. He alleges that he was “maliciously prosecuted with no physical evidence” and “forced” to represent himself because his public defenders “refused to defend him at all.” He also alleges that he sought help from a “prose clinic, ” and he was approached by “Mr Golden who promised to represent him in a clear act of fraud.” Id. at PageID.8.
After defendants Wolverine Lake Police Department, Golden, and West filed motions to dismiss the complaint, Ayers moved to file an amended complaint. He followed that with a second motion to amend and attached a proposed amended complaint. In that proposed pleading Ayers sought to add Beth Ayers as a plaintiff and 20 additional defendants. It does not include much factual detail; most of the allegations are conclusory. Ayers alleges that assistant principal Henderson conspired with lead custodian Meixner and Deputy Matthew Laggat (Walled Lake Central High School's liaison officer with the Oakland County Sheriff's Department) to entrap, unlawfully arrest, and deprive Ayers of his rights to life, liberty, and happiness through a false citation for trespass. 2d Mot. To Amend Compl., ECF No. 39, PageID.549-50, at ¶ 55-56. However, Ayers does not explain how this conspiracy was planned or executed. Ibid. Ayers then implicates Oakland County prosecutor Sarah Gabis in the conspiracy by alleging that she maliciously prosecuted him for a false trespass citation. Id. at PageID.551, at ¶ 59. He alleges that Oakland County public defenders Jessica Lashier, Joshua West, and Mark Ambrose contributed to the conspiracy by failing to provide competent legal services and engaging in legal misconduct and malpractice, thereby violating Ayers' Sixth Amendment rights. Id. at PageID.551, at ¶ 60. Defendants Lashier and West represented Ayers at trial and defendant Ambrose served as his appellate attorney.
Ayers alleges that following his conviction on the trespass charge, the trial judge, Judge Travis Reeds, appointed his high school friend, defendant Ambrose, to be Ayers's appellate attorney and his other high school friend, Judge Daniel Patrick O'Brien, to be the appellate judge for Ayers's appeal. That was done, he says, to make sure Ayers's conviction was upheld so that he could not gain employment with Enviro-Clean. Id. at PageID.552, at ¶ 63.
It does not appear that defendant Joseph Golden was involved in the trespass prosecution. Instead, Ayers alleges that Golden offered to represent him in his employment lawsuit against Enviro-Clean only to abandon him later, thereby committing fraud and legal malpractice, in furtherance of the conspiracy to prevent Ayers from getting the job. Id. at PageID.552, at ¶ 63. Ayers also contends that defendant Kevin Carlson, who runs a federally funded pro se clinic, asked defendant Golden to represent Ayers in this action, implicating him in the conspiracy as well. Id. at PageID.552, at ¶ 64.
Ayers's new allegations against several others are unrelated to his employment/trespass claims. Those new putative parties are Paul Barch, Robert Alonzi, Brendan Smith, Officer Gomez Reserve Officer Dzuibu, Kenneth Aryes, John Woychowski, John Morasco, Dennis Whitt, Paul Shakinas, David Gilliam, John Ellsworth, and Bill Bozynski, employees of the Walled Lake and Wolverine Police Departments (Police Department defendants). Ayers alleges that the Police Department defendants acted with malice, recklessness, and callous indifference to his rights under the Constitution, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and Michigan's Person with Disabilities Civil Rights Act (PWDCRA). Id. at PageID.554-56, at ¶¶ 72-79, 86, 89-90, 95, 98. Ayers also alleges that on October 22, 2018, Wolverine Lake Officer Brian Dennis “verbally assaulted Beth Ayers, ” who lives with the plaintiff, “while on Duty.” Id. at PageID.559, ¶ 93. He alleges that the following year, on April 22 and 25, 2019, Officers Dennis and John Woychowski permitted an individual to trespass on and destroy the plaintiff's property and threatened Beth Ayers with arrest if she defended herself or her property. Id. at PageID.558, ¶ 88. Then, he says, on October 28, 2020, John Ellsworth, the Wolverine Lake Police Department's Chief of Police, and officers Bozynski and Marasco, were bystander when officers Dennis and Woychoski trespassed onto Ayers's property,...
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