Grady v. Bd. of Trs. of N. Ill. Univ.

• Decision Date: 16 January 2015
• Docket Number: Case No. 14 C 1245
• Citation: 78 F.Supp.3d 768
• Parties: Donald Grady II, Plaintiff, v. Board of Trustees of Northern Illinois University, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

78 F.Supp.3d 768

Donald Grady II, Plaintiff

v.Board of Trustees of Northern Illinois University, et al., Defendants.

Case No. 14 C 1245

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, Eastern Division.

Signed January 16, 2015

Michael R. Fox, Fox & Fox, S.C., Monona, WI, Randall B. Gold, Fox & Fox, S.C., Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff.

Tom H. Luetkemeyer, Jennifer Michele Ballard, Steven M. Puiszis, Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP, Chicago, IL, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Harry D. Leinenweber, Judge, United States District Court

For several years, Plaintiff Donald Grady (“Grady”) served as Chief of Police and Public Safety at Northern Illinois University (hereinafter, “NIU” or the “University”). In 2013, Grady was fired in the wake of a scandal arising out of the NIU Police Department's alleged mishandling of a criminal sexual assault case involving an NIU police officer named Andrew Rifkin (“Rifkin”) and an undergraduate student named K.K. (the Court will refer to the victim by her initials to protect her identity). Grady, who is African American, sued NIU's Board of Trustees (the “Board”) and a number of other individuals, alleging that he was discriminated against on the basis of race, retaliated against for complaining about racial discrimination and for investigating corruption within the NIU administration, and denied substantive and procedural due process rights in connection with his termination. Grady also asserts claims for violations of the Illinois State Officials and Employees Ethics Act and the Illinois Whistleblower Act. In two separate Motions, the Defendants now seek to dismiss the claims against them.

I. BACKGROUND

In November 2011, K.K. filed a complaint with the NIU Police Department alleging that Rifkin had raped her at his off-campus apartment. When confronted with the complaint, Rifkin admitted to having sexual relations with K.K., but insisted that the encounter had been consensual. The NIU Police Department referred the matter to the DeKalb County State's Attorney's Office for investigation and Rifkin thereafter was indicted on criminal sexual assault charges.

In the subsequent weeks, two female NIU undergraduates came to Grady's office to voice support for Rifkin. Although both students had not been present when the incident with K.K. occurred, they nonetheless informed Grady that they believed the encounter had been consensual. At Grady's urging, the students agreed to submit formal written statements to NIU Police Department Lieutenant Kartik Ramakrishnan (“Ramakrishnan”). After meeting with both students, Ramakrishnan placed their written statements in Rifkin's personnel file, but did not complete a police report or add the statements to the Department's criminal investigation file because he believed that the students' accounts did not refute K.K.'s allegations.

Almost a year later, Rifkin's attorneys filed a motion in his criminal case seeking to dismiss the charges against him on the basis that the NIU Police Department had withheld the two students' statements in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), which requires that certain exculpatory evidence “material either to guilt or to punishment” and known to the prosecution be tendered to a criminal defendant prior to trial. Upon learning of Rifkin's motion, Grady questioned Ramakrishnan about what had happened to the students' statements. Ramakrishnan admitted to Grady that he had misfiled the statements and neglected to provide them to the State's Attorney's Office for possible disclosure.

On November 2, 2012, Judge Robbin Stuckert, before whom Rifkin's criminal case was pending, held a hearing on the Brady motion. At the conclusion of the hearing, Judge Stuckert ruled that Ramakrishnan had withheld the statements intentionally. Judge Stuckert ultimately denied Rifkin's Brady motion, however, and he made no finding as to whether Grady had any role in the Police Department's failure to disclose.

Three days later, on November 5, 2012, the State's Attorney's Office issued a press release calling for an investigation into what had occurred and asserting that the NIU Police Department's actions had “jeopardized Rifkin's defense and the police department's credibility.” At the same time, an NIU representative stated publicly that the Illinois State Police would be asked to assist in the review and completion of that investigation.

On November 9, 2012, Grady's immediate supervisor, Eddie Williams (“Williams”), NIU's Executive Vice President and Chief of Operations, was relieved of his authority over the NIU Police Department, and F. William Nicklas (“Nicklas”) was appointed in his place. At 7:30 p.m. that evening, Nicklas telephoned Grady to arrange a meeting the following morning. However, he did not disclose to Grady the purpose of that meeting.

At the scheduled meeting, Nicklas informed Grady that he was being placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately. Thereafter, Nicklas issued a news release announcing that Grady had been suspended “pending finalization of charges and disciplinary actions” against him. Grady also received a letter confirming his suspension, in which Nicklas stated that NIU intended to initiate proceedings to terminate him for “just cause” based upon the Police Department's failure to make mandatory Brady disclosures in connection with the Rifkin prosecution.

On November 17, 2012, the Chicago Tribune reported on an interview with NIU's President, Defendant John Peters (“Peters”), about Grady's suspension. Peters stated that Grady had been banned from campus because the University could not “under any circumstances tolerate such clear breaches of contracts, authority, and responsibility.” The Tribune story added that the NIU Office of Public Relations had told the paper that Grady was “not expected to return to the job.”

On November 28, 2012, Grady received a written statement listing the charges that NIU was “considering” bringing against him. These charges consisted of general assertions about Grady's misconduct in relation to his supervision of others regarding the handling of the two students' statements and his deletion of various files from his work computer prior to being placed on leave. The letter, however, cited no evidence in support of the University's position that Grady knew of or condoned Ramakrishnan's failure to disclose the students' statements.

On January 9, 2013, Nicklas sent Grady a further letter stating that NIU intended to initiate action to terminate his employment based upon the November 28, 2012 statement of charges. The letter informed Grady that he could request an “informal pre-termination meeting” with Nicklas and that he would be permitted to present any information he believed would be relevant to the decision-making process.

After requesting a pre-termination meeting, Grady sent a letter to Nicklas objecting to the lack of specificity in NIU's charges and the University's failure to respond to his previous requests for clarification. In his letter, Grady further stated that he believed that NIU's actions were “not related to some fault or impropriety on [his] part, but rather [were] based on unjust, illicit, discriminatory, and/or retaliatory considerations.”

Grady's pre-termination meeting was held on February 1, 2013. At that meeting, Nicklas told Grady that NIU had “substantially completed its review” and was considering disciplinary actions based upon its preliminary findings. Nicklas assured Grady that he would be given an opportunity to respond to NIU's charges before any disciplinary action would be taken. However, when Grady asked Nicklas to describe the specific evidence upon which the charges against him were based, Nicklas refused to do so.

Three weeks later, on February 19, 2013, Nicklas sent Grady a letter stating that his employment at NIU had been terminated. The stated bases for Grady's termination were his failure to “appropriately supervise” the NIU Police Department and the Department's mishandling of Brady material in connection with Rifkin's criminal prosecution. In Grady's termination letter, Nicklas stated:

I do not believe there was merely a mistaken withholding of evidence on the part of the Department in the Rifkin case. Moreover, I do not find credible your claim that you were not involved in the purposeful withholding of exculpatory evidence.... I find that you knew, or should have known, about all or most of this conduct. I further find that it is more probable than not that you either ordered, encouraged, and/or condoned much or all of it, or that you were indifferent to upholding the regular procedures of the Department in this case, or that you were negligent in your supervisory duties.

After engaging unsuccessfully in NIU's formal grievance process, Grady filed this lawsuit seeking, among other things, an order of reinstatement, back and front wages, damages based upon an alleged loss of earning capacity, and punitive damages. Grady contends that there was no evidence that he had anything to do with Ramakrishnan's mishandling of the students' statements and that his termination instead was the product of a “discriminatory and retaliatory agenda” on the part of Nicklas and other NIU officials. Grady further asserts that he was retaliated against for complaining about NIU's unlawful racial discrimination towards him in connection with the University's termination proceedings and for pursuing certain unrelated internal corruption allegations that implicated several NIU senior administrators. To that end, Grady argues that NIU's stated reason for firing him was “nothing more than a convenient pretext for a draconian and preordained termination process” infected by unlawful discriminatory animus. (Pl.'s Mem. in Opp. to Def.'s Mot. to Dismiss (“Pl.'s Opp. Mem.”) at 2, ECF No. 21).

II. LEGAL STANDARD

A motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) challenges the legal...