Owen v. Liberty Univ.
| Decision Date | 13 April 2020 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 6:19-cv-00007 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Virginia |
| Parties | CHRISTINE M. OWEN, Plaintiff, v. LIBERTY UNIVERSITY, et al., Defendants. |
This action is before the Court on Defendants Liberty University, Nicole M. Dilella, Mary Deacon, Denise Daniel, Elias Moitinho, and Eric Camden's motion to dismiss Plaintiff Christine M. Owen's complaint, pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Dkt. 13, Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, Dkt. 17, Liberty University's motion to stay Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, Dkt. 25, Defendants' motion to strike Plaintiff's surreply, Dkt. 29, and Plaintiff's motion for leave to file her surreply, Dkt. 32.
In her sprawling, 109-page complaint, Plaintiff alleges twenty-nine counts against the Defendants. Plaintiff raises claims for violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 ("Title IX"); conspiracy to injure another in their reputation, trade, business or profession, pursuant to Va. Code § 18.2-499; and state common law claims for breach of contract, breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, negligence, defamation, defamation per se, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and intentional infliction of emotional address. Many of Plaintiff's arguments are frivolous or border on frivolity.
As explained below, the Court will grant Defendants' motion to dismiss, Dkt. 13. As such, the Court will deny as moot Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, Dkt. 17, Liberty University's motion to stay Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, Dkt. 25, and Plaintiff's pending motion to compel discovery responses and production, Dkt. 46. The Court will deny Plaintiff's motion for leave to file her surreply, Dkt. 32, and grant Defendants motion to strike it, Dkt. 29.
Given the nature of Plaintiff's 109-page complaint, complete with an additional 169 pages of exhibits, the Court will briefly outline the factual allegations that make up Plaintiff's twenty-nine counts. Additional factual details from the complaint will be added throughout the analysis section as necessary.
Plaintiff was a doctoral candidate in Defendant Liberty University's ("Liberty") Counseling Education & Supervision ("CES") program until her "de facto" dismissal, which occurred when a department remediation proceeding found her unfit to continue in that program and required Plaintiff to undertake a series of steps to re-enter the program—steps which Plaintiff found severely unreasonable. See Dkt. 4 at ¶ 23; Dkt. 4-1, Ex. B. In response, she has sued Liberty, four Liberty faculty within the academic department, and a former classmate based on conduct related to the remediation proceeding and the events leading to the incident reports on which that proceeding was based.
The conduct underlying this dispute began in November 2017, when Defendant Mary Deacon, a Liberty faculty member, emailed Plaintiff with concerns about the accuracy of information Plaintiff had posted in a private Facebook group for alumni of Liberty's master's program in professional counseling.1 See Dkt. 4 at ¶¶ 92-102; Dkt. 4-1, Exs. F-G. The informationPlaintiff circulated related to, among other things, the accreditation status of the program. Dkt. 4-1, Exs. F-G. Deacon filed this email with Dr. Lisa Sosin, the PhD Program Director, as an incident report against the Plaintiff. Id.
"Unbeknownst" to Plaintiff, "two other professors also purportedly filed incident reports complaining of [Plaintiff's] alleged misconduct in prior classes." Dkt. 4 at ¶ 15. The incident reports were largely based on faculty members' concerns about Plaintiff's interpersonal skills and professional competence. Id. at ¶¶ 39-40. The first professor to do so, Defendant Denise Daniel, filed an incident report in November 2017 relaying concerns about Plaintiff's class performance—in particular, she related Plaintiff's inability to accept feedback from others. Dkt. 4-1, Ex. O; see Dkt. 4 at ¶¶ 144-151. Another of Plaintiff's professors, Defendant Nicole Dilella, filed two incident reports against Plaintiff. The first was in December 2017 and related to Plaintiff's behavior in disputing a grade in Dilella's course. Dkt. 4-2, Ex. Q; see Dkt. 4 at ¶¶ 154-63. In June 2018, Dilella filed a second incident report, which related to Plaintiff's conduct during a June 2018 class presentation that Plaintiff gave in a course Dilella taught; the presentation related to the diagnosis and treatment plan she had provided to a client. This second incident report noted Plaintiff's inability to receive feedback and her overly "defensive" nature in the face of feedback. Dkt. 4-2, Ex. R; see Dkt. 4 at ¶¶ 164-94. During the June 2018 presentation, Defendant Eric Camden is alleged to have challenged Plaintiff's diagnosis and treatment protocol, suggesting alternative diagnoses and treatment protocols. See, e.g., Dkt. 4 at ¶ 282. Dilella supported Camden's comments, and shejoined in asking Plaintiff why she did not make such considerations. Id. Plaintiff claims that Dilella and Camden violated the American Counseling Association's ("ACA") Code of Ethics just by questioning her diagnosis and suggesting a treatment protocol that, in her view, was not "relevant to the client's presenting issues." Id. at ¶ 279. Dilella's secondincident report also conveyed concerns about equine therapy services that Plaintiff had previously offered to children in an unsupervised environment at her home in Georgia as part of a nonprofit ministry she ran with her husband. Dkt. 4-2, Ex. R; see Dkt. 4 at ¶¶ 164-94. Defendant Camden allegedly brought to Dilella's attention Plaintiff's provision of equine therapy services when he relayed his concerns about Plaintiff's "harmful" counseling practices. Id. at ¶ 450.
After a "closed-door" discussion by Liberty's Remediation Committee, id. at ¶ 28, Liberty "immediately placed [Plaintiff] on emergency suspension," halting Plaintiff's practicum, administratively dropping Plaintiff's scheduled Fall course, and barring Plaintiff from registering for any academic course in the Spring 2019 semester, id. at ¶ 23. Plaintiff appealed the Remediation Committee's decision three times, apparently receiving a second remediation proceeding based on procedural deficiencies in the first remediation proceeding. See id. at ¶¶ 208-15. Defendant Elias Moitinho, who oversaw her initial appeal, sat as a member of her second remediation proceeding. Id. at ¶ 216. As a member of that second proceeding, he added two additional concerns to Plaintiff's file, which were based on his interactions with her during the first appeal process. See id.
Plaintiff states that she did not learn about the concerns documented in the incident reports until after Liberty's Remediation Committee had "rendered judgment against" her. Id. at ¶ 17. As Plaintiff repeatedly emphasizes in her complaint, she requested that Liberty provide to her any and all disciplinary records in her file, but none existed. See, e.g., id. at ¶ 73; Dkt. 4-1, Ex. C. Because she was not aware of the existence or content of the incident reports, she "never had the opportunity to confront her accusers, read their full statements" or review evidence relating to her alleged infractions. Dkt. 4 at ¶ 33. Plaintiff further claims that the information contained in the June 2018 incident report contained "egregious misrepresentations and selective facts to effect [Plaintiff's]suspension." Id. at ¶ 42. According to Plaintiff's complaint, this behavior, along with email correspondence, the prejudicial make-up of the remediation committee members, and the excessively severe punishment she received, form the basis for her claim that Defendants had an "agenda to oust" Plaintiff, which she argues is an unlawful conspiracy. Id. at ¶¶ 16, 42-44, 48. Further, the implementation of Liberty's remediation process, she contends, "favored [Plaintiff's] male classmate [Defendant] Camden's unsupported version of events." Id. at ¶ 56 (emphasis in original). Plaintiff also claims that Defendants made oral or written statements regarding her situation to disinterested third parties, as evidenced by a public Facebook post about the events by a student who "was not involved in [Plaintiff's] matter at all and would only know about it from" Defendants. Id. at ¶ 59.
Plaintiff filed this action on February 21, 2019, seeking $70 million in damages for Defendants' harm to her "physical well-being, mental and emotional well-being, reputation, past and future economic losses, loss of educational opportunities, and loss of future career prospects, plus prejudgment interest, attorney's fees, expenses, costs, and disbursements." Id. at ¶¶ 106-09. Defendants filed their motion to dismiss the complaint on March 29, 2019, pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Dkt. 13. Plaintiff filed a motion for summary judgment on Counts II and III on April 12, 2019. Dkt. 17. Defendants' motion to dismiss is now fully briefed and ripe for disposition.
W.D. Va. Local Rule 11(c)(1) (emphasis supplied). Without leave from this Court, Plaintiff submitted a surreply opposing Defendants' motion to dismiss, Dkt. 22, and she now asks this Court to deny Defendants' motion to strike her surreply from the record, Dkt. 29, and grant her leave to file it, Dkt. 32. The Court refuses. Defendants did not introduce any new arguments in their rebuttal...
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