Sammons v. Wayne Cnty. Comm'n
| Decision Date | 19 November 2021 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action 3:21-0081 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of West Virginia |
| Parties | DAVID EUGENE SAMMONS, Plaintiff, v. WAYNE COUNTY COMMISSION, WAYNE COUNTY SHERIFF, RICHARD THOMPSON, individually, DEPUTY HARRY SOWARDS, individually, HOWARD MEDDINGS, individually, WAYNE COUNT BOARD OF EDUCATION, and TODD ALEXANDER, individually, Defendants. |
Pending before the Court is Defendant Todd Alexander and Defendant Wayne County Board of Education's Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff's Amended Complaint. ECF No. 20. For the following reasons, the Court GRANTS IN PART and DENIES IN PART the Motion.
Plaintiff David Eugene Sammons was an employee of the Wayne County Board of Education (“WCBOE”). According to the Complaint, Plaintiff worked for the WCBOE for forty years most recently as Transportation Director. Compl. ¶ 14 ECF No. 1. He resigned in 2019.
Prior to his retirement, Plaintiff had multiple issues with his coworker, Defendant Howard Meddings: Mr. Meddings often broke work rules, encouraged his colleagues to write grievances against other supervisors, attempted to physically confront Plaintiff, and mocked Plaintiff. As his supervisor, Plaintiff gave Mr. Meddings a poor performance review and reported his misconduct to Defendant Todd Alexander, the superintendent of the WCBOE and Plaintiff's supervisor. However, on every occasion that Plaintiff reported the misconduct, Mr. Alexander refused to take disciplinary action or dismissed the grievances. Both the WCBOE and Mr. Alexander allegedly had a practice or pattern of ignoring legitimate concerns and complaints against Mr. Meddings. This allowed Meddings to continue using his position as a supervisor to abuse his powers and threaten other employees. Plaintiff resigned on September 30, 2019.
After Plaintiff's resignation, an alleged break-in occurred at the WCBOE's parts room, which Mr. Meddings managed and oversaw as inventory supervisor. As a result, all named defendants participated in the investigation of the alleged break-in over the next few months. The WCBOE contacted the Wayne County Sherriff's Office about the break-in, and Defendant Deputy Sowards took the lead on the investigation. Mr. Meddings and Deputy Sowards were friends, and Deputy Sowards failed to properly include Mr. Meddings as a suspect throughout the investigation. Defendants also never had an inventory list or any evidence that any items were missing after or taken during the break-in.
As part of the investigation, Mr. Alexander asked Plaintiff to come to the WCBOE office for questioning. Mr. Alexander did not tell Plaintiff that he was under suspicion of wrongdoing or that Deputy Sowards would be present. On October 24, 2019, Plaintiff met with Defendants Alexander and Sowards and was questioned about items placed on buses before they were auctioned off. Plaintiff confirmed he would place a few obsolete parts on the buses to be auctioned off. Plaintiff also confirmed that the items they presented to him in photographs during the meeting appeared to be purchased legally through auctions. However, Deputy Sowards changed Plaintiff's statements to obtain probable cause for a warrant against another WCBOE employee, Mr. Reeves, claiming that the items Mr. Reeves had lawfully purchased were stolen. Deputy Sowards spoke to Mr. Meddings and then obtained a search warrant for Mr. Reeves's property.
Mr. Meddings told Deputy Sowards that Plaintiff was aware that Mr. Reeves was stealing from the WCBOE. Defendant Meddings testified under oath that he reported the theft of items from the WCBOE to Plaintiff, who acknowledged it and ignored it. Defendant Sowards also shared texts between Mr. Reeves and Plaintiff as evidence of a conspiracy that Plaintiff had knowledge of Mr. Reeves's theft. Actually, Defendant Meddings never reported any stolen items to Plaintiff; no employee had. Mr. Meddings was the sole source of information alleging that Plaintiff was aware of the theft. Mr. Meddings then conspired with other employees to support his statements against Plaintiff. Plaintiff then learned that his name had appeared in the local newspaper as an individual who had recently been charged with a crime. The crime occurred in October 2019, one month after Plaintiff retired. The information in the newspaper article, which was republished in other local papers, was false, as was the criminal investigation.
Plaintiff contacted the Wayne County Sherriff's Department and appeared in court, where he was charged with Obstruction of Justice under W.Va. Code Ann. § 61-5-17. The prosecuting attorney moved to dismiss the charge for lack of probable cause, which the magistrate approved. Plaintiff then filed this action. Defendant WCBOE and Defendant Alexander are named in the following counts: (1) Civil Conspiracy to Violate Civil Rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Count III); (2) Defamation (Count VII); (3) Respondeat Superior/Negligent Hiring, Supervision, and Retention (Count VIII); and (4) Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (Count IX).
To survive a motion to dismiss, a plaintiff's complaint must contain “a short and plain statement of the claim showing [the plaintiff] is entitled to relief.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2). The facts contained in the statement need not be probable, but the statement must contain “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). A claim has facial plausibility when “the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (citation omitted). In considering the plausibility of a plaintiff's claim, the Court must accept all factual allegations in the complaint as true. Id. Still, “[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.” Id. (citation omitted).
Whether a plausible claim is stated in a complaint requires a court to conduct a context-specific analysis, drawing upon the court's own judicial experience and common sense. Id. at 679. If the court finds from its analysis that “the well-pleaded facts do not permit the court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct, the complaint has alleged-but it has not ‘show[n]'-‘that the pleader is entitled to relief.'” Id. (quoting, in part, Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2)). Nonetheless, a plaintiff need not show that success is probable to withstand a motion to dismiss. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556 ().
To state a claim for civil conspiracy under Section 1983, plaintiffs have the “weighty burden” of showing that the defendants “acted jointly in concert and that some overt act was done in furtherance of the conspiracy which resulted in [the] deprivation of a constitutional right.” Hinkle v. City of Clarksburg, W.Va., 81 F.3d 416, 421 (4th Cir. 1996); Barrett v. Pae Gov't Servs., Inc., 975 F.3d 416, 434 (4th Cir. 2020). Plaintiff's “evidence must, at least, reasonably lead to the inference that [Defendants] positively or tacitly came to a mutual understanding to try to accomplish a common and unlawful plan.” Hinkle, 81 F.3d at 421. The well-pleaded factual allegations “must plausibly suggest agreement, rather than merely being consistent with agreement.” Barrett, 975 F.3d. at 435 (quoting Soc'y Without a Name v. Virginia, 655 F.3d 342, 346 (4th Cir. 2011)).
Defendants WCBOE and Alexander submit that Plaintiff has failed to indicate at least one defendant other than Mr. Alexander, Mr. Meddings, or the WCBOE, and so his claims are barred by the “intracorporate conspiracy doctrine.” Defs.' Mem. 8, ECF No. 21. Further, they assert that Plaintiff failed to allege any facts showing that either defendant “participated in [Plaintiff's] arrest, detention, or prosecution.” Id. Finally, they contend that there are no sufficient allegations of communications between the defendants, because the one single exchange between two defendants and Plaintiff (the October meeting between Mr. Alexander, Deputy Sowards, and Plaintiff) is insufficient to allege the existence of an unlawful conspiracy as a matter of law. Id. Plaintiff responds that he has sufficiently alleged that the Defendants participated in the conspiracy by ignoring Plaintiff's reports about Mr. Meddings's inappropriate workplace behavior. Pl.'s Resp. 9, ECF No. 26. Further, the meeting led to Deputy Sowards's misrepresentation of Plaintiff's statements, which ultimately led to the criminal charge against him. Id.
First the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine, which recognizes that a corporation cannot conspire with its agents because the “agents' acts are the corporation's own, ” is inapplicable here, because the alleged conspiracy includes defendants outside of the corporation - like Defendants Sowards or Thompson. Painter's Mill Grille, LLC v. Brown, 716 F.3d 342, 352 (4th Cir. 2013). However, the only factual basis for the conspiracy as to these defendants is that Mr. Alexander ignored Plaintiff's reports and that Mr. Alexander and Deputy Sowards met and spoke with Plaintiff on a single occasion during an investigation of the alleged break-in. See Pl.'s Resp. 9. This is insufficient to state a claim for conspiracy. While the alleged facts may create a plausible inference that Plaintiff's Fourth Amendment rights were violated, they...
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