Walsh v. Logothetis
| Decision Date | 21 January 2014 |
| Docket Number | Civil Case No. 3:13CV401-JAG |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Virginia |
| Parties | THOMAS WALSH, Pro se Plaintiff, v. DIOMEDES LOGOTHETIS, et al., Defendants. |
The Court takes this matter up on its own initiative. The plaintiff, Thomas Walsh ("Walsh"), has filed a ninety-one page complaint against seventeen defendants. (Dk. No. 1.) The complaint contains twenty-five counts, many of them redundant, consisting of alleged constitutional violations, federal and state statutory violations, and federal and state criminal violations. The complaint includes largely irrelevant, immaterial, and scandalous allegations and fails to state any claim upon which the Court can grant relief. Accordingly, the Court exercises its inherent authority and DISMISSES the case WITH PREJUDICE.
Walsh began his employment at Virginia Commonwealth University ("VCU") in April 2008 as the Chief Administrative Officer of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics in the School of Medicine ("the Department"). VCU paid him a "base annual salary of -$84,000." (Compl. ¶ 8.) Dr. Diomedes Logothetis ("Logothetis"), as Chair of the Department, directly supervised Walsh, and Amy Sebring ("Sebring"), Associate Dean for Finance and Administration in the School of Medicine, served as his "dotted-line supervisor." (Comp. ¶ 10.)Three employees, including one of the defendants, Rebecca Cain Ivins ("Cain"), directly reported to Walsh.
During his time at VCU, Logothetis allegedly made multiple promises to raise Walsh's salary. These alleged promises included (1) "promises of 4-5% raises each year," (2) "a guaranteed $2,000 bonus each year," (3) "extra work to earn more wages," (4) reclassification "as a Non-Exempt employee . . . [in order to] pay [Walsh] for all of the extra hours worked," and (5) "$18,000 per semester [teaching] . . . as a highly qualified adjunct [teacher]." (Compl. ¶¶ 98, 103, 106.)
On March 28, 2011, Cain, in a meeting with Logothetis, allegedly "launched false allegations of sexual harassment against the Plaintiff." (Compl. ¶ 32.) Logothetis met with Walsh about Cain's sexual harassment complaint on March 30, 2011. In this meeting, Logothetis allegedly told Walsh to look for another job and insinuated that Walsh no longer had a job with VCU. On April 4, 2011, Walsh came back to work and again met with Logothetis. In this meeting, Logothetis brought up an "'offensive' . . . email that [Walsh] wrote to his staff on March 29, 2011" and allegedly restated that Walsh needed to "move on immediately." (Compl. ¶ 65.)
After his April 4, 2011 meeting with Logothetis, Walsh contacted Velma Jackson-Williams ("Williams"), an Equal Employment Officer at VCU, to report Logothetis's actions. In his conversation with Williams, Walsh said he wanted to file a complaint against Cain for sexual harassment. Williams allegedly replied that Walsh "could not file a charge against Cain, since Cain had reported allegations against [Walsh] to Logothetis a week earlier and VCU would be put in a bad light looking like it was retaliating against Cain for reporting [Walsh]." (Compl. ¶ 68.) After termination, Walsh filed a sexual harassment retaliation complaint against Logothetison September 19, 2011. (Compl. ¶ 300.) Williams allegedly never addressed this complaint. (Id.)
On April 20, 2011, after investigating Cain's complaint, Williams sent an email to Logothetis and Sebring, among others, reporting that no facts supported Cain's claim of sexual harassment. (Dk. No. 6-1 at 21, In re Case No. 9847 (Aug. 2, 2012)).1 On April 21, 2011, Sebring responded to Williams's email raising questions regarding the financial management of the Department. (Id. at 20.) In this email, Sebring wrote "To be honest, I was hoping that [VCU's EEO office] would find cause for dismissal so we didn't need to engage additional [University] resources/your office in another investigation." (Id.)
On June 2, 2011, the Audit Division completed an audit of the Department. (Dk. No. 6-2 at 21-27.) Among other findings, the Audit Report said that Walsh had falsified his state employment application by overstating his salary in a prior job. (Dk. No. 6-2 at 26.) The auditors reached this conclusion after finding Walsh's 2007 and 2008 tax returns on his VCU-owned computer. (Id.) The auditors also found that Walsh had failed to follow the appropriate procedures for allowing his staff to claim overtime, (Dk. No. 6-5 at 1), and did not properly review an employee's use of a university credit card. (Dk No. 6-4 at 1.) On June 15, 2011,Walsh received notice of VCU's intent to terminate him as of June 24, 2011. (Dk. No. 6-1 at 49.)2 VCU terminated Walsh on June 24, 2011. (Dk. No. 4.)
On June 27, 2011, Walsh filed an employee grievance with the Commonwealth of Virginia against VCU for his termination, (Dk. No. 6-2 at 14-17), listing many of the same claims that he lists in this complaint. The hearing officer issued his decision on August 2, 2012, upholding VCU's decision to terminate Walsh. (Dk. No. 6-1 at 12-23, In re Case No. 9847 (Aug. 2, 2012)). Based on Walsh's request for reconsideration, the hearing officer issued a reconsideration decision on September 17, 2012, addressing additional arguments raised by Walsh. (Dk. No. 6-1 at 25-30, In re Case No. 9847-R (Sept. 17, 2012)). None of the additional arguments proved persuasive, and the hearing officer denied Walsh's request for reconsideration. (Id. at 30.)
Walsh then filed an appeal to the Office of Employment Dispute Resolution ("EDR") and the Department of Human Resource Management ("DHRM") for review of the hearing officer's decision. The state has given EDR the responsibility of rendering decisions on matters related to procedural compliance with grievance procedures. (Dk. No. 6-1 at 35-36, In re Virginia Commonwealth University, Ruling No. 2013-3415 (Oct. 5, 2012)). On October 5, 2012, EDR issued its administrative review finding no reason to disturb the hearing officer's decision. (Id. at 32-42.) Shortly thereafter, DHRM sent a letter to Walsh "declining] to interfere with the application of [the hearing officer's] decision." (Dk. No. 6-1 at 43-44.)
On November 14, 2012, Walsh filed an appeal of the hearing officer's decision in the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond. On January 3, 2013, the Circuit Court affirmed VCU'sdecision to terminate Walsh. (Dk. No. 6-1 at 3-7, Walsh v. Virginia Commonwealth University, No. CL12-4909-5 (Jan. 3, 2013)). On June 25, 2013, the Court of Appeals of Virginia issued a per curiam opinion affirming the circuit court and the hearing officer in his final report. (Dk. No. 6-1 at 1, Walsh v. Virginia Commonwealth University, Record No. 0261-13-2 (June 25, 2013)). Walsh filed his complaint with this Court on June 24, 2013.
Courts possess inherent authority to dismiss cases sua sponte. The Supreme Court noted in Mallard v. US. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, 490 U.S. 296, 307-08 (1989), that "[28 U.S.C.] [§ 1915(e)]3 . . . authorizes courts to dismiss a 'frivolous or malicious' action, but there is little doubt they would have power to do so even in the absence of this statutory provision." See also, Baker v. Dir., U.S. Parole Comm'n, 916 F.2d 725, 727 (D.C. Cir. 1990) ().
In reviewing Walsh's complaint, the Court applies the standard for a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter which, if accepted as true, "state[s] a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). This plausibility standard requires a plaintiff to demonstrate more than "a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully." Id. Although the Court must accept as true all well-pleaded factual allegations, the Court neednot accept legal conclusions. "Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice." Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678.
While courts should liberally construe pro se complaints, Gordon v. Leeke, 574 F.2d 1147, 1151 (4th Cir. 1978), "[p]rinciples requiring generous construction of pro se complaints are not . . . without limits." Beaudett v. City of Hampton, 775 F.2d 1274, 1278 (4th Cir. 1985). The court need not "attempt to discern the unexpressed intent of the plaintiff." Laber v. Harvey, 438 F.3d 404, 413 n.3 (4th Cir. 2006). The Fourth Circuit has stated: "though [pro se] litigants cannot, of course, be expected to frame legal issues with the clarity and precision ideally evident in the work of those trained in law, neither can district courts be required to conjure up and decide issues never fairly presented to them." Beaudett 775 F.2d at 1276. In other words, "[d]istrict judges are not mind readers." Id. at 1278. Further, "[i]t is neither unfair nor unreasonable to require a [pro se] pleader to put his complaint in an intelligible, coherent, and manageable form, and his failure to do so may warrant dismissal." Harris v. Angliker, Nos. 91-7118, 91-7120, and 91-7620, 1992 WL 21375, at *1 (4th Cir. Feb. 10, 1992) (unpublished opinion) (internal citation omitted).
The Court will group counts together based on the type of alleged violation and address each in turn. The Court discerns the following groups: (A) constitutional violations;4 (B) federal statutory violations; (C) state statutory violations; and (D) state common law violations.
Counts 1-3 allege violations by certain defendants of Walsh's Fourth Amendment rights. Although Walsh phrases each count...
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