Doe v. Baum

JOHN DOE, Plaintiff, v. DAVID H. BAUM, SUSAN PRITZEL, TABITHA BENTLEY, E. ROYSTER HARPER,NADIA BAZZY, ERIK WESSEL, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN,and THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, Defendants.

Case Number 16-13174

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN SOUTHERN DIVISION

September 30, 2019

Honorable David M. Lawson

OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO DISMISS, PLAINTIFF'S MOTION FOR PARTIAL SUMMARY JUDGMENT, AND PLAINTIFF'S MOTION FOR INTERIM RELIEF, AND DENYING PLAINTIFF'S MOTION FOR INTERIM ATTORNEY'S FEES

This case returns to this Court after remand from the court of appeals, reversing a dismissal based on the defendants' earlier-filed motion to dismiss. Plaintiff John Doe was forced out of the University of Michigan business school in the second semester of his senior year when he was found to have violated the University's sexual misconduct policy. After Doe's one-night stand with a female freshman student, who filed a complaint with the University's Office of Student Conflict Resolution (OSCR), an appeal board concluded that Doe had sexual relations with the freshman when Doe should have known that she was too drunk to be able to give consent. Doe protested, filing a complaint with this Court alleging, among other things, that his due process rights were violated because he was not given the chance to cross-examine his accuser. This Court dismissed the case, not because it found that cross-examination was a dispensable procedural nicety, but because it would not have mattered when Doe had admitted that the woman's version of the events of that fateful evening was correct.

The court of appeals disagreed. It construed the pleadings and the administrative record in the light most favorable to Doe and concluded that the plausibility of the due process claim was not sufficiently rebutted by the purported confession. Doe v. Baum, 903 F.3d 575, 584 (6th Cir. 2018). It also found that one aspect of Doe's Title IX claim should advance. The court remanded the case for further proceedings.

After remand, Doe moved for interim relief, partial summary judgment on his due process claim, and interim attorney's fees. The defendants filed another motion to dismiss. The defendants argue that the second amended complaint does not show that the individual defendants were personally involved in any due process deprivation, and in any event, they should not be subjected to damages on the due process claim because of qualified immunity. They do not question the viability of the Title IX claim, but they contend that punitive damages are not available.

Doe believes that the court of appeals decision gave him a complete victory on the due process claim, so he should have judgment as a matter of law on liability. He wants an order requiring the University to vacate the finding that he violated the sexual misconduct policy and the resulting sanctions, to expunge the documents concerning the investigation and findings, to enjoin the defendants from disclosing information about the whole episode to third parties and from commencing another appeal hearing, to award him the degree he was on his way to earning, and to repay him the tuition he spent finishing his degree at another university.

The second amended complaint contains sufficient facts to establish the personal involvement of some but not all the defendants. Qualified immunity protects them, though, from a damage award (but not equitable relief) on the due process claim. Doe is not yet entitled to ajudgment on that claim because the element of prejudice remains in play, although the other elements of the claim are established as a matter of law. And because the results of the constitutionally defective appeal procedure must be vacated, Doe is entitled to some, but not all, of the interim equitable relief he seeks. The motions will be granted in part and denied in part.

I. Background

The facts of the case were covered at length in the Court's prior opinions on the defendant's motion to dismiss and the plaintiff's post-dismissal motion for relief, and in the opinion by the Sixth Circuit reversing the dismissal. The amended complaint raised claims that (1) the applicable definition of "incapacitated" in the University's sexual misconduct policy (which since has been revised) is "void for vagueness" (Count I); (2) the appeal process deprived Doe of his right to procedural due process because he had no meaningful opportunity for a fair hearing and review of his case by the appeal panel (Count II); (3) the University violated his rights under the First Amendment by denying him the opportunity to set forth his "objections" in his response to the penalty proposal (Count III); (4) the appeal panel discriminated against him on the basis of his sex, contrary to Title IX, by refusing fully and fairly to consider his side of the story (Count IV); and (5) the University's policy regarding sexual misconduct appeals had a disparate impact on Doe based on his sex, because students accused of sexual misconduct are not allowed to have an oral hearing before the appeal board, to pose questions to the complainant on the record, or to have certain other privileges inherent in a live hearing (Count V). The complaint also included trailing claims for gender discrimination under Michigan's Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act (Counts VI and VII), on the same premises advanced in Counts IV and V. The Court dismissed all counts on the defendants' motion. The court of appeals reversed the dismissal of Count II and Count IV. After remand, the plaintiff filed a second amended complaint alleging that the appeal board proceedingdenied him due process of law by depriving him of his right to cross-examine his accuser (Count I), and the appeal board discriminated against him on the basis of sex in violation of title IX when it reached an erroneous outcome based on his gender (Count II).

The court of appeals held that the plaintiff's procedural due process claim should not have been dismissed at the pleading stage "[b]ecause Doe never received an opportunity to cross-examine Roe or her witnesses — not before the investigator, and not before the [University's Appeal] Board," and, therefore, "there is a significant risk that the university erroneously deprived Doe of his protected interests." Doe, 903 F.3d at 582. The panel also flatly rejected three out of four of the University's arguments in defense of the propriety of its disciplinary appeal process, which were that: (1) the purpose of cross-examination was fulfilled when the plaintiff was permitted to review the complainant's statement and submit a response identifying inconsistencies in the complainant's presentation for the investigator; (2) cross-examination was not required because the university's decision did not depend entirely on a credibility contest between the plaintiff and the complainant; and (3) the plaintiff was not prejudiced by the denial of an opportunity to cross-examine, because, after the disciplinary proceedings had concluded, the complainant gave a deposition in her civil lawsuit against the plaintiff, and, according to the University, her deposition testimony was "consistent with what she told the investigator." Id. at 582-85. The University had raised all those same defenses before this Court, but prospectively those issues now are dead letters.

The panel leveled a more reserved critique of the defendants' argument that the failure to allow cross-examination did not rise to the level of a due process violation because the plaintiff admitted the conduct for which he was disciplined, concluding that Doe's admission was equivocal:

Because the district court made [the appeal board's] report part of the pleadings, we must read it in the light most favorable to Doe. When we do, we cannot conclude that Doe admitted to any of the critical facts in his case — i.e., that Roe was too drunk to consent to sex, and that he knew or should have known as much. For one, we would have to ignore Doe's claim that the sex was "consensual." And for another, because Doe did not mention anything about Roe's level of intoxication in his own account of the night's events, his concession that Roe was correct and that he "got it all wrong" appears to relate only to the points on which the detective said their two accounts actually diverged — the order of the sexual act. This alleged confession thus does not sufficiently rebut the plausibility of Doe's claim.

Id. at 584 (citations omitted).

After the case was remanded, the Court held a status conference with counsel. Doe's attorney took the position that the merits of the due process claim were resolved by the decision of the court of appeals, and that equity demanded that the plaintiff receive prompt injunctive relief on that claim, including expungement of all disciplinary consequences precipitated by the adverse appeal of the OIE investigator's findings, and an award of the degree for which the plaintiff was lacking only 13.5 credits when he was forced to withdraw. The University insisted that it stands ready to provide a "new hearing" on the appeal, in which it is prepared to offer the plaintiff the opportunity for live cross-examination that he desires. The plaintiff also insisted that, whatever is the resolution of the due process claim, discovery immediately should commence on the Title IX claim, which the Sixth Circuit also allowed to proceed. Because the parties appeared unlikely to reach an agreement on what should be the proper course forward, the Court directed the plaintiff to file a motion for imposition of a remedy on the due process claim. The plaintiff subsequently filed his motion for relief, which the Court views now as a motion for interim injunctive relief. The Court heard oral argument on those motions on February 14, 2019. At the direction of the Court, the plaintiff also subsequently filed a second amended complaint, referenced above,...