Grant v. Southside Reg'l Jail

CRYSTAL P. GRANT, Plaintiff, v. SOUTHSIDE REGIONAL JAIL, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 3:19-cv-70

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA Richmond Division

October 2, 2019

OPINION

In this § 1983 action, Crystal P. Grant, a former employee of Southside Regional Jail (the "Jail"), alleges that the defendants¹ fired her based on trumped-up charges of misconduct and in violation of her due process rights. The defendants have moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Because Grant has failed to show that she had a property interest in her continued employment with the Jail, the Court will grant the motion to dismiss.

I. FACTS ALLEGED IN THE COMPLAINT

The events giving rise to this case began in 2015 with a dispute involving Lieutenant Portray Temple, Grant's co-worker at the Jail. Grant says that Temple "initiated a campaign of retaliatory behavior against Grant designed to adversely affect [her] employment with [the Jail]." (Dk. No. 1, at ¶ 19.) Temple "shut Grant's arm in a paper pass door in 2015," "initiated baseless complaints against [her]," and caused "improper disciplinary actions to be imposed against [her]." (Id. at ¶ 32.) Temple also unsuccessfully sued Grant for defamation.

In 2016, the defendants and Temple "implemented a campaign of initiating pretextual investigations" to try to find cause to fire Grant. (Id. at ¶ 23.) The ultimate incident leading to thedefendants' decision to fire Grant arose from a verbal altercation between two other employees on January 7, 2017. In a meeting with Captain Anthony Johnson, Grant falsely said that she had not discussed the incident with Officer Kent Hopson. The defendants then fired Grant effective January 31, 2017.

On February 10, 2017, Grant challenged her dismissal pursuant to the Jail's grievance procedure. A panel heard her case on March 29, 2017. The hearing was not recorded, the Jail did not call any witnesses, and Grant was not allowed to call witnesses or introduce evidence. The panel upheld Grant's termination on May 1, 2017.

Grant then challenged the panel's decision in the Greensville Circuit Court. The defendants² filed a plea in bar. The court dismissed Grant's case with prejudice, finding that Grant was not entitled to the protections of various provisions of the Virginia Code because the Jail does not qualify as a "locality" under Virginia Code § 15.2-1506. Grant appealed to the Supreme Court of Virginia, which declined to hear her appeal. She then filed this action. Her complaint alleges that the defendants denied her due process pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The defendants have moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim, arguing that Grant did not have a property interest in her continued employment with the Jail.

II. DISCUSSION³

"The first question in any procedural due process analysis is whether the plaintiff has been deprived of a liberty or property interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment because therequirements of procedural due process only apply when such protected interests are implicated." Davis v. Rao, 982 F. Supp. 2d 683, 688 (E.D. Va. 2013), aff'd, 583 F. App'x 113 (4th Cir. 2014). Without a protected liberty or property interest, a fired employee fails to state a claim for deprivation of due process under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Socol v. Albemarle Cty. Sch. Bd., No. 3:18-cv-90, 2019 WL 2610117, at *5-6 (W.D. Va. June 25, 2019). Here, Grant argues that she had a property interest in her continued employment with the Jail, entitling her to due process protections.

An employee has a property interest in continued employment only when the employee has "a legitimate claim of entitlement to it." Roth, 408 U.S. at 577; Royster v. Bd. of Trs. of Anderson Cty. Sch. Dist. No. Five, 774 F.2d 618, 621 (4th Cir. 1985). Property interests arise from sources outside the Constitution, such as state law. Roth, 408 U.S. at 577. In other words, "[w]hether a plaintiff has a protectable property interest under the Due Process Clause turns upon the plaintiff's property rights under state law." Foreman v. Griffith, 81 F. App'x 432, 436 (4th Cir. 2003). "If an employee is terminable at will under state law, then [s]he has no protected property interest in continued employment." Socol, 2019 WL 2610117, at *6.

Grant argues that at-will employment is the "exception" in the public employment context, and that "the at-will employment doctrine . . . almost exclusively applies to private sector employees." (Dk. No. 5, at 5.) The Supreme Court of Virginia, however, has applied the at-will presumption to public employees, stressing that "Virginia strongly adheres to the common lawemployment-at-will doctrine."⁴ Cty. of Giles v. Wines, 262 Va. 68, 72, 546 S.E.2d 721, 723 (2001); see also Johnston v. William E. Wood & Assocs., Inc., 292 Va. 222, 225, 787 S.E.2d 103, 104 (2016) ("The at-will doctrine constitutes a cornerstone of the Commonwealth's employment law."). Public employees in Virginia are not immune from the at-will presumption.⁵

An employee may rebut the at-will presumption by showing "sufficient evidence . . . that the employment is for a definite, rather than an indefinite, term." Wines, 262 Va. at 72, 546 S.E.2d at 723. For example, a contract "stat[ing] that an employee 'will not be disciplined or dismissed from [employment] without a just cause' create[s] a definite term for the duration of the employment." Id. (second alteration in original) (quoting Norfolk S. Ry. Co. v. Harris, 190 Va. 966, 976, 59 S.E.2d 110, 114 (1950)).

In this case, Grant primarily relies on two sources to show that she had a property interest in continued employment with the Jail: (1) various provisions of the Virginia Code requiring certain state entities to create employee grievance procedures, and (2) the specific grievance procedures set forth in the Jail's personnel manual. Unfortunately for Grant, neither rebuts the presumption of at-will employment.

A. Statutory Grievance Procedures

First, Grant argues that Virginia law requires the Jail to establish employee grievance procedures, thus creating a property interest. Section 15.2-1506 of the Virginia Code requires "every locality which has more than fifteen employees" to establish a grievance procedure. Va. Code Ann. § 15.2-1506. If such a "locality" fails to establish a procedure, that entity "shall be deemed to have adopted a grievance procedure which is consistent with the provisions of Chapter 30 (§ 2.2-3000 et seq.)."⁶ Id. § 15.2-1507. Grant contends that § 15.2-1506 requires the City of Emporia and the County of Greensville to establish a grievance procedure. Grant argues that because the Jail is a political subdivision of the City of Emporia and the County of Greensville, it must also establish a grievance procedure under the Dillon Rule.

The Greensville Circuit Court, however, has already rejected Grant's argument. When Grant appealed the decision of the Jail's panel to uphold her termination, the defendants filed a plea in bar, arguing that the Jail does not qualify as a "locality" under Virginia law. The court agreed with the defendants, finding "that Plaintiff is not entitled to the grievance procedure in Virginia Code § 15.2-1507, on the grounds that Southside Regional Jail Authority is not a 'locality' within the meaning of Virginia Code § 15.2-1506. Moreover, Virginia Code § 2.2-3000, et seq. also does not apply for the same reasons." (Dk. No. 4-3, at 1.) The court then dismissed the case with prejudice.

Under the doctrine of collateral estoppel, federal courts must give state court judgments the same preclusive effects that they would have in state court. Pignato v. Commonwealth of Va. Dep't of Envtl. Quality, 948 F. Supp. 532, 538 (E.D. Va. 1996). Virginia law, therefore, governs the preclusive effect of a judgment of a Virginia court. See id.

"Collateral estoppel, or issue preclusion, as applied in Virginia, prevents a party from relitigating issues that have been actually decided in, and which were necessary to, a prior judgment." Id. "Issue preclusion . . . bars successive litigation of an issue of fact or law actually litigated and resolved in a valid court determination essential to the prior judgment, even if the issue recurs in the context of a different claim." Lee v. Spoden, 290 Va. 235, 246, 776 S.E.2d 798, 803 (2015). For issue preclusion to apply in Virginia,

(1) the parties [or their privies] to the two proceedings must be the same, (2) the issue of fact sought to be litigated must have been actually litigated in the prior proceeding, (3) the issue of fact must have been essential to the prior judgment, and (4) the prior proceeding must have resulted in a valid, final judgment against the party against whom the doctrine is sought to be applied.

Lane v. Bayview Loan Servicing, LLC, 831 S.E.2d 709, 714 (Va. 2019).⁷

Issue preclusion prevents Grant from relitigating her entitlement to a grievance procedure under the Virginia Code. First, the parties or their privies in this case are the same as in the state court action because the Jail and the superintendent defendants here are united in interest. See Lane v. Bayview Loan Servicing, LLC, No. 180979, 2019 WL 3955445, at *4 (Va. Aug. 22, 2019) ("[P]rivity exists where "a party's interest is so identical with another that representation by one party is representation of the other's legal right."). Second, the issue was actually litigated in state court because Grant and the Jail disputed it through a contested plea in bar. Cf. TransDulles Ctr., Inc. v. Sharma, 252 Va. 20, 23-25, 472 S.E.2d 274, 275-77 (1996) (holding that issues were "actually litigated" in the context of a default judgment). Third, the issue was essential to the judgment because the plea in bar turned on whether the provisions of the Virginia Code applied to the Jail. Finally, the prior action resulted in a valid and final judgment, from which Grant appealedto the Supreme Court of Virginia.⁸ Grant cannot now relitigate her entitlement to the...