Skip to content
LPBN-Icon-v1 (1)
Legal Profession Blog
A Member of the Law Professor Blogs Network

Scarlet Letter?

By Michael Frisch

The United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted summary judgment on  a federal claim and remanded a state claim to the local court

Plaintiff Terri Lea had an offer for a General Counsel position in the D.C. government. That is, until her prospective employer learned that she had previously been suspended from the D.C. Bar. As a result, two weeks after extending her an offer, the District understandably reneged. Since then, Lea has applied for other legal jobs in the D.C. government but to no avail. According to her, the District memorialized an adverse suitability determination in her personnel file, marking her with a scarlet letter that has and will continue to bar her from finding government employment. She thus brought this suit against the District and certain city employees involved in her hiring process, alleging that they violated her constitutional right to due process by tarnishing her reputation without a proper hearing, and that they are liable for negligent misrepresentation in connection with her offer letter.

This Court having dismissed one of Lea’s federal counts at the motion-to-dismiss stage, these Defendants now seek summary judgment. Although they offer myriad arguments in support of their Motion, the Court need only consider one: that Lea has failed to present any evidence that her unsuitability rating kept her from other D.C. government jobs, a necessary requirement for alleging a violation of a constitutionally protected liberty interest via a stigma-plus theory of reputational injury. With the record evidence against her, the Court will thus grant Defendants’ Motion on Lea’s federal cause of action and decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over her D.C.-based claim.

Stigma-plus

…the District has shown that of the six additional positions Plaintiff applied to, two were simply withdrawn. See Def. MSJ at 12 (citing Def. SUMF, ¶ 17; PeopleSoft Screenshots). For the other positions she sought, a much more reasonable explanation exists forwhy Plaintiff was unsuccessful — viz., her original unsuitability finding (her D.C. Bar  status) was based on publicly available facts (the D.C. Court of Appeals decisions to suspend her license). Because a stigma-plus claim requires that the “government . . . be the source of thedefamatory allegations,” Doe v. U.S. Dep’t of Just., 753 F.2d 1092, 1108 (D.C. Cir. 1985), any future employer’s reliance on the public information concerning Plaintiff’s disciplinary history or prior employment — both factors in the District’s decision here to revoke her initial offer of employment — cannot support her stigma-plus claim.

The Court thus finds that Lea has not created a dispute of material fact on her stigma-plus claim, and it enters judgment for Defendants on this count.

The decision in the bar case is linked here. (Mike Frisch)