HUNTINGTON — A federal judge has dismissed a case filed by a retired Wayne County Board of Education employee who had said he was wrongfully accused of obstructing an investigation into and taking party in a criminal conspiracy regarding theft of board property.
David Eugene Sammons filed the complaint last February 1 in U.S. District Court against the board, Superintendent Todd Alexander, the Wayne County Commission, Wayne County Sheriff Rick Thompson, Deputy Sheriff Harry Sowards and Howard Meddings. All of the original defendants except the school board, Sowards and Meddings previously had been dismissed from the case.
In his March 18 Memorandum Opinion and Order, District Judge Robert C. Chambers granted the three remaining defendants’ Motions for Summary Judgment.
“The memorandum opinion and order speaks for itself,” Bernard Vallejos, one of the attorneys for the school board, told The West Virginia Record. “We are pleased with the result and pleased for our client.”
All of the parties also are central to a related civil lawsuit filed in 2020 by two other former board employees who say they were prosecuted to intimidate, embarrass and harm their reputation and credibility and to prevent Katrina and James Reeves from keeping their jobs.
Sammons was transportation director for the school board, and he had more than 40 years of service. Sammons retired in September 2019. The theft of property from the county school bus garage took place after Sammons retired. He says he had multiple work issues with Meddings, who was the parts supervisor for the transportation department and reported directly to Sammons. In 2018, Sammons gave Meddings a poor work evaluation.
“Following the poor review, defendant Alexander requested to meet with plaintiff asking him why he gave Mr. Meddings a poor review,” the complaint states. “Immediately following this meeting, defendant Alexander placed plaintiff on a Performance Improvement Plan.
“Defendant Meddings would often break work rules and, as his direct supervisor, plaintiff would report the misconduct to defendant Alexander. Defendant Alexander never took disciplinary action against defendant Meddings.”
Sammons says Alexander and the board regularly ignored legitimate complaints about Meddings. He also says Meddings once became so irate at work that he tried to start a fight with Sammons.
“At a grievance concerning this incident, defendant Meddings grabbed his crotch, mocked plaintiff and informed plaintiff that there was nothing that plaintiff could do to him,” the complaint states, adding that Meddings continued “using his position as supervisor, the grievance process and school resources to abuse his power and threaten any employee that stood in the way of his ambitions.”
As for the break-in and theft, Meddings and Sowards both testified at a magistrate court hearing that the only items stolen were bus turbos.
Sammons says Meddings and Sowards had a close personal relationship before Sowards took charge of the investigation into the thefts. He says their families even went on vacations together.
Sammons claims Sowards altered some of his comments from a meeting with Alexander “to obtain probable cause for a search warrant” against James Reeves.
He says Meddings also told Sowards that Sammons knew Reeves was stealing from the garage and that Meddings had reported the thefts to Sammons.
“Eugene said his daddy drove a cookie truck and he couldn’t stop everybody from getting a cookie,” Meddings allegedly said.
Sammons says Sowards also visited the garage and shared text messages from Reeves’ phone with Meddings and others, saying Meddings and Sowards “misused texts between plaintiff and Mr. Reeves as evidence of a conspiracy that plaintiff had knowledge of Mr. Reeves’s actions. Defendant Sowards and defendant Meddings intentionally twisted the meaning of the texts, which were simply ‘shop talk.’”
In February 2020, Sammons was charged related to the thefts. After reviewing the case, Wayne County’s prosecuting attorney moved to dismiss the charges against Sammons. The magistrate approved the dismissal.
Sammons accused the defendants of violating his First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights and of defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. He also says Sowards, Thompson and Wayne County are guilty of abuse of process and malicious prosecution because the charges were dropped against him. He accuses the board, Alexander, the commission and Thompson of negligent hiring, supervision and retention of employees.
In the order filed last week, Chambers granted summary judgment to the remaining defendants. In the order, Chambers said Sammons argued the Reeves case is relevant and determinative to his case. But Chambers said Sammons “merely tried to indiscriminately adopt unspecified arguments and evidence to use here, which the court cannot do. Instead, we are dealing with two different cases with material differences of fact.”
Chambers also granted summary judgment to the defendants based, among other things, on the finding that no constitutional right was violated and that no malicious prosecution could be shown.
Sammons was represented by Hoyt Glazer and Abe Saad of Glazer Saad Anderson in Huntington. The board and Alexander were represented by Vallejos, Ben Shepard and Michael J. Farrell of Farrell White & Legg in Huntington. The commission, Thompson and Sowards were represented by Wendy E. Greve and Seth F. Huy of Pullin Fowler Flanagan Brown & Poe in Charleston. Meddings was represented by David Rich, Eric Salyers and Perry Oxley of Oxley Rich Sammons in Huntington
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia case number 3:21-cv-00081
