Hearing for Motion to Dismiss Lawsuit

The hearing for Ed Tolley’s motion to dismiss my lawsuit is Friday at 9:00 in the Athens-Clarke County courthouse. I would appreciate your thoughts and prayers.  More information can be found at Georgia whistleblower law unconstitutional, say lawyers defending Board of Regents in lawsuit from the Athens Banner Herald.

Georgia whistleblower law unconstitutional, say lawyers defending Board of Regents in lawsuit

By Lee Shearer

Part of a Georgia law allowing whistleblowers to collect damages after being retaliated against by bosses is unconstitutional, lawyers for the state Board of Regents are saying.

And even if it’s not, former University of Georgia accountant Sallyanne Barrow waited too late to file suit for her allegedly wrongful firing, according to lawyers Ed Tolley and Devin Hartness Smith, who are defending the Board of Regents.

They are asking a Superior Court judge to throw the case out on those grounds in court papers filed in August.

The Regents’ lawyers also argued in earlier filings that Barrow’s firing was for good and proper reasons.

Barrow filed suit in December, saying she was retaliated against and ultimately fired after revealing questionable travel expenses and time accounting by her then-boss, former UGA alumni office director Deborah Dietzler.

The retaliatory actions continued under the alumni office’s current director, Meredith Gurley Johnson, according to Barrow’s lawsuit.

According to lawyers representing the Regents, administrators had valid reasons to give Barrow bad performance reviews, however.

But whether Barrow was retaliated against is beside the point, according to the Regents’ most recent filings, which ask Senior Judge Robert Adamson to toss the lawsuit before it goes to trial.

Barrow, associate director of the UGA Office of Alumni Relations, was fired in 2014, months after she told UGA police and other officials that Dietzler was scheduling work-related trips around marathons she ran in around the country. Dietzler also wasn’t recording time she took off from work, she said.

A subsequent UGA internal investigation found “evidence of substantial misconduct and policy violations by Ms. Dietzler,” and further investigation by the state Office of the Attorney General concluded “some of Dietzler’s activities likely constituted criminal conduct that warranted further investigation and possible prosecution.”

But Senior Assistant Attorney General David McLaughlin said prosecuting Dietzler would be “an unwise use of taxpayer resources” because of UGA administrators’ inaction following the audit.

UGA failed to turn over the internal audit to University System of Georgia officials, as required by state policy, and did not discipline or fire Dietzler, but instead shifted her to other duties while she looked for work elsewhere.

UGA administrators said what they did was not a cover-up, but an oversight.

Dietzler found a similar job at the University of Louisville, but resigned after news of the UGA investigation became public.

Barrow says bad performance reviews from Dietzler and Johnson, who ultimately terminated her, were retaliatory and in some instances based on “blatant misrepresentations.”

But even if that’s so, Barrow’s not entitled to collect compensatory damages under the Georgia Whistleblower Act, according to the Regent’s lawyers.

That’s because the Whistleblower Act doesn’t override a 1992 state law called the Georgia Tort Claims Act, which spells out when citizens are allowed to sue the state, and how they must go about doing it.

Under a long-standing legal principle called sovereign immunity, sovereigns or governments are immune from lawsuits except when they grant permission.

The Whistleblower Act doesn’t override that, argue the state’s lawyers.

And the Tort Claims Act also sets a one-year statute of limitations, after which alleged victims of retaliation cannot sue.

Barrow failed to file within the proper time period, they say.