Background
Perry Township hired F. Dyann McDowell and her consulting company, Training Marbles Inc., to review its human-resources practices and complaints about then-Police Chief Michael T. Pomesky. During the audit, employees described retaliatory conduct by Pomesky, and McDowell observed him monitoring employees who came to speak with her. After Pomesky indicated that he knew where she lived, McDowell falsely told him that she had received notice that someone had run a police-database report on her, hoping to deter possible retaliation.
After determining that no such report had been run, Pomesky presented the matter to a prosecutor, obtained misdemeanor falsification and obstruction charges, and secured an arrest warrant. Evidence showed that using a warrant rather than a summons departed from the department’s usual treatment of misdemeanors, and Pomesky expanded the warrant’s pickup radius so Perry Township could retrieve McDowell from the Franklin County Corrections Center. McDowell voluntarily surrendered to Reynoldsburg Police and was jailed for 36 hours. The charges were later dismissed, and the Township ultimately discharged Pomesky.
McDowell sued Pomesky and the Township under federal and state law. The district court denied Pomesky summary judgment on McDowell’s abuse-of-process claim, finding a genuine factual dispute over whether he acted maliciously or in bad faith and therefore fell within an exception to Ohio’s statutory immunity for government employees. Pomesky brought an interlocutory appeal limited to that immunity ruling.
The Court’s Holding
The Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of statutory immunity. Viewing the evidence in McDowell’s favor, as required at summary judgment, the court held that a reasonable jury could find that Pomesky acted with malicious purpose or in bad faith. His alleged history of retaliation, his departure from departmental misdemeanor practices, and the unusual measures surrounding the warrant could support a finding that he sought to discredit or silence McDowell and protect his job.
The court rejected Pomesky’s contention that probable cause necessarily preserved his immunity. Under Ohio law, abuse of process assumes that legal proceedings were initiated properly and with probable cause; the alleged wrong is the later misuse of that process for an ulterior purpose. The court also rejected his argument that acting within otherwise lawful authority foreclosed a finding of malice or bad faith, explaining that the merits of an abuse-of-process claim and the culpable state of mind relevant to statutory immunity are distinct inquiries.
The court expressly did not decide whether McDowell ultimately could prove every element of abuse of process because Pomesky had appealed only the immunity determination. It affirmed that determination and remanded for further proceedings.
Key Takeaways
- Probable cause does not automatically entitle an Ohio government employee to statutory immunity from an abuse-of-process claim.
- Otherwise lawful or authorized conduct may still be undertaken with the malicious purpose or bad faith necessary to defeat statutory immunity.
- Evidence of retaliatory motive and departures from established departmental practices created a genuine factual dispute over Pomesky’s state of mind.
- The Sixth Circuit decided only the statutory-immunity question, not the ultimate merits of McDowell’s abuse-of-process claim.
Why It Matters
The decision clarifies that Ohio’s employee-immunity analysis focuses on the official’s state of mind, separately from whether the challenged legal process was supported by probable cause or fell within the official’s authority. Government employees therefore cannot establish immunity merely by showing that a prosecutor approved charges or a judge issued a warrant.
The opinion also underscores the limited scope of interlocutory review. The Sixth Circuit reviewed the legal immunity question while accepting McDowell’s version of disputed facts, leaving the underlying abuse-of-process claim for further proceedings on remand.