Attorneys defending Gov. Kay Ivey asked a federal judge on Friday to dismiss a lawsuit brought by former Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs (ADVA) commissioner Kent Davis filed in June in response to his termination last year.
Davis filed the federal lawsuit in the Middle District of Alabama. The lawsuit in part states Ivey’s actions surrounding the termination of Davis were unconstitutional, retaliation for his ethics complaint against a member of Ivey’s cabinet and defamatory.
Attorneys for Ivey asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed on Friday.
“(Davis) is frustrated that he is no longer Commissioner of the Department. But frustration with the Governor’s decision to terminate a State executive-branch official who repeatedly undermined State functions does not create federal jurisdiction or give rise to a cause of action of any vintage. This Court should dismiss Plaintiff’s complaint in its entirely,” H. William Bloom III and Jordan LaPorta, Maynard Nexsen attorneys defending Ivey in the lawsuit, said in a filing on Friday.
Kenneth Mendelsohn, Davis’ attorney, wrote in the lawsuit filed in June that “Ivey was not legally afforded the discretion to fire Davis and was in fact prohibited by law from firing him.”
“Ivey’s actions were for her own personal and vindictive reasons and were willful, malicious, illegal, fraudulent, in bad faith, beyond her authority, and/or at the very least under a mistaken interpretation of the law,” Mendelsohn said in the lawsuit.
Motion to Dismiss by Caleb Taylor on Scribd
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