Employment: Former Virginia Beach employee prevails in termination suit

Where a jury found that a former city of Virginia Beach employee was not discharged for engaging in misconduct, and the evidence supported that decision, the circuit court erred in setting it aside.

Background

Elizabeth Mann was employed by the City of Virginia Beach at the time of the May 31, 2019, mass shooting at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center. A few days after the shooting, Mann’s supervisor, Wendy Swallow, convened a meeting of city employees to discuss the tragedy. During the meeting, Mann stated that Swallow was “exactly the same type of supervisor that probably pushed [the shooter] to do that.”

The City terminated Mann’s employment. The City’s Personnel Board upheld Mann’s termination. Mann then sued the City. The jury found that Mann was not “discharged from her employment with the City of Virginia Beach for engaging in misconduct.” The circuit court then set aside the jury verdict and granted the City’s plea in bar.

Analysis

The totality of the evidence before the jury included the entirety of the evidentiary record before the Personnel Board and Mann’s additional trial evidence. That included Swallow’s testimony about the May 2, 2019, memo from Portia Green, that Mann had previously gone to Human Resources to complain about her.

And it included the testimony of Steven Derrick Jr., Swallow’s former assistant, who was present at the June 3, 2019, meeting and who testified that Mann neither directly threatened Swallow during the meeting nor made any threatening gestures or conduct towards Swallow as she left the meeting. Both rebut the City’s evidence of misconduct and support the jury’s verdict that the City failed to meet its burden in establishing that Mann’s employment was terminated for engaging in misconduct.

Given the limited and narrowly defined role of the trial court in determining whether credible evidence exists to support that verdict, this court certainly cannot say that the jury was plainly wrong in its determination of the weight it ascribed to the evidence. This is especially so given that the jury’s consideration of that evidence was not circumscribed by any limiting instruction regarding the preclusive effect of the Personnel Board’s decision. Consequently, the trial court erred when it granted the City’s motion to set aside the jury’s verdict and entered judgment in favor of the City and Swallow.

Reversed and remanded.

Mann v. City of Virginia Beach, Record No. 0812-24-1, July 22, 2025. CAV (unpublished opinion) (Fulton III). From the Circuit Court of the City of Virginia Beach (Lewis). W. Barry Montgomery (KPM Law, on briefs), for appellant. Christopher J. Turpin, Associate City Attorney (Mark D. Stiles, City Attorney; Christopher S. Boynton, Deputy City Attorney; Gerald L. Harris, Senior City Attorney, on brief), for appellees. VLW 025-7-191. 10 pp.