Federal court dismisses former cop Michael Rosfeld's lawsuit against Pitt

A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit filed by former police officer Michael Rosfeld against the University of Pittsburgh, finding that he resigned his position there willingly — and under duress.

The 12-page opinion, issued by U.S. District Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan, prohibits Rosfeld from further pursuing his complaint against Pitt, writing that he “once again failed to state a plausible claim for relief.”

Rosfeld was acquitted of homicide last year stemming from the June 19, 2018, shooting death of Antwon Rose II in East Pittsburgh. The 17-year-old was a passenger in a car that Rosfeld stopped following a drive-by shooting minutes earlier. Rose and another teen in the car fled, and Rosfeld shot Rose in the back three times. He was found not guilty by a Dauphin County jury.

Rosfeld had just started working at the now-defunct East Pittsburgh police department at the time of the shooting. He previously worked as an officer at Pitt from October 2012 to January 2018.

In the lawsuit he filed against the university, Rosfeld claimed he was forced from his position because he filed criminal charges against the son of a school official following an incident in December 2017 at the Garage Door Saloon in Oakland.

Several men were charged with assault after they became combative and were tossed out of the bar, but the charges were later withdrawn.

Rosfeld, however, said in his lawsuit, that he was placed on administrative leave the day after the Garage Door incident and then summoned to police headquarters on Jan. 18, 2018.

According to his complaint, at that meeting, Rosfeld was given a piece of paper that read, “’Your employment with the University of Pittsburgh Police is terminated effective today, Thursday, Jan. 18, 2018.’”

The notice said it was in reference to an internal investigation with the same case number as the incident at the Garage Door.

“According to Mr. Rosfeld, the ‘extreme duress’ created by this situation ‘coerced’ him into ‘immediately requesting resignation in lieu of termination,” Ranjan wrote.

The department accepted his offer and allowed him to resign.

In his federal complaint, Rosfeld contended his due process rights were violated because the university failed to provide him with notice of the charges against him, what evidence there was, or a chance to respond to it.

The court disagreed.

Under legal precedent, the judge wrote, employee resignations are presumed to be voluntary — even if prompted by the employer. The only way to overcome that presumption, the opinion said, is to prove the resignation was “forced … by coercion or duress.” It does not matter what Rosfeld “‘felt or believed,’” the opinion said, but “‘whether a reasonable person under the circumstances would have felt compelled to resign.’”

Ranjan said that even in Rosfeld’s most-recent amended complaint, he does not present a plausible case that he was coerced to resign. The only action the University of Pittsburgh police took, the opinion said, is when the chief handed Rosfeld a termination notice without giving him an alternative.

“That is not enough to show that his resignation was involuntary,” the judge wrote.

Under those circumstances, he continued, there was no duress.

“No one demanded Mr. Rosfeld’s resignation, threatened him if he refused to resign, or, for that matter, even mentioned resignation to him,” Ranjan said. “Rather, it was Mr. Rosfeld himself who ‘immediately request[ed] resignation’ after being told he faced termination.”

Rosfeld’s lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice in May, but he filed an amended complaint eight days later. Based on the district court’s ruling from Monday, he cannot refile.

Ranjan noted that, had Rosfeld allowed the university to terminate him, he would have been entitled to due process through an informal hearing. But because he offered to resign, that is no longer the case.

“[I]t is difficult to imagine how a court, or a jury, could ever make such a finding in a case where resigning was the employee’s idea and the employer did not mention (let alone demand) the employee’s resignation at all.”