Leonard L. Rowe v. Jesse B. Register, Frederick Carr, D. Scott Bennett, Dr. Robert Asmith, Lonita…

* The Honorable Edmund A. Sargus, Jr., United States District Judge for the Southern
District of Ohio, sitting by designation.
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
File Name: 06a0169n.06
Filed: March 3, 2006
No. 04-6488
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
LEONARD L. ROWE,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
JESSE B. REGISTER, FREDERICK CARR, D.
SCOTT BENNETT, DR. ROBERT A SMITH,
LONITA DAVIDSON, HAMILTON COUNTY
BOARD OF EDUCATION,
Defendants-Appellees.
ON APPEAL FROM THE
UNITED STATES DISTRICT
COURT FOR THE EASTERN
DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE
/
BEFORE: MARTIN and CLAY Circuit Judges, and Sargus, District Judge. *
PER CURIAM. Pro se plaintiff Leonard L. Rowe appeals the district court’s denial of his
motion for default judgment along with the district court’s grant of the defendant’s motion to dismiss
Rowe’s complaint in this employment discrimination case. This case arises out of a long litigious
relationship between Rowe and the Board of Education of the City of Chattanooga, which is now
part of the Hamilton County Board of Education. Rowe, a former teacher in the Chattanooga School
District, was fired by the Board of Education in 1980 for insubordination and inefficiency. Since his
termination Rowe has consistently attempted to obtain reemployment in the School District and has
filed numerous lawsuits against the School District. See Rowe v. Bd. of Educ. Of City of

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Rowe v. Register, et al.
No. 04-6488
Page 2
1 Rowe now suggests on appeal that this decision was incorrect because the motion to
dismiss was filed by only one of the defendants rather than all the defendants. Reviewing the
defendants’s motion to dismiss it is evident that the motion was filed on behalf of all the
defendants. Thus, Rowe’s claim is wholly meritless.
Chattanooga, 755 F.2d 933, 1985 WL 12898 (6th Cir. January 15, 1985); Rowe v. Bd. of Educ. Of
City of Chattanooga, 938 S.W.2d 351 (Tenn. 1996). Rowe has been so persistent in his attempts
to obtain reemployment that the Hamilton County Board of Education that the Board of Education
sought and obtained a restraining order enjoining Rowe “from going on or about the Hamilton
County Department of Education’s” property.
In this case, Rowe filed a complaint against the defendants alleging violations of his rights
under the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VII of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964. In response the
defendants filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 12(b)(6). Rowe did not respond to this motion, but did file a motion for default judgment
alleging that the defendants had failed to file a timely response to his claim. The district court
dismissed Rowe’s motion for a default judgment, noting that the defendants’s motion to dismiss
constituted a timely response to Rowe’s complaint.1 In the same order, the district court also
instructed Rowe to file a more definite statement of his claim because his complaint and its
accompanying documents were both sparse and exceedingly unclear as to the alleged factual basis
for Rowe’s claims. Rowe filed numerous other documents and affidavits but none of this evidence
clarified the basis for his claims. As a result, the district court granted the defendants’s motion to
dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6).
In support of its decision to dismiss Rowe’s complaint, the district court provided a

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Rowe v. Register, et al.
No. 04-6488
Page 3
thoughtful and thorough opinion detailing the reasons for the dismissal. In light of Rowe’s pro se
status, the district court’s opinion construed Rowe’s complaint and the accompanying documents
as liberally as possible but still failed to find that Rowe had alleged any claims upon which relief
could be based. Put simply, the district court concluded that Rowe provided insufficient allegations
to even establish any claim of employment discrimination under state or federal law. Having
reviewed the record and the parties’s brief, we believe that given the district court’s cogent opinion,
any further analysis by this Court would be unnecessarily duplicative. We therefore AFFIRM the
district court’s judgment for the reasons stated in the district court’s opinion.

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