Two years after Kevin Morrissey, a former managing editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review, killed himself following complaints he made about workplace bullying by his boss, the former VQR editor Ted Genoways, Mr. Morrissey’s family has filed a $10-million wrongful-death lawsuit against the University of Virginia, which publishes the award-winning journal.
The suit also names as defendants several current and former university employees, including Mr. Genoways and John T. Casteen III, who is president emeritus and continues as a faculty member at the university.
The lawsuit, filed last Wednesday in Virginia circuit court on behalf of Mr. Morrissey’s siblings and his father by Douglas R. Morrissey, one of Mr. Morrissey’s brothers, says the university failed to adequately respond to numerous complaints Mr. Morrissey made about Mr. Genoways in the weeks before his death. Mr. Morrissey complained at least 25 times, the suit says, to the offices of the president, human resources, and employee relations, saying Mr. Genoways had banned him from the journal’s office for unspecified “unacceptable workplace behavior.”
But although the suit says Mr. Morrissey asked at least two administrators about filing a grievance against Mr. Genoways, neither responded. The suit says the university allowed Mr. Genoways to ignore institutional policies that required him to first contact human resources and attempt to counsel or coach an employee before disciplining the employee.
It also says that Mr. Genoways knew Mr. Morrissey suffered from depression and should have known that banning Mr. Morrissey from the office would be harmful. It says that at least two other staff members of VQR warned university administrators that Mr. Morrissey was suicidal after being banned from the office, but that no one did anything to deal with those concerns.
Soon after Mr. Morrissey shot himself in the head, in July 2010, his sister, Maria Morrissey, accused Mr. Genoways of workplace bullying and said the university had ignored her brother’s requests for help. But Mr. Genoways said then that Mr. Morrissey’s long history of depression was to blame and had caused him trouble, including with bosses, throughout his career.
Carolyn Wood, a spokeswoman for the university, said on Monday that UVa and those named in the lawsuit had not yet seen it and could not comment on the accusations. Even after the university reads the complaint, she said, it was unlikely to comment because “anything that it said could jeopardize the case.”
The lawsuit also names as defendants Angelee Godbold, human-resources consultant manager at UVa, and Alan S. Cohn, who has retired as director of the university’s office of faculty and staff employee relations. In an e-mail message Ms. Godbold declined to comment. Mr. Cohn could not be reached for comment.
Mr. Genoways stepped down as editor of VQR in May, saying he wanted to focus on his own writing. He did not return an e-mail message on Monday requesting comment on the lawsuit.
After Mr. Morrissey’s death, the university commissioned an internal investigation that found Mr. Genoways had “questionable” management skills, but stopped short of saying he was guilty of workplace bullying.
