The lawsuit between former University of Iowa Healthcare physician Dr. Ji Eun Lee and UI Police Department Detective Ian Mallory is currently without a scheduled court date after defendant Mallory waived service.
According to the Hague Conference on Private International Law, a waiver of service means the defendant agrees to join the lawsuit without needing to formally serve the papers. It allows the defendant an opportunity to avoid the unnecessary expenses associated with formal service of process.
The waivers also allow the defendant more time to answer the complaint, with 60 to 90 days given after the waiver is filed in court.
Lee, a former Iowa physician, is suing UIPD detective Ian Mallory, who cited her for harassment after she posted comments about former UIHC colleagues.
In Lee’s complaint, she said, “University campuses should be a place where the value of free speech is upheld. However, at the University of Iowa, speech is tolerated only when it does not offend others.”
The complaint also denied any act of “threatening violence.” Lee is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, injunctive relief, court costs, attorney fees, and such other relief as allowed by law.
In her lawsuit, Lee cited accusations from her prior dispute with UIHC that residents and supervising physicians in the medicine department engaged in “tolerated disability discrimination and racism against minority resident physicians.”
Lee later left UIHC in 2019; however, because she believed they had engaged in misconduct, she took to Facebook and X to communicate her disapproval.
One post referring to two clinical professors at the university said, “Hemesath? Still working on buttlickin #kateduchenehanrahan?”
On Dec. 19, 2022, Mallory received a report of the “online threats” to UIHC employees. Mallory repeatedly tried to contact her, according to case exhibits, in December 2022 and January 2023, but was unable to contact her because the case was closed.
Again, in October 2023, Lee began posting about her former colleagues, and Mallory was finally able to contact her, informing Lee of the departmental harassment warning and giving her a copy of the official document.
Per the harassment warning notice, if Lee continued to communicate with UIHC staff with the intent to threaten, intimidate, alarm, or annoy, she would be subject to arrest.
Following the warning, Lee continued to post about her former colleagues, with Mallory being made aware on Nov. 9, 2023.
Mallory filed a criminal complaint, and a warrant was issued for Lee’s arrest, with the Johnson County Clerk of Court charging Lee with harassment in the third degree, in violation of Iowa Code § 708.7(4).
Third-degree harassment is classified as a simple misdemeanor, according to the Iowa legislature, with a fine of at least $105 but not more than $855, and the court is able to impose imprisonment for up to 30 days in lieu of a fine or in addition to a fine.
On May 30, Lee was dismissed of her charges by District Associate Judge Brandon Schrock.
“The criminal complaint merely focuses on the harassment warning issued to the Defendant and the republication of that warning,” Schrock said. “The issuance of such a warning carries no real legal significance aside from placing a prospective defendant on notice their actions may be a violation of the law and may be used to establish the mens rea requirement for any subsequent communications.”