Samsel v. Desoto Cnty. Sch. Dist.

• Decision Date: 17 March 2017
• Docket Number: CAUSE NO. 3:14–CV–00113–MPM–SAA
• Parties: Richard Scott SAMSEL, Plaintiff v. DESOTO COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT; Allyson Killough, in Her Individual Capacity and Official Capacity ; Superintendent Milton Kuykendall Defendants
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Mississippi

242 F.Supp.3d 496

Richard Scott SAMSEL, Plaintiff

v.DESOTO COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT; Allyson Killough, in Her Individual Capacity and Official Capacity ; Superintendent Milton Kuykendall Defendants

CAUSE NO. 3:14–CV–00113–MPM–SAA

United States District Court, N.D. Mississippi, Oxford Division, Oxford Division.

Signed March 17, 2017

Jim D. Waide, III, Ronnie Lee Woodruff, Rachel Pierce Waide, Waide & Associates, PA, Tupelo, MS, for Plaintiff.

Todd P. Photopulos, Butler Snow LLP, Memphis, TN, William Mackin Johnson, Butler Snow LLP, Ridgeland, MS, for Defendants.

ORDER

Michael P. Mills, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE, NORTHERN DISTRICT OF MISSISSIPPI

This cause comes before the court on the motion of defendants Desoto County School District, Desoto County School District Superintendent Milton Kuykendall and Olive Branch High School ("OBHS") Principal Allyson Killough, for summary judgment, pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 56. This court, having considered the memoranda and submissions of the parties, concludes that the motion should be granted in part and denied in part.

Introduction

This is a case, arising out of the firing of a high school football coach, which has aroused passionate disagreement among Desoto County residents. This court's opinion today does not attempt to answer the question of whether plaintiff's January 2014 firing as OBHS athletic director and head football coach was the "correct" one. Rather, this court must decide a much narrower issue: whether the decision to fire plaintiff was a lawful one. As discussed below, plaintiff's contract with the school district allowed him to be terminated as coach and athletic director even without good cause. Moreover, plaintiff offers insufficient proof that his firing violated federal law, including provisions barring age discrimination and retaliation for engaging in protected speech. This court therefore concludes that plaintiff's claims arising out of his termination (and failure to be rehired) should be dismissed. However, this court concludes that triable jury issues exist regarding plaintiff's state law defamation claim against Kuykendall, which it discusses below.

Analysis

I. Does plaintiff have any federal claims arising out of his termination as athletic director and football coach?

Prior to discussing plaintiff's specific claims arising out of his termination (and failure to be rehired), this court will first evaluate some of the conflicting evidence in this case regarding exactly why he was fired as athletic director and coach at OBHS. In their briefing, the parties spend considerable energy discussing whether plaintiff was fired for, relatively speaking, more or less "noble" reasons. This is unsurprising, since both sides understandably wish to be viewed as "wearing the white hat" in this case. After carefully reviewing the record, however, this court harbors no suspicion that any legally-protected right was implicated by plaintiff's firing. That being the case, this court will not engage in a lengthy discussion of whether plaintiff's firing was the result of a more laudable motive such as concerns about his job performance or a less laudable one such as small-town politics. Neither conclusion would justify a federal court's interjecting itself into a school district's decision to fire a football coach operating under an at-will contract. This court will, instead, focus on the legal requirements of the specific claims asserted by plaintiff and determine whether genuine issues of fact exist regarding those claims.

In seeking to justify their decision to fire plaintiff, defendants have submitted a lengthy list of alleged misconduct and/or performance deficiencies on his part, to wit:

Plaintiff, Scott Samsel, claims that the Defendants violated various state and federal laws by removing him as Head Football Coach and Athletic Director of the Olive Branch High School ("OBHS") and transferring him to another school within the DeSoto County School District (the "School District"). Samsel claims that his allegedly protected speech, association, and age were reasons for his removal; this is not true. In reality, Principal Allyson Killough decided to remove Samsel from his supplemental positions, which left his licensed teaching contract intact, based on information that he had engaged in multiple instances of misconduct. Killough believed that such misconduct, if allowed to continue, would undermine her authority and continue to disrupt the working and learning environment at OBHS. * * *

Killough decided to remove Samsel due to multiple issues reported by numerous individuals, including without limitation reports that Samsel: (1) made equipment purchases that violated the School District's policies; (2) used vulgar and offensive language to the football players and coaches to refer to Principal Killough; (3) interrupted a middle school football game to argue with the referees; (4) improperly used the school time and facilities for personal business; and (5) engaged in questionable conduct regarding the official athletic rules. Regardless of Samsel's protected conduct, the Defendants would have made the same decision to remove his supplemental duties and transfer him.

[Defendants' brief at 1–2].

With regard to the third allegation, defendants write that:

Shortly before Killough became Principal, she heard that Samsel had interrupted an Olive Branch Middle School football game to argue with the referees. According to witness reports, Samsel belligerently yelled at the referees and marched down to the field to argue with them about a call. Samsel, however, was not a coach of the middle school team. When the referees asked Samsel what gave him the right to question their calls, he responded that he was the Athletic Director of OBHS. The referees ejected Samsel from the game, and a police officer walked Samsel from the field.

[Defendants' brief at 4–5 (record citations omitted) ]. Plaintiff has contested many of these allegations, but this court's review of the record suggests that they may have considerable substance. This court need not make a definitive finding in this regard since, once again, it is presently concerned with the issue of whether federal law may have been implicated by plaintiff's firing, not whether he "got a raw deal" by being removed as AD and coach.

While defendants thus point to several instances of alleged misconduct by plaintiff, there is also evidence that other factors, including small-town politics, may have played a role as well.¹ In so concluding, this court finds plaintiff's deposition testimony to be particularly enlightening. Indeed, when given a chance at his deposition to speak freely regarding why he believed he was fired, plaintiff placed heavy emphasis on what appear to be issues of local and office politics. Most notably, plaintiff appeared to suggest that his firing was due, in large part, to the removal of his "lifetime friend" Kyle Brigance as OBHS principal near the start of the 2013 school year. [Samsel depo. at 20]. Plaintiff testified that, soon afterward (and apparently before Killough was even selected as the new principal in November), he began hearing rumors in the community that he would be next:

A. [F]or a couple of months prior to December, all I'd heard or basically since from the time Brigance was removed, all I'd heard that I was next. And that was very distracting.

Q. All you heard. When did those rumors start?

A. Right after Brigance was removed.

[Samsel depo. at 61–62].

In his deposition, plaintiff was quite emphatic that there was a common public perception that his days as coach were numbered after his friend (and apparent protector) Brigance was removed as principal. For example, in discussing a meeting he had with the Olive Branch mayor shortly before he was fired, plaintiff testified that:

Q. You didn't—earlier in your testimony today you were talking about people coming to you and coming to others and expressing their concern that or stating that you would be next. You're the next to be fired and that sort of thing. So I'm wondering if you talked about those rumors with the mayor?

A. I don't remember that being a part of the conversation, but I know he was well aware of those rumors.

Q. How do you know he was well aware of those rumors?

A. Everybody was.

[Samsel depo. at 79].

This court finds plaintiff's deposition testimony to be quite interesting, since it suggests that there may have been factors at work in his termination which were known to the Olive Branch rumor mill but which are less than clear to this court. Whatever these factors might have been, plaintiff gave little, if any, indication that any federally-protected right was the reason for the common perception that he would be fired after Brigance's removal. As discussed below, plaintiff did testify that, after initially positive interactions between Killough and himself, their relationship soured after she had heard reports that he was not working well with "younger" coaches and that this gave her an age-based reason to want him fired. Assuming this actually occurred, however, it would have been well after Brigance's removal as principal. The same is true with regard to the alleged protected speech which, plaintiff contends, motivated his firing as football coach.

In light of the foregoing, this court can only regard plaintiff's testimony as harming his federal claims. This court notes parenthetically that, even if the removal of plaintiff's friend, Brigance, was a prime factor in his termination, this does not necessarily mean that it was unjustified. Indeed, as far as this court is aware, perhaps plaintiff would have been justifiably fired long ago if he had not had Brigance protecting him. Perhaps not. What does seem clear is that the role Brigance's removal played in plaintiff's firing has no apparent connection to his federal claims.

In his deposition, plaintiff placed great emphasis upon, and was obviously aggrieved by, an alleged instance of office politics...