Eckerd v. Indian River Sch. Dist.

• Citation: 475 F. Supp. 1350
• Decision Date: 29 August 1979
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 77-198.
• Parties: Richard E. ECKERD, Plaintiff, v. INDIAN RIVER SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Delaware

475 F. Supp. 1350

Richard E. ECKERD, Plaintiff, v. INDIAN RIVER SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 77-198.

United States District Court, D. Delaware.

August 29, 1979.

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Sheldon N. Sandler, Bader, Dorsey & Kreshtool, Wilmington, Del., for plaintiff.

John A. Sergovic, Jr., Tunnell & Raysor, Georgetown, Del., for defendants.

OPINION

MURRAY M. SCHWARTZ, District Judge.

The plaintiff in this action, Richard E. Eckerd, was a tenured teacher employed for eight years as a music instructor for the Indian River School District. At the end of the 1976-77 school year, Mr. Eckerd was notified that he was being discharged for "willful and persistent insubordination," within the meaning of the Delaware teacher termination statute, 14 Del.C. § 1401 et seq.¹ He requested a hearing before the Indian River Board of Education, in accordance with his rights under 14 Del.C. § 1413, and, after the hearing, the Board confirmed the plaintiff's discharge. Mr. Eckerd has sued the School District, the Board of Education, and the individual members of the School Board (in their individual and representative capacities), alleging that the termination violates his substantive and procedural rights to due process, as well as his First Amendment right to free speech. Furthermore, plaintiff contends that because he was not guilty of willful and persistent insubordination, his discharge violates the provisions of the Delaware teacher termination statute, as well as his rights under the collective bargaining agreement between the Indian River Board of Education and the Indian River Education Association. The merits of Mr. Eckerd's claims were tried to this Court on January 8-10, 1979, and post-trial briefs were subsequently filed. Oral argument was held on May 1, 1979, and thereafter supplemental briefing was permitted. This opinion constitutes the Court's Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law as required by Rule 52 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

I. BACKGROUND FACTS

The plaintiff began his employment with the Indian River School District in the fall of 1969, when he was hired as a music instructor and assigned to the Selbyville Middle School. Two years later he was transferred to Indian River High School, where, until his discharge in the spring of 1977, he served as a music instructor with responsibilities for the school's band and choral music programs. The problems upon which the Board relied to justify Mr. Eckerd's termination apparently began in the fall of 1974,² and led to a deteriorating relationship between the plaintiff and his immediate supervisor, Mr. Elmer R. Knowles, principal of the Indian River High School. The evidence adduced at trial indicated that by November, 1976 Mr. Knowles had informed the plaintiff of his intention to document Mr. Eckerd's unsatisfactory performance at every opportunity and to recommend his termination.³ Such a recommendation was indeed made at the end of that school year and forwarded to the Board of Education, which sent Mr. Eckerd a letter dated March 24, 1977 informing him of the Board's intent to terminate his services effective June 30, 1977.⁴ The letter told Mr. Eckerd that he was being terminated for "willful and persistent insubordination," and it explained that he could request a hearing before the Board within ten days after receipt of the letter. Mr. Eckerd indeed requested such a hearing, which was scheduled for April 18, 1977.⁵ He thereafter requested a continuance of the hearing,⁶ which was denied on the grounds that 14 Del.C. § 1413 mandates that the hearing be held within 21 days after the date of receipt of a written request for hearing.⁷ The Board apparently concluded that Mr. Eckerd did not have the power to waive this time limit. Prior to the hearing, plaintiff's counsel, Sheldon N. Sandler, requested that the Board provide him with a more detailed notice of the charges against Mr. Eckerd, along with an explanation of the evidence that would be presented in support of these charges, and the names of witnesses expected to testify on behalf of the Administration.⁸ Although this request was forwarded to the attorney who presented the case on behalf of the Administration at the public hearing,⁹ the information requested was not provided prior to the scheduled hearing.

Mr. Eckerd's hearing convened as scheduled on April 18, 1977. Appearing on behalf of the plaintiff, Mr. Sandler initially requested an opportunity to conduct a voir dire of the Board members in order to determine whether any of them had previous knowledge of the charges against Mr. Eckerd or evidenced any bias against his position.¹⁰ The Board's chairman, Chester V. Townsend, III, declined to permit the voir dire but merely asserted that the Board would hear the evidence impartially.¹¹ He gave each member of the Board an opportunity to recuse himself from participating in the proceedings, and none did so.¹² Thereafter, the Board of Education called its only witness, Mr. Knowles, whose direct testimony consumed the entire first session of the hearing. A second session was scheduled for April 25, 1975, and at that time Mr. Sandler was permitted to cross-examine Mr. Knowles and to call witnesses on Mr. Eckerd's behalf. Throughout the two evenings of hearing, the Board was advised by attorney William Swain Lee, and Mr. Lee also participated in the Board's executive session at which the final decision to terminate Mr. Eckerd was reached.¹³ After the close of the hearing, but prior to the executive session, counsel for the Administration and Mr. Eckerd were permitted to file briefs in support of their positions.¹⁴

Shortly after the second evening of hearing, the Board met in executive session and discussed the evidence that had been presented to them. Mr. Lee attended in an advisory capacity but did not advance his opinion as to whether the termination should be confirmed,¹⁵ and Superintendent Proudfoot, along with administrative assistant Graham Dill, attended in a nonparticipatory capacity.¹⁶ At the end of the meeting, a majority of the members of the Board in attendance voted to terminate Mr. Eckerd but did not consider or agree upon a specific list of factual findings in support of their decision.¹⁷ Mr. Lee was asked to prepare a written decision, but he declined to do so because of his pressing work load and urged the Board to write a short decision themselves.¹⁸ The task, however, was assigned to Mr. Sergovic, attorney for the Administration, who never consulted with the Board before drafting the decision that was ultimately issued.¹⁹ Rather, he spent approximately one and one-half hours consulting with Mr. Dill about the evidence adduced in the hearings, and then drafted a document containing nine findings of fact, which was adopted without change as the Board's decision.²⁰

In its findings of fact,²¹ the Board concluded that Mr. Eckerd violated known school district policies concerning attendance at pre-announced faculty meetings, attendance of the band at all scheduled or rescheduled football games, reporting of failing grades, deposits of school monies received by a teacher, security of equipment storage areas, and participation of band students in regular band activities. The decision also concluded that Mr. Eckerd had disobeyed specific directives from his superiors to provide a list of students taking part in the County Chorus program. Finally, the last finding of fact held that:

Written responses of Mr. Eckerd to numerous memoranda written by the Administration to notify Mr. Eckerd to follow specific directives and/or general rules and policies of the district indicate: (a) that Mr. Eckerd was critical of the Administration, and (b) that Mr. Eckerd exhibited a defiant attitude toward his immediate supervisors, the supervisory staff of the Indian River School District and the Indian River Board of Education.²²

The details of these findings, along with the specifics of the evidence introduced at the Board hearing in support of them, will be discussed more fully in connection with the disposition of the plaintiff's claims, to which the Court now turns its attention.

II. CLAIMS PRESENTED

As previously noted, the plaintiff challenges the propriety of his termination on a variety of federal constitutional and state law grounds. Before addressing the merits of these claims, it is necessary for the Court to dispose of the defendants' contention that the state law questions should not be considered, and to determine the order in which the claims are to be adjudicated. The plaintiff urges that his claims under the Delaware teacher termination statute²³ and under the collective bargaining agreement then in effect²⁴ are cognizable by this Court under the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction. Plaintiff's claims all arose from a common nucleus of operative fact and were amenable to efficient trial in a single proceeding. United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 16 L.Ed.2d 218 (1966). Indeed, the testimony and documentary evidence relevant to the state law claims were almost coterminous with that bearing on the federal constitutional claims, and because the questions were to some degree intertwined, a separate trial on the state and federal claims would have been extraordinarily wasteful. Furthermore, as will presently become apparent, the Court considers the federal claims raised by the plaintiff to be substantial ones that independently support federal jurisdiction and that are not raised as a mere stratagem to acquire federal jurisdiction over the state law questions. The defendants' citation to Trivits v. Wilmington Institute, 417 F.Supp. 160 (D.Del.1976), rev'd, 574 F.2d 739 (3d Cir. 1978), is inapposite. In Trivits the district court dismissed the state law claims because they were based on a different factual complex than the constitutional claims and because (even assuming that the court had power to decide...