Cardinale v. Washington Technical Institute

• Decision Date: 25 June 1974
• Docket Number: No. 73-1672,73-1672
• Citation: 163 U.S.App.D.C. 123,500 F.2d 791
• Parties: Licia T. M. CARDINALE, Appellant, v. WASHINGTON TECHNICAL INSTITUTE et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 791

500 F.2d 791

163 U.S.App.D.C. 123

Licia T. M. CARDINALE, Appellant, v. WASHINGTON TECHNICAL INSTITUTE et al.

No. 73-1672.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued April 22, 1974.

Decided June 25, 1974.

Richard J. Medalie, Washington, D.C., for appellant.

Leo N. Gorman, Washington, D.C., with whom C. Francis Murphy, Corp. Counsel, and Richard W. Barton, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Washington, D.C., were on the brief for appellee.

Before FAHY, Senior Circuit Judge, and McGOWAN and WILKEY, Circuit judges.

McGOWAN, Circuit Judge.

The only question presented by this appeal is whether appellant's complaint sufficed to invoke the jurisdiction of the United States District Court. Finding that it did, we reverse.

I

Appellant was a nontenured teacher at the Washington Technical Institute, a District of Columbia institution of higher learning. In May of 1970, she was given notice that the Institution proposed to end her employment in order to accommodate a reduction in the work force necessitated by financial stringencies. The termination date was subsequently extended in order to provide two weeks notice, and her employment ceased on June 15, 1970. At no point, appellant alleges, was she given a hearing or a formal statement of reasons why she, rather than persons of lesser seniority, was selected for termination.

Following unsuccessful negotiations for reinstatement, appellant filed suit in the District Court, asserting that her dismissal violated Section 1 of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 1983, as well as rights guaranteed to her by the First and Fifth Amendments. Jurisdiction was invoked under 28 U.S.C. 1331 and 1343. Additionally, appellant asserted two claims based on breach of contract and allegedly falling within the court's ancillary jurisdiction.

The Supreme Court's subsequent decision in District of Columbia v. Carter, 409 U.S. 418, 93 S.Ct. 602, 34 L.Ed.2d 613 (1973), made it clear that appellant could not maintain an action founded upon Section 1983, as to which 28 U.S.C. 1343 is the jurisdictional counterpart. She continued, however, to pursue her constitutional and contractual claims. Thereafter, on defendant's motion, the District Court certified the case to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia under 11 D.C.Code 922(b).

Except for certain exceptions not pertinent to this case, Section 501 of Title 11 of the D.C.Code invests the District Court with a general jurisdiction over civil matters with an amount in controversy exceeding $50,000. The life of that jurisdictional grant is expressly limited to a thirty-month period following the effective date of the District of Columbia Court Reorganization Act of 1970. Likewise, Section 922(b) of Title 11 grants the District Court the power to certify actions to the Superior Court during that same transitional period if it appears to the court's satisfaction that the case will not justify a judgment in excess of $50,000, and 'the action does not otherwise invoke the jurisdiction of the court.' 11 D.C.Code 922(b). The basic purpose of Section 922(b) is, thus, to enable the District Court to certify cases to the Superior Court upon a determination that the plaintiff has improperly attempted to invoke the District Court's general jurisdiction, and that no

independent head of federal jurisdiction exists.

In the instant case, the District Court found itself lacking in general jurisdiction for want of the requisite jurisdictional amount; and it concluded that there was no basis for invocation of its purely federal jurisdiction. Appellant does not now challenge the former finding, and the sole question on appeal is whether the complaint states a claim sufficient to invest the District Court with jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1331. ¹

II

Appellant maintains that the recent Supreme Court decisions in Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972), and Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972), clearly indicate that her complaint is responsive to 28 U.S.C. 1331. Like the instant case, both Roth and Sindermann presented procedural due process challenges to refusals by public educational institutions to rehire nontenured faculty members. In each case the plaintiff-teachers alleged, as did appellant in the instant case, that the nonrenewal of their teaching contracts without prior provision of a statement of reasons or an opportunity for a pre-termination hearing violated their rights of procedural due process under the United States Constitution.

Both Roth and Sindermann arose as appeals from district court grants of motions for summary judgment against the respondent teachers. In Roth, supra, at 577, 92 S.Ct. at 2709, Justice Stewart summarized the salient constitutional principle for determining who might properly bring a challenge based on deprivation of property interests without procedural due process of law:

Certain attributes of 'property' interests protected by procedural due process emerge . . .. To have a property interest in a benefit, a person clearly must have more than an abstract need or desire for it. He must have more than a unilateral expectation of it. He must, instead, have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it. It is a purpose of the ancient institution of property to protect those claims upon which people rely in their daily lives, reliance that must not be arbitrarily undermined. It is a purpose of the constitutional right of a hearing to provide an opportunity for a person to vindicate those claims.

Applying this principle, the Court held that the district court had properly granted summary judgment in Roth but that the teacher in Sindermann had alleged a legitimate claim of entitlement to continued employment sufficient to enable him to survive a motion for summary judgment.

In both cases the Court looked to the complainant's asserted contractual rights, and to the general policies and understandings existing at the respective institutions, in order to determine whether the claims of entitlement to continued employment were legitimate. In Roth, the Court concluded that the terms of the appointment in issue, and the statutes and regulations governing it, did not provide any basis for a legitimate expectancy of continued employment, since they clearly indicated that the employment was only for one year and that any determination to rehire was left 'to the unfettered discretion of university officials.' Roth, supra, at 567, 92 S.Ct. at 2704.

As in Roth, the complainant in Sindermann lacked formal contractual or tenure security in continued employment. That fact alone was not dispositive, however, for there had been alleged the existence of binding understandings fostered by the college administration which had led the complainant and other nontenured faculty members legitimately to anticipate continued employment. The Court ruled that these allegations were such as to preclude summary judgment, and that the complainant was entitled to try to establish the legitimacy of his expectancy and thereby lay the foundation for his claim of deprivation of procedural due process.

The Sindermann allegations were that (1) a provision that had been in the college's official guide for many years offered a form of de facto tenure on which the complainant and other members of the faculty had relied, and (2) guidelines promulgated by the coordinating board of the state college and university system also gave rise to a legitimate expectancy in some form of job tenure. These allegations, in the opinion of the Court, distinguished Sindermann's case from that of Roth, for these allegations appeared to suggest the existence of 'such rules or mutually explicit understandings that support his claim of entitlement to the benefit' and thereby give rise to a claim under the Constitution to the protections of procedural due process. Sindermann, supra, 408 U.S. at 601, 92 S.Ct. at 2699. Sindermann's allegations, if proven, would 'obligate college officials to grant a hearing at his request, where he could be informed of the grounds for his nonretention and challenge their sufficiency.'

Id. at 408 U.S. 603, 92 S.Ct. at 2700.

As the District Court recognized in the case before us, appellant's amended claims for relief set forth allegations quite similar to those held to survive an adverse motion for summary judgment in Sindermann. Appellant alleged that one provision of the Washington Technical Institute's official statement entitled Policies, which had been adopted by the WTI Board and circulated to all WTI teachers and academic staff, provided that 'for purposes of retention of employment in the event of a reduction in the size of the budget appropriations, actions that result in a reduction of faculty, seniority shall be institute-wide,' and that, in any event, any faculty member in his field who is less senior than he is . . ..' Plaintiff's Amended Complaint, PP26 and 29; JA at 19. Moreover, appellant alleged that another section of the same WTI Policies defined 'faculty' to include instructors and Development Advisors. Id. P28.

Appellant, who was hired as an instructor and later promoted to the position of Development Advisor, claimed to be first in seniority among those in the social science field, and generally to have seniority on an institute-wide basis over all other faculty members who had commenced employment after April 8, 1969. Id. PP11, 12, 13, and 30; JA at 16, 19. Additionally, appellant alleged that another section of the same WTI Policies provided that probationary faculty members should be afforded notice of a decision to terminate employment no later than March 1, and that failure to provide such notice by that date would entitle the probationary faculty member to employment for an additional year. Id. P32; JA at 20. Appellant finally alleged that she had justifiably relied on these various representations, and that her termination...