Tarter v. Raybuck, C81-1891A.

Decision Date07 February 1983
Docket NumberNo. C81-1891A.,C81-1891A.
Citation556 F. Supp. 625
PartiesDavid TARTER, et al., Plaintiffs, v. William RAYBUCK, et al., Defendants.
CourtU.S. District Court — Northern District of Ohio

George B. Vasko, Akron, Ohio, for plaintiffs.

Dennis M. Whalen, G. Frederick Compton, Jr., Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

DOWD, District Judge.

The plaintiffs, David Tarter, a student at Cuyahoga Falls High School, and his parents, Dennis and Judy Tarter, filed a complaint alleging that certain of their constitutional rights were violated by five school administrators and the Board of Education of Cuyahoga Falls1 in March of 1981. The action is brought pursuant to the provisions of 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

Neither party requested a jury. The case was tried to the Court in a bench trial and subsequently briefed by the parties.

The Court makes the following findings of fact and conclusions of law.

FINDINGS OF FACT

1. On March 3, 1981, plaintiff David Tarter was enrolled as a student in the junior class of Cuyahoga Falls High School.

2. A designated smoking area has been provided for high school students in an area known as the "pit" in a parking lot adjacent to Cuyahoga Falls High School.

3. Prior to March 3, 1981, reports had been received by the Cuyahoga Falls High School Administration regarding alleged drug use and vandalism by students while located in the "pit".

4. As a result of the reports, three administrators of the high school, David Rump, as the Administrative Principal, and defendant unit principals, William Raybuck and William Spargur, met early on the morning of March 3, 1981, and assembled in concealed surveillance positions within the high school to observe student activity in the smoking pit.

5. Rump, Raybuck and Spargur observed a number of high school students passing and smoking marijuana joints or cigarettes and the exchange of money and plastic bags which appeared to contain marijuana cigarettes or joints.

6. The plaintiff, David Tarter, was observed by defendants Raybuck and Spargur while standing in a circle of students to smoke a marijuana joint and to exchange a plastic bag and money with another Cuyahoga Falls student, Michael Cosner.

7. As a result of the observations, the defendants Rump, Raybuck and Spargur went to the pit simultaneously and directed a number of students, including the plaintiff, into the high school building.

8. Some of the students were questioned first by high school officials and then searched by police officials who arrived at the request of the high school officials.

9. David Tarter was taken to the high school clinic and questioned by the defendants Raybuck and Spargur regarding his activity in the smoking pit. Raybuck detected the odor of marijuana on the breath of David Tarter.

10. Prior to the confrontation of Tarter, the defendant William Spargur met with and questioned Michael Cosner after retrieving a marijuana joint in the area of the smoking pit, which Cosner had thrown away as Spargur approached. Cosner claimed that he had purchased marijuana cigarettes while in the smoking pit from a student whom he identified from the school yearbook as the plaintiff Tarter.

11. The defendant Spargur informed the defendant Raybuck of his conversation with Cosner prior to the Tarter confrontation.

12. Raybuck, upon confronting the plaintiff Tarter, advised Tarter of what Raybuck had seen including the Tarter-Cosner exchange and the receipt of subsequent information that Tarter had been the seller in the Tarter-Cosner exchange. Raybuck advised Tarter that they wanted to conduct a search of Tarter.

13. Tarter voluntarily complied with the request of William Raybuck and produced the contents of his pockets and boots which disclosed no evidence of marijuana.

14. In an earlier confrontation on the morning of March 3, 1981, the defendant William Spargur was handed a plastic bag of marijuana cigarettes concealed under the trousers of student Dave Richardson who had been seen engaging in an exchange of what appeared to be marijuana cigarettes with a student in a transaction separate from the Tarter-Cosner exchange.

15. Prior to the Spargur-Raybuck-Tarter confrontation in the clinic, William Raybuck was present when an officer of the Cuyahoga Falls Police Department began a search of Greg Kmet, another student observed smoking marijuana in the pit on March 3, 1981. The police officer asked Kmet to unbutton his pants. After Kmet complied, with some hesitation, and lowered his pants, the police officer and Raybuck observed a big bulge in his underwear which was patted by the police officer with ensuing crinkling-like paper sound. At that point Kmet stated, "You're not searching me any more," and bolted from the school with the police officer in pursuit.

16. Against the background of the Richardson-Kmet discoveries, Raybuck and Spargur requested Tarter to unfasten and lower his trousers for inspection. However, the plaintiff David Tarter refused to comply with the request. Raybuck and Spargur ceased their search and requested that the Cuyahoga Falls Police Department be requested to return to the school.

17. Following the observations by the principals of the students in the pit and prior to the confrontation of Tarter by Spargur and Raybuck, the defendant William Raybuck notified plaintiff Judy Tarter, the mother of David Tarter, of the observations in the pit and requested Mrs. Tarter come to the high school.

18. Dennis and Judy Tarter, parents of David Tarter, arrived at Cuyahoga Falls High School after the plaintiff David Tarter advised defendants Raybuck and Spargur that he would not permit a search of his trousers.

19. Dennis and Judy Tarter were taken to the high school clinic where David Tarter and defendants Raybuck and Spargur were located. The group was joined by the defendants Rump and Rovnyak.

20. While the plaintiffs and the defendants Raybuck, Spargur, Rovnyak and Rump were in the clinic, a discussion ensued concerning the occurrences on March 3, 1981.

21. The plaintiffs were advised that the Cuyahoga Falls Police Department had been summoned. The plaintiffs announced they were leaving the building. The plaintiffs were requested to wait but refused and immediately left the premises without interference from any of the defendants.

22. During the 1980-1981 school year, the Cuyahoga Falls City School District Board of Education had in effect a code of student conduct and discipline procedure which was made known to students in the Cuyahoga Falls High School. Under that code, the possession and/or use of drugs was prohibited and subject to suspension and/or expulsion action. The adoption and enforcement of the conduct code and discipline procedure was pursuant to and in compliance with Sections 3313.66 and 3313.661, Ohio Revised Code.

23. On March 3, 1981, David Tarter was suspended from school for ten (10) days for possession and/or use of marijuana based upon the observations of Defendants Raybuck, Spargur and Rump and the detectible odor of marijuana on the breath of David Tarter as observed by Defendant Raybuck.

24. Subsequent to the morning of March 3, 1981, David Tarter was suspended and ultimately expelled from attendance at the Cuyahoga Falls High School for the remainder of the semester for sale or purchase of drugs, use of marijuana, habitual truancy, and extensive discipline record for the 1980-1981 school year.

25. On April 1, 1981, a hearing was held before the Cuyahoga Falls City School District Board of Education on David Tarter's appeal of the expulsion decision of the Superintendent. After hearing all of the evidence presented by the Administration of the Cuyahoga Falls High School, Dennis and Judy Tarter, and their attorney, the Board of Education upheld the expulsion decision of the Superintendent. David Tarter neither attended nor testified at the expulsion appeal hearing.

26. David Tarter has not enrolled in the Cuyahoga Falls School District or any other school district after the expiration of the term of his expulsion.

27. The defendants throughout the events described above acted under the color of state law.

28. Other than for the fact of the plaintiff David Tarter's expulsion from the second semester of the 1980-81 school year, the damages suffered by the plaintiffs were nominal in nature.

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

1. The search of a student conducted by and at the request of a high school principal does not constitute an infringement of a constitutionally protected right of the student where the student consents to the search.

2. The plaintiff David Tarter having consented to the search conducted by and at the request of defendants Raybuck and Spargur, principals of Cuyahoga Falls High School, the ensuing search did not violate a constitutionally protected right of the plaintiff David Tarter.

3. The search of David Tarter conducted by the defendants Raybuck and Spargur following Raybuck and Spargur's observations of the activities in the pit and the declarations of Tarter's fellow student, Michael Cosner, was reasonable in the context of Fourth Amendment constraints. See Horton v. Goose Creek Independent School District, 677 F.2d 471, 483 (5th Cir.1982).

4. The request of the defendants Raybuck, Spargur and Rump that the plaintiffs remain in the high school clinic did not constitute false imprisonment as the mobility of the plaintiffs was not impeded or hindered, nor did the defendants act in any manner which would have reasonably given rise to the belief on the part of one or more of the plaintiffs that their mobility was impeded or hindered.

5. The expulsion of the plaintiff David Tarter from the balance of the second semester in the school year 1980-81 at Cuyahoga Falls High School was in compliance with due process of law and the provisions of R.C. § 3313.66 et seq.

6. The plaintiffs failed to prove any conduct on the part of any of the defendants that would support a judgment for either compensatory or...

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4 cases
  • Tarter v. Raybuck
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit
    • 31 Agosto 1984
    ...Education, and the trial continued. The district court issued its findings of fact and conclusions of law reported in Tarter v. Raybuck, 556 F.Supp. 625 (N.D.Ohio 1983), and rendered judgment in favor of defendants. In addition, the court found that plaintiff's cause of action was frivolous......
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    ...State in Interest of G.C., 121 N.J.Super. 108, 296 A.2d 102 (J.D.R.C.1972) ("reasonable suspicion"); Tarter v. Raybuck, 556 F.Supp. 625 (N.D.Ohio 1983) (dictum); Stern v. New Haven Community Schools, 529 F.Supp. 31 (E.D.Mich.1981); Bilbrey v. Brown, 481 F.Supp. 26 (D.Or.1979); M. v. Ball-Ch......
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    ...to demonstrate any reason for denying the attorney fees and expenses of Rufo under the provisions of 42 U.S.C. § 1988. Tarter v. Raybuck, 556 F.Supp. 625 (1983), rev'd. 742 F.2d 977 (6th Cir. 1984). The motion for an allowance of fees and expenses for Rufo's services in behalf of the defend......

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