Familias Unidas v. Briscoe

• Decision Date: 18 June 1980
• Docket Number: No. 78-1690,78-1690
• Citation: 619 F.2d 391
• Parties: FAMILIAS UNIDAS, An Unincorporated Association, and Irma Torrez et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Dolph BRISCOE et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 391

619 F.2d 391

FAMILIAS UNIDAS, An Unincorporated Association, and Irma

Torrez et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Dolph BRISCOE et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 78-1690.

United States Court of Appeals,

Fifth Circuit.

June 18, 1980.

Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Morris J. Baller, Vilma Martinez, San Francisco, Cal., Joaquin G. Avila, San Antonio, Tex., for plaintiffs-appellants.

E. Richard Larson, National Staff Counsel, American Civil Liberties Union, New York City, for amici curiae.

Joel M. Gora, Bruce J. Ennis, New York City, John A. Buckley, American Civil Liberties Foundation of Texas, Inc., Austin, Tex., for American Civil Liberties Union and Texas Civil Liberties Union.

James F. Parker, Asst. Atty. Gen., Austin, Tex., Emerson Banack, Jr., William T. Armstrong, III, San Antonio, Tex., J. C. Hinsley, Iris J. Jones, Asst. Atty. Gen., Austin, Tex., for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas.

Before COLEMAN, Chief Judge, and REAVLEY and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.

REAVLEY, Circuit Judge:

In the second appeal of this case we are called upon to consider the constitutionality, facial and as applied, of Tex.Educ.Code Ann. § 4.28 (Vernon 1972) ¹ which empowers a Texas county judge to exact public disclosure of the membership of any organization within his county that he considers to be engaged in activities designed to interfere with the peaceful operation of the public schools. For their roles in a peaceful boycott by Mexican-American students of the public schools in Hondo, Medina County, Texas, the organizational and individual appellants, Familias Unidas and Irma Torrez, complain that the strictures of section 4.28 were levelled against them in derogation of their First Amendment guarantees of freedom of association. They seek redress under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1985 in the form of a judgment declaratory of the statute's unconstitutionality and an award of $10,000 in damages for injuries suffered by Torrez as a result of the application of the allegedly unconstitutional statute. To this end, they have hailed before us the former governor of the State of Texas (charged by the state to enforce its laws while in office), Judge Jerome Decker, County Judge of Medina County, Texas (who implemented section 4.28 against appellants), and the superintendent and members of the Board of Trustees of the Hondo Independent School District (at whose behest Judge Decker acted in invoking section 4.28). Each party is sued in his individual and official capacity.

The district court, on remand from an earlier decision by another panel of this court reversing the prior dismissal of appellants' complaint, ² ruled that appellants had suffered neither infringement of constitutionally protected rights nor compensable injury from the implementation of section 4.28. The court also declined to adjudge the statute facially unconstitutional. We reverse, holding the statute to be constitutionally infirm. We do, however, agree with the determination of the district court that appellant Torrez failed to adduce evidence of compensable injury from the application of the unconstitutional statute sufficient to support an award of actual damages, but we hold that she is entitled to nominal damages and that both appellants shall receive their costs and reasonable attorney's fees.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Familias Unidas is a loosely structured organization of Mexican-American students and adults, formed in Hondo, Texas, in January, 1974, to seek reform and air grievances of that city's Chicano community with respect to the operation of the Hondo public schools. Irma Torrez, the individual plaintiff, is, and has from the group's inception publicly represented herself to be, its chairman and spokesman. At public meetings on January 29 and February 12, 1974, heavily attended by Hondo's Mexican-American community, Torrez, on behalf of the organization, presented the Hondo School Board with a list of specific requested reforms e. g., that students be allowed to speak Spanish freely, that the schools begin offering bi-lingual educational programs and Mexican culture classes, that Chicano teachers be recruited, and that the schools' dress codes be altered. The proposed reforms, however, evoked a response from the Board of Trustees that was less than satisfactory to Familias members.

In the wake of these unsuccessful attempts to achieve what its members considered reasonable reforms through more conventional means, Familias Unidas, again led by Torrez, determined to sponsor a boycott of classes by Mexican-American students. On February 14, 1974, about one hundred and fifty students walked out of the Hondo schools. Junior and senior high school students left without adult supervision. Elementary school children were removed from their classes by Torrez and two other women associated with Familias Unidas who entered the school in accordance with a prearranged plan. Thereafter, Familias Unidas, by publication and otherwise, continued to support the boycott, to bolster the parents of participating students, and to use the boycott as a vehicle for drawing attention to the conditions in the Hondo schools which it felt to be in need of remedy. Some members of the organization clearly gave more than moral support to the cause by staffing an ad hoc surrogate school, teaching and feeding the boycotting students. Whether this particular endeavor was officially instigated or sponsored by Familias is unclear, though its operation was frequently endorsed in a newsletter published by the organization.

Reaction to the boycott in the Hondo community was unfavorable, and local public sentiment mounted against the group and its efforts. Evidence at trial illustrated several instances of reprisals and threatened reprisals by private citizens against members and suspected members of Familias Unidas and those in sympathy with the boycott. Official response was no more hospitable, as Torrez and the other two women who had participated in escorting the elementary children from their school, were arrested and charged with a misdemeanor under Tex.Educ.Code Ann. § 4.33 (Vernon 1972) for disruption of school classes. ³

Hondo school officials responded to the protest with a variety of tactics designed to quell the boycott. Pursuant to Tex.Educ.Code Ann. § 4.25(a) (Vernon Supp.1980), ⁴ the parents of each boycotting student were warned in a letter that failure to require their school-aged children to attend classes according to Texas' compulsory attendance law, Tex.Educ.Code Ann. § 21.032 (Vernon 1972), would subject the parents to potentially substantial liability in fines. Local radio broadcasts reiterated this admonition each half hour. Within two weeks the Board of Trustees filed suit in state district court to enjoin Familias, its members, and others from continuing the boycott.

Most significant to this appeal, the Board requested that Medina County Judge Jerome Decker invoke Tex.Educ.Code Ann. § 4.28 (Vernon 1972) to compel disclosure of the names of all the officers and members of Familias Unidas, the organization known to be sponsoring the boycott. Accordingly, on February 26, 1974, Judge Decker forwarded to Torrez, as chairman of Familias Unidas, a letter requiring Torrez to supply to him for public disclosure the names of that group's officers, the names of its members, its usual meeting place, and other information, pursuant to section 4.28. This initial disclosure demand was withdrawn due to its technical flaw in directing that the information be forwarded to the county judge, rather than to the county clerk as required by the statute. Soon thereafter, however, on March 4, 1974, a renewed and corrected disclosure demand issued. The response of the Familias membership to this threat of public disclosure in light of the generally unfavorable climate of public sentiment and of specific instances of prior recriminations was predictable. Active participation in the organization declined noticeably following issuance of the disclosure demands.

Hoping to forestall the impending compulsory disclosure, Torrez and Familias Unidas filed suit on March 7, 1974, in federal court, naming as defendants the appellees here and seeking to have section 4.28 declared unconstitutional, to have its implementation enjoined, and to obtain damages for the members of the organization as a class, based on the instant application of the statute. Soon after the filing of this suit, the boycott ended. About this same time, on March 13, 1974, Judge Decker withdrew the demand for disclosure. ⁵ No response had been made to the disclosure demand, nor had sanctions for noncompliance been imposed pursuant to section 4.28(d). The Hondo School Board of Trustees followed Judge Decker's lead on October 1, 1974, formally resolving against the future use of the sanctions of section 4.28.

Appellants, nonetheless, pressed their action. In so doing, they were met with a set of interrogatories posed by appellees that would have required disclosure of the same membership information that appellants sought to shield by their court action. These inquiries may have been justified with respect to class action questions and necessary to establish a foundation for investigating the existence of actual injuries needed to justify the class claim for damages. Accordingly, appellants determined to eliminate the need to answer the offensive interrogatories by amending their complaint to eliminate all class action and damage claims on behalf of the organization, and to seek only injunctive and declaratory relief, plus $10,000 in damages for Torrez, personally. Nonetheless, on December 4, 1974, the district court dismissed appellants' action as a discovery sanction, pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 37(b)(2) (C), for failure to answer the interrogatories.

On appeal, another panel of this court ruled the dismissal to...