Wallace by Wallace v. Batavia School Dist. 101

• Decision Date: 19 October 1995
• Docket Number: No. 94-3943,94-3943
• Citation: 68 F.3d 1010
• Parties: , 104 Ed. Law Rep. 132 Heather WALLACE, a minor, by her mother and next friend, Phyllis WALLACE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The BATAVIA SCHOOL DISTRICT 101, a municipal corporation, and James Cliffe, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 1010

68 F.3d 1010

64 USLW 2284, 104 Ed. Law Rep. 132

Heather WALLACE, a minor, by her mother and next friend, Phyllis WALLACE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The BATAVIA SCHOOL DISTRICT 101, a municipal corporation, and James Cliffe, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 94-3943.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued April 20, 1995.

Decided Oct. 19, 1995.

Leonard J. Wojtecki (argued) and Scott Courtin, Truemper, Hollingsworth, Wojecki, Courtin & Ruddy, Aurora, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Peter K. Wilson, Jr., Bernard K. Weiler, Gary K. Mickey (argued), and Steven A. Andersson, Mickey, Wilson, Weiler & Renzi, Aurora, IL, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before KANNE and ROVNER, Circuit Judges, and SHABAZ, District Judge. ^*

KANNE, Circuit Judge.

This case affords a view of an unfortunately common situation faced by teachers in many public schools today. The incident occurred in a suburban community west of Chicago in Kane County, Illinois. The undisputed facts are as follows.

When business teacher James Cliffe returned to his Batavia High School classroom after a few minutes' absence, two sixteen-year-old female students, Heather Wallace and Kim Fairbanks, were facing each other screaming and calling each other "fucking bitches." Cliffe ordered both girls to take their seats and be quiet. That tactic didn't work. Wallace sat down but stood up again when Fairbanks approached her yelling, "I'm going to kick your ass right here and now." Cliffe again told both students to sit down. Wallace did so, but Fairbanks attempted to take a swing at Wallace. Cliffe stepped between the two girls. While facing Fairbanks, Cliffe told Wallace to get her books and leave the classroom.

Wallace gathered up her books and began to walk out of the classroom--slowly. Cliffe reached over another student's desk and took Wallace by her left wrist to speed her exit. As Cliffe pulled Wallace, she bent over the desk. Cliffe told Wallace to hurry up and grasped her right elbow to move her out of the classroom. Wallace stopped her movement toward the door and told Cliffe to let go. When Cliffe released his hold on Wallace, she walked out of the classroom and slammed the door. A fight indeed did occur later in the day. Both girls were suspended from the school for three days.

PROCEEDINGS BELOW

Wallace claims the contact with Cliffe caused injury to her elbow. Through her mother, she sued Cliffe and the Batavia School Corporation under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, alleging violations of her Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable seizures and her Fourteenth Amendment right to substantive due process. The district court granted defendants' motion for summary judgment, and Wallace appeals that ruling.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review grants of summary judgment de novo. Cornfield by Lewis v. School Dist. No. 230, 991 F.2d 1316, 1320 (7th Cir.1993). "The non-moving party cannot rest on the pleadings alone, but must identify specific facts to establish that there is a genuine triable issue." Id. Wallace

must make a showing sufficient to establish any essential element of her cause of action for which she will bear the burden of persuasion at trial. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2552-53, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). She must show that there is more than merely metaphysical doubt as to the material facts. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 586, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 1356, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986). If we do not find evidence sufficient to sustain a jury verdict in favor of Wallace, we will affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment. Cornfield, 991 F.2d at 1320; see Edwards ex rel. Edwards v. Rees, 883 F.2d 882, 884 (10th Cir.1989) (finding summary judgment appropriate where court concluded that facts taken in light most favorable to nonmovant did not amount to unreasonable seizure in school).

ANALYSIS

Fourth Amendment in the School Context

Wallace theorizes that Cliffe violated her Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures when he grabbed her elbow and wrist. The Fourth Amendment, which protects individuals' liberty and privacy interests, principally applies in the context of law enforcement, preventing police from searching private areas without a warrant absent exigent circumstances and from seizing suspected criminals unreasonably. See Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 673 n. 42, 97 S.Ct. 1401, 1414 n. 42, 51 L.Ed.2d 711 (1977) (noting "[t]he principal concern of the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures is with intrusions on privacy in the course of criminal investigations").

The Supreme Court, however, has applied the Fourth Amendment's protection to searches of students by school administrators at public schools. New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 105 S.Ct. 733, 83 L.Ed.2d 720 (1985). T.L.O. instructs that teachers and administrators must respect students' privacy interests, but that they may search students where it is reasonable to do so under the circumstances, a lower threshold of suspicion than is generally applicable to police work. Id. at 341, 105 S.Ct. at 742.

The Court crafted its decision in T.L.O. around the role public schools play in furthering "publicly mandated educational and disciplinary policies." Id. at 336, 105 S.Ct. at 740. The Court also recognized that "the preservation of order and a proper educational environment requires close supervision of schoolchildren, as well as the enforcement of rules against conduct that would be perfectly permissible if undertaken by an adult." Id. at 339, 105 S.Ct. at 741.

Immediate, effective action is sometimes needed to deal with the frequent occurrence of events that call for discipline. Id. The diminished protection of the Fourth Amendment for public schoolchildren is proper, the Court reasoned in T.L.O., because classroom discipline and school order are crucial to effective education, and, moreover, the infusion of schools with drugs and the related escalation of violence make order and discipline all the harder to maintain. Id. at 339, 105 S.Ct. at 741. ¹

Although T.L.O. dealt only with searches, several circuit courts have relied upon it to find that seizures of students by teachers also come within the ambit of the Fourth Amendment. In Edwards, the Tenth Circuit applied the Fourth Amendment to the physical seizure of a student, then added that what was reasonable was informed by the school environment. 883 F.2d at 884. And the Fifth Circuit recently concluded that the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable seizures protects students from improper disciplinary actions of public school officials. Hassan v. Lubbock Indep. Sch. Dist., 55 F.3d 1075 (5th Cir.1995). Again, the reasonableness of the teacher's actions was examined in light of the special relationship between teachers and students. Id.

The defendants urge us to reject this line of interpretation and to find that there can be no Fourth Amendment violation in this case. The rationale explained in United States v. Attson, 900 F.2d 1427 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 961, 111 S.Ct. 393, 112 L.Ed.2d 403 (1990) defendants argue, shields public school officials from the application of the Fourth Amendment unless the school officials act in conjunction with law enforcement agents with the purpose of enforcing the law.

The general Attson rule is that non-law enforcement government actors come within the purview of the Fourth Amendment only when their searches or seizures of individuals have no other purpose but to aid the government's investigatory or administrative functions. ² Id. That test, applied with regard to a seizure, defendants claim, places Cliffe's conduct outside the purview of the Fourth Amendment because Cliffe was not acting on behalf of the police.

Attson observed, however, that T.L.O. had extended the scope of the Fourth Amendment's search protection to schools in light of the investigatory and administrative nature of school searches. Id. at 1432. T.L.O. noted that school searches retain their investigatory and administrative nature even if they are designed only to yield evidence of violations of school rules and not of criminal laws. 469 U.S. at 334-35, 105 S.Ct. at 738-39.

Here, the defendants do not dispute that Cliffe ordered Wallace out of the classroom and grabbed her in order to prevent a fight and restore order and discipline. This action of classroom control can be characterized as an administrative function designed to effectuate school policies and standards. Specifically, Batavia School District # 101 policy forbids corporal punishment but allows teachers to restrain students physically in order to protect the students, others, or property from physical harm. Under these circumstances, we conclude that Attson does not provide an avenue around T.L.O.; its rationale does not shield the defendants from the application of the Fourth Amendment.

Nevertheless, while in school or under the supervision of school authorities, public school students are in a unique constitutional position enjoying less than the full constitutional liberty protection afforded those persons not in school. We know that students do not completely surrender their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate, Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Community Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 506, 89 S.Ct. 733, 736, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969), but "the nature of those rights is what is appropriate for children in school." Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, --- U.S. ----, ----, 115 S.Ct. 2386, 2392, 132 L.Ed.2d 564 (1995).

With regard to students' liberty rights under the Fourth Amendment, we are presented with the basic concept that the law compels students to attend school, which deprives them of a level of freedom of mobility. Once under the control of the school, students' movement and location are subject to the ordering and direction of teachers and administrators. "Unemancipated minors lack some of the...