Wells v. Doland, 83-4005

• Citation: 711 F.2d 670
• Decision Date: 08 August 1983
• Docket Number: No. 83-4005,83-4005
• Parties: 12 Ed. Law Rep. 324 George A. WELLS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Jack V. DOLAND, et al., Defendants-Appellees. Summary Calendar.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)

Page 670

711 F.2d 670

12 Ed. Law Rep. 324

George A. WELLS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Jack V. DOLAND, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 83-4005

Summary Calendar.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

Aug. 8, 1983.

Sumpter & Schrumpf, Charles Schrumpf, Oliver Schrumpf, Sulphur, La., for plaintiff-appellant.

Winston G. DeCuir, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baton Rouge, La., for defendants-appellees.

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

Before REAVLEY, GARWOOD and JOLLY, Circuit Judges.

E. GRADY JOLLY, Circuit Judge:

The appellant George A. Wells filed this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 suit against the President of McNeese State University and other university and Board of Trustees officials, requesting a determination that he is a tenured professor with the university, reinstatement, back pay and punitive damages, and a hearing to clear his name for alleged damage to his reputation incurred during his termination. Wells additionally sought a declaration that the university tenure requirements violated the fourteenth amendment. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants on all issues after finding that Wells, a non-tenured professor, had no property interest in continued employment and thus had no right to a hearing, and that the tenure requirements comported with the fourteenth amendment. Wells has timely appealed this finding. We affirm the judgment as to the tenure issues but must remand for further proceedings on the damage to reputation issue.

I.

The appellant George A. Wells was hired as an assistant professor and coordinator of the Criminal Justice Program at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in the fall of 1975. At that time the tenure regulations of the Louisiana Board of Trustees for State Colleges and Universities allowed assistant professors to attain tenure by five consecutive years of service. The regulations further provided, however, that "if a faculty member breaks his consecutive years of teaching by a sabbatical leave or a leave without pay, the non-tenured faculty member must begin anew his period of five consecutive years." The tenure policies were changed in 1976 to allow an assistant professor to earn tenure in seven consecutive years during which leaves without pay or sabbatical leaves would not interrupt the seven-year period. Wells taught during the academic years 1975-76 and 1976-77. During 1977-78 Wells took a one-year leave of absence without pay to work on his doctorate degree. The leave was approved by the Louisiana Board of Trustees. Wells resumed his teaching duties in 1978 and continued to teach until he was issued a terminal contract by the university in August 1981.

Wells was recommended for tenure on two separate occasions at the request of the then-dean of the School of Humanities, John M. Norris, Jr. Pursuant to the requests, the recommendations from Dr. C.W. Fogleman, then head of the Department of Social Sciences, were made on July 14, 1978, and July 22, 1980. In the fall of 1980, Richey A. Novak replaced Dean Norris as the new Dean of Liberal Arts, ¹ and in the summer of 1981, Dr. Fogleman was replaced by Dr. John Vile as head of the Department of Social Sciences. Dr. Vile notified Wells shortly thereafter that he intended to issue him a terminal contract. ² The terminal contract was issued August 1981 by Jack V. Doland, President of McNeese University, and Richey A. Novak, Dean of Liberal Arts, on the recommendation of Dr. Vile, and was approved by the Louisiana Board of Trustees.

Vile's reasons for not recommending tenure for Wells included Wells' lack of a terminal degree, complaints about Wells' teaching and lack of leadership, and Wells' poor reputation in the law enforcement community. ³

Wells sought a review of the defendants' decision to deny him tenure by appealing to the McNeese Merit, Promotion and Tenure Committee. The only issue discussed at that hearing was whether Wells was tenured. The committee found that he was not and affirmed the defendants' decision. Wells subsequently appealed to the Louisiana Board of Trustees which denied the appeal.

Wells filed the instant suit April 30, 1982. His complaint averred that he had been denied due process because the reasons given for his termination attacked "his good name, reputation, and integrity so as to possibly deprive him of future state employment [and] caus[ed] damage to his professional reputation ...." He sought a declaratory judgment that he was in fact tenured, an injunction to prohibit his termination or reinstatement plus back pay, damages for injury to his professional reputation, punitive damages, and alternatively, a meaningful hearing on the reasons for his termination.

Wells amended his complaint in September 1982 to allege that both the pre-1976 and the 1976 tenure regulations violated the Equal Protection Clause of the fourteenth amendment in that the requirements bore no rational relation to any government interests.

The defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, claiming that Wells had not met the tenure requirements under either the pre-1976 or the 1976 tenure regulations, that he had not received de facto tenure because even though he had been recommended for tenure he had not met the formal requirements, that his termination was in accordance with law, that he had been accorded a due process hearing before the University Merit, Promotion and Tenure Committee and Tenure Appeals Committee, and that the regulations did not violate Wells' equal protection rights.

Wells opposed the motion by affidavits relating to his de facto tenure and equal protection arguments and by memoranda claiming that genuine issues of fact existed as to whether he had earned tenure and whether he had received a due process hearing to respond to charges which seriously damaged his standing and associations in the community. ⁴

The district court found that the reasons given for Wells' termination ⁵ were not constitutionally impermissible and that the state thus had a right to terminate him. The court further found that Wells had satisfied neither the pre-1976 nor the 1976 tenure requirements and that there was no evidence that McNeese University followed a "de facto" tenure plan, but rather that the university followed a formal, published set of tenure regulations. It thus found that Wells' expectation of employment was not a constitutionally protected property right and that Wells, therefore, had no constitutional right to a hearing following his termination. It finally found that Wells had not suggested that he was a member of a "suspect class" or that the defendants had interfered with his fundamental rights by denying him tenure. The court thus used a relaxed standard in weighing the equal protection claim and found that the tenure regulations promoted a legitimate state interest and that they had not been applied in an irrational or arbitrary manner. Wells has made a timely appeal of this judgment.

II.

On appeal Wells challenges each of the trial court's findings. He first argues that the court erred in finding that he had no expectation of employment since he had been teaching at the university for six years (including his one-year approved leave of absence) and had been recommended twice for tenure at the time he received his terminal contract.

His equal protection argument asserts that McNeese University has applied the tenure requirements arbitrarily and capriciously, since the university gave tenure to a professor who, although he met the seven-year consecutive service requirement, had taken three one-year leaves of absence, and thus had less actual teaching experience than did Wells who had taught five of the six years that he had been at McNeese prior to receipt of his terminal contract. Moreover, according to the argument, since a teacher can be evaluated only while he is on campus and teaching, consecutive years of service requirements which include leaves of absence are irrational.

Finally, Wells contends that there is a genuine issue of material fact regarding whether the reasons for termination (other than the lack of a Ph.D.) were correct, whether these reasons damaged his "good name, reputation, honor, and integrity," and whether he was provided a meaningful hearing to refute these charges.

A.

Wells' first two arguments were correctly resolved by the district court. Wells' tenure argument is based on an assertion that he had received de facto tenure. There was, however, no evidence before the court to indicate that McNeese University utilized a de facto tenure policy generally or in regard to the appellant. Cf. Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 601-02, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 2699-2700, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972). Moreover, there was no evidence to indicate that merely recommending tenure for an associate professor was tantamount to granting tenure at the university. Thus Wells' mere subjective expectancy of continued employment, even though he had not attained the required years of service for tenure, did not give him the constitutionally protected property interests necessary to invoke the fourteenth amendment's procedural due process provisions. Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. at 603, 92 S.Ct. at 2700; Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2709, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972); Hillis v. Stephen F. Austin State University, 665 F.2d 547, 552 (5th Cir.1982). We also agree that the university could deny tenure to Wells for the reasons given. Bishop v. Wood, 426 U.S. 341, 349-50, 96 S.Ct. 2074, 2080, 48 L.Ed.2d 684 (1976); Megill v. Board of Regents of State of Florida, 541 F.2d 1073, 1077 (5th Cir.1976). ⁶

B.

The district court also correctly decided Wells' equal protection claims. The tenure regulations, pre-1976 or 1976, promote a legitimate Louisiana interest in furthering permanency in the teaching force of its universities and in insuring a more competent teaching staff. Moreover, the mere...