Wells v. Hico Independent School Dist.

• Decision Date: 16 July 1984
• Docket Number: No. 82-1468,82-1468
• Citation: 736 F.2d 243
• Parties: 18 Ed. Law Rep. 225 Joyce WELLS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. HICO INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, Etc., et al., Defendants-Appellants. Veriena BRAUNE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. HICO INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, Etc., et al., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 243

736 F.2d 243

18 Ed. Law Rep. 225

Joyce WELLS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. HICO INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, Etc., et al.,

Defendants-Appellants.

Veriena BRAUNE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. HICO INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, Etc., et al., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 82-1468.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

July 16, 1984.

Naman, Howell, Smith & Lee, Beverly Willis, Jerry P. Campbell, Waco, Tex., for defendants and appellants.

Murray Watson, Waco, Tex., for defendants and appellants and amicus curiae Tex. Ass'n of School Boards, et al.

Kelly Frels, Timothy T. Cooper, Houston, Tex., for amicus curiae Tex. Ass'n of School Boards et al.

Bob Hall & Associates, Robert E. Hall, Houston, Tex., Glasgow & Jones, Robert J. Glasgow, Stephenville, Tex., Julia Penny Clark, Gary L. Sasso, Washington, D.C., for Wells and Braune.

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

Before RUBIN, GARWOOD, and JOLLY, Circuit Judges.

GARWOOD, Circuit Judge:

This section 1983 case involves two elementary school teachers who alleged that the nonrenewal of their employment by the Hico Independent School District violated their constitutional rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Judgment was rendered for them based on jury answers in their favor to special interrogatories. Defendants, the District, its seven Board members, its Superintendent, and the Principal of its single elementary school, appeal and raise several evidentiary and procedural issues. We find that defendants have failed to properly preserve their claims of error on most issues. We sustain the district court's judgment on plaintiffs' First Amendment claims. However, we reverse on the Fourteenth Amendment due process property interest claims, and reverse and remand on the liberty interest claims. As a result, the judgment must be modified to delete damages for the failure to hold a hearing. We also hold that the judgment must be modified to delete the award of punitive damages against the individual defendants.

I. FACTS

Plaintiffs-appellees Veriena Braune and Joyce Wells had taught elementary school in the Hico Independent School District for thirteen years and five years, respectively, when the School Board failed to renew their contracts at the end of the 1977-1978 school term.

The evidence at trial respecting events preceding plaintiffs' nonrenewal largely concerned the School's "Right to Read" program, a federally funded effort to combat illiteracy. In 1974, the Hico School Board elected to participate in this program and, on the recommendation of Superintendent of Schools defendant Harold Walker, chose Mrs. Braune as program director. Mrs. Braune continued to teach first grade full time after assuming the new responsibility. Under her leadership, the program received favorable publicity, and Hico was selected as a demonstration site by the Texas Education Agency (TEA). In addition, Mrs. Braune was personally commended by Elementary School Principal, defendant Frank Bonner, for her work with Right to Read.

All did not go well with the program, however. Although many teachers, including Mrs. Wells, who was teaching third grade when the program was initiated, shared Mrs. Braune's commitment to and enthusiasm for Right to Read, some did not. This latter group apparently included primarily the teachers for the upper grades, i.e., fourth through sixth. In an evaluation conducted in the spring of 1977, these teachers criticized the results achieved in the program.

Mrs. Braune also increasingly came to believe that the administration was not giving the program adequate support. In 1976 for example, she believed that teachers actively participating in the program received unfair performance evaluations. She asked for and received permission to add letters of commendation to these teachers' files. Moreover, there was evidence that she and other teachers who were using the program experienced difficulty in receiving adequate supplies and equipment for their classrooms. Mrs. Braune believed that these problems led to the resignation of one of the key teachers in the program in 1976 and to the transfer of Mrs. Wells to the migrant program at the end of 1977. In August 1977, Mrs. Braune resigned as director of the Right to Read program, indicating that she could not "continue in this capacity without more support from administration and faculty."

In January 1978, Mrs. Braune was contacted by a School Board member about her difficulties with Right to Read. A meeting followed among Mrs. Braune and most School Board members at her home. She also wrote a letter to the Board requesting to formally appear before them on this issue. The Board granted her request and she made a presentation at its regular meeting on January 30, 1978. Three other teachers accompanied her: Mrs. Wells, who had transferred to the migrant program at the beginning of the school term; Mrs. Rone, who taught second grade; and Mrs. Harmon, who taught kindergarten. At the meeting, Mrs. Braune spoke about problems with the program, including the perceived lack of administration and teacher support. She read aloud an evaluation of Mrs. Wells from 1975-1976 (two years earlier) to support her contention that teachers active in the program received discriminatorily low ratings. The next teacher evaluations of Mrs. Wells and Mrs. Braune were completed in early April and reflected low ratings in several categories for each. Prior to this time, Mrs. Braune had received consistently high ratings. ¹ Mrs. Wells, with the exception of the 1975-1976 term, had also received generally high ratings.

Both teachers were distressed by their evaluations. Mrs. Braune's husband was also quite upset and confronted her principal, defendant Frank Bonner, while Bonner was driving to school. Descriptions of this confrontation varied at trial, but it appears at least certain that Principal Bonner was badly shaken as a result. He offered to tear up the evaluations of Mrs. Braune and Mrs. Wells. Mrs. Braune declined. Both teachers requested a hearing before the Board on their evaluations.

On April 14, after the incident involving Mr. Braune, a group of teachers at Hico filed a grievance with the School concerning "pressures and tensions" that were "causing factions among the faculty, administration and community." Both the grievance and the subject of contract renewals for the following school year were scheduled for the Board meeting the following Monday, April 17. The teachers who signed the grievance appeared at the meeting and expressed concerns about several issues, including the confrontation between Mr. Braune and Principal Bonner and several incidents between Mrs. Wells and other teachers. Although discussing contract renewal at the April 17 meeting, the Board deferred determination of this issue until April 20. At that time Board members decided to rehire all teachers except Mrs. Braune, Mrs. Wells, and a coach. The Superintendent of Schools, Mr. Walker, had not recommended renewal of Mrs. Braune's contract, but advised the Board that he would make the effort to work with her if the Board should renew it. Walker did recommend the nonrenewal of Mrs. Wells. Neither Mrs. Wells nor Mrs. Braune were afforded a hearing by the Board regarding either their evaluations or the nonrenewal of their contracts. However, they were allowed to file a grievance concerning this matter, and they subsequently received a hearing before the Board and then pursued their complaints administratively up to the Texas Commissioner of Education. ² They did not prevail in any of the administrative proceedings.

On June 26, 1981, before completing their administrative appeals, the plaintiffs brought individual lawsuits under section 1983, alleging violations of their constitutional rights of free speech and procedural due process in connection with their nonrenewal as teachers. They brought their suits, which were consolidated before trial, against the Hico Independent School District,

                its Board of Trustees, Hico Superintendent Walker, and Elementary School Principal Bonner.  In response to special interrogatories, the jury found that the plaintiffs' exercise of their First Amendment rights was a substantial or motivating factor in the decision not to renew their contracts and that the defendants would not have made this decision in the absence of these protected activities.  The jury also found that plaintiffs had a property interest in grievance and evaluation policies of the School District and that they were deprived of their liberty interests by the nonrenewal or the processing of the April 14 teacher grievance. 3   It found damages for each plaintiff, including punitive damages against all the individual defendants.  Defendants stipulated as to lost wages.  The court then entered judgment in the total amount of $112,858 for Mrs. Braune, plus $9,000 in punitive damages against the individual defendants, and a total of $89,670 for Mrs. Wells, plus $9,000 punitive damages against the individual defendants.  The court also permanently enjoined the School District from refusing to reinstate the plaintiffs as teachers and ordered other actions related to reinstatement.  This appeal followed
                

II. FIRST AMENDMENT

Appellants attack the verdict and judgment upholding the Plaintiffs' First Amendment claim on three grounds. ⁴

Sufficiency of the Evidence

Two of these grounds relate to the sufficiency of the evidence. Appellants first claim that there is insufficient evidence that plaintiffs' protected speech was a substantial or motivating factor in their nonrenewal and that the evidence conclusively shows that the School District would have made the same decision absent the protected speech. Mount Healthy City Board of Education v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 285-86, 97 S.Ct. 568, 575-76, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977). Next, appellants assert the evidence conclusively establishes that plaintiffs' speech...