Loehr v. Ventura County Community College Dist.

• Decision Date: 26 September 1984
• Docket Number: No. 83-5884,83-5884
• Parties: , 20 Ed. Law Rep. 70 Ray E. LOEHR, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. VENTURA COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT; Board of Trustees of the Ventura County Community College District; David Bender, Jr.; James T. Ely, and Robert Stone, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 1310

743 F.2d 1310

40 Fed.R.Serv.2d 83, 20 Ed. Law Rep. 70

Ray E. LOEHR, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. VENTURA COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT; Board of Trustees of the Ventura County Community College District; David Bender, Jr. James T. Ely, and Robert Stone, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 83-5884.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted April 2, 1984.

Decided Sept. 26, 1984.

Robert S. Thompson, Hufstedler, Miller, Carlson & Beardsley, Los Angeles, Cal., for plaintiff-appellant.

Stuart W. Rudnick (James L. Morris, Musick, Peeler & Garrett, Los Angeles, Cal., John R. McConica, II, Drescher, McConica & Young, Ventura, Cal., Melanie M. Poturica, Liebert, Cassidy & Frierson, Los Angeles, Cal., with him on the brief), for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

Before WALLACE, SCHROEDER, and NELSON, Circuit Judges.

WALLACE, Circuit Judge:

Loehr sought injunctive relief and damages under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 and the California Constitution for alleged deprivations of liberty and property. The district court granted summary judgment against him. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291. We affirm.

I

In 1974 the Board of Trustees (Board) of the Ventura County Community College District (District) hired Loehr as superintendent of the District. In 1979, after rating his performance "outstanding," the Board offered him a four-year contract to continue as superintendent. Loehr accepted.

Later that year, two new Trustees, Bender and Ely, won election to the five-member Board. On April 15, 1980, Bender, Ely, and a third Trustee, Stone, voted in closed executive session to request Loehr's resignation. After the vote, the Board called Loehr into the meeting. Ely gave Loehr a letter, prepared by Ely after private consultation with an outside attorney, and signed by Ely as President of the Board. It read in part:

[I]f you choose to decline the Board's offer to entertain a resignation, we are prepared to undertake all necessary actions to terminate and rescind your contract of employment. Upon request, you would be provided with a written summary of your actions which, in the Board's view, have constituted a material breach sufficient to justify a rescission.

On April 20, after Loehr had not resigned, the Board met again in executive session, invited him into part of the meeting, and read to him a long list of questions about his performance as superintendent. Ely asked him to respond to the questions at the next meeting. Ely also told him there were no "charges" against him.

The Board held another executive session on April 24 to listen to Loehr's answers. The Trustees did not ask him to clarify any of his responses and, after a short conference without Loehr present, Ely told him that the Board would proceed with legal action to remove him from his duties as superintendent. The District claims the Board authorized Ely to proceed, assisted by counsel, with this task by himself.

The next day Ely visited Loehr's office. After a short conversation, Ely gave him an undated eight page letter. The letter advised that "the question of whether you should be afforded procedural due process prior to actual termination ... has been resolved in favor of affording such due process," and then listed twenty-one documented "specifications" that "constitute misfeasances or malfeasances that the Board believes are sufficient to indicate you have materially breached your contract of employment with the District." The letter also stated that Loehr had five days to request a hearing from the Board, but if he did not want to meet with the Board, he could respond to the "specifications" in writing.

On April 28, Loehr wrote a letter to Ely denying all twenty-one specifications. The next day Loehr's attorney sent the Board a letter informing it that Loehr intended to complete his contract. On May 5, however, the Board voted three to two to terminate Loehr as superintendent.

During the next ten days, Ely spoke to meetings at the District's administrative offices and two of the District's three campuses about Loehr's dismissal. Bender held a similar meeting at the third campus. The Board also held a meeting at which various District employees spoke favorably of the Board's decision to remove Loehr. A number of articles and editorials appeared in local newspapers reporting these events and other aspects of Loehr's dismissal, including comments from Ely about an ongoing supervisory grand jury investigation into the affairs of the District. Soon afterwards, on June 3, Loehr sued the District, the Board, and Trustees Ely, Bender, and Stone under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 and the California Constitution, art. I, Sec. 7(a), for deprivations of his liberty and property.

The district court initially granted Loehr a preliminary injunction reinstating him as superintendent. We reversed and remanded in an unpublished decision, because Loehr had failed to show an irreparable injury and a balance of hardships tipping decidedly in his favor. After our remand and further pleadings on both sides, the district judge refused under Fed.R.Civ.P. 15 to allow Loehr to add additional defendants and amend and supplement his complaint to raise claims under state law, 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1985, 1986, and 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1001. He then granted summary judgment in favor of the individual defendants, holding they possessed qualified immunity under both federal and state law from Loehr's suit. Subsequently, the district judge granted summary judgment in favor of the District and the Board. He held that California law gave Loehr no protected property interest in his employment as supervisor, and that he suffered no deprivation of a liberty interest in his reputation at the hands of the Board or District because they made no public disclosure of the reasons behind his discharge before he filed suit. Loehr appealed. After setting out our standards for review, we discuss, first, Loehr's claim that his due process rights were violated by depriving him of a property interest; second, his claim that his reputation was damaged, injuring his liberty interest; and third, his claim that the district court should have allowed him to amend and supplement his complaint.

II

We review a summary judgment de novo. E.g., Martino v. Santa Clara Valley Water District, 703 F.2d 1141, 1145 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 104 S.Ct. 151, 78 L.Ed.2d 141 (1983). We may affirm only if the record, read in the light most favorable to the loser, reveals no genuine issues of material fact and shows the winners were entitled to judgment as a matter of law. E.g., Dosier v. Miami Valley Broadcasting Corp., 656 F.2d 1295, 1300 (9th Cir.1981); Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). We review the district court's interpretation of state as well as federal law de novo. In re McLinn, 739 F.2d 1395 (9th Cir.1984) (en banc). Finally, we review for abuse of discretion the denial of a motion to amend. Hurn v. Retirement Trust Fund of the Plumbing, Heating and Piping Industry, 648 F.2d 1252, 1254 (9th Cir.1981) (Hurn ).

III

Loehr claims a property interest in continued employment as superintendent of the District. As the Supreme Court held in Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2709, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972) (Roth ), property interests do not arise from the United States Constitution but "are created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law." Federal constitutional law, however, "determines whether that interest rises to the level of a 'legitimate claim to entitlement' protected by the Due Process Clause." Memphis Light, Gas & Water Division v. Craft, 436 U.S. 1, 9, 98 S.Ct. 1554, 1560, 56 L.Ed.2d 30 (1978) (citations omitted). It was not argued before us that this distinction limits Loehr's action under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 on the ground that the limited nature of his state property interests are inadequate to pass the legitimate entitlement bar for interests under the fourteenth amendment. Cf. Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 543-44, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 1916-17, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981) (finding state remedy adequate in part because of the limited nature of the deprivation); Barthuli v. Board of Trustees, 434 U.S. 1337, 1338, 98 S.Ct. 21, 22, 54 L.Ed.2d 52 (1977) (Rehnquist, Circuit Justice) ("the Court might conclude that California's refusal to grant specific performance where there is an adequate remedy at law acts as a limitation upon the expectation of the employee in continued employment"). We therefore will apply the analysis used by the Supreme Court in its employment cases. See Bishop v. Wood, 426 U.S. 341, 344-47, 96 S.Ct. 2074, 2077-79, 48 L.Ed.2d 684 (1976) (Bishop ); Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 601-03, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 2699-2700, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972) (Perry ); Roth, 408 U.S. at 577-78, 92 S.Ct. at 2709-10; see also Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U.S. 422, 430, 102 S.Ct. 1148, 1155, 71 L.Ed.2d 265 (1982) ("The hallmark of property ... is an individual entitlement grounded in state law .... Once that characteristic is found, the types of interests protected as 'property' are varied ....").

Loehr asserts three interrelated sources for a "legitimate claim of entitlement," Roth, 408 U.S. at 577, 92 S.Ct. at 2709, to a continued employment as superintendent: his contract, state law, and official Board policy. As Roth makes clear, the importance of a contract as a source of a property interest lies not in the mere existence of some agreement, but in its terms. See 408 U.S. at 566 n. 1, 578, 92 S.Ct. at 2703 n. 1, 2709. California agrees, see Walker v. Northern San Diego County Hospital District, 135 Cal.App.3d 896, 902-05, 185 Cal.Rptr. 617, 620-22 (1982), and emphasizes that in contracts of employment for District superintendents, "dismissal and imposition of penalties ... shall be in accordance with the terms of...