Hatcher v. Board of Public Educ. and Orphanage for Bibb County

Decision Date17 February 1987
Docket NumberNo. 86-8049,86-8049
Citation809 F.2d 1546
Parties37 Ed. Law Rep. 101 Vivian HATCHER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BOARD OF PUBLIC EDUCATION AND ORPHANAGE FOR BIBB COUNTY, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Michael D. Simpson, Nat. Educ. Ass'n, Washington, D.C., for plaintiff-appellant.

W. Warren Plowden, Jr., Macon, Ga., for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia.

Before KRAVITCH and CLARK, Circuit Judges, and HENDERSON, Senior Circuit Judge.

CORRECTED OPINION

KRAVITCH, Circuit Judge:

After having served for more than a quarter century as a teacher and later a principal in the Macon school system, appellant Vivian Hatcher was removed from her principalship and assigned to the position of media specialist/librarian. Prior to the Macon public school reorganization and the closing of six Macon schools, including the Duresville Elementary School, 1 Hatcher had been principal of the Duresville school for more than three years. 2 Although six principals were displaced as a result of the school closings, only three principal positions became available at the time the schools were closed. As a result, the Board of Public Education and Orphanage for Bibb County (Board) was unable immediately to reassign three of the displaced principals to comparable administrative positions. Appellant and two others were not selected for immediate reassignment to comparable positions. 3

The focus of appellant's complaint is, however, upon the two additional principalships and one administrative position as a curriculum director that became available soon after the initial reassignments. 4 Superintendent Hagler declined to exercise the special discretion given to him by the Board to recommend the displaced principals for the available positions. Instead, Hagler chose to advertise and use normal applicant screening procedures to fill the posts. Hatcher applied for each of the positions but the superintendent recommended, and the Board selected, three teachers with allegedly less administrative background and no experience as a principal.

Hatcher brought suit for injunctive and declaratory relief under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 against appellees, the Board, the Board members in their official and individual capacities, and Superintendent Hagler. Appellant contends that she was demoted from her position as principal of the Duresville school to the position of media specialist and that this demotion was in violation of her rights to procedural and substantive due process. In addition, appellant contends that she was demoted because she engaged in activity protected by the first amendment.

The district court decided the case on the parties' cross-motions for summary judgment. In a brief, one-page order, the district court granted summary judgment for appellees. The court held that appellant had not been denied any property interest allegedly bestowed by Georgia law because she had not been demoted. The court therefore concluded that appellant had been afforded all the process that was due. The court also stated that appellant's first amendment rights "have in no way been violated."

Appellant filed a motion to alter or amend the judgment to: (1) grant summary judgment for appellant on the due process claim; and (2) deny appellees' motion for summary judgment on the first amendment claim on the ground that genuine issues of material fact remained as to that claim. Appellant then noticed an appeal from the judgment granting summary judgment for appellee. 5 After the district court denied appellant's motion to alter or amend the judgment, appellant noticed an appeal from both the final judgment granting summary judgment for appellees and from the order denying appellant's motion to alter or amend the judgment.

I.

The due process clause provides that the rights to life, liberty, and property cannot be deprived except pursuant to constitutionally adequate procedures. See Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 105 S.Ct. 1487, 84 L.Ed.2d 494 (1985). The parties agree that appellant's due process claims depend upon her having a property right in continued comparable employment. As the United States Supreme Court stated in Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2709, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972):

[p]roperty interests, of course, are not created by the Constitution. Rather they are created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law--rules or understandings that secure certain benefits and that support claims of entitlement to those benefits.

Accordingly, we examine appellant's claims to determine whether she had a legitimate claim of entitlement to a comparable administrative position. See id. Once it is determined that a property right exists, the next question is "what process is due?" Loudermill, 105 S.Ct. at 1493.

II.

Hatcher identifies two sources that allegedly gave her a legitimate claim of entitlement to employment in a comparable administrative position when the Duresville school closed and other administrative positions became available. One of the sources alleged is "rules or mutually explicit understandings," see Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 601, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 2699, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972), that the displaced principals would be placed in comparable administrative positions. Appellant contends that the Board's policy decision to allow Superintendent Hagler to recommend the displaced principals for administrative positions without going through the normal applicant screening process created a mutually explicit understanding that the principals would be placed in the comparable positions. In addition, appellant asserted in response to interrogatories that Hagler "repeatedly stated" at three county-wide meetings that "principals displaced by school closings would be placed in administrative positions as these positions become available through attrition or retirements."

We find that these events do not rise to the level of a mutually explicit understanding that appellant was to be given a comparable administrative position. It is undisputed that the Board gave Hagler the discretion to circumvent the normal applicant screening process if he decided to recommend one of the displaced principals for a particular position. The Board did not, however, require that Hagler circumvent the normal applicant screening process at any point. Moreover, the Board retained the power to reject any recommendation made by the superintendent.

Hagler's statements at the public meetings amount to little more than vague assurances that the Board would attempt to give the displaced principals some type of administrative position at some point in the future. The cases cited by appellant do not support the conclusion that Hagler's statements gave rise to a mutually explicit understanding that appellant and the other displaced principals would be placed in comparable administrative positions. In Gosney v. Sonora Indep. School Dist., 603 F.2d 522 (5th Cir.1979), 6 legally binding board minutes expressly stated that the petitioner would be rehired. In Stapp v. Avoyelles Parish School Bd., 545 F.2d 527 (5th Cir.1977), the petitioner received a letter of intent from the superintendent indicating that the petitioner would be re-employed by the school system once he conveyed his intention to continue in the position for another year. The actions of the school board and superintendent in each of these cases went much further toward creating a "legitimate, non-subjective claim of entitlement," Gosney, 603 F.2d at 525, than did the actions of the Board and the superintendent in this case. We hold, therefore, that no property right in a comparable administrative position arose by virtue of the conduct of the Board and the superintendent.

Appellant also contends that she had a property right in continued employment in a comparable position by virtue of the Georgia Fair Dismissal Law. She argues that this property right was denied in this case because her transfer from a principal position to a media specialist/librarian position constitutes a demotion and that she was not afforded any due process rights.

Georgia law creates a property interest in continued employment for tenured teachers that may not be denied without granting certain substantive and procedural due process rights. O.C.G.A. Sec. 20-2-942(b)(1) provides that: "[a] teacher who accepts a school year contract for the fourth consecutive school year from the same local board of education may be demoted or the teacher's contract may not be renewed only for those reasons set forth in subsection (a) of Code Section 20-2-940." O.C.G.A. Sec. 20-2-940(a) provides several acceptable reasons for demotion including any "good and sufficient cause." 7 A property interest is created by Georgia law whenever the teacher may be demoted or terminated only for cause. Barnett v. Housing Auth. of Atlanta, 707 F.2d 1571, 1576 (11th Cir.1983).

In addition to the requirement that the board have good cause for demoting tenured teachers, Georgia law grants a variety of procedural protections that must be provided prior to demotion. Among these is the requirement in O.C.G.A. Sec. 20-2-942(b)(2) that the teacher be given written notice of the board's intention to demote. Following receipt of the written notice, the teacher has the right to be represented by counsel at a full hearing before the board. O.C.G.A. Sec. 20-2-942(b)(2); O.C.G.A. Sec. 20-2-940(b)-(f). The teacher may appeal an adverse decision to the state board of education. O.C.G.A. Sec. 20-2-940(f).

Undisputed facts on this issue leave a narrow question of law for resolution. First, appellees concede that appellant qualified as a teacher who had accepted contracts for four consecutive school years with the Macon school board....

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