Coston v. Hooper
| Citation | 885 F.2d 864 |
| Decision Date | 19 September 1989 |
| Docket Number | No. 88-2946,88-2946 |
| Parties | Unpublished Disposition NOTICE: Fourth Circuit I.O.P. 36.6 states that citation of unpublished dispositions is disfavored except for establishing res judicata, estoppel, or the law of the case and requires service of copies of cited unpublished dispositions of the Fourth Circuit. Harold P. COSTON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Ruby HOOPER, individually, and in her capacity as Deputy Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Human Resources, Don Cummings, individually, and in his official capacity as Director of Personnel of the North Carolina Department of Human Resources, Defendant-Appellants, and James G. Martin, Governor of the State of North Carolina, Phillip J. Kirk, individually, and in his official capacity as Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Human Resources, Bobbie Ragan, individually, and in her capacity as Assistant Director of the Broughton Hospital, Defendants. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit) |
James Peeler Smith, Special Deputy Attorney General, John R. Corne, Assistant Attorney General (Lacy H. Thornburg, Attorney General on brief) for appellants.
John A. Dusenbury, Jr. (Smith, Patterso, Follin, Curtis, James & Harkavy on brief) for appellee.
Before CHAPMAN, Circuit Judge, GEORGE ROSS ANDERSON, JR., United States District Judge for the District of South Carolina, and EUGENE A. GORDON, Senior United States District Judge for the Middle District of North Carolina, Sitting by Designation.
Plaintiff/appellee Harold P. Coston, former Director of Broughton Hospital (hereinafter "Hospital") in Morganton, North Carolina initiated this action, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1983 and 1985, against defendants/appellants alleging that he was forced to resign his position, in violation of his rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, because he refused to terminate Hospital employees due to their political affiliations. The defendants named in the complaint were James G. Martin, Governor of North Carolina; Phillip J. Kirk, Jr., former Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Human Resources; Ruby T. Hooper, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Human Resources; Don Cummings, Personnel Director of the Department of Human Resources; and Bobbie R. Ragan, Business Manager of the Hospital. Each defendant was sued in his or her individual and official capacities.
The district court dismissed all claims against defendants Martin and Kirk and granted all defendants partial summary judgment on the conspiracy claim under Sec. 1985. A jury verdict and $60,000 award for compensatory damages was rendered in favor of the plaintiff against defendants Hooper and Cummings. The district court denied defendants' motions for directed verdict and for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the district court with respect to all issues raised by defendants.
Harold Coston was installed as Director of Broughton Hospital on April 22, 1985. He had 34 years of experience as a hospital administrator. The Hospital, by all accounts, had a long history characterized by partisan political activity among administrators and staff members. Some members of the staff had been appointed because of party affiliation and loyalties.
According to Coston, in a private meeting following his installation, defendant Hooper, in the presence of Ragan and John Gale (the Hospital's Personnel Director), told Coston that a number of Hospital employees had to be dismissed, demoted or reassigned because they were either active or influential in Democratic Party politics or had received their jobs because they had a relative who was prominent in the Party. The defendants deny that Coston was given a list of people to be terminated or reassigned. It is conceded, however, that at least four people were mentioned who were the subject of complaints received by Hooper. These individuals were allegedly unprofessional in the conduct of their employment and had engaged in political activity on Hospital time.
Coston claims he investigated the named individuals and could find no reason to dismiss or reassign them; however, a few members of the staff were reassigned as a result of a general reorganization. Coston alleges that defendant Cummings, acting in concert with other defendants, frequently urged him to terminate certain employees or pressured him to grant patronage appointments to Hospital positions.
It is conceded by defendants that they shared a desire to place some Republicans in prominent positions at the Hospital, especially because Republican activists had been systematically excluded from positions at Broughton Hospital during past Democratic administrations. The defendants denied that they instructed Coston to fire any employee because of party affiliation. Hooper and Cummings admitted that they urged Coston to make some employment reassignments to improve efficiency at the Hospital. They acknowledged concern about the political intimidation of Hospital employees and the use of Hospital resources for political organizing by some Democratic Party activists on the staff. Defendants Hooper and Cummings also acknowledged that they were unhappy with Coston's performance as administrator and opined to fellow administrators that Coston should be dismissed for his failure to deal promptly with personnel matters.
It is undisputed that severe problems at the Hospital involving the physical plant, safety features, staff shortages and poor employee morale threatened the institution's accreditation status and jeopardized continued receipt of Medicare funds. The defendants contended that Coston was not sufficiently aggressive in tackling these and related problems.
On May 9, 1986 Coston was finally forced to resign by Dr. Paul Kayye, Director of the Division of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services of the Department of Human Resources. Dr. Kayye asked for Coston's resignation, with Secretary Kirk's consent, because he thought Coston was requiring too much direction from the central office in Raleigh, was not aggressive in solving the Hospital's accreditation problems, and lacked control over the staff. The "straw that broke the camel's back," according to Kayye, was the revelation that Coston had used the state telephone system to make numerous personal long distance calls and had abused an administrative compensatory time program. Coston claimed that Kayye acknowledged that "politics" was a factor in the decision to terminate him. Kayye did not recall using the word; but if he did, he argues that it was meant in reference to interrelationships among people within the Hospital and not in a partisan sense.
Coston contends that the defendants, acting under color of state law, denied him his constitutional freedom of association and equal protection in violation of 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 because he refused to terminate employees on the basis of their party affiliation. Coston further alleged that the defendants, acting in concert, conspired to deprive him of his civil rights in violation of 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1985.
Following discovery, the defendants submitted motions for summary judgment. The district court dismissed all claims as to Secretary Kirk and Governor Martin and granted all defendants partial summary judgment on the conspiracy claim under Sec. 1985. However, motions for summary judgment on the Sec. 1983 claims were denied. A jury trial was conducted in July 1988. The jury found that defendants Hooper and Cummings had violated Coston's constitutional rights and awarded him $60,000 in compensatory damages. The defendants moved for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(b). The trial court denied the motion for JNOV. Defendants Hooper and Cummings timely filed a notice of appeal to this Court.
Defendants first argue that the district court erred in denying their motions for directed verdict and JNOV. Defendants maintain that the evidence, even viewed in the light most favorable to sustaining the jury's verdict and affording the plaintiff the benefit of all reasonable inferences, was insufficient to support a finding that either defendant caused Coston to lose his job. We disagree.
Plaintiff's cause of action rests on the ground that a state employee in a nonpolicymaking position may not be discharged solely on the grounds of his political affiliations. Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 372-73 (1976). Such dismissals, the Supreme Court reasoned, "severely restrict political belief and association." Id. at 372. It has, however, been held that patronage dismissals are not constitutionally proscribed where "the hiring authority can demonstrate that party affiliation is an appropriate requirement for the effective performance of the public office involved." Branti v. Finkel, 445 U.S. 507, 518 (1980). Moreover, there may only be limited First Amendment interests involved in a case where a public employee is terminated for expression which is not of a public concern. Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138 (1983). 1
A plaintiff who claims he was discharged in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments must show that his removal was caused by partisan animus or political activity. See Mt. Healthy City Board of Education v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274 (1977). In Mt. Healthy, the Court adopted a test for determining whether an employee's discharge was causally related to his or her political activity. The Court counseled that a plaintiff must show his constitutionally protected activity was a "substantial" or "motivating" factor behind the decision to terminate. Id. at 287. See also Conklin v. Lovely, 834 F.2d 543, 546 (6th Cir.1987).
In the case sub judice, defendants argue that the evidence failed to establish that their acts were the cause-in-fact or proximate cause of Coston's discharge. In assessing the sufficiency of...
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Bauer v. Holder
...amounts to a constructive discharge, which qualifies as an adverse action under Title VII. See Martin, 48 F.3d 1343 ; Coston v. Hooper, 885 F.2d 864 (4th Cir.1989).Defendant argues that because the Stone court found plaintiff's resignation to be voluntary, the same result should obtain here......
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Bauer v. Holder
...amounts to a constructive discharge, which qualifies as an adverse action under Title VII. See Martin, 48 F.3d 1343; Coston v. Hooper, 885 F.2d 864 (4th Cir.1989). Defendant argues that because the Stone court found plaintiff's resignation to be voluntary, the same result should obtain here......
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Bauer v. Holder
...amounts to a constructive discharge, which qualifies as an adverse action under Title VII. See Martin, 48 F.3d 1343; Coston v. Hooper, 885 F.2d 864 (4th Cir. 1989). Defendant argues that because the Stone court found that plaintiff's resignation to be voluntary, the same result should obtai......