Stewart v. Baldwin County Bd. of Educ.

• Decision Date: 15 August 1990
• Docket Number: No. 89-7353,89-7353
• Parties: 62 Ed. Law Rep. 28 James D. STEWART, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. BALDWIN COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION; Laurens Jones; Carl E. Johnson; William L. Donaldson; L.E. Rockwell, M.D.; Ruth S. Underwood; J. Larry Newton, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1499

908 F.2d 1499

62 Ed. Law Rep. 28

James D. STEWART, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. BALDWIN COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION; Laurens Jones; Carl E Johnson; William L. Donaldson; L.E. Rockwell M.D.; Ruth S. Underwood; J. Larry Newton, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 89-7353.

United States Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit.

Aug. 15, 1990.

Norborne C. Stone, Jr., George R. Irvine, III, Bay Minette, Ala., for defendants-appellants.

Henry H. Caddell, Mobile, Ala., Jeremiah A. Collins, Virginia A. Seitz, Bredhoff & Kaiser, Washington, D.C., for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama.

Before JOHNSON, HATCHETT and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.

ANDERSON, Circuit Judge:

This is a section 1983 case brought by James Stewart, a former employee of the Baldwin County Board of Education ("School Board"). Stewart was employed as a painter in the School Board's building maintenance department and had worked in that position for over three years. Stewart's complaint alleges that he was terminated for exercising his First Amendment freedoms of expression and association. The defendants (the School Board, Board members, and Superintendent) moved for summary judgment on the grounds of qualified immunity and Eleventh Amendment immunity. The district court denied the motion, and the defendants appealed. We conclude that the district court properly denied defendants' motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. We also affirm the district court's denial of Eleventh Amendment immunity to the School Board. Defendants also raise the claim that the School Board members are entitled to quasi-judicial absolute immunity; we conclude that the Supreme Court's decision in Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 308, 95 S.Ct. 992, 43 L.Ed.2d 214 (1975), precludes such immunity.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Facts

On April 1, 1987, at approximately 3:35 p.m., Stewart, along with his co-workers in the maintenance department, attended a mandatory meeting of the maintenance shop employees to hear comments from the superintendent, Larry Newton (one of the defendants in this case), concerning a referendum on new school taxes in Baldwin County. At 4:00 p.m., the end of the normal work day, Stewart left the meeting, which was still in progress. It is not contested that Stewart's exit was quiet and nondisruptive; the Superintendent did not even know that Stewart had left the room until he was informed by Stewart's supervisor.

The next morning, Stewart's supervisor, Gherlin McDaniel, advised Stewart that Superintendent Newton wanted to see him. At that conference, Newton and McDaniel confronted Stewart with his early departure from the previous day's meeting. They suggested to Stewart that such conduct showed a lack of interest regarding the future of the school system and asked whether Stewart was interested in resigning from his job. Stewart refused to resign. It is not disputed that the conference was somewhat heated and that "voices were raised" during the course of the meeting. The parties do disagree, however, as to whether Stewart was insubordinate during the conference.

On Friday, April 3, 1987, McDaniel wrote a recommendation to Newton that Stewart be terminated from employment with the School Board. McDaniel's recommendation stated as reasons for the proposed termination that Stewart had demonstrated a lack of concern for the school system by leaving the April 1 meeting before it had been concluded; that during the conference of the previous day Stewart had been insubordinate by continually interrupting the Superintendent and refusing to be quiet; and that Stewart should be terminated for other good and just causes. Superintendent Newton subsequently forwarded to Stewart a written notice of proposed termination. This notice set out as reasons for the termination that Stewart had been insubordinate; had neglected his duties; had used vile and demeaning language in reference to a supervising administrator; and had demonstrated a lack of concern for the school system by leaving the meeting called by the Superintendent before its conclusion.

B. Procedural History

On March 29, 1989, Stewart filed this action under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, alleging that the School Board's termination of his employment violated his constitutional rights to freedom of expression and association. Stewart named as defendants the School Board itself; Superintendent Newton, sued in his individual and official capacities; defendants Johnson, Rockwell, and Underwood (current School Board members who participated in the decision to fire Stewart), sued individually and as members of the Board; defendants Jones and Donaldson (past School Board members who participated in the decision to fire Stewart), sued individually; and defendants Boothe, Sims, Williams, and Deese (current School Board members who did not participate in the decision to fire Stewart), sued as members of the Board. Stewart sought declaratory and injunctive relief, including reinstatement, backpay, and lost benefits; he also sought compensatory and punitive damages.

The defendants moved for summary judgment. Defendants claimed that the School Board and the members of the Board were entitled to absolute immunity under the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution. They also argued that the individual Board members and the Superintendent, as sued in their personal capacities, were entitled to qualified immunity under the rule announced in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). The plaintiff cross-moved for summary judgment, alleging that there was no factual dispute that Stewart was terminated because he departed early from the Superintendent's meeting, and that such activity was protected under the First Amendment. The district court, without opinion, denied both motions for summary judgment. Defendants now appeal the district court's denial of their motion for summary judgment; they bring their appeal under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291.

II. QUALIFIED IMMUNITY

Defendants appeal the refusal of the district court to grant summary judgment in their favor on the basis of their qualified immunity defense. Only the individual defendants are involved in this part of the appeal; qualified immunity does not apply to the School Board or to the members of the Board as sued in their official capacities. See Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159, 166-67, 105 S.Ct. 3099, 3105-06, 87 L.Ed.2d 114 (1985). This interlocutory order is immediately appealable under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2817, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985); Greason v. Kemp, 891 F.2d 829, 831 n. 4 (11th Cir.1990).

The Supreme Court, in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982), established the following test for determining whether a public official can claim qualified immunity: "[G]overnment officials ... generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Courts evaluate the official's conduct under an objective, reasonable person standard; the relevant question on a motion for summary judgment based on a defense of qualified immunity is whether a reasonable official could have believed his or her actions were lawful in light of clearly established law and the information possessed by the official at the time the conduct occurred. Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 642, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3040, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987); Herren v. Bowyer, 850 F.2d 1543, 1545-46 (11th Cir.1988). Thus, the qualified immunity defense provides ample protection to all except the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law. Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 1096, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986).

This familiar standard presents two distinct questions of law for this court to consider in determining whether the district court erred in refusing to grant summary judgment. First, we must determine whether the legal norms allegedly violated by the defendants were clearly established at the time the defendants acted. Rich v. Dollar, 841 F.2d 1558, 1564 (11th Cir.1988). ¹ If the law that the defendants allegedly violated was not clearly established, then the defendants are entitled to qualified immunity. See Daniel v. Taylor, 808 F.2d 1401, 1403 (11th Cir.1986) (holding that to be entitled to qualified immunity, defendants need only show that it is an unsettled question of law whether plaintiff had a right not to be detained without probable cause).

If the legal norms that the defendants are alleged to have violated were clearly established when the defendants' conduct occurred, then we must proceed to the second question of law in our analysis: whether the plaintiff has adduced evidence sufficient to create a genuine issue of fact as to whether the defendant engaged in conduct violative of the rights guaranteed by the clearly established law. Bennett v. Parker, 898 F.2d 1530, 1532-33 (11th Cir.1990); Rich, 841 F.2d at 1564. In addressing this question, we resolve all reasonable inferences of fact in favor of the plaintiff, as the plaintiff is the party who opposes the motion. Goddard v. Urrea, 847 F.2d 765, 767 (11th Cir.1988).

A. Implication of a Clearly Established Right

Stewart argues that he was discharged from his employment because he refused to embrace the School Superintendent's position on an upcoming tax referendum and because he objected to the Superintendent's campaigning among the employees on this issue. Stewart claims that he expressed his objections to the Superintendent's position by walking out of an employee meeting conducted by the Superintendent, held for the purpose of discussing the tax referendum. Stewart argues that his discharge violated his clearly established constitutional right to communicate his disagreement...