Adkins v. Duval County School Bd.

• Decision Date: 21 April 1975
• Docket Number: No. 74--1653,74--1653
• Citation: 511 F.2d 690
• Parties: William H. ADKINS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The DUVAL COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD et al., Defendants-Appellees. Jeff Dolan WILLMON, Jr., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NASSAU COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD, Defendant-Appellee. Ruch B. WILSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The DUVAL COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 690

511 F.2d 690

William H. ADKINS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The DUVAL COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD et al., Defendants-Appellees.

Jeff Dolan WILLMON, Jr., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NASSAU COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD, Defendant-Appellee.

Ruch B. WILSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The DUVAL COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 74--1653.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

April 21, 1975.

William H. Maness, Jacksonville, Fla., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Richard H. Frank, Tampa, Fla., amicus curiae.

William L. Allen, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Daniel U. Livermore, Jr., Jacksonville, Fla., for Duval County School Bd., and others.

Brian T. Hayes, Tallahassee, Fla., for Nassau County School Bd.

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

Before TUTTLE, RONEY and GEE, Circuit Judges.

RONEY, Circuit Judge:

Three suits consolidated on appeal present this single issue: Is a Florida school board a 'person' within the meaning of 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983, which provides:

Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress. (Emphasis supplied)

Concluding on the authority of Kenosha v. Bruno, 412 U.S. 507, 93 S.Ct. 2222, 37 L.Ed.2d 109 (1973), that a county school board is not a 'person' within the meaning of that statute, the district court dismissed the cases for want of subject matter jurisdiction, the school boards being the sole defendants and no other ground of jurisdiction having been asserted. We affirm.

Plaintiffs' substantive claims for reinstatement, back pay and other relief, along lines frequently held by federal courts to be cognizable under 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983, see, e.g., Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972); Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972), are not material to the disposition of this case. The procedural history is important, however, in that it has made the issue in this case clear and direct.

Wilson and Adkins filed separate suits under 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983 alleging causes of action against the Duval County School Board, the school superintendent and the principal of the school in which each had last taught. Jurisdiction was alleged only under 28 U.S.C.A. § 1343(3), ¹ with no allegation of jurisdiction under the general federal question statute, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1331. ² At a hearing on defendants' motion to dismiss, both plaintiffs requested and obtained a dismissal without prejudice of their claims against the individual defendants. The only defendant left in each suit is the Duval County School Board. Similarly, Willmon's original complaint alleged a § 1983 claim against the Nassau County School Board alone, predicating jurisdiction solely under 28 U.S.C.A. § 1343(3).

All three cases thus achieved an identical posture relative to the jurisdictional question. The parties to the three suits stipulated that the district court could consolidate them for purposes of ruling on the defendants' motions to dismiss for want of subject matter jurisdiction in light of the Supreme Court of the United States' decision in Kenosha. A single order dismissed all three cases and entered judgment for the defendants.

The critical issue as to subject matter jurisdiction is whether a Florida school board falls within the ambit of the United States Supreme Court cases holding that certain other governmental entities were not intended by Congress to be 'persons' against whom § 1983 actions could be brought.

In Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961), the Supreme Court by unanimous decision held that a municipality is not a 'person' within the statute and dismissed a § 1983 damage claim against the City of Chicago. Similarly, in Moor v. County of Alameda, 411 U.S. 693, 93 S.Ct. 1785, 36 L.Ed.2d 596 (1973), the Court held there to be no cause of action for damages under § 1983 against a California county.

Most lower courts, including ours, construed Monroe v. Pape to preclude damage actions against the governmental entities, but not equitable actions. See, e.g., Harkless v. Sweeny Independent School District, 427 F.2d 319 (5th Cir. 1970), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 991, 91 S.Ct. 451, 27 L.Ed.2d 439 (1971); cf. Moor v. County of Alameda, 411 U.S. at 695 n. 2, 93 S.Ct. 1785. By treating the award of back pay as an equitable remedy, such courts afforded a § 1983 cause of action through § 1343 jurisdiction to vindicate teachers' claims against school boards and school officials for Fourteenth Amendment violations that could not achieve the $10,000 stature required to give the courts federal question jurisdiction under § 1331. See, e.g., Horton v. Lawrence County Board of Education, 449 F.2d 793, 795 (5th Cir. 1971); Harkless, supra, 427 F.2d at 324.

Then the Supreme Court disapproved this bifurcated approach to a § 1983 cause of action, holding that a municipality was not a 'person' within the meaning of the statute regardless of the kind of relief sought against it. Kenosha v. Bruno, 412 U.S. 507, 93 S.Ct. 2222, 37 L.Ed.2d 109 (1973). The question which this Court had avoided in Harkless by application of the legal-equitable relief distinction once more became a viable issue: Is a school board a 'person' amenable to any suit under § 1983? This Court remanded Campbell v. Mazur, 486 F.2d 554 (5th Cir. 1973), so that the district court could consider the effect of Kenosha on our decision in Harkless. We have recently decided that a Texas school district which, 'under Texas law, is in the nature of a municipality' is not a 'person' as that term is used in § 1983. Sterzing v. Fort Bend Independent School District, 496 F.2d 92, 93 n. 2 (5th Cir. 1974).

The appellants and amicus teachers' association have argued the significance of this issue because of the number of school desegregation cases in which the school board has been a defendant. The possible impact on 'school decisions' of a holding that a school board is not a 'person' under § 1983 is difficult to evaluate for a number of reasons. Many school cases involve Fourteenth Amendment claims for which jurisdiction exists under the federal question jurisdiction of the federal courts as provided in § 1331. Most school cases also named individual parties who are 'persons' against whom effective relief was obtained, so that the presence or absence of the school board as a governmental entity did not materially affect the result. Many cases do not even discuss jurisdiction in granting or denying relief. In this case, however, the suit is solely against the school board, the cause of action is restricted to a claim under § 1983, and the jurisdiction is based solely on § 1343.

Two things should be noted to the argument concerning the far-reaching effect of the district court's decision. First, the issue is not whether the school board can be sued. Personal jurisdiction of the defendants is not questioned. We are confronted only with subject matter jurisdiction, i.e., whether a cause of action against a school board recognizable in federal courts was created by § 1983. Second, our responsibility is not to decide whether Congress could or should establish such a cause of action, or whether a similar cause of action may exist under some other jurisprudence, but whether Congress in fact did direct a § 1983 cause of action against school boards. Unlike constitutional decisions, our determination here can be corrected by Congress itself if it desires another result.

We can find no controlling distinction between a Florida school board, as a governmental entity, and a Florida municipality or a Florida county, that would suggest that Congress would include one within the purview of the statute, and not the other two. All three find authority for their existence in the Florida Constitution. See F.S.A.Const. Art. VIII, §§ 1 and 2 and Art. IX, § 4. Counties, municipalities and school districts are granted the power in the Constitution to participate in establishing taxes and tax rates for their respective purposes, F.S.A.Const. Art. VII, § 9, which power is exercised by their respective governing bodies. See F.S.A. § 200.011. The legislature has provided each with significant governmental power with which to operate for its respective purposes. See F.S.A. § 125.001 et seq. (counties); F.S.A. § 165.01 et seq. (municipalities); F.S.A. § 230.01 et seq. (school districts).

In an exercise of legislative discretion the Florida legislature has chosen to designate the school board as a 'body corporate' for all purposes, including institution and defense of suits involving official action. See F.S.A. § 230.21. It has similarly chosen to have the governing authority of a municipality or county generally operate in the name of the county or municipality, including suing and being sued as a 'body corporate.' See F.S.A. §§ 125.15, 165.08. Each of these governmental entities, a school district, a county and a municipality, can operate as an entity only through its designated governing authority, the school board, the county commissioners, and the city council. The fact that the Florida legislature has designated the governmental entity to be sued in its own name in two instances and in the name of the governing authority in the third does not change the character of the suit. The suit, however styled, is against the governmental subdivision itself in each case.

We have recently held that the various arms of state government, such as the Department of Highways, are not 'persons' within the meaning of § 1983, Cheramie v. Tucker, 493 F.2d 586, 587--588 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 868,...