Akins v. Board of Governors of State Colleges and Universities
| Citation | 840 F.2d 1371 |
| Decision Date | 11 April 1988 |
| Docket Number | No. 87-1961,87-1961 |
| Parties | 45 Ed. Law Rep. 511 Robin AKINS, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF STATE COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES, et al., Defendants- Appellees. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit) |
James B. Dykehouse, Poltrock & Giampetro, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiffs-appellants.
Mark T. Dunn, Dunn Goebel Ulbrich Morel & Hundman, Bloomington, Ill., for defendants-appellees.
Before BAUER, Chief Judge, RIPPLE and MANION, Circuit Judges.
Robin Akins and nine other former nursing students 1 at the Chicago State University College of Nursing appeal the district court's decision to dismiss their complaint in its entirety. The appellants filed a two-count complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. In count I of the complaint, the appellants alleged that the appellees, the Board of Governors and several Chicago State University officials, violated their substantive due process rights by terminating their nursing school education pursuant to an arbitrary and capricious academic policy. Count II of the complaint alleged a pendent state law claim for willful and wanton tortious conduct. The appellants sought both injunctive relief and monetary damages. The district court referred the case to a magistrate for her recommendations. Upon receipt of the magistrate's recommendations, the district court dismissed the complaint. It held that the suit was barred in part by the eleventh amendment and in part by the defense of qualified immunity. We affirm in part and reverse in part.
In their complaint, the appellants, all senior nursing students at Chicago State University, allege that they were enrolled in the clinical nursing practice course number 332, "Nursing VII, Advanced Medical Surgical Nursing," during the fall semester of the 1984-85 academic year. The complaint alleges that the plaintiffs were deprived of their constitutionally protected right to due process in pursuit of their professional education in nursing by the following acts of the administrators and faculty of the University:
a. administering a final examination on December 17, 1984, which defendants knew to be invalid in that it did not fairly evaluate students with respect to the material actually presented in the course during the semester;
b. manipulating final exam questions and scores after the aforementioned final examination had been administered to Plaintiffs and others;
c. basing evaluations of Plaintiffs' academic performance on factors not reasonably considered to be academic criteria;
d. intentionally and knowingly falsifying Plaintiffs' clinical evaluations; and
e. manipulating and altering quiz and examination grades throughout the fall trimester.
Complaint at 2-3; R.1 at 2-3. The complaint further alleges that these actions were undertaken as part of a policy to reduce the number of nursing school graduates. The alleged motivation behind this policy was the school's difficulty with the Illinois Department of Registration and Education due to the poor success rate of the school's graduates on the Illinois State licensing examinations.
In their complaint, the appellants claimed that, as a result of this policy, their reputations were injured, their ability to obtain professional employment was hindered, they were deprived of their interest in continuing their professional education, and they were caused humiliation, embarrassment and mental anguish. They sought temporary and permanent injunctive relief, including reinstatement in the nursing program. They also sought compensatory and punitive damages. In a pendent claim, they sought the same relief under state law.
The appellees responded by filing with the district court a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, lack of personal jurisdiction and failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. The court then referred the matter to a magistrate. On December 2, 1986, the magistrate entered a report and recommendation regarding the appellees' motion to dismiss.
The magistrate first turned to the question of whether any aspect of the complaint was barred by the eleventh amendment.
The magistrate first determined that the Board of Governors, like the Illinois Board of Regents, is not an independent governmental subdivision but an arm of the state. Accordingly, the magistrate recommended that the Board of Governors be dismissed from the case.
The magistrate then turned to the individual defendants. She first noted that the complaint did not make it clear whether the individual defendants were sued in their official capacities, in their individual capacities, or both. The complaint merely listed the positions held by each defendant at Chicago State University and alleged that they acted under color of state law. While acknowledging that naming a defendant's position has been held to raise a presumption that the official is sued only in his official capacity, the magistrate also noted that the presumption is not conclusive. Because the plaintiffs had stated in their memorandum in opposition to the motion to dismiss that they were also proceeding against the defendants as individuals, the magistrate concluded that, absent objection by the plaintiffs, she would assume that the defendants were sued both in their official and individual capacities.
The magistrate then turned to whether the individual defendants could be sued in their official capacities without violating the eleventh amendment. With respect to monetary relief, she determined that no judgment could be imposed on this basis. She reasoned that an action against an officer in his official capacity is an action against the entity of which he is an officer and that a monetary judgment entered against an officer in that capacity imposes liability on the entity he represents. With respect to the pendent state law claim, she concluded that the eleventh amendment prohibits not only suits for monetary damages but also for injunctive relief.
With respect to the suit against the individual defendants in their individual capacities, the magistrate determined that the individual official, and not the state, was the real and substantial party at interest. Accordingly, the plaintiffs' action against the defendants in their individual capacities--either with respect to injunctive or monetary relief--was not barred by the eleventh amendment.
The magistrate determined that the complaint stated a cause of action for a violation of substantive due process of law. In her view, under Illinois law, a college or university has a contractual relationship with its students that amounts to a property right in their continued education. Although the college of nursing student handbook does not expressly state that students will be graded and evaluated fairly, it does provide procedures by which students may appeal grades they think are unfair. Such provisions constitute, concluded the magistrate, an implied promise that grading will not be arbitrary.
On the matter of immunity, the magistrate determined that the case law at that time did not clearly establish the substantive due process right to be free from arbitrary and capricious action on the part of university officials with respect to academic decisions. Accordingly, she recommended that, with respect to count I, the individual defendants in their individual capacities were entitled to qualified immunity.
The magistrate summarized her recommendations as follows:
(1) The Board of Governors should be dismissed from the action;
(2) Count I (the federal claim alleging a violation of due process) should be dismissed "to the extent that it seeks monetary damages from the individual defendants in their official capacities and against the individual defendants in their individual capacities." Akins v. Board of Governors, No. 85 C 5948, magistrate's report and recommendation at 14-15 (N.D.Ill. Dec. 2, 1986) [hereinafter Magistrate's report]; R.23 at 14-15.
(3) Count II (pendent state claim) should be dismissed as to the individual defendants in their official capacities.
Therefore, although the magistrate did not explicitly state which claims ought to survive, it appears that she recommended that only two claims survive. The claims are the count I allegations against the individual defendants in their official capacities to the extent that the appellants request injunctive relief, and the count II state law allegations against the individual appellees in their individual capacities.
In a terse docket entry, the district court noted that "the court accepts and adopts the report and recommendation of the magistrate with the clarification noted on the reverse of this order and hereby grants the defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint." Akins v. Board of Governors, No. 85 C 5948, docket entry at 1 [hereinafter Docket entry]; R.27 at 1. The one-page "clarification," which the district court captioned an "order," amounts to a substantial revision of the magistrate's report and recommendation. For the sake of clarity, we shall set forth the district court's holding according to the organizational scheme utilized by the magistrate.
The court noted that the plaintiffs did not object to the dismissal of this party on eleventh amendment grounds.
The district court further noted that the plaintiffs did not object to the dismissal of count I against the individual defendants in...
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