Anderson v. Low Rent Housing Commission of Muscatine

• Citation: 304 N.W.2d 239
• Decision Date: 15 April 1981
• Docket Number: 63834,Nos. 63597,s. 63597
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Iowa
• Parties: 7 Media L. Rep. 1726 Phyllis M. ANDERSON, Appellant, Cross-Appellee, v. The LOW RENT HOUSING COMMISSION OF MUSCATINE, Iowa; George Six; and Jeffrey Schott, Acting Community Development Director, Cross-Appellants, Appeal of the CITY OF MUSCATINE, Iowa.

Page 239

304 N.W.2d 239

7 Media L. Rep. 1726

Phyllis M. ANDERSON, Appellant, Cross-Appellee, v. The LOW RENT HOUSING COMMISSION OF MUSCATINE, Iowa; George Six; and Jeffrey Schott, Acting Community Development Director, Cross-Appellants,

Appeal of the CITY OF MUSCATINE, Iowa.

Nos. 63597, 63834.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

April 15, 1981.

Bruce Washburn, Iowa City, for appellant, cross-appellee.

John D. Stonebraker of McDonald, Stonebraker & Cepican, Davenport, and Patrick M. Ryan of Eckhardt, Goedken, Hintermeister & Ryan, Muscatine, for appellee and cross-appellants.

Considered by LeGRAND, P. J., and UHLENHOPP, McGIVERIN, LARSON, and SCHULTZ, JJ.

SCHULTZ, Justice.

This consolidated appeal grew out of a suit in five divisions based on libel, invasion of privacy, and wrongful discharge from employment. The plaintiff, Phyllis M. Anderson (Anderson), was formerly employed as a secretary in the Community Development Department of defendant City of Muscatine, Iowa (City); her immediate supervisor was defendant Jeffrey Schott (Schott), the city's Acting Community Development Director. Defendant Low Rent Housing Commission of Muscatine, Iowa (LHA), was established by ordinance under the provisions of chapter 403A, The Code 1970, and is governed by five commissioners, one of whom is defendant George Six (Six).

During the course of her employment from January 1975 until she was dismissed on February 17, 1976, fifty-four weeks later, Anderson was in the midst of a controversy, which received widespread coverage from the news media, involving city projects, officials, and fellow employees. This multi-party action stems from that controversy. In the trial below Anderson contended that she was wrongfully discharged. She claimed she had a constitutionally protected liberty interest in her employment, and that the circumstances underlying the termination of that employment deprived her of due process of law in violation of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution. She also maintained that she was the victim of a libel by Six and LHA on October 20, 1975, and that the City and Schott invaded her privacy on February 17, 1976, by disclosing the facts surrounding her termination to the media.

The wrongful termination claim, which was tried to the court, was dismissed. Anderson appeals from that ruling. We affirm. LHA and Six appeal from a judgment entered in part on jury verdicts rendered in favor of Anderson on the libel claim. We reverse and remand. Schott appeals from the portion of the judgment entered on jury verdicts awarding Anderson actual and punitive damages on the invasion of privacy claim. We affirm. Schott also claims the trial court erred in allowing the admission of an exhibit introduced for the limited purpose of showing that Anderson typed the exhibit at the mayor's request. We find no error in that ruling.

I. Jurisdiction of Anderson's appeal. Since there was some question as to whether or not Anderson's appeal was taken from a nonfinal judgment, we required the parties to brief the issue.

Anderson appeals from the trial court's dismissal of her wrongful termination claim, which was tried to the court while her other claims were simultaneously tried to a jury. At the time the trial court issued its ruling on the wrongful termination claim, the jury had returned verdicts on the other claims, and posttrial motions were pending on those claims. The nonfinality issue arose because Anderson appealed from the adverse ruling on the wrongful termination claim prior to the time the trial court ruled on the posttrial motions.

Anderson claims that the ruling on the wrongful termination claim was a final judgment within the meaning of Iowa R.App.P. 5. We need not decide the accuracy of this assertion, however, because we conclude that Iowa R.App.P. 1(c), which became effective July 1, 1980, is dispositive of this jurisdictional issue. Appellate rule 1(c) provides:

If an appeal to the supreme court is improvidently taken because the order from which appeal is taken is interlocutory, this alone shall not be ground for dismissal. The papers upon which the appeal was taken shall be regarded and acted upon as an application for interlocutory appeal under rule 2, rules of appellate procedure, as if duly presented to the supreme court at the time the appeal was taken.

In Smith v. Partnership of Korf, Diehl, Clayton and Cleverley, 302 N.W.2d 137, 138 (Iowa 1981), we held that appellate rule 1(c) is to be given retrospective effect and thus applies to all appeals pending on its effective date, as well as those perfected thereafter.

It should be noted, however, that the rule permits us to grant appeal only as if application had been made under appellate rule 2. Appellate rule 2 allows us to entertain an appeal on an interlocutory ruling upon finding that the ruling "involves substantial rights and will materially affect the final decision and that a determination of its correctness before trial on the merits will better serve the interests of justice." We determine that the present case meets the requirements of appellate rule 2. We therefore focus our attention on the merits of this appeal.

II. Liberty interest. Anderson's petition, as amended, alleged that the City and Schott wrongfully terminated her employment, depriving her of due process of law. Before the issues were submitted to the jury, the trial court sustained Anderson's motion to withdraw the wrongful termination claim from the jury and have the court determine the issue. The trial court subsequently dismissed the claim, ruling that Anderson did not have a constitutionally protected liberty interest, and that even if she did she was afforded due process. Anderson contends the trial court erred in so ruling. We must first determine whether Anderson had a constitutionally protected liberty interest which was affected by her discharge.

"Liberty interest" is a general, somewhat nebulous, term whose definition depends on the context in which it is used. The concept has its origin in the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution: "(N)or shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ...." As applied to public employment, due process does not afford a right to public employment, but it does afford certain constitutional rights in relation to such employment. See McDowell v. Texas, 465 F.2d 1342, 1345-46 (5th Cir. 1971), cert. denied, 410 U.S. 943, 93 S.Ct. 1371, 35 L.Ed.2d 610 (1973). Among these rights is the right to procedural due process when charges are brought against an employee which might seriously damage standing and association in the community or impose a stigma or other disability that forecloses the freedom of the employee to take advantage of other employment opportunities. Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 573, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2707, 33 L.Ed.2d 548, 558-59 (1972).

It is necessary for us to examine the facts presented to the trial court in order to determine whether a constitutionally protected liberty interest was violated by Anderson's termination. When a violation of constitutional rights is alleged we review the facts de novo to make an evaluation of the totality of the circumstances under which the trial court's ruling on those constitutional rights was made. State v. Cullison, 227 N.W.2d 121, 126 (Iowa 1975).

It was agreed below that Anderson was an employee at will and had no statutory or contractual rights to due process. She was terminated summarily by Schott, her immediate supervisor, and was given a letter containing five reasons for her discharge, to-wit:

1. You have antagonized personnel in the Community Development Department and are a constant source of friction within the Department.

2. You have antagonized personnel in other departments in City Hall, creating animosities between City employees.

3. You have exceeded your position as Urban Renewal Secretary by directly intervening in matters beyond your authority.

4. I have received repeated criticisms from other City employees, Department Heads, City Council members, and members of City Commissions regarding your behavior.

5. You have lost my confidence, respect, and trust in your ability to function as Urban Renewal Secretary. As such, the working relationship essential to the efficient operation of the Department is gone. There is no way this situation can continue.

Several of these reasons were published by the news media. Whether Anderson, Schott, or someone else released the text of the letter is unclear from the controverted evidence in the record. Schott did discuss Anderson's termination with representatives of the news media, however, stating that there were five reasons for Anderson's dismissal, that it was precipitated by no one thing but by an accumulation of activities he could no longer tolerate, and that it was the action he felt could best remedy the difficulty caused by friction between employees in the department.

Anderson claims that under Roth a discharged governmental employee who receives adverse publicity imposing a stigma that forecloses other employment opportunities should have an opportunity to refute the charges giving rise to the stigma. While we agree with this position, the nature of the charges here do not meet Roth's definition of stigma.

In Roth a first-year university professor, who was under a one-year contract, was not rehired. Roth sued alleging that the university's reason for not renewing his contract was to punish him for making statements criticizing the university administration. The United States Supreme Court rejected Roth's claim that the university's failure to provide him with a statement of reasons for nonretention and an opportunity for a hearing violated a constitutionally protected liberty interest. In so doing the Court said that the state did not charge Roth with anything that might seriously damage his standing...