Baylor University v. Coley

• Decision Date: 20 April 2007
• Docket Number: No. 04-0916.,04-0916.
• Citation: 221 S.W.3d 599
• Parties: BAYLOR UNIVERSITY, Petitioner, v. Betty A. COLEY, Respondent.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

221 S.W.3d 599

BAYLOR UNIVERSITY, Petitioner, v. Betty A. COLEY, Respondent.

No. 04-0916.

Supreme Court of Texas.

Argued October 19, 2005.

Decided April 20, 2007.

Roy L. Barrett, Stuart Smith, and John Andrew Powell, Naman, Howell, Smith & Lee, L.L.P., Waco, for Petitioner.

LaNelle L. McNamara, LaNelle L. McNamara, P.C., Waco, for Respondent.

Justice HECHT delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice JEFFERSON, Justice O'NEILL, Justice BRISTER, Justice MEDINA, Justice GREEN, and Justice WILLETT joined.

Respondent Betty A. Coley contends that her former employer, petitioner Baylor University, by reassigning her responsibilities to others and thus effectively demoting her, breached her contract and forced her to resign from her tenured faculty position. The trial court rendered judgment for Baylor based on the jury's failure to find that Coley had been constructively discharged, defined in the charge as "mak[ing] conditions so intolerable that a reasonable person in the employee's position would have felt compelled to resign." The court of appeals reversed and remanded, holding that the jury should have been asked whether Baylor constructively discharged Coley by "`mak[ing] a material change in the position to which [she] was entitled under the contract.'"¹ We conclude that Coley presented no evidence Baylor breached her contract and that the jury was properly charged on constructive discharge, and we therefore reverse and render judgment for Baylor.

Baylor hired Coley in 1972 as a librarian in one of its libraries, the Armstrong Browning Library (the "ABL" or "Library"), and in 1981 informed her by letter that she had been granted tenure on the faculty of the Library. The evidence shows that Coley was given the rank of "Assistant Professor". According to Baylor's personnel policy manual:

Tenure means assurance to an experienced faculty member that he/she may expect to continue in his/her academic position unless adequate cause for dismissal is demonstrated in a fair hearing, following established procedures of due process.

In her brief in this Court, Coley tells us that she was responsible for acquiring and preserving materials, presenting the collection to students and others inside the Library as well as outside, participating in professional associations, and doing scholarly research. When the director of the Library left in 1985, Coley applied for the position and was allowed to assume some of its duties until Dr. Roger Brooks was hired as director in 1987.

Coley's relationship with Brooks was discordant. Brooks thought her to be abrasive and difficult to work with. Dissatisfied with her performance, he reassigned some of her responsibilities to himself or her co-workers. In April 1993, while Coley was on sabbatical, Brooks wrote to his superior, Dr. Avery Sharp, the University Librarian, detailing Coley's inadequacies. Two weeks later Sharp, in turn, wrote to Coley as follows:

It appears that there is a history of low quantity and quality of work, self-serving behavior, rude and insulting behavior toward ABL staff and members of the public, excessive absences year after year, repeated angry outbursts, public criticism of the Director, the former University Librarian, the central administration and the University, inadequate ability to accept supervision, poor judgment in materials purchasing recommendations, attempts to convince dealers and booksellers that you are an approved purchasing agent for the Library, and inability or unwillingness to complete assigned projects.

Sharp informed Coley that she would not be terminated but would be given an opportunity to improve. He also told her that she would not be given a raise in salary or a promotion, and that her responsibilities, like those of other Library staff, would be reviewed. "Effective immediately and continuing indefinitely," he concluded, "you have no supervisory responsibilities, no public service responsibilities, and no budgetary responsibilities." It is not clear whether any of these were part of her responsibilities when she first received tenure, or whether she had taken them on while the director's position remained vacant.

Coley complained to Baylor's President, Dr. Herbert H. Reynolds, who told her she could pursue a formal hearing with the University Grievance Committee, but she never did. In August 1993, Brooks changed the title of Coley's position from "Librarian" to "Research Librarian" and met with her to discuss her duties, which they both agreed were "very important" to the operation of the Library. But in October, she wrote Sharp:

During the past six years my relationship with Dr. Brooks has deteriorated to such an extent that I believe he is now trying to remove me from the Library. As you know, he has demoted me to "research librarian" and I am now subject to monthly reports to you. He has stripped me of almost every responsibility I once had in the Library. . . .

I believe his reasons for doing this are caused by a strong personality conflict between us, rather than the result of misdemeanors on my part.

She concluded that she was "anxious not to cause trouble" and that she "wish[ed] to continue working here." When Sharp responded that she should send a copy of her letter to Brooks, she replied:

I have not sent a copy to Dr. Brooks because I am anxious to avoid further confrontation. Things have been much better recently in the Library, and I wish them to continue. My letter was intended solely to put on record my views of the events of the past few months.

Two weeks later Brooks issued a memo stating that Coley had been named "Research Librarian" and would be

responsible for conducting research on topics pertaining to the collection's resources, the cataloging of newly acquired non-print and non-manuscript items, the cataloging of archival material pertaining to the collection's early history, and the maintenance of the clippings file.

This was the position he had discussed with her in August.

Coley signed a new one-year contract with Baylor dated April 15, 1994, continuing her at the academic rank of "Assistant Professor" for the 1994-1995 academic year. Although all of Coley's claims accrued prior to the 1994-1995 academic year, none of the annual contracts governing prior years were introduced into evidence; the 1994-1995 contract does not govern Coley's claims, but is at best representative of the prior annual contracts. Regardless, neither the 1994-1995 contract nor the 1981 letter granting Coley tenure contained any description of her position or responsibilities. The 1994-1995 contract stated that the contract, a referenced attachment, and the Baylor University Personnel Policy Manual "contain the entire agreement between the faculty member and the University". Neither the attachment nor the complete manual are in the record; the only portion of the manual regarding the terms of tenure is quoted above in pertinent part.

In May, Coley told Brooks that she might need to take disability leave. Brooks passed her request on to Sharp, who wrote Coley that he would need a statement from her physician regarding her diagnosis and prognosis. In July, Coley replied that

the question is now moot. You will be pleased to learn that I am planning to take early retirement from Baylor, not because I have finally capitulated to the decade of constructive dismissal tactics and harassment I have suffered, culminating last year during my sabbatical in your letter of 28 April demoting me from my position as Librarian . . . that I had held for twenty-one years, and placing me on what amounts to punitive probation, but because I am to be married and live in Vancouver, British Columbia.

A few days later she wrote Brooks to formally request retirement:

You will appreciate that I have mixed emotions about leaving the ABL, which for the past twenty-two years has been the center of my professional and, indeed, much of my personal life. However, in view of the pressures and stress I have experienced over the past decade, especially since my sabbatical leave in 1993, I can only anticipate with relief a happy and productive future in my new situation and environment. I have always conducted myself in the best interests of the ABL, and the Library will always have a special place in my affection.

I am also ambivalent about severing my long association with Baylor University, which has treated me well in so many ways. I only regret that because I was denied promotion to the rank of Associate Professor, I am ineligible for Emeritus status.

* * *

Thank you for whatever role you may have played in making [arrangements for my retirement] possible. I should also like to acknowledge the other kindnesses you have shown me during your tenure as Director of ABL.

Nine months after she retired, in April 1995, Coley sued Baylor, Brooks, and Sharp. She alleged that the defendants

circumvented Coley's rights and privileges as a tenured faculty member, and undertook to threaten, intimidate, and harass Coley in an effort to force her to leave her employment; and, finally, when she did not abandon her position, they effectively removed her from her faculty position through the guise of "redefinition" . . . . Ultimately, the unreasonable and harassing conduct of Defendants . . . did force Coley to take early retirement from the clerical position that she was forced to assume after her faculty and research position, with the academic rights attendant thereto, was redefined. . . .

This "`defacto removal' of [her] vested tenure rights", she asserted, "constituted a material and substantial breach of the contractual rights conferred on Coley and other tenured faculty at Baylor University."

At the close of the evidence, the trial court refused Coley's requests that the jury be asked whether Baylor breached her tenure contract and that they be instructed

that if you find and believe from the evidence that the change in Betty...