Bowling v. Scott, s. 75-1426

• Citation: 587 F.2d 229
• Decision Date: 08 January 1979
• Docket Number: 75-2949 and 76-3879,Nos. 75-1426,s. 75-1426
• Parties: Lawrence E. BOWLING, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Charley SCOTT, Individually and as Assistant Academic Vice President, University of Alabama, et al., Defendants-Appellees. Lawrence E. BOWLING, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. David MATHEWS, etc., et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)

Page 229

587 F.2d 229

Lawrence E. BOWLING, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Charley SCOTT, Individually and as Assistant Academic Vice

President, University of Alabama, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Lawrence E. BOWLING, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. David MATHEWS, etc., et al., Defendants-Appellees.

Nos. 75-1426, 75-2949 and 76-3879.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Jan. 8, 1979.

Lawrence E. Bowling, pro se.

Andrew J. Thomas, J. Fredric Ingram, Birmingham, Ala., Paul E. Skidmore, University, Ala., for defendants-appellees.

Jerome A. Cooper, Birmingham, Ala., for Sands.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

Before JONES, AINSWORTH and HILL, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

At the heart of this consolidated appeal ¹ lies appellant's principal claim ² that his discharge as a tenured English Professor at the University of Alabama violated the due process guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment. Because we hold that appellant's termination comported with both procedural and substantive due process, we affirm the various judgments and orders of the district court appealed from.

Appellant Bowling's troubles began with the filing of formal dismissal charges against him in April of 1972. Following a two-week hearing by a faculty committee on these charges in June of that year, appellant's employment was terminated, effective August 13, 1973, in accordance with the recommendation of the committee.

On February 9, 1973, appellant filed the first of the two actions ³ involved in this appeal, alleging that his termination was unconstitutional and asking for damages and injunctive relief in the form of reinstatement. The district court found the faculty committee hearing to have been deficient in procedural due process, and remanded the cause to the University for a rehearing that afforded appellant due process. That order, among others, was affirmed by this Court in Bowling v. Mathews, 511 F.2d 112 (5th Cir. 1975).

Following remand, the university served appellant with a new Statement of Charges, consisting of twenty-four legal-sized pages, which contained dual allegations that appellant failed to perform his assigned duties and committed acts inimical to the efficient functioning of the Department of English. This document specified, in painstaking detail, the factual basis for each charge, the names of those witnesses expected to testify in support of the charges, and the nature of their expected testimony.

Appellant and his counsel next participated in a series of meetings called for the purpose of selecting a faculty hearing committee. The committee was chosen from a master list consisting exclusively of full professors with tenure, but excluding, on a categorical basis, ⁴ those professors with a potential bias toward appellant's cause. Each party was allowed an unlimited number of challenges for cause and two peremptory challenges.

Following the selection of the committee, Dr. Scott, the administrative official of the college designated to preside over the selection and organization of the committee, issued a memorandum of instructions to the committee in which he outlined various procedural guidelines which were to be followed. ⁵ Subsequent to Dr. Scott's instructions, the committee adopted supplemental procedural rules to govern the conduct of the hearing; these rules were provided to all parties with an opportunity to object within five days thereafter.

Beginning on May 1, 1975, fourteen hearing sessions were held by the committee, with appellant being represented throughout these proceedings by a Professor at the University of Alabama Law School. During the course of the hearings, some twelve witnesses were examined and cross-examined; the University introduced into evidence seventy-nine exhibits and appellant introduced eighty-four exhibits.

Following the conclusion of the faculty committee hearing, the committee issued a twelve-page report finding the charges against appellant to be supported by substantial evidence and recommending that he be dismissed from his position as a tenured professor. After considering the committee's report and appellant's memorandum in opposition thereto, Dr. Howard Gundy, the University official assigned the responsibility of making the final institutional decision with respect to appellant's future employment accepted the recommendation of the committee and informed appellant by letter dated October 7, 1975, that his employment would be terminated, effective August 15, 1976. Appellant subsequently appealed to the Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama, which approved the recommendation of the faculty hearing committee. ⁶

The district court, in granting defendants' motion for summary judgment, concluded that the above proceedings fully complied with the procedural and substantive due process standards of the Fourteenth Amendment. We agr...