Caban-Wheeler v. Elsea
| Decision Date | 10 July 1990 |
| Docket Number | P,No. 89-8345,CABAN-WHEELE,89-8345 |
| Citation | 904 F.2d 1549 |
| Parties | 53 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 885, 54 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 40,088 Alicialaintiff-Appellant, v. William ELSEA, M.D., Fulton County Health Department, et al., Fulton County Personnel Board, Dr. Robert H. Brisbane, Ellinor Dye, Herbert Mabry and Charles Cherry, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
John C. Butters, Atlanta, Ga., for plaintiff-appellant.
P. Andrew Patterson, Asst. Fulton County Atty., Atlanta, Ga., for defendants-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
Before FAY, Circuit Judge, RONEY *, Senior Circuit Judge, and PITTMAN **, Senior District Judge.
Dr. Alicia Caban-Wheeler, a Hispanic female, appeals from the judgment of the district court adopting the Special Master's Report and Recommendation. The magistrate found that the plaintiff had failed to make out a case of discrimination based on her national origin or race under Title VII of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e et seq. or 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, and recommended that judgment be entered for the defendants. We reverse and remand.
Plaintiff is a white Hispanic female with an undergraduate degree in Psychology and a Master's degree in Administration from Georgia State College, and a Doctorate in Administration Planning and Social Policy from Harvard. She was employed by the Fulton County Health Department as a Child Development Specialist beginning September, 1983, and was terminated on October 22, 1984, by the Commissioner of the Fulton County Health Department effective October 26, 1984. Plaintiff was hired to develop the parent-infant intervention project (hereinafter PIIP). PIIP had a goal of reaching out to and educating indigent mothers about pregnancy and infant care, so as to reduce the high incidence of infant mortality and abuse in Fulton County.
When plaintiff began working with the project, there were no educational materials for use and no training staff for use in educating indigent mothers involved in the program. No physical facilities had been designated or designed for implementation of the project and plaintiff was not informed of any budget for the project.
Plaintiff worked extensively getting the PIIP off the ground. She traveled in her own car to over twenty-five health facilities spread throughout Fulton County to introduce herself to directors of the facilities. Plaintiff recruited various staff people at centers to volunteer their time. She also recruited students from local colleges and acting groups as volunteers for the project.
Plaintiff found physical space at the centers for presentation of the program to the mothers. Plaintiff also developed thirteen video tape vignettes to present to the mothers involved in the project. Plaintiff had no formal training in making vignettes, yet she wrote the scripts, found the actors, made the video tapes, edited and produced these vignettes. Plaintiff's co-workers found that these vignettes were excellent. The vignettes are still in use today.
Throughout her employment, plaintiff worked under severe budgetary restrictions and had difficulty obtaining even $150.00 worth of supplies and materials needed for her project. She was never advised of the $40,000.00 allocated to the project. To the contrary, the bulk of the money was spent on the consulting fees to an outside black consultant rather than on the project.
In March of 1984, after plaintiff had been employed for six months, based upon the recommendation of Dr. Painter, plaintiff became a merit employee under the merit system that by law governs county employees. O.C.G.A. Sec. 45-20-2. Obviously, her work had been outstanding.
When plaintiff was initially hired, she was responsible to Dr. Lloyd Baccus and Dr. LaVonne Painter. On May 14, 1984, plaintiff's supervisor was changed when Dr. Baccus was leaving employment with the county. Mr. Ricks, a black male, assigned Melba Hill, a black female, to be plaintiff's supervisor. Melba Hill, a registered nurse, was Clinical Program Coordinator in the Division of Physical Health, Fulton County Health Department.
On June 28, 1984, one and one-half months after Hill became her supervisor, Melba Hill cited plaintiff for insubordination for numerous alleged violations, none of which had been cited in the previous seven and one-half months under another supervisor. According to Hill, plaintiff failed to place training materials in a classroom for an in-service training session held on June 27, 1984. Hill also noted that plaintiff failed to notify trainees of the change in the location of the session, and failed to attend the in-service training as directed. Hill further noted that plaintiff had not signed up clients for the group project. It was later determined that several of the charges by Hill were false. The plaintiff had photocopied the materials and placed them in the training room and it was not the plaintiff's specific responsibility to notify trainees of the change in location of the session or provide the video tapes to Dr. Spencer.
Plaintiff was suspended for three days without pay by Dr. William Elsea on July 30, 1984, pursuant to Personnel Regulations 1800, Art. 11, Insubordination, Section B, Failure to Carry Orders, Failure or Excessive Delay in Carrying Out Work Assignments or Specific Instructions of Supervisors. According to the suspension memo, plaintiff allegedly failed to sign up twenty clients for the PIIP start-up date as she had been directed, failed to complete the job description by the date assigned by her supervisor, and failed to improve her conduct in dealing with the project consultants.
Plaintiff appealed her suspension to the Fulton County Personnel Board, and a hearing was held before the board on October 17, 1994. Plaintiff's cross-examination of Melba Hill and Dr. Spencer during the hearing was erased from the cassette tape recorder by Mr. Charles Cherry, County Personnel Director. It was later determined that in all of the years of Mr. Cherry's operating the tape recorder at personnel hearings, this was the first time that he had accidentally erased any portion of testimony.
On October 22, 1984, although it was later determined some of the June 28, 1984, charges were false, plaintiff was again cited by her supervisor Melba Hill and recommended for termination, citing seven grounds. 1 Plaintiff appealed her dismissal on October 23, 1984, to the Fulton County Personnel Board. During a pre-hearing meeting, the county filed a motion to quash the subpoenas for seven of plaintiff's witnesses on the ground that they had no relevant testimony, and that several were not within the jurisdiction of the board for subpoenaing purposes. The personnel director granted the motion to quash. After a hearing, the Personnel Board upheld the termination of plaintiff. The plaintiff was replaced by a black female who was subsequently promoted and she was replaced by another black female. Plaintiff subsequently filed a claim of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which later determined that the evidence indicated that there was no cause to believe that plaintiff's charges were true.
The magistrate, utilizing the McDonnell-Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973) test, found that plaintiff had established a prima facie case of discrimination, and that the defendant had presented legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for plaintiff's termination. The magistrate also found, contrary to Melba Hill's June 28, 1984, memo which resulted in a suspension, plaintiff had in fact photocopied the materials and placed them in the training room. The magistrate further found that it was not plaintiff's specific responsibility to notify trainees of the change in location of training sessions or to provide video tapes to Dr. Spencer. The magistrate, although determining that plaintiff had succeeded in proving that several of the reasons articulated by the defendants in their reprimand letters were apparently pretextual, that is, "not totally grounded in truth," concluded that the plaintiff had failed on two of the seven charges 2 to carry her burden of persuasion to show that other good reasons for her termination were pretextual; namely, insubordination and failure to follow instructions, to wit: that the plaintiff had not ceased video taping (but her successor continued the taping) and had failed to sign up twenty persons for the project within the time frame in which she had been instructed.
In regards to plaintiff's Sec. 1983 claim, the magistrate determined that the plaintiff failed to fully make out a case of violation of her rights under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. The magistrate found that plaintiff was not deprived of any constitutional due process rights. The magistrate determined that although the defendant had caused certain of plaintiff's subpoenas to be quashed based on erroneous information, those witnesses were not material. With regard to the erasure of the tape of plaintiff's cross-examination of Melba Hill and Dr. Spencer, the magistrate found that in all of Mr. Cherry's years of operating the tape recorder at personnel hearings, this was the first time that he had accidentally erased any portion of testimony. The magistrate concluded that despite the erasure, plaintiff was afforded an opportunity to re-examine Dr. Spencer and Ms. Hill when it became apparent that the testimony had been erased. The magistrate further determined that plaintiff's superiors followed the disciplinary guidelines, and concluded that plaintiff's due process rights were not denied. Accordingly, the magistrate recommended that judgment be entered in favor of the defendants. The plaintiff filed objections to the magistrate's recommendation. The district court overruled plaintiff's...
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