Chisholm v. Ramia

• Decision Date: 01 July 2009
• Docket Number: Civil No. 3:07cv1691 (JBA).
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut
• Parties: Annemarie CHISHOLM, Plaintiff, v. Donald RAMIA and the Shelton Board of Education, Defendants.

639 F.Supp.2d 240

Annemarie CHISHOLM, Plaintiff, v. Donald RAMIA and the Shelton Board of Education, Defendants.

Civil No. 3:07cv1691 (JBA).

United States District Court, D. Connecticut.

July 1, 2009.

John R. Williams, Katrena K. Engstrom, John R. Williams and Associates, LLP, New Haven, CT, for Plaintiff.

David S. Monastersky, Howd & Ludorf, Hartford, CT, for Defendants.

RULING ON DEFENDANTS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT [Doc. # 22]

JANET BOND ARTERTON, District Judge.

Plaintiff Annemarie Chisholm brings suit under the Fourteenth Amendment against Defendants Shelton Board of Education ("Board") and Donald Ramia, formerly the headmaster of Shelton High School ("School"), for their decision not to retain her as the head of the Technology and Business Departments at the School ("Department Head"). The Board and Ramia moved for summary judgment, in opposition to which Plaintiff clarified that her suit, although one count, alleges three distinct Fourteenth Amendment Claims: (1) a class-of-one Equal Protection Clause claim;¹ (2) deprivation of her property interest in the Department Head position; and (3) deprivation of her liberty or property interest under a "stigma-plus" theory, by means of a memorandum by Ramia explaining his decision not to retain her. For the reasons stated below Defendants' motion will be granted.

I. Factual Background

The record—which contains Plaintiff's deposition, two affidavits (of Ramia and Shelton Schools Superintendent Robin Willink), an Evaluation and Memorandum of Plaintiff written by Ramia, previous evaluations of Plaintiff by Ramia, and minutes of the Board's meetings—reveals the following:

The Board hired Chisholm as a full-time teacher in 1996. (Chisholm Dep. at 15:24-16:3.) In 2003, while Chisholm was serving as a business teacher at the School, she expressed interest to the Board in the newly open Department Head position. (Id. 16:15-23, 18:23-19:1.) Ramia, the School's headmaster, recommended her as the next Department Head to the Board, which then selected her for the position in February 2004. Ramia recommended her for reappointment, and the Board reappointed her, as Department Head for three academic years, serving through Spring 2007.

In February 2007 Ramia completed the form labeled "Recommendation for Reappointment to the Stipend Position for the 2007-08 School Year," stating that he did not recommend her for rehire. (Evaluation & Memorandum, Ex. 3 to Ramia Aff., Ex. C to Defs.' Mem. Supp.) The Director of Human Resources suggested that he should "give . . . Chisholm an explanation as to [his] decision" (Ramia Aff. at ¶ 20), so he attached a memorandum to the evaluation in which he wrote, among other things, that "[i]t has, unfortunately, been my observation that both of the departments under your supervision have seen a tremendous decline in morality [sic]" (Evaluation & Memorandum at 3).

Both Ramia and Chisholm reference a public confrontation between them in December 2006 in the School's hallway. According to Chisholm, at a School meeting Ramia had silently authorized a technology teacher—rather than Chisholm, the Department Head—to make a presentation for the Technology Department, shocking the meeting's attendees. When Plaintiff asked Ramia about it after the meeting, Ramia "sa[id] `I have a big problem with you'" and "sa[id] `Why don't you just resign, resign, resign and get out.' He screamed this at the top of his lungs. And there were many people who heard, colleagues, students, construction workers." (Chisholm Dep. at 55:16-21, 61:12-15.) According to Ramia, by contrast, Plaintiff displayed a "confrontational attitude" in the hallway when Ramia "questioned [her] about a budget presentation to the Department Chairs." (Evaluation & Memorandum at 2.) The record is silent as to any events transpiring between this event and February 2007, when Ramia decided against retaining Plaintiff as Department Head.

Plaintiff's undisputed testimony is that the Evaluation and Memorandum was left in her pigeonhole mailbox to which students and other teachers had access, and that she did not receive it until March 30, 2007, six weeks after its stated date (February 15, 2007). However, Chisholm could not say that anyone else had, in fact, seen the Evaluation and Memorandum.

The parties dispute whether Ramia or the Board effectuated Plaintiff's non-retention. Plaintiff argues that because she became the Department Head only after the Board accepted Ramia's recommendation and formally appointed her, that she could not have lost that position without a decision by the Board. Defendants argue that Ramia had and exercised the authority to not retain Plaintiff, and that his decision was final without Board approval. Plaintiff's position is belied by the evidence.

Plaintiff proffers agendas from five monthly Board meetings held between April and August 2007 — which each list as an "item[] to be voted on" the "[c]onsideration of the Board to approve the reappointment of the stipend position holders . . . each [of whom] has been recommended for reappointment" (Minutes [Docs. ## 26-3 to 26-7]) — and her observation that the Board approved her elevation and her retention each year (Chisholm Dep. at 39:5-8). In her deposition Chisholm acknowledged that she does not know whether the Board "took any action concerning" Ramia's determination of non-retention, or "what the [B]oard itself did" on the matter. (Id. 78:18-79:6.) The fact of the Board's participation in hiring and retaining her each year, however, does not demonstrate that it took, or was required to take, any affirmative steps not to retain her.

Moreover, uncontested evidence supports Defendants' position that the Superintendent and the administrator's evaluator each independently have the authority to decide not to retain a department administrator. Shelton Schools Superintendent Robin Willink avers that "[n]o other action" aside from the evaluator's determination of non-retention "is required to remove a . . . Department Head." (Willink Aff., Ex. B to Defs.' Mem. Supp., at ¶ 18; accord Ramia Aff. at ¶ 13). The Board's agendas from April through August 2007 are silent both as to any consideration of Chisholm and as to any vote by the Board to adopt any evaluator's recommendation of non-retention of any department administrator, reflecting only the Board's consideration of candidates who had "been recommended for reappointment," which Plaintiff undisputedly was not. Further, Willink averred that the Board never met to consider whether to retain Chisholm as Department Head after Ramia determined not to do so. (Willink Aff. at ¶ 19.) On the record evidence the only inferrable possibility is that Ramia, alone, determined not to retain Chisholm as Department Head.

II. Discussion

A. Deprivation of a Property Interest

In this circuit, while "the Fourteenth Amendment protects a property interest in a particular position or rank," Ciambriello v. County of Nassau, 292 F.3d 307, 318 (2d Cir.2002), more than mere employment is required for its protections to attach to a particular employee. "An abstract need, desire or unilateral expectation [of continued employment] is not enough" to create "an interest protectable under the Constitution." Abramson v. Pataki, 278 F.3d 93, 99 (2d Cir.2002). Instead,

a protectable property interest may arise in a situation where an employee may be removed only for cause. Indeed, in this circuit, a person may possess a protected interest in public employment if contractual or statutory provisions guarantee continued employment absent `sufficient cause' for discharge or he can prove a de facto system of tenure.

Id. (citations omitted).

Plaintiff has produced no evidence on which to conclude that she had a protectable property interest in her position as Department Head. Regardless of whether Ramia could unilaterally decide not to retain her or whether his recommendation of non-retention needed approval from the Board, there is no evidence that Defendants needed to demonstrate good cause to strip her of the title. Plaintiff had no contract with either Mr. Ramia or the Board governing her Department Head position or guaranteeing her continued employment in that position. Indeed, Chisholm agreed that her status as Department Head fell entirely outside the statutory scheme of tenure for public school teachers embodied in Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-151(d).² (Chisholm Dep. at 25:16-26:5.) She testified that "each year [she] had to submit a long form [to re-apply] for department chair," that each year Ramia made decisions regarding department chairs at different times during the academic year, that she did not know whether she would return as Department Head until she received an evaluation from Ramia recommending retention of her, and that she did not sign any contracts governing her role as Department Head. (Id. 28:1-30:12.) And while Plaintiff thought that she would have the opportunity to defend herself against what she believed to be a mere recommendation by Ramia not to retain her (id. 37:4-15), she does not assert that she thought the Board needed cause to decide not to retain her.

Plaintiff's argument that she had a property interest because "the evidence before the [C]ourt would permit a jury to find that [Mr.] Ramia himself had no power to appoint or remove the plaintiff and that the Board of Education itself was required to schedule the matter on its agenda and vote before her circumstances could be changed," demonstrating that "[P]laintiff [had] more than a `mere unilateral expectancy'" in being Department Head (Pl.'s Opp'n at 8), is not supported by her proffer of the previously discussed agendas from Board meetings or her observation that the Board approved her elevation and her retention each year. (Chisholm Dep. at 39:5-8; see also id. 32:6-21.) As discussed above, this evidence does not support an inference that the Board needed to approve Mr. Ramia's recommendation of non-retention,...