Christy ex rel. Christy v. McCalla

• Decision Date: 20 January 2012
• Docket Number: No. 2011–C–0366.,2011–C–0366.
• Citation: 79 So.3d 293,276 Ed. Law Rep. 1096
• Parties: Melanie CHRISTY, individually and on Behalf of her minor son, Justin Christy v. Dr. Sandra McCALLA and the Caddo Parish School Board.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

276 Ed. Law Rep. 1096

79 So.3d 293

Melanie CHRISTY, individually and on Behalf of her minor son, Justin Christy

v.Dr. Sandra McCALLA and the Caddo Parish School Board.

No. 2011–C–0366.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

Dec. 6, 2011.Rehearing Denied Jan. 20, 2012.

Cook, Yancey, King & Galloway, APLC, Robert Kennedy, Jr., Shreveport, LA, for Applicant.

Nelson & Hammons, APLC, John Layne Hammons, Shreveport, LA, for Respondent.

WEIMER, Justice.

[2011-0366 (La. 1] This court granted a writ application to determine whether a school board has tort liability for expelling a high school student after a fifth-sized bottle of whiskey fell from the student's backpack and broke on the classroom floor. The student claimed he was denied due process in the disciplinary proceedings that resulted in his expulsion. The district court agreed and awarded the student $50,000.

At trial, the student presented evidence that school system administrators ignored a claim of responsibility by the student's friend for placing the whiskey bottle in the student's backpack. Ultimately, the student was not expelled by these administrators, but by the full school board after a hearing at which the student presented all the evidence he wanted considered, including the claim of responsibility by his friend. At trial, the student presented no evidence whatsoever of being denied due process at the school board hearing. Finding the student failed to carry his [2011-0366 (La. 2] burden of proof to show a denial of due process by the school board, we reverse the judgment of the district court.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Justin Christy was a senior at Captain Shreve High School in Shreveport. On the morning of Monday, October 6, 2003, Justin drove to school after having spent much of the weekend at the home of his friend, Andrew Heacock. Justin brought his backpack into his first period classroom. Accounts vary as to what happened next. By one account, Justin opened his backpack, and a fifth-sized whiskey bottle ¹ fell out and broke on the classroom floor. By another account, Justin had retrieved an assignment from his backpack and had left his desk and was walking to bring the assignment to his teacher when the bottle rolled out of his bag onto the floor and broke.

By all accounts, after the bottle broke, Justin was referred to the school's disciplinary administrator, Marvin Hite, who, along with a police officer regularly assigned to the school, separately interviewed Justin. In both interviews, Justin claimed that he did not know the bottle was in his backpack and did not know how it had come to be there. At the close of the interviews, Justin was arrested by the officer. Justin was released from custody that same day with a citation for possessing alcohol while under the lawful age for possession.

A short time after Justin's arrest, his friend, Andrew Heacock, who was the school's Student Council President, came forward and explained to school officials that the bottle belonged to him (Andrew). Andrew also explained that he had put the bottle in Justin's backpack without telling Justin.

[2011-0366 (La. 3] Within the school system, several procedural steps followed. First, on October 10, 2003, Mr. Hite, as well as a school district's supervisor for child welfare and attendance, Larry Anderson, held an informal hearing with Justin and his parents. At the conclusion of the hearing, Mr. Anderson recommended that Justin be expelled from Captain Shreve. Mr. Anderson further determined that Justin would be placed at Hamilton Terrace Learning Center, an alternative school, until March 12, 2004.

Next, because Justin and his parents contested Mr. Anderson's expulsion recommendation, the school system conducted a preliminary appeal hearing on October 24, 2003. This hearing was conducted by an appeals committee and not by the full Caddo Parish School Board (School Board). The appeals committee was convened by Diane Watkins Atkins, the director of the School Board's Attendance and Census Department, and was comprised of Ms. Atkins and six other school system administrators. After the hearing, the committee recommended to the School Board that Justin be expelled. However, the committee noted that it had reduced the duration of the expulsion (to end December 19, 2003, rather than March 12, 2004), because the “[parents] did not know that they could call witnesses” and a “[w]itness had asked the administration to come to the hearing prior to it being scheduled.” This witness was Andrew Heacock.

After the determination by the appeals committee, the full School Board then took up the matter and held a hearing on November 18, 2003. At the request of Justin's parents, the hearing was conducted as an “executive session” which is closed to the public. No transcript was made of the School Board's hearing. However, Justin would later testify at the tort trial that during the School Board's hearing, he presented his full defense to the school's allegations, including testifying himself and calling his friend, Andrew Heacock, who testified that he (Andrew) was responsible [2011-0366 (La. 4] for the whiskey bottle making its way into Justin's backpack. At the tort trial, Andrew testified that a School Board member expressed disbelief of Andrew's overall claim of responsibility for the whiskey bottle and, more specifically, disbelieved the claim that Justin was unaware that the bottle was in his backpack. By a vote of 9–2, the School Board voted to expel Justin.²

From the day of the whiskey-bottle incident, Justin was prohibited from attending Captain Shreve and was instead assigned to the alternative school. However, the alternative school did not provide the college preparatory courses in which Justin had been enrolled at Captain Shreve. Rather than remain at the alternative school, Justin elected to obtain his General Educational Development Certificate/Credential.

Although another avenue for an appeal to a district court existed under La. R.S. 17:416(C)(5),³ Justin and his parents did not appeal the School Board's expulsion decision. Instead, on February 10, 2004, Justin's mother, on her own and on Justin's behalf, filed a lawsuit against the School Board, alleging that it violated Justin's right to due process and imposed an “excessive and irrational punishment.” Justin and his mother also alleged that the School Board's action caused “extreme mental anguish and distress, grief, humiliation and inconvenience.” Notably, Justin and his mother claimed that the disciplinary process was tainted because the school system had [2011-0366 (La. 5] prevented Andrew from explaining that he, not Justin, was responsible for the whiskey bottle being placed in the backpack.

The lawsuit also named Dr. Sandra McCalla, the school's principal, as a defendant. However, prior to trial, the School Board sought and obtained Justin's consent ⁴ to dismiss Dr. McCalla as a defendant.

Following a bench trial, the district court ruled in Justin's favor. The district court awarded Justin $50,000, finding that Captain Shreve's disciplinary administrator, Mr. Hite, had failed to present the full version of events known to him about the whiskey bottle and “in some short order there was sufficient evidence to stop the prosecution of Mr. [Justin] Christy.” The district court explained that “Mr. Hite, the Court believes, commenced a series of actions that effectively concealed the true subject of his conversation early on with Mr. [Andrew] Heacock.” The district court also explained that “Mr. Hite ... rather than bring all the evidence forward, commenced a [series] of actions that helped conceal the evidence or at least mischaracterized the evidence.”

The district court also addressed the actions of the school district's supervisor for child welfare and attendance, Mr. Anderson, who also recommended expulsion after the informal hearing. “[T]o listen to Mr. Anderson was unnerving because Mr. Anderson did nothing but determine that the whiskey bottle had broken—had fallen out of the backpack and broken. He exercised no discretion.... And it was just unnerving to hear him sit in the witness chair and respond to a hypothetical where drugs, for example, might be planted on a student and to hear him say essentially that student is expelled.” The district court found that while Mr. Hite had acted intentionally, Mr. Anderson was “at least grossly negligent.” Mr. Anderson never [2011-0366 (La. 6] even considered the possibility that Justin should not be expelled, although neither expulsion nor any other penalty was required for Justin under the circumstances where Andrew had taken responsibility and demonstrated that Justin was unaware of the whiskey bottle in the backpack.

The district court concluded that it had “no problem at all finding liability” and that if punitive damages were allowed the district court might have awarded more than $50,000 because Justin “was not treated appropriately or fairly.”

The School Board appealed. By vote of 3–2, the court of appeal affirmed on both liability and damages. The majority reviewed liability under the duty/risk analysis for negligence. The court of appeal found the School Board owed a duty to Justin to ensure that the board's policies were applied correctly. The School Board had discretion to fashion a punishment appropriate to the situation but refused to exercise that discretion. The School Board breached this duty and instead predetermined that if it were shown that Justin had whiskey on campus, regardless of how or why, then Justin would be expelled.

The court of appeal also found that the School Board owed a duty to ensure that the fact finding was thorough and fair. This duty was breached and the whole student disciplinary process was tainted by Mr. Hite's failure to inform later decision makers of Andrew's confession to having placed the whiskey in Justin's backpack without Justin's knowledge. Moreover, the disciplinary process was...