Comfort v. Lynn School Committee

• Decision Date: 29 June 2001
• Docket Number: No. 99-11811-NG.,99-11811-NG.
• Citation: 150 F.Supp.2d 285
• Parties: Samantha J. COMFORT, et. al., Plaintiffs, v. LYNN SCHOOL COMMITTEE, et al., Defendants, and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Defendant-Intervenor.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

150 F.Supp.2d 285

Samantha J. COMFORT, et. al., Plaintiffs, v. LYNN SCHOOL COMMITTEE, et al., Defendants, and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Defendant-Intervenor.

No. 99-11811-NG.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

June 29, 2001.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Chester Darling, Boston, MA, for plaintiffs.

John C. Mihos, Lynn, MA, for The Lynn School Committee, Patricia Capano, Frank M. Carrabba, Steven F. Duffy, George Mazareas, William McDonald, Timothy McManus, James Mazareas.

John R. Hitt, Attorney Generals Office, Government Bureau, Boston, MA, for Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Ross Wiener, U.S. Department of Justice, Educational Opportunities Section, Washington, DC, for USA.

George S. Markopoulos, Assistant City Solicitor, Lynn, MA, for City of Lynn and Patrick J. McManus.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

GERTNER, District Judge.

The plaintiffs, parents of students residing in Lynn, Massachusetts, challenge the validity of the Lynn "Voluntary Plan for School Improvement and the Elimination of Racial Isolation" [hereinafter "the Lynn Plan"] and the Massachusetts Racial Imbalance Act. They contend that the consideration of race, both in limiting a student's ability to transfer out of a neighborhood, or "district," school under the Lynn Plan and in regulating the allocation of state education funding under the Racial Imbalance Act,¹ violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as various Massachusetts constitutional and statutory provisions. They petition this Court to invalidate the Lynn Plan and enjoin the defendants from employing racial classifications in student assignments and the distribution of state aid.²

Two parents remain as plaintiffs in the action—Samantha J. Comfort ("Comfort") on behalf of her daughter Elizabeth Neumyer ("Neumyer") and Karen Agnew ("Agnew") on behalf of her daughter Shavon Danielle Baskerville ("Baskerville")— after this Court endorsed an order on January 9, 2001, granting the motion to voluntarily dismiss plaintiffs Rhonda Campbell, Andrew DiGaetano, and Cattibell DiGaetano.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the defendant-intervenor in this case, now renews its earlier Motion to Dismiss the plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint on the following two grounds:³ (1) The remaining plaintiffs, who have not sought to transfer their children to other schools for the 2000-2001 school year, lack standing to continue to prosecute this case, and, (2) the plaintiffs' challenge to Mass.G.L. c. 71 § 37D fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.⁴ The City of Lynn, the Lynn School Committee, as well as Patrick J. McManus, the Mayor of Lynn ("Mayor McManus"), James Mazareas, the Superintendent of the Lynn Public Schools ("Superintendent Mazareas"), and the members of the Lynn School Committee named in the complaint⁵ [hereinafter referred to collectively as "the Lynn defendants"] have joined in the Commonwealth's renewed Motion to Dismiss.

Though neither of them has requested a transfer nor intimated that they intend to do so, the plaintiffs contend that they have standing to bring this action because they are likely to face further application of racial restrictions in future transfer requests or if the schools they currently attend should become over-subscribed.

However, the mere possibility of future harm, without some compelling evidence of susceptibility or inevitability, does not satisfy Article III standing requirements for injunctive relief to issue. As the plaintiffs have failed to augment the record with allegations that demonstrate a realistic threat of future injury, their speculations in the abstract alone cannot sustain this Court's jurisdiction.

Nevertheless, even absent a showing of actual damages or imminent future harm, a litigant may have standing to seek nominal damages as long as he or she can establish unconstitutional treatment. On the truncated record before me and without further evidentiary hearings, I conclude that the plaintiffs allege adequate proof of unequal treatment based on race and, therefore, have standing to seek nominal damages and limited declaratory relief.

Accordingly, for the reasons stated below, the defendants' Renewed Motion to Dismiss [docket entry # 84] is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.

I. PROCEDURAL POSTURE

In my earlier decision dismissing the plaintiffs' claims against the Commonwealth, I did not address the issue of standing in part because the Lynn defendants did not join in the original Motion to Dismiss filed by the Commonwealth.⁶ Once this Court had determined that the plaintiffs' claims against the Commonwealth could not stand, the Commonwealth remained a party in the narrow capacity under 28 U.S.C. § 2403(b) to defend the constitutionality of the Massachusetts Racial Imbalance Act.⁷ As a party by virtue of section 2403(b) rather than Rule 24(b)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,⁸ the Commonwealth's participation in this case is limited to "presentation of evidence" and "argument on the question of constitutionality"; it may not, however, invoke the full arsenal of procedural tools at the disposal of an ordinary party-litigant, such as motions to dismiss under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b).⁹ See Ruotolo v. Ruotolo, 572 F.2d 336, 338-39 (1st Cir.1978) (there is a difference between limited intervention to defend constitutional issues and intervention as a full-status litigant where the "government must possess some independent basis as party apart from its status as intervenor"). In other words because the Lynn defendants did not participate in the original Motion to Dismiss, the Commonwealth alone lacked a proper basis to move to dismiss the action on the ground that the plaintiffs lack standing to prosecute.

Furthermore, I did not previously address the standing arguments because I contemporaneously granted, in part, the plaintiffs' motion to amend their complaint to the extent that they sought to add six additional plaintiffs and to revise their challenge to the Racial Imbalance Act.

However, rather than file an amended complaint by the deadline imposed by this Court, counsel for the plaintiffs filed a second action, Bollen, et al v. Lynn School Comm., et al, No. 01CV-10265-NG (February 28, 2001), on behalf of the same six plaintiffs they had sought to add here.¹⁰

The current state of the pleadings in this case is, therefore, that the plaintiffs' claims remain against the Lynn defendants. The Commonwealth remains a defendant-intervenor in the case for the limited purpose of defending the Racial Imbalance Act. The Lynn defendants, together with the Commonwealth, now jointly renew¹¹ the Commonwealth's Motion to Dismiss and incorporate by reference the arguments related to standing and the Racial Imbalance Act previously asserted by the Commonwealth in the memorandum of law that accompanied the earlier motion.

II. FACTS

A. The Plan

This action for declaratory and injunctive relief, as well as nominal damages, was brought on August 30, 1999, originally by five parents of students challenging the Lynn Plan.¹² Under the plan, all students in the Lynn Public School system are guaranteed the right to attend their neighborhood school and the right to request a transfer to a non-neighborhood school.¹³ In general, transfers are allowed except where they would increase racial isolation (too low a minority percentage) or racial imbalance (too high a minority percentage) in the particular schools involved.¹⁴

The Lynn Plan determines eligibility for transfer rather than the outcome of any particular request. Exceptions may be granted for hardships involving concerns about siblings attending the same school, safety, medical needs, and, as of 1999, hardships resulting from day care situations and classification of bi-racial and multi-racial students under the plan. Furthermore, the Lynn Plan affords parents an opportunity to appeal a denial of a transfer request.

Once a student successfully transfers to a non-neighborhood school, the student is automatically reassigned to that school for the following year. However, if the school were to become oversubscribed, administrators overseeing the Lynn Plan would consider race as one factor in determining which students would be required to attend another school.

B. The Plaintiffs

On March 30, 1999, plaintiff Samantha Comfort visited the Parent Information Center ("PIC"), a school registration and assignment center at the Lynn Public School Administration, to request for her daughter an out-of-district kindergarten placement at the Shoemaker Elementary School.¹⁵ The PIC denied Comfort's request because the Shoemaker School was more racially isolated than her district school.¹⁶

In a letter dated May 14, 1999, Comfort expressed to Superintendent Mazareas her indignation at Lynn's race-based transfer policy and complained about the denial of her request for her daughter to be assigned to the Shoemaker School, rather than her district school, because of the location of her day care provider.

Superintendent Mazareas forwarded the letter to the PIC, which treated the letter as an appeal under the student assignment plan.¹⁷ Elizabeth Neumyer was temporarily assigned to the Sewell-Anderson Elementary School, pending the final determination on the appeal.

On June 7, 1999, Comfort notified the PIC that she had changed Elizabeth's day care provider to a location in the Sisson Elementary School district and requested her daughter's assignment to the out-of-district Sisson School. The PIC denied Comfort's request because the Sisson Elementary School was more racially isolated than her district school.

A few weeks later, Comfort renewed her transfer request to the Sisson School, which was subsequently denied by a staff-worker at the PIC who allegedly informed Comfort that if her daughter were a student of color, she would be able to attend her preferred...