Cornist v. Richland Parish School Board, 73-2619

• Citation: 495 F.2d 189
• Decision Date: 13 May 1974
• Docket Number: No. 73-2619,73-3529.,73-2619
• Parties: Ollie CORNIST et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. RICHLAND PARISH SCHOOL BOARD, et al., Defendants-Appellants. Elvert CHISLEY et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. RICHLAND PARISH SCHOOL BOARD, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)

495 F.2d 189 (1974)

Ollie CORNIST et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. RICHLAND PARISH SCHOOL BOARD, et al., Defendants-Appellants.

Elvert CHISLEY et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. RICHLAND PARISH SCHOOL BOARD, Defendants-Appellants.

Nos. 73-2619, 73-3529.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

May 13, 1974.

John F. Ward, Jr., Baton Rouge, La., Donald K. Carroll, Dist. Atty. Parish of Richland, Lowen B. Loften, William R. Coenen, Sr., Asst. Dist. Attys., Rudolph McIntyre, Dist. Atty., Rayville, La., for defendants-appellants.

Paul Henry Kidd, Robert P. McLeod, Stephen J. Katz, Monroe, La., Stanley A. Halpin, Jr., New Orleans, La., for plaintiffs-appellees.

Before BELL, AINSWORTH and GODBOLD, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM :

This is the third appearance of these cases in this court. The Richland Parish School Board dismissed plaintiff Elvert Chisley in July 1970 for alleged incompetence and plaintiff Ollie Cornist in April 1971 for alleged incompetence and wilful neglect of duty. Both plaintiffs are black teachers. Each was dismissed after a hearing conducted under provisions of the Louisiana Teacher Tenure Law.¹ They sought relief in federal court, where the judge dismissed the cases for failure to exhaust the remedies of state court review provided by the state tenure law. On appeal we vacated the dismissal order in one case and remanded for hearing on the merits, Cornist v. Richland Parish School Board, 448 F.2d 594 (CA5, 1971), and in the other case reversed and remanded, Chisley v. Richland Parish School Board, 448 F.2d 1251 (CA5, 1971).

On remand, by judgment as amended of May 1, 1972, the District Court required the Board to immediately reinstate both teachers who, the evidence showed, had been dismissed prior to the Board's establishing objective criteria as required by Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School District, 419 F.2d 1211 (CA5, 1969, en banc). The Board appealed and on May 14, 1973, by an order entered in the consolidated cases, we denied a motion to dismiss the appeal as untimely and remanded to the District Court for it to consider a motion for new trial, the merits of which it had never reached. Cornist v. Richland Parish School Board, 479 F.2d 37 (CA5, 1973). On remand the District Judge denied the motion for new trial and by a separate opinion and order awarded to counsel for the two plaintiffs attorneys' fees of $3,750 in each case, a total of $7,500.

The Board then filed another new motion for new trial attacking the award of attorneys' fees. One of the grounds alleged was that the District Judge had lost jurisdiction because pending the first appeal he had entered an order in each of these cases and other school related cases which said :

On order from my doctor, because I suffer from high blood pressure, I hereby recuse myself in the below described `school-related cases.\' All counsel should be notified in said cases that they should apply to one of the other judges of this district, (i. e., Judges Hunter, Putnam, or Scott, in the order of their seniority), for future action upon any school related matters.

The District Judge denied the motion with the following order :

Defendant the Richland Parish School Board, et al\'s motion for a new trial is hereby denied on the grounds that this Court\'s earlier recusal order did not relate to matters which the Court had previously and explicitly taken under advisement ; that defendants have not raised in their motion for a new trial any factual issues which would necessitate an evidentiary hearing ; and that defendants\' contention that attorney\'s fees are inappropriate in this case is entirely without merit for the reasons stated in this Court\'s July 9, 1973 order.

The Board again appeals. The District Judge did not lose jurisdiction over the merits or the attorney fee issue by reason of his recusal order. We need not decide whether a trial judge's order recusing himself from a case deprives him of the power to act later with regard to that case. In this instance the District Judge construed his own order, as he was entitled to do, as not relating to the issues pending in this case.

The District Court did not err in holding that the two teachers were improperly dismissed and were entitled to reinstatement with back pay. When the hearings and dismissals occurred the Richland Parish system was in transition from dual to unitary status and was having to make reductions in force and transfers. Thus it was required to dismiss or demote teachers only by selection from among all teachers on the basis of objective and reasonable nondiscriminatory criteria. Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School District, supra. The Board had not filed with the court, nor did it...