Coughlin v. Town of Arlington
| Decision Date | 19 December 2011 |
| Docket Number | C.A. No. 10-10203-MLW |
| Parties | CHARLES COUGHLIN, JR. and STAVROULA BOURIS, Plaintiffs, v. TOWN OF ARLINGTON, ARLINGTON SCHOOL COMMITTEE, NATHAN LEVENSON, TRACY BUCK, and JEFFREY THIELMAN Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
WOLF, D.J.
On February 8, 2010, plaintiffs Charles Coughlin, Jr., and Stavroula Bouris filed a forty-count Complaint against defendants Town of Arlington, Arlington School Committee (the "School Committee"), Nathan Levenson, Tracy Buck, and Jeffrey Thielman. In essence, plaintiffs allege that their rights were infringed in the course of their respective terminations from Ottoson Middle School in the Arlington School District after it was discovered that they were engaged in a sexual relationship. On April 6, 2010, the court referred the case to the Magistrate Judge for pretrial purposes. Subsequently, the School Committee, Levenson, Buck, and Thielman filed motions to dismiss. On January 31, 2011, the Magistrate Judge issued a Report and Recommendation (the "Report") on the motions.1 Plaintiffs timely filed objections to portions of the Report.Defendants did not file objections but did respond to plaintiffs' filing.2 Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(b), the court is accepting part of the Report and rejecting part of it.
Plaintiffs' claims are based principally on defendants Levenson and Buck accessing Bouris's personal and school email accounts and the subsequent dissemination by Levenson, Buck, and Thielman of intimate personal messages between Bouris and Coughlin that were found in those accounts. In 2007, plaintiffs filed suit in the Middlesex Superior Court seeking, among other things, to enjoin the dissemination of at least some of those email messages. The Superior Court concluded that the emails at issue in the case were public records and, therefore, that plaintiffs had no privacy rights in them. The Superior Court denied plaintiffs' request for an injunction.
As described in detail below, the Magistrate Judge determined that the Superior Court decision precluded certain claims in this case. The Magistrate Judge recommends dismissing plaintiffs' claims against the School Committee on the basis of claim preclusionbecause plaintiffs could have, but did not, raise their civil rights claims against the School Committee in connection with their case in the Middlesex Superior Court. The court is adopting that recommendation.
The Magistrate Judge also concluded that the Superior Court held that plaintiffs have no privacy rights in any of the emails at issue in this case, regardless of whether they were obtained from Bouris's school email account or her personal account. Accordingly, the Magistrate Judge recommends dismissing all of plaintiffs' claims that are based on plaintiffs having privacy rights in the emails at issue in this case: plaintiffs' claims under 42 U.S.C. §1983 alleging infringements of their constitutional privacy rights; plaintiffs' claims under the Massachusetts privacy statute, M.G.L. c. 215, §1B; and plaintiffs' claims against Buck for interfering with plaintiffs' advantageous business relations. However, the court finds that it is not possible to determine that the Superior Court's holding was broad enough to encompass messages obtained from Bouris's personal email account. Accordingly, the court is adopting the Report only insofar as it recommends precluding plaintiffs from claiming privacy rights in Bouris's school email accounts. As a result, the court is not adopting the Magistrate Judge's recommendations with regard to the foregoing claims. The motions to dismiss are being denied with regard to plaintiffs' claims under the Massachusetts privacy statute andtheir claims against Buck for interfering with their advantageous business relations. However, because there is no clearly established constitutional right to privacy of the sort plaintiffs claim, the court is dismissing plaintiffs' privacy claims under §1983 on the basis of qualified immunity.
Plaintiffs also allege that Buck defamed them. The Magistrate Judge recommends allowing Buck's motion to dismiss the defamation claims against her. The court is not adopting the recommendation to dismiss the claims against Buck because the court finds that plaintiffs have plausibly pled that Buck acted in concert with Levenson, who, plaintiffs have adequately alleged, acted with malice.
Next, plaintiffs claim that Levenson, Buck, and Thielman intentionally inflicted emotional distress on plaintiffs, in essence, by accessing and disseminating their personal email communications. The Magistrate Judge recommends dismissing these claims. However, because the court concludes that plaintiffs have plausibly pled extreme and outrageous conduct and sufficient emotional distress, the court is not adopting this recommendation.
Levenson filed untimely objections to portions of the Report that recommend denying his motion to dismiss with regard to several claims against him. Although the court is not required to engage in de novo review of Levenson's untimely objections, the court has reviewed the Report and is adopting the Magistrate Judge'srecommendations with regard to these claims. Accordingly, the court is not dismissing the claims against Levenson alleging unconstitutional harm to plaintiffs' reputations under §1983; defamation; violations of the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, M.G.L. c. 12, §11I; and interference with plaintiffs' advantageous business relations.
Finally, no objections have been filed with regard to portions of the Report that recommend dismissing several of plaintiffs' claims. These include Coughlin's claim against Thielman for violating the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act; plaintiffs' claims against Thielman for interfering with plaintiffs' advantageous business relations; and plaintiffs' claims under §1983 that Levenson, Buck, and Thielman retaliated against them for engaging in protected speech, and that Buck and Thielman harmed plaintiffs' reputations. The court is adopting the Magistrate Judge's recommendation to dismiss these claims.
The Report, which is attached to this Memorandum and Order, provides a thorough and accurate summary of the facts alleged in the Complaint. Thus, the court highlights only the most relevant facts here, reserving others for discussion below as relevant. For purposes of the motions to dismiss, the court is taking the facts alleged in the Complaint as true. See Rodriguez-Ortiz v. MargoCaribe, Inc., 490 F.3d 92, 96 (1st Cir. 2007).
Plaintiffs were employed at Ottoson Middle School in the Arlington School District. Coughlin taught technology courses, and Bouris was the principal. See Compl. ¶¶11, 13. In 2005, the School Committee hired Levenson as Superintendent of the school district. Id. ¶15. Soon thereafter, tensions began to mount between Levenson and Bouris. See id. ¶17. Levenson attempted to convince Bouris to resign by suggesting that her career might be ruined if a false rumor were started "regarding the fondling of a child." See id. Levenson also decided not to renew Bouris's contract in 2007, which led to a public outcry. See id. at ¶18. As part of the protest, during a School Committee meeting Coughlin revealed that Levenson had lied on his resume. See id. at ¶20. Bouris's contract subsequently was renewed but, according to the Complaint, Levenson then commenced a campaign against Bouris and Coughlin. See id. at ¶22.
Levenson began monitoring Bouris's school email account in mid-2007. Id. at ¶25. Buck, who was a network technician for the school district, also participated in this monitoring. See id. at ¶¶9, 27. She had previously received an anonymous note asserting that plaintiffs were engaged in an improper relationship. Id. at ¶26. Levenson and Buck printed email messages from Bouris's school account. Id. at ¶27. Within those messages, they found the credentials for a personal, non-school email account belonging toBouris. Id. Levenson and Buck accessed the personal account.3 The school and personal emails included explicit messages between Bouris and Coughlin, but the personal account messages were "more blatant." Id. at ¶34. Levenson later received an anonymous package containing printed copies of emails from Bouris's school and personal accounts. See id. at ¶30. The email messages were used as a basis to terminate plaintiffs. See id. at ¶¶41, 42.
Additionally, in July, 2007, Thielman, a member of the School Committee, released both the school and personal emails to the press, along with allegations that plaintiffs had committed forgery. See id. at ¶¶10, 39. Levenson also accused plaintiffs of forgery to members of the community. Id. The Complaint does not describe the forgery allegation in any detail.
As this was happening, several media entities filed public records requests to obtain copies of the emails.4 In August, 2007, plaintiffs filed a three-count complaint against a non-existent entity, "Arlington Public Schools," and two John Doe defendants in the Middlesex Superior Court (the "prior action" or "Superior Court case"). See Def. Arlington Sch. Comm.'s Mem. of Law in Supp. of ItsMot. to Dismiss, Exhibit A (the "Superior Court Complaint"). In Count III, plaintiffs sought to enjoin the release of the emails. See Superior Court Complaint ¶¶35, 39; Def. Arlington Sch. Comm.'s Mem. of Law in Supp. of Its Mot. to Dismiss, Exhibit B (Coughlin v. John Doe, No. 07-3100 (Mass. Super. Ct. Dec. 11, 2007) (the "Superior Court Decision")). The Superior Court denied plaintiffs' request for injunctive relief on the basis that the emails at issue were public records.5
On February 3, 2010, the parties entered into a stipulation of dismissal of the Superior Court case. See Def. Arlington Sch. Comm.'s Mem. of Law in Supp. of Its Mot. to Dismiss, Exhibit C. Plaintiffs filed the Complaint in the instant case on February 8, 2010, naming the Town of Arlington, the ...
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