Crook v. Baker

• Decision Date: 21 May 1984
• Docket Number: No. 80 73347.,80 73347.
• Parties: Wilson W. CROOK, III, Plaintiff, v. Deane BAKER, Paul W. Brown, Gerald R. Dunn, David Laro, Robert E. Nederlander, Sarah Goddard Power, Thomas A. Roach, James J. Waters and Harold T. Shapiro, President of the University of Michigan, as the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan

584 F. Supp. 1531

Wilson W. CROOK, III, Plaintiff, v. Deane BAKER, Paul W. Brown, Gerald R. Dunn, David Laro, Robert E. Nederlander, Sarah Goddard Power, Thomas A. Roach, James J. Waters and Harold T. Shapiro, President of the University of Michigan, as the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan, Defendants.

No. 80 73347.

United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, S.D.

May 21, 1984.

George E. Bushnell, Jr., John K. Parker, Southfield, Mich., for plaintiff.

Peter A. Davis, Ann Arbor, Mich., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

ANNA DIGGS TAYLOR, District Judge.

INTRODUCTION

Wilson W. Crook, III, a holder of the Master of Science degree in Geology and Mineralogy from the University of Michigan (hereinafter U of M or University) since 1977, filed his complaint in this action on September 3, 1980. Plaintiff alleged that defendants, acting under color of law, proposed to rescind his degree without due process of law and to thereby deprive him of rights, privileges and immunities secured him by the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1979)¹.

Plaintiff sought a preliminary injunction from this court, enjoining defendants from the proposed rescission. On October 8, 1980, the court denied plaintiff's motion and on October 17, 1980, the Board of Regents of the U of M did indeed rescind plaintiff's degree.

After extensive pretrial proceedings and discovery, this matter was tried to the court for nine days ending December 13, 1983. The parties thereafter provided the court with voluminous post-trial briefs.

On the basis of the findings of fact and conclusions of law outlined below, this court will enter a mandatory permanent injunction ordering defendants to restore the Master of Science degree previously conferred upon the plaintiff by the U of M, which the court finds to have been rescinded without due process of law as plaintiff has alleged. The purported act of rescission of October 17, 1980, is declared a nullity; judgment will enter for plaintiff, and plaintiff will be awarded reasonable attorney fees and costs, upon proper petition to the court, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988 (1980).

In accordance with F.R.Civ.P. 52, the court states its findings of fact and conclusions of law as follows.

FINDINGS OF FACT

I. OBTAINING THE DEGREE

Plaintiff Wilson Crook enrolled at the U of M in the fall of 1975, and was awarded the degree of Master of Science in Geology and Mineralogy on April 30, 1977. He had become interested in the study of the rare earth pegmatites of central Texas as an undergraduate at Southern Methodist University (SMU), and selected the U of M for his graduate work to study under Dr. E. William Heinrich, Professor of Mineralogy and leading authority in nuclear geology, who was known for his interest in Texas pegmatites. Plaintiff's professors at SMU had used Heinrich's text, and plaintiff himself had earlier written Heinrich for, and obtained, a copy of one of the latter's treatises.

Professor Donald Peacor, who taught X-ray Crystallography at the University's Department of Geology and Mineralogy, was also a friend of one of plaintiff's SMU professors. He testified that he examined the mineral collection which plaintiff brought with him from Texas and told plaintiff that with modern methodology, it may well be a source of new discoveries. Peacor graded plaintiff with an "A" in X-ray Crystallography, and discussed becoming co-author with plaintiff in publication of plaintiff's studies of the atomic arrangement of new minerals. Peacor testified that he encouraged plaintiff to publish, and remarked to him on the similarity of the new mineral, Texasite, which plaintiff had discovered, to a synthetic compound which Dr. John Haschke of the University's Chemistry Department had manufactured earlier and given Peacor.

In May of 1976, plaintiff and Dr. Heinrich visited the Barringer Hills of Texas on a geological expedition. The area has been studied by geologists for the past century, has been the subject of a large body of literature, and has been the source of numerous discoveries.

At the University, plaintiff became a teaching assistant, participated in the Department's Friday afternoon gatherings at a local tavern, became president of a student organization, acquitted himself well in his course work, and worked on his thesis. He shared an office with another of Heinrich's graduate students: Don Alexander, a PhD candidate. William B. (Skip) Simmons was another Heinrich PhD student at the time. Indeed, there were only three, and plaintiff was Heinrich's only Master's candidate.

The departmental ambiance was marred, however, by bitterness and animosity between Dr. Heinrich and the young Dr. Eric J. Essene, who was a nationally respected authority on the newer discipline of electron microprobe analysis, which had developed since the 1950's. It appears that they each regularly gave poor grades to the other's proteges, and Essene openly expressed animosity to plaintiff, and to plaintiff's wife as well. Dr. Heinrich testified that their relationship was one of "scientific adversaries," which gave the added benefit of greater challenges to their students.

Plaintiff's thesis was approved and signed by Dr. Heinrich, as principal advisor, and by Dr. Peacor as second reader on April 11, 1977. The thesis is entitled "The Geology, Mineralogy and Geochemistry of the Rare-Earth Pegmatites, Llano and Burnet Counties, Texas." The Department Chairman, Dr. C.I. Smith, signed it as well. The purpose of those signatures, according to Dr. Peacor, was to attest that the work had been properly carried out, "as far as the signatories can ascertain." The authorship of a thesis was a prerequisite to a master's degree, although without a specified percentage weight, and there was no requirement that it be published or fit for publication.

Dr. Heinrich testified that plaintiff researched the thesis under his direction, and that Dr. Peacor was chosen as second reader because he also was interested in pegmatites. Among the faculty only Dr. Essene, however, was facile in analysis of rare earth minerals with an electron probe.

Although plaintiff's workpapers show what Dr. Essene describes as Dr. Peacor's handwritten comments on plaintiff's chemical normalizations, after which review plaintiff rewrote and Peacor finally approved the document, Dr. Peacor testified that plaintiff never consulted with him, and that he specifically directed plaintiff to consult with Dr. Essene on his analyses by electron microprobe. Peacor testified that the qualitative and quantitative analyses which purport to have been accomplished by microprobe for plaintiff's thesis required the highest caliber of expertise on the microprobe, and further would have required at least six hundred hours of probe work to have been logged at the University laboratory, in large time blocks over many months.

At trial, Peacor further testified that, although plaintiff's microprobe data was consistent with the samples analysed, his thesis contained errors which would indicate that the calculations had not really been done on the microprobe. Peacor further testified that, before his approval of the thesis, Essene had told him (Peacor) that Essene would never believe plaintiff's data. Nevertheless, because "a scientist must always trust the honesty, if not the ability, of another scientist," he approved the thesis. This, in spite of his abiding concern which he described at trial for the known fact that "Bathtub Minerals" (synthetic compounds passed-off as naturally occurring minerals) were a common and recurring problem which troubled him and the profession in general.

When plaintiff left the University in the spring of 1977, he left a mineral collection to add to that of the Department. Dr. Peacor said that he noted at about that time, however, that the synthetic compound given him by Dr. Haschke which was so similar to plaintiff's newly discovered Texasite, had disappeared from his laboratory.

Each of the Department's professors who testified at trial acknowledged that an advanced degree is essential to professional success in the field of geology.

II. PLAINTIFF'S POST-DEGREE ACTIVITY.

Immediately after graduation, plaintiff moved to Colorado and commenced work as a geologist for the Mobil Oil Company. He continues there to this date. Peacor, who described plaintiff as his good friend and student, remained in contact by correspondence and telephone, and they continued to plan collaborative research. Plaintiff's thesis was being edited for publication by the University of Texas Geological Survey, while plaintiff published other articles describing other of his newly discovered minerals: Albrittonite, Nickelbischofite, and Holdawayite. He applied for and obtained certification of those minerals, as well as Texasite, from the International Mineralogical Association. Plaintiff's articles appeared in The American Mineralogist, the leading journal of the profession.

Later in 1977, Dr. Peacor visited plaintiff's Texas hills site and searched for Texasite, but found none. He also testified that he discovered in January of 1978 that the computer program, EMPADR, through which plaintiff had calculated the microprobe analyses of this thesis, was flawed and that all of its output was accordingly erroneous. He did not notify plaintiff, however, although aware of the forthcoming publication of the thesis. He did notify others whose research had been affected, and assisted in the rerun of some of their data.

Plaintiff wrote Professor Heinrich in October, 1978, asking who in the Department had discovered the most new species of minerals, so far. He noted that Peacor had named four, "and I now have 6 (the last one being approved this week)." Peacor testified at trial that, to the contrary, he has discovered between twenty-five and fifty new minerals, himself.

In 1978, pl...