Daniels v. Morris
| Decision Date | 12 November 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 84-1320,84-1320 |
| Citation | 746 F.2d 271 |
| Parties | , 20 Ed. Law Rep. 1082 Sean Patrick DANIELS and Terry Patrick Daniels, as next friend for Johanna Kathleen Daniels, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Frank MORRIS, Individually and as agent of the Arlington Independent School District, Defendant-Appellee. Summary Calendar. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
John R. Jensen, Arlington, Tex., for plaintiffs-appellants.
Chester G. Ball, Arlington, Tex., for defendant-appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Before RUBIN, RANDALL, and TATE, Circuit Judges.
Two children seek damages under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 because they were not permitted to attend a school located in a district in which they formerly resided but from which their father and they had moved, on the basis that they were not accorded procedural due process before school officials reached the conclusion they could not continue to attend the school they had been attending. The district court held that the children did not have a protected property interest in attending a particular school and had, therefore, no right to notice and hearing, and rendered summary judgment in favor of the defendants. That summary judgment is attacked on the grounds that the judge decided it without oral argument and without giving notice that he would do so on a specific date, that there are disputed issues of material fact, and that the court should have found the students to have a protected property right. We find that the district court did not err procedurally or on the merits, and affirm its judgment, noting the social, legal, and judicial waste occasioned by this attempt to create a federal constitutional issue and to obtain damages in a situation in which there is not even a claim that the father or the school children resided in the school district at the time the children were ordered to withdraw from the school.
Summary judgment having been rendered against the plaintiffs, we give the version of facts most sympathetic to their case. Johanna and Sean Daniels, the minor children of Terry Patrick Daniels, registered at Ferguson Junior High School, a school in the Arlington Independent School District. During the school year, Terry Patrick Daniels and his children moved out of the district. The principal of Ferguson Junior High, Frank Morris, upon learning the children no longer resided in the district, ordered Johanna and Sean to withdraw from the school. Later, at Morris' instance, school employees opened Sean's locker and removed his personal belongings. Their father filed this suit as next friend for his two children, alleging that their fourteenth amendment rights to procedural due process had been violated when they were permanently excluded from Ferguson without notice or hearing to determine whether they should have been dismissed for noncompliance with the district's residency requirements. He also claimed that Sean's right to privacy had been violated by the entry into his locker and the "destruction" of the property that had been in it. This suit does not seek to recover the value of the belongings but to recover for an invasion of privacy as a result of the entry.
The district court dismissed the claims as patently insubstantial, relying on Raymon v. Alvord Independent School District. 1 In an unreported decision, we reversed, holding that the complaint raised a "not insubstantial question whether ... a property right existed and whether any process was due." 2 We also held that there were factual questions as to whether the district had a policy that required student removal upon a change of residence during the school year and whether the school district treated children who changed their residence during the year differently from children who sought admission as non-residents. These issues precluded dismissal for want of jurisdiction; but, because Daniels had failed to brief the deprivation of privacy issue, we considered that claim abandoned.
After remand, the district court found certain facts to be undisputed. The Daniels do not raise any dispute about these facts in the record, and in their present brief they content themselves with this recital: "No Statement of Facts is presented since, as yet, no hearing has been conducted by the district court on this matter." We therefore adopt the district court's statement, because Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e) provides
The facts not disputed are these: pursuant to state law, the school district allows tuition-free education only for those students who either reside in the district or whose parent, guardian, or person having legal control over them resides there. Although Terry Daniels and his children resided in the district at the beginning of the 1978-79 school year, they moved out of that district and began to reside in the Grand Prairie School District in January, 1979. Because the Daniels did not offer to pay tuition, Johanna and Sean were denied permission to continue attending Ferguson Junior High after the principal discovered that they no longer resided in the district. Before the children were ordered not to attend Ferguson, three district officials met with Daniels, and Morris, the principal, met with Johanna, but they conducted no formal hearing. The children were thereafter enrolled tuition free in a school in the Grand Prairie School District, where they then resided. The district court stated that the narrow issue before it was whether the children had such a protected property interest in a tuition-free education in the Arlington School District (as distinguished from the Grand Prairie School District) that they were entitled to formal notice and a hearing before being directed to attend school in the district where they then resided and being forbidden to attend in a district where they no longer resided.
The district court, distinguishing Goss v. Lopez, 3 noted that no disciplinary action had been taken against the children and that the children were afforded a free public education although not in the school of their choice. It concluded that the plaintiffs had "no legitimate claim or entitlement which was deprived without due process." Since this suit was filed, both children have graduated from public school, and the sole question is their claim for damages in being required to attend the Grand Prairie District School to obtain free education.
II.
The Daniels' first argument challenges the summary judgment procedure because they "were not provided notice of the consideration" of the defendants' motion.
The motion was not considered precipitately. Soon after it was filed on September 4, 1981, the plaintiffs responded on September 22, 1981. After the district court had dismissed the suit and we reversed and remanded, the defendants filed a supplement to their motion, on May 16, 1983, and a supplemental brief in support of that motion on October 11, 1983. The Daniels, as plaintiffs, filed a supplemental response on December 5, 1983. The defendants then filed a second supplemental brief in support of their motion on February 8, 1984. The court did not schedule oral argument and gave no further notice to the parties, but entered its summary judgment on March 29, 1984. During the interval between the filing of the original motion in late 1981 and the entry of judgment in 1984, the parties had developed the record through various admissions, interrogatories, and depositions.
Under Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c) "the motion [for summary judgment] shall be served at least 10 days before the time fixed for the hearing." This rule does not by implication require the district court to hold an oral hearing. As we have previously interpreted it, the rule requires only that, if there is an oral hearing, there be ten-days advance notice; if there is not a hearing, the adverse party must have at least ten days to respond to the motion for summary judgment. 4 Rule 56(c) does not require that a party be given advance notice of a "date certain" on which a motion for summary judgment is to be decided by the trial court.
Language in one of our opinions, Capital Films Corp. v. Charles Fries Productions, 5 supports the Daniels' argument that they were entitled to ten days advance notice of the court's consideration and decision on the motion on March 29, 1984. We said in that opinion: But the words of an opinion are not scriptural admonitions or statutory mandates. We are bound by the rationale of the decision, its ratio decidendi, not its explanatory language. In Capital Films, the trial court had docketed the case for trial prior to granting the summary judgment, and had at one point stated that it was not going to rule on the motion for summary judgment. Thus, the parties were "induced [by the trial court] to believe the case was going to trial." 6
Similarly, in Enochs v. Sisson, 7 we said, "We do not think that the order entered by the court below, in the absence of a notice to the appellant of the time fixed for the hearing, was within its jurisdiction under the quoted portion of rule 56." 8 But the parties in Enochs did not develop the record through affidavits, depositions, and interrogatories. They may simply have thought that...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Enplanar, Inc. v. Marsh
...and to place before the court all materials it wishes to have considered when the court rules on the motion"); see also Daniels v. Morris, 746 F.2d 271 (5th Cir.1984); Brumley Estate v. Iowa Beef Processors, Inc., 704 F.2d 1351 (5th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1028, 104 S.Ct. 1288, 79......
-
Barnett v. Texas Wrestling Ass'n, Civil Action No. 3:96-CV-3425-G.
...judgment proper "so long as the losing party was on notice that she had to come forward with all of her evidence."); Daniels v. Morris, 746 F.2d 271, 275-76 (5th Cir.1984) (district court did not err in granting summary judgment on the basis of facts not specifically urged by movant as long......
-
Gonzalez v. Ysleta Independent School Dist.
...Dist., 950 F.2d 988, 995 (5th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 2275, 119 L.Ed.2d 201 (1992); Daniels v. Morris, 746 F.2d 271, 277 (5th Cir.1984). Our review of the jury instructions discloses that the trial court did not, contrary to the dictates of Jett and Praprotni......
-
Argyle Online, LLC v. Nielson (In re GGW Brands, LLC), Bankruptcy No. 2:13–bk–15130–SK.
...Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (FRCP) 56, this Court may consider “other materials in the record.” FRCP 56(c)(3); Daniels v. Morris, 746 F.2d 271, 276 (5th Cir.1984) (“The judge is free to grant summary judgment on the basis of any facts shown by competent evidence in the record.”); Micros......