Davis v. Carl
| Decision Date | 19 July 1990 |
| Docket Number | No. 89-7305,89-7305 |
| Parties | , 61 Ed. Law Rep. 37 Birdie Mae DAVIS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Nettie CARL, Clarence Davis, Cleveland A. Flott, Adell F. Hall, Earl C. Henry, Brenda F. Howard, James Weldon Johnson, John K. Kelly, Betty S. Moore, James Mosley, Simuel L. Robinson and Santee Gamble, Jr., Appellants, v. BOARD OF SCHOOL COMMISSIONERS OF MOBILE COUNTY, William B. Crane, Charles E. McNeil, President, Jack C. Gallalee, Arthur Smith, Jr., and Kenneth Reed, Members, Cranford H. Burns, Superintendent, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Henry H. Caddell, Thirty, Maples, Brunson & Caddell, Thomas H. Figures, Mobile, Ala., Jeremiah A. Collins, Robert H. Chanin, Andrew D. Roth, Bredhoff & Kaiser, Washington, D.C., for appellants.
Robert C. Campbell, III, Frank G. Taylor, Sintz, Campbell, Duke, Taylor & Cunningham, Mobile, Ala., for defendants-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama.
Before JOHNSON, Circuit Judge, HILL *, Senior Circuit Judge, and HENLEY **, Senior Circuit Judge.
Appellants, twelve Alabama public school teachers, appeal the district court's imposition of sanctions pursuant to Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Although the appellants do not challenge the district court's ruling on the merits, they contend that the court's fee award was improper. They also contend that the district court failed to afford them the due process protections required by this court's decision in Donaldson v. Clark, 819 F.2d 1551 (11th Cir.1987). We agree with appellants that the district court's imposition of sanctions was improper.
The appellants are twelve Alabama public school teachers whom the Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County, Alabama ("School Board") transferred, purportedly in order to comply with a desegregation order that the district court had already issued in this lawsuit. The general purpose of that Consent Order, issued on June 27, 1988, was "to eliminate any remaining vestiges and effects of the prior dual, segregated system of education operated by defendants' predecessors in accordance with the State of Alabama's requirement of compulsory segregation of the races in the public schools. 1
The 1988 Consent Order sought to upgrade two high schools in the Mobile County School System--Blount High School and LeFlore High School. With regard to Blount High School, the Order obligated the Board to make "appropriate professional staff changes." The Order also provided that LeFlore High School would become a full-time magnet school, 2 and that the School Board would select and assign its staff in the same manner "as for other magnet programs to be developed and implemented in Mobile County."
During the summer of 1988, (after the entry of the 1988 Consent Order), the School Board vacated all of the faculty positions at Blount and LeFlore High Schools, interviewed applicants for the vacant positions, and filled those positions from among the applicants. The appellants are eleven former teachers at Blount High School, and the former Assistant Principal of LeFlore High School, all of whom the School Board involuntarily transferred to another high school in the Mobile County School System, after it failed to place them in vacant positions at their original schools.
On September 23, 1988, the appellants filed petitions with the district court challenging their transfers. The petitions alleged that the transfers violated the Alabama Teacher Tenure Law, Code of Ala.Tit. 51, Secs. 355-361, in that (1) they bore "no rational relationship to the goals set out in [the 1988 Consent Order] of strengthening the faculty and curriculum at [Blount and LeFlore] High School[s]," (2) they were "otherwise arbitrary and/or based upon personal or political reasons, and (3) [t]he reasons articulated by the School Board for the transfers [i.e., compliance with the 1988 Consent Order] are false." To support their contentions, the appellants relied on the Fifth Circuit's holding in Mills v. Birmingham Board of Education, 449 F.2d 902, 904 (5th Cir.1971), that an Alabama teacher's "complaint ... that ... [her] transfer was not necessitated by the district court's [desegregation] order, but was made ... in unnecessary violation of the Alabama Teachers Tenure Act," stated a federal cause of action.
On March 30, 1989, the district court held an evidentiary hearing to consider the appellants' claims; the appellants' evidence chiefly concerned their own qualifications and the nature of the School Board's procedures. At the conclusion of that hearing, the district court ruled against appellants on the merits, declaring (1) that the appellants had offered no testimony regarding the transfer of five of the teachers, and (2) that as to six other appellants, there was no evidence that the Board had "acted arbitrarily or by any means of discrimination in fulfilling its obligations under" the 1988 Consent Order. The court also stated that it would "take under advisement the question of what to do about the attorney's fees in this matter."
On March 31, 1989, the district court issued an order dismissing appellants' petitions on the merits; the court also imposed sanctions (i.e., attorneys' fees) on appellants:
The court further finds and concluded that no legitimate basis, either factual or legal, existed for these transfer contests. Consequently, it is ORDERED that costs, including reasonable attorney's fees, be TAXED against the aforementioned petitioners.
The court at no time characterized these costs as Rule 11 sanctions; the appellants filed this appeal on the assumption that these are what the district court intended.
The appellants begin by challenging the district court's conclusion that they had no legitimate factual or legal basis for contesting their transfers. The appellants also contend that the district court failed to afford them adequate notice or an opportunity to explain their actions or to contest the imposition of sanctions.
Because of this court's holding in Donaldson v. Clark, 819 F.2d 1551 (11th Cir.1987) (en banc), we cannot examine the procedural safeguards due the appellants without first reviewing the district court's conclusion that the appellants' claims lacked any factual basis. In Donaldson, we noted that "[d]ue process requires that the attorney (or party where applicable) has fair notice of the possible imposition of Rule 11 sanctions and of the reason for their imposition." 819 F.2d at 1559-1560. We also held, however, that "[i]f an attorney is said to have submitted a complaint without any basis in fact, Rule 11 alone should constitute sufficient notice of the attorney's responsibilities, since the rule explicitly requires the attorney to certify that a complaint is well grounded in fact." Donaldson, 819 F.2d at 1560. (emphasis supplied). If the district court, therefore, properly found that the appellants' claims lacked any factual basis, then it had no obligation to afford the appellants the procedural safeguards of notice and an opportunity to be heard. With this qualification in mind, we now examine the factual underpinnings of the appellants' claim.
Appellants contended at trial that "the stated reason for their transfer[s] [was] false," that the transfers were arbitrary, and that these transfers were not necessary to comply with the 1988 Consent Order. At trial, the appellants produced evidence designed to show that the School Board's procedures were perfunctory, ad hoc, and not, as the 1988 Consent Order required, pursuant to a well-designed plan. Thus the appellants produced testimony that the School Board reduced its "guidelines" to writing only after it had transferred the appellants. Six of the appellants also testified, moreover, that the selection committee never questioned whether they met the specific criteria listed in the Board's guidelines. Finally, appellants presented evidence that the selection committee conducted its interviews, and made its recomendations, without reference to past performance evaluations or to other similar information contained in the personnel files of the various applicants.
The appellants also introduced some evidence that they were more qualified than several of the teachers that the Board assigned to Blount High School. For example, appellants showed that the School Board replaced the appellant James Mosely, who was certified to teach industrial arts, with an individual who was not a certified industrial arts teacher, and whom the Mobile County School System had previously terminated for cause. Appellants also showed that the Board replaced the appellant Brenda Howard, who had eight years experience teaching learning disabled students, with an individual who again was not certified to teach learning disabled students, and who apparently lacked "a command of standard English." Finally, appellants showed that the School Board replaced appellant Clarence Davis, who had a master's degree in mathematics, and who had thirty years of teaching experience at Blount, with an individual without a master's degree, and who had received a "needs improvement" performance evaluation the previous year.
Appellants also presented general evidence as to the qualifications of several other appellants. Appellants showed, for example, that the previous year the peers of appellant Cleveland Flott had selected him as teacher of the year, and that the Blount principal had presented him with a letter of commendation. Similarly, appellants showed that appellant Betty Moore had initiated a new vocational program that had assisted students in securing jobs within the community. 3
We also note that the district court overruled objections as to the relevancy of this sort of...
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