Donato v. Plainview-Old Bethpage Cent. School Dist.
| Decision Date | 24 September 1996 |
| Docket Number | D,No. 1418,PLAINVIEW-OLD,1418 |
| Citation | 96 F.3d 623 |
| Parties | 112 Ed. Law Rep. 624, 12 IER Cases 104 Linda DONATO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v.BETHPAGE CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT; Edward Metzendorf, Defendants-Appellees. ocket 95-7862. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Joseph P. Marro, New York City, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Gregory J. Guercio, Plainview, NY (Guercio & Guercio, of counsel), for Defendants-Appellees.
Before CARDAMONE, ALTIMARI, and PARKER, Circuit Judges.
At the time of her discharge from employment, plaintiff Linda Donato (plaintiff or appellant) was a probationary assistant principal in the Plainview-Old Bethpage Central School District (District). An assistant principal serves a number of constituencies, ordinarily doing better with some than others; the exceptional assistant principal does well with all of them. But here, according to her Plaintiff appeals from a judgment entered August 7, 1995 by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Wexler, J.) dismissing both her Fourteenth Amendment due process claim brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and her retaliatory discharge claim brought under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The latter ruling necessitates a brief discussion of the law of retaliatory discharge. Plaintiff's challenge to the first decision requires us to consider what process is constitutionally due a public employee discharged amidst allegedly stigmatizing accusations of professional incompetence. When acting as an employer, the state must still heed the Fourteenth Amendment's command not to "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Because the District's charges leveled against plaintiff strike at the heart of her professional competence, damaging her professional reputation to such a degree as to virtually foreclose her ability to continue working in her chosen field of 28 years, the charges implicated and deprived her of a liberty interest under the Fourteenth Amendment. Such a deprivation requires that she be granted a name-clearing hearing.
employer, plaintiff did well with none of the constituencies--not with staff, students, parents, teachers, or with her supervisor, the principal. In short, she allegedly did nothing right and everything wrong.
Plaintiff Donato, a resident of Smithtown, New York, was first employed by the defendant District as a social studies teacher on September 1, 1966 and received tenure for that position in 1969. On September 1, 1981 Donato became chairperson of the Social Studies Department and obtained tenure as chairperson three years later.
In 1978, before her appointment as chairperson, Donato and several other women teachers challenged the District's mandatory maternity leave policy as discriminatory. The parties resolved the lawsuit, in which Donato's name appeared as lead plaintiff, in a 1981 settlement agreement that restored seniority rights and certain other benefits to Donato and the other plaintiffs. When the State Teachers Retirement System refused to grant retirement service credits as contemplated by the settlement agreement, New York State enacted legislation ordering that the credits be granted. See Plainview-Old Bethpage Central School District--Service Credit for Certain Teachers, 1988 N.Y. Laws ch. 786. The District responded by bringing a lawsuit attacking the state statute's constitutionality. See Board of Educ., Plainview-Old Bethpage Cent. Sch. Dist. v. Donato, No. 3420-89 (N.Y.Sup.Ct. Aug. 18, 1989) (mem.op.). In dismissing the District's suit, the New York State Supreme Court, Albany County, observed that the District had used every imaginable available remedy to avoid paying the teachers' benefits.
On August 16, 1991 Donato's career as an educator continued its upward spiral. The Superintendent of Schools appointed plaintiff to the position of Junior High School Assistant Principal for the school year starting on September 1, 1991. It is plaintiff's performance while serving in this capacity that is the subject of the instant litigation. The Superintendent's hiring notice described plaintiff's appointment as "probationary." She was not eligible for tenure until September 1, 1994, the date that would mark the end of the three year probationary period.
According to Donato, she served her first year as assistant principal without any difficulty. Her immediate supervisor, Principal Edward Metzendorf (also a defendant in the present action), wrote a memorandum dated April 10, 1992 evaluating Donato's first year as assistant principal. His critique suggested plaintiff accelerate her efforts to learn the master scheduling system, become more effective in managing discipline, improve communications with other staff members, provide improved instructional supervision, and work longer hours. Donato sent Metzendorf a reply memorandum defending her performance in all these areas.
Plaintiff contends that at the conclusion of her first academic year as assistant principal in June 1992, the District and Metzendorf began a course of conduct designed to damage her professional career. As proof, she Second, plaintiff alleges that Metzendorf made a comment at a routine school board meeting on September 23, 1992 that reflected the District's animus towards her. At this meeting, she asked Metzendorf why he had recently made certain negative statements about her. He replied that the District Superintendent and the Board of Education (Board) had told him to put things in writing about her, and added that if he did not follow the Board's instructions, they would "chop [his] legs off." Metzendorf says he spoke these words in a different context and was in fact referring to the District's desire to make certain spending cuts.
points to several examples. First, on July 1, 1992 Metzendorf prepared a memorandum--which he placed in plaintiff's file--criticizing her decision to leave on vacation in early July, because leaving interfered with her scheduling responsibilities. Donato wrote in response that Metzendorf had approved her vacation plans and that she had fully complied with all her contractual obligations. She also described Metzendorf's placement of this memorandum in her personnel file without first affording her an opportunity to refute his assertions as an unprofessional action that violated her rights. Despite this negative action by Metzendorf, his next evaluation of plaintiff was more favorable. Metzendorf's September 1992 summary evaluation, in which he conditionally recommended continuing plaintiff's probationary status, referred to "many positive aspects" of plaintiff's conduct and praised her "extensive administrative experience."
Third, Donato disputes the accuracy of three evaluations prepared by Metzendorf. In November 1992, he wrote that plaintiff lacked competence in the area of master scheduling, was ineffective as a disciplinarian, and showed a lack of concern in her interactions with parents. In a December 1992 follow-up evaluation, Metzendorf detailed the chronology of her lapses in class-scheduling and stated that the events "indicate[ ] [plaintiff's] lack of understanding of the scheduling of classes ... and [her] lack of commitment to this assigned responsibility." He also condemned her handling of student harassment problems as "ineffective." In his third performance evaluation, made in February 1993, Metzendorf again referred to plaintiff's insufficient effort and commitment to her scheduling tasks and also noted her lack of understanding of teacher schedules. He discussed her failure to investigate possible gang activity in the school and described her instructional supervision as "insufficient in scope and quantity." Metzendorf also criticized Donato for repeated lateness and inconsistent lunchroom supervision.
Donato insists that Metzendorf's evaluations "contained factual distortions and untrue incidents," as well as "misstatements of fact and outright fabrications." These evaluations were placed in her personnel file and thereby became part of her permanent employment record.
As a result of these adverse reports, District Superintendent Henry Grishman wrote to plaintiff on April 2, 1993, telling her of his recommendation that the Board remove her as assistant principal as of June 30, 1993. The Board accepted his recommendation and, on May 17, 1993, voted to terminate Donato's employment. When plaintiff requested a statement of reasons for Grishman's recommendation, he sent her the following list, which he described as not being all-inclusive:
1. Failure to perform the master scheduling responsibilities;
2. Failure to effectively manage discipline at the seventh and eighth grade levels;
3. Poor secondary staff relations;
4. Ineffective parent interaction[;]
5. Failure to provide adequate instructional supervision;
6. Failure to complete administrative responsibilities, such as cafeteria supervision and attendance at meetings;
7. Failure to consult with supervisor regarding summer work schedule;
8. Inability to accept constructive criticism; and
9. Ineffective commitment to the Middle School.
As with the Metzendorf evaluations, Donato denies the accuracy of all these allegations.
Plaintiff originally filed suit on March 30, 1993 against the District and Metzendorf in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Wexler, J.). She claimed in her complaint that Metzendorf prepared negative evaluations to retaliate against her for her involvement in the prior discrimination lawsuit, and that such action violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a).
In June 1993 Donato filed an amended complaint that included two causes of action. She again contended that the District's negative evaluations and subsequent termination constituted a course of...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Chiaravallo v. Middletown Transit Dist.
...many freedoms it encompasses is the freedom to engage in any of the common occupations of life." Donato v. Plainview-Old Bethpage Central School District , 96 F.3d 623, 630 (2d Cir. 1996) (cleaned up). Accordingly, liberty interests may be implicated when the government imposes "a stigma or......
-
Phipps v. New York State Dept. of Labor
...under the ADEA) (citing Dister v. Continental Group, Inc., 859 F.2d 1108, 1114 (2d Cir.1988)); see also Donato v. Plainview-Old Bethpage Cent. Sch. Dist., 96 F.3d 623, 633 (2d Cir.1996), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 1150, 117 S.Ct. 1083, 137 L.Ed.2d 218 "To establish the first of these elements —......
-
Petrosky v. New York State Dept. of Motor Vehicles, 96-CV-0902 DRH.
...shifts the burden to defendants to offer a non-retaliatory explanation for her termination. See Donato v. Plainview-Old Bethpage Cent. Sch. Dist., 96 F.3d 623, 634 (2d Cir. 1996). Defendants have failed to offer any reason for Petrosky's termination and cannot satisfy their burden on this p......
-
Emma v. Schenectady City School Dist.
...argues that his denial of tenure constitutes the loss of a protected property and liberty interest. See Donato v. Plainview-Old Bethpage Cent. Sch. Dist., 96 F.3d 623, 629 (2d Cir.1996), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 117 S.Ct. 1083, 137 L.Ed.2d 218 (1997). To establish a protected property in......
-
Name-clearing Hearings: How This "remedy" Fails to Safeguard the Procedural Due Process Rights of Employees Accused of Sexual Harassment
...to restore his professional 67. Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U.S. 134, 157 (1974); Donate v. Plainview-Old Bethpage Cent. Sch. Dist., 96 F.3d 623, 630 (2d Cir. 1996); Rosenstein v. City of Dallas, 876 F.2d 392, 395 (5th Cir. 1989); Brown & Kerrigan, supra note 53, at 641; Loos, supra note 56, at ......