Drake v. Covington County Board of Education
Decision Date | 23 January 1974 |
Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 4144-N. |
Citation | 371 F. Supp. 974 |
Parties | Ilena Devone DRAKE, Plaintiff, v. COVINGTON COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION et al., Defendants. |
Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of Alabama |
Solomon S. Seay, Jr., Montgomery, Ala. (Gray, Seay & Langford), Montgomery, Ala., for plaintiff.
Frank J. Tipler, Jr. (Tipler, Fuller & Barnes), Andalusia, Ala., for defendants.
Before RIVES, Circuit Judge, and JOHNSON and VARNER, District Judges.
A teacher in the public schools of Alabama who has contracted and served in the same school system for three consecutive school years attains continuing service status, and has the right to be re-employed each succeeding school year1 unless her contract is cancelled upon some ground provided in another section of the Alabama Code, which will be quoted later.
Plaintiff Drake, an elementary school teacher on continuing service status in the Covington County, Alabama, school system, seeks an injunction requiring the defendants to reinstate her to her former position as a school teacher in that system.
Drake received notice by letter dated April 27, 1973, that the Board of Education of Covington County proposed to cancel her employment contract for "immorality in that the Board has been presented with a physician's certificate stating that you became pregnant during the current school year at which time you were a single unmarried person." This letter informed Drake that she had a right under § 359 of Title 52 to request either a public or private hearing to contest the Board's action. Drake timely requested a private hearing.
A hearing was held before the Board of Education on May 22, 1973. Drake was represented by counsel and record of the proceedings was made. Although the Board's attorney offered the testimony of several witnesses concerning financial matters involving Drake, the Board properly refused to admit this evidence, and accepted testimony from a physician and from Drake herself. The doctor testified that tests indicated that Drake was pregnant. Drake admitted that she had engaged in sexual intercourse with her fiance in private on a number of occasions. Following a meeting of the Board in private session, the Chairman informed Drake that the Board had voted not to renew her contract.
Drake, through her attorney, pursued her statutory right to appeal to the Alabama State Tenure Commission.2 A document dated June 13, 1973, indicates that the Commission met on that date to consider Drake's case. After oral argument and a review of the record, the Commission sustained the validity of the action of the Covington County Board of Education.
Under Alabama law, Drake could have sought review of the action of the State Tenure Commission by petition for mandamus filed in the Circuit Court of Covington County.3 Instead, she filed a complaint in the United States District Court, alleging jurisdiction under 28 U. S.C. § 1331, 28 U.S.C. § 2201, and 28 U. S.C. § 1343 as authorized by 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
The Supreme Court has stated that Monroe v. Pape, 1961, 365 U.S. 167, 183, 81 S.Ct. 473, 482, 5 L.Ed.2d 492. Also see McNeese v. Board of Education, 1963, 373 U.S. 668, 671-676, 83 S.Ct. 1433, 10 L.Ed.2d 622. These cases indicate that Drake was entitled to choose a federal forum to litigate her constitutional claims.
The applicable section provides as follows:
Tit. 52, Code of Alabama, 1940, Recompiled 1958. Drake claims the immorality provision of this section, which provided the statutory basis for her dismissal, is void for vagueness. She attacks the constitutionality of the statute both on its face and as applied to her. Following the example of the Supreme Court in Pickering v. Board of Education, 1968, 391 U.S. 563, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 20 L.Ed.2d 811, we consider first her challenge to the statute as applied. We then find it unnecessary to reach her challenge to the statute on its face.4 We hold that the statute was applied in this case in a manner which violated Drake's constitutional right of privacy.
The details of the application of the statute to Drake were not clear at the time of oral argument. A stipulation filed by the parties in response to a request by the Court for further factual information revealed the manner whereby the defendants learned about Drake's claimed immorality:
Following the clue indicated by the emphasized part of Mr. King's testimony, the attorney for the Board elicited the following testimony on cross-examination of Drake.
The record and stipulation permit no other conclusion than that all of the evidence upon which the Board based its cancellation of Drake's employment contract had its source in disclosures from her own physician solicited by Superintendent King. The evidence fails to show that Drake consented for her doctor to disclose to the Board her private communications with him.6
In a closely related context, the Supreme Court has recently discussed the constitutional right of privacy:
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Thorne v. City of El Segundo
...in French Quarter of New Orleans, "the city that care forgot," could not be dismissed for his conduct); Drake v. Covington County Board of Education, 371 F.Supp. 974, 979 (M.D.Ala.1974) (employer could not dismiss unmarried, pregnant teacher for immorality; her conduct did not affect her co......
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Shuman v. City of Philadelphia
...protected right of privacy.8Battle v. Mulholland, 439 F.2d 321 (5th Cir. 1971); Bruns v. Pomerleau, supra; Drake v. Covington County Board of Education, 371 F.Supp. 974 (M.D.Ala.1974) (three-judge court). The Police Department simply cannot have a carte blanche to investigate all aspects of......
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Margaret S. v. Edwards, Civ. A. No. 78-2765.
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Johnson v. San Jacinto Jr. College
...incident to sexual intimacy, but currently does not protect the sexual relations themselves. Cf. Drake v. Covington County Board of Education, 371 F.Supp. 974, 979 (M.D.Ala.1974) (three-judge court) (in holding that the State violated plaintiff's constitutional right of privacy by basing ca......