Gates v. Walker
| Citation | 865 F. Supp. 1222 |
| Decision Date | 12 September 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. 2:90-cv-128WS.,2:90-cv-128WS. |
| Parties | Peggy GATES, Plaintiff, v. James Gordon WALKER, in his official capacity as Superintendent of Education of the Hattiesburg Municipal Separate School District, Johnny Dupree, in his official capacity as a member of the School Board of the Hattiesburg Municipal Separate School District, Dr. Jeff Bowman, in his official capacity as a member of the School Board of the Hattiesburg Municipal Separate School District, Dr. Charlotte Tullos, in her official capacity as a member of the School Board of the Hattiesburg Municipal Separate School District, Kathryn Jones, in her official capacity as a member of the School Board of the Hattiesburg Municipal Separate School District, Dr. Ralph Noonkester, in his official capacity as a member of the School Board of the Hattiesburg Municipal Separate School District and Dr. Sam Spinks, individually, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Mississippi |
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Jack Parsons and Rebecca C. Taylor, Wiggins, MS, for plaintiff.
J. Perry Sansing, Jackson, MS, and Moran M. Pope, III, Hattiesburg, MS, for defendants.
Before the court is the defendants' motion for summary judgment filed under Rule 56(b),1 Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The plaintiff, Peggy Gates, a school teacher, brings this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 19832 and 19883 alleging that the defendants have violated her constitutional right of free speech guaranteed under the First Amendment4 to the United States Constitution by not renewing her teaching contract on account of her active and outspoken criticisms of her superintendent and school board. Defendants, the Superintendent and the Board of Trustees of the City of Hattiesburg Municipal Separate School District, deny plaintiff's charge and ask this court to dismiss this case, alleging, inter alia, that this action is barred by principles of res judicata and collateral estoppel. Specifically, defendants contend that plaintiff raised the claims herein in an earlier lawsuit in federal court. That lawsuit, argue defendants, was dismissed under the statute of limitations; therefore, say the defendants, the dismissal of that earlier lawsuit operates as an adjudication on the merits of the plaintiff's complaint now before the court. The defendants also contend that plaintiff's First Amendment claims were affirmatively raised, heard and ruled on by the Mississippi Supreme Court in an opinion adverse to plaintiff, a circumstance which additionally warrants this court to dismiss this action, say defendants. Having studied the submitted memoranda and pleadings and having heard the arguments of counsel, this court is persuaded that the defendants' motion for summary judgment should be granted for the reasons which follow.
The plaintiff in this action is Peggy Gates of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, a schoolteacher with the Hattiesburg Municipal Separate School District. The defendants are the members of the Board of Trustees in their official capacities: Johnny Dupree, Dr. Jeff Bowman, Dr. Charlotte Tullos, Kathryn Jones, and Dr. Ralph Noonkester. The current Superintendent, James Gordon Walker, is sued in his official capacity, and the former superintendent, Dr. Sam Spinks, is being sued in his individual capacity. The court's jurisdiction is predicated upon Title 28 U.S.C. §§ 13315 and 1343(a)(3).6
Plaintiff served as a schoolteacher within the Hattiesburg Municipal Separate School System for eighteen years. She spent six (6) years teaching third grade students; a total of eight (8) years teaching fourth, fifth and sixth grade students; and four (4) years teaching eighth grade students. She also was a member of and served as an officer with the Hattiesburg Association of Educators (HAE). She was a member of the Mississippi Association of Educators (MAE) and was elected by her fellow teachers to represent her school on the Professional Affairs Committee, a liaison group between teachers and the school administration. Plaintiff actively participated in the HAE, MAE, and Professional Affairs Committee in promoting improvements in her profession.
Plaintiff's school principal and supervisor, Pricilla Walker, refused to recommend plaintiff for reemployment for the 1981-82 school year. As grounds for this refusal, Ms. Walker asserted that the plaintiff: (1) possessed inadequate and/or improper classroom instructional skills; (2) had excessive absences from the classroom; (3) had refused to abide by school policy with respect to leaves of absence; and (4) had exhibited unprofessional conduct.7
The plaintiff then challenged Walker's recommendation for non-reemployment through the administrative hearing process,8 proclaiming that her 1981 teaching contract had not been renewed because she had antagonized the defendants on numerous occasions by openly criticizing the policies of the superintendent and school board. In due course, plaintiff appeared before an Administrative Hearing Officer who permitted both sides to present and argue the facts. At that administrative hearing, plaintiff expounded on her charges, claiming that she had incurred the wrath of the former superintendent, Dr. Sam Spinks, and the Board when, as chairperson of a grand jury in Forrest County, she had led an investigation of the Hattiesburg Municipal Separate School District; when as head of the Hattiesburg Association of Educators she had requested the State Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review (PEER) Committee9 to investigate the contractual agreements between the teachers and the Hattiesburg Municipal Separate Schools; when she had expressed displeasure with the grading and promotional policies of the school; and when on the Professional Affairs Committee she had refused to accommodate the School Board's wishes for her to make a statement that no disciplinary problems existed in the school district. Plaintiff charges that these protected exercises of her constitutional right, and not her classroom or professional behavior, ignited the ire of the defendants and moved them to discharge her in hopes of quieting her confrontative voice.
The Hearing Officer, Hattiesburg attorney Frank Montague, was not sympathetic to plaintiff's position. He found that, as a matter of law, any one of the four charges against plaintiff served as an adequate basis to support plaintiff's dismissal. He found that the evidence supporting these charges was substantial and that plaintiff's criticisms of the Board were not the cause of her non-renewal. The Hearing Officer even cited several instances to show that instead of plotting plaintiff's occupational destruction, Dr. Sam Spinks had actually tried to save the plaintiff's teaching position. In sum, the Hearing Officer concluded that the plaintiff's constitutional and statutory procedural rights had not been violated. After a review of the Hearing Officer's findings, the Board of Trustees followed the recommendation of the Hearing Officer and refused to rehire the plaintiff for the 1981-82 school year.
Plaintiff appealed the decision of the Board of Trustees to the Forrest County Chancery Court in an action naming the Hattiesburg Municipal Separate School District as defendant. The Forrest County Chancellor, Honorable Michael D. Sullivan, found that the defendant therein had not violated any of plaintiff's procedural rights guaranteed under the School Employment Procedures Law of 1977, Miss.Code Ann. § 37-9-101 to 37-9-113 (1990).10 Nevertheless, the Chancellor reversed the Board's decision on two grounds: (1) that under the local school district rules of the Hattiesburg Municipal Separate School District, the School District had failed to meet its own imposed burden of proof to show that non-reemployment was rationally related to some legitimate, educational interest of the District; and (2) that the School District had violated plaintiff's federal and state constitutional rights of free speech. Relative to this latter holding, the Chancellor found that Dr. Sam Spinks had retaliated against the plaintiff by not recommending her for reemployment because he did not approve of the manner in which plaintiff had exercised her constitutional right of free speech. The Chancellor then reversed the Board's decision not to reemploy the plaintiff and ordered plaintiff reinstated for the 1981-82 school year.
The Board of Trustees appealed the Chancellor's decision to the Mississippi State Supreme Court. The Mississippi Supreme Court in Board of Trustees of the Hattiesburg Mun. Separate School District v. Gates, 461 So.2d 730 (Miss.1984), reversed the Chancellor and reinstated the findings of the Hearing Officer. The Mississippi Supreme Court held that the Hearing Officer was correct in his finding that the Board's decision not to reemploy the plaintiff was unrelated to the plaintiff's free speech activities. The Court stated:
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