Gatewood v. Columbia Public School Dist.
| Decision Date | 03 February 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 04-4319-CV-C-NKL.,04-4319-CV-C-NKL. |
| Citation | 415 F.Supp.2d 983 |
| Parties | Louis GATEWOOD, Plaintiff, v. COLUMBIA PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Missouri |
Karen Kristina Howard, Kansas City, MO, for Plaintiff.
Louis J. Leonatti, Leonatti & Baker, P.C., Mexico, MO, Mariam Decker, Oliver Walker Wilson LLC, Columbia, MO, for Defendant.
Pending before the Court is Columbia Public School District's ("Columbia") Motion for Summary Judgment [Doc. # 53]. For the reasons set forth below, the Court grants in part and denies in part Columbia's Motion.
Also pending before the Court is Columbia's Motion to Strike [Doc. # 66] and Corrected Motion to Strike [Doc. # 71]. For the reasons set forth below, the Court denies both of Columbia's Motions to Strike.
Plaintiff Louis Gatewood ("Gatewood") also filed two motions that are pending before the Court. Gatewood moved to strike the affidavit of Dr. Mary Laffey [Doc. # 80] and the affidavit of Dr. Dana Clippard [Doc. # 81]. Columbia submitted both affidavits as part of its response to Gatewood's additional statement of facts. For the reasons set forth below, the Court denies both of Gatewood's Motions to Strike.
In his Opposition to Columbia's Motion for Summary Judgment, Gatewood contested many of Columbia's material facts. Gatewood's responses consist of twenty-seven pages. However, Gatewood also submitted an additional set of facts to support his claim. Gatewood's additional facts consisted of 182 paragraphs of factual assertions, many of which contained subparts. Gatewood's additional facts were approximately sixty-eight pages in length.
In its Motions to Strike, Columbia requests that the Court strike all of Gatewood's additional facts submitted in opposition to Columbia's Motion for Summary Judgment. Columbia states that neither Fed.R.Civ.P. 56 nor the Local Rules of this Court authorize a defending plaintiff to submit additional facts. Gatewood argues that additional facts are allowed because of a clause in Local Rule 56.1, which states: "All facts on which a motion or opposition is based shall be presented in accordance with Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure." L.R. 56.1.
Gatewood's format is not the preferred method of defending dispositive motions; particularly, where Gatewood had already presented a vigorous defense to the facts set forth in Columbia's Motion. Presenting two sets of facts requires that the Court cross-reference the factual assertions and check them against each other, thereby requiring that the Court expend considerable time just trying to ferret out the basic facts of the case. In fact, Gatewood's two statements of fact consistently cross-reference each other—a burdensome method for presenting facts to the Court. Moreover, the length and scope of Gatewood's additional facts is onerous and it does not seem that Gatewood attempted to distill any of the additional facts down to those which are truly necessary for resolving summary judgment. Instead, it appears that Gatewood literally threw in every fact possible.
Nonetheless, this Court has an interest in evaluating a dispositive motion in light of all the facts reasonably available to it. Similarly, a non-moving party has a right to present facts that are not encompassed in the moving party's motion that it believes supports its claim and refutes summary judgment. L.R. 56.1. Therefore, the Court will deny Columbia's Motions to Strike [Does. ## 66 and 71].
Gatewood in turn has moved to strike two affidavits that Columbia offered in its rebuttal to Gatewood's additional statement of facts. Gatewood challenges the affidavits on evidentiary grounds and he argues that the affidavits are beyond the scope of Columbia's original Motion. To the extent that Columbia's affidavits are beyond the scope of its original Motion, that is because Gatewood expanded the scope of the factual inquiry contained in the original Motion with its extensive additional statement of facts. In the interest of fairness, the Court will deny Gatewood's pending Motions to Strike.
The following factual overview contains both contested and uncontested facts.1 To resolve the Motion for Summary Judgment, however, the Court has considered only those facts that are material and relevant, and the facts are viewed in the light most favorable to Gatewood when they are properly contested.
Gatewood is African-American. He began his employment with Columbia at the inception of the 2001-2002 academic school year. Gatewood was an Instructional Aide ("IA") at Bearfield Elementary School ("Bearfield"). During the relevant time period, Gatewood had received several hours of college education, but he had not completed his bachelor's degree. Gatewood was certified as a substitute teacher. Gatewood continued to be employed as an IA at Bearfield until the 2004-2005 school year when he voluntarily transferred to Field Elementary School.
During his tenure with Columbia, Gatewood received yearly increases in his hourly wage and he continues to be employed by Columbia. It is undisputed that Gatewood received positive work evaluations during the entire relevant time period, but for the minor mention of excessive absences.
During his stint at Bearfield, Gatewood reported directly to Russell Hardesty ("Hardesty") and Dale Wilkinson ("Wilkinson"). Hardesty was the principal/site administrator at Bearfield while Wilkinson was the staff psychologist at that facility. Columbia concedes that both Hardesty and Wilkinson had supervisory authority over Gatewood. When Hardesty was out of the building, it is undisputed that Wilkinson was in charge. Both Hardesty and Wilkinson are Caucasian and they supervised Gatewood during the entire relevant time period.
Gatewood also interacted with numerous individuals who were not located at the Bearfield facility, but who oversaw broader operations for the Columbia School District. Gatewood interacted with Jacque Cowherd ("Cowherd") and Mary Laffey ("Laffey"). Cowherd was the Deputy Superintendent of Columbia and Laffey was the Director of Human Resources. Both Cowherd and Laffey are Caucasian and they held their respective positions during the entire relevant time period. Additionally, Gatewood had contact with Dana Clippard ("Clippard"). Clippard was the Director of Special Services for Columbia's Special Education Department. She is also Caucasian, but she did not begin her employment with Columbia until the 2003-2004 school year.
Bearfield is an alternative school for students who cannot function in a normal, mainstream educational setting. The vast majority of the students at Bearfield were African-American. Regarding the staff structure, teachers outranked instructional aides and paraprofessionals were below instructional aides. Thus, Gatewood, as an IA, was between teachers and paraprofessionals in the Bearfield hierarchy.
At its heart, Gatewood's Complaint against Columbia arises from his allegations that he was wrongfully denied the opportunity to do homebound instruction for students, which paid substantially more than his IA position, and that he was belittled and harassed by Hardesty and Wilkinson because of his race. He also claims that he was not considered for the job of home school coordinator at Bearfield.
In September 2001, Gatewood interviewed with Hardesty for his IA position at Bearfield. During the interview, Hardesty and Gatewood tossed a football and Hardesty asked him, "If I asked you to sing, would you sing for me?" Gatewood responded that he would do whatever Hardesty told him to do. Hardesty offered the IA position to Gatewood and, although he found Hardesty's question demeaning, he accepted the position.
When Gatewood reported for his first day of work at Bearfield as an IA, Hardesty directed Gatewood to work on the radiator of his truck. Gatewood testified that the work took between thirty minutes and an hour. Gatewood also observed Terry Jones ("Jones"), an African-American paraprofessional at the school, and Bearfield students cleaning the vehicles of faculty members. Columbia states that cleaning the cars was a voluntary activity.
During a staff meeting during the school year, Hardesty commented to Gatewood that his family had owned slaves. Hardesty made the same comment to other African-American employees at Bearfield, but he never made the comment to Caucasian employees.2
During another staff meeting, Hardesty asked Gatewood and Quaintance if they could arrange for a white student at Bearfield to eat in a "ghetto" home. Gatewood took offense to the comment. In his deposition, Hardesty denied making the statement, but Quaintance's deposition testimony and her journal entry that was created contemporaneously, state that he made such a request. Caucasian employees at Bearfield testified that Hardesty never asked them to arrange for a student to visit a "ghetto" home.
1. Home School Communicator Position
Halfway through the 2001-2002 school year, Hardesty appointed Mark Consiglio ("Consiglio") to serve as the home school communicator for Bearfield.3 Consiglio was a paraprofessional, which was a lower position than an IA, and he was Caucasian. However, it was Consiglio who approached Hardesty and suggested that Bearfield should have an employee who was responsible for re-integrating students into their home school environment. Consiglio volunteered for the work and Hardesty agreed it was a good idea. After Consiglio was given permission to take on the additional work of home school communicator, Consiglio continued to perform his regular paraprofessional job duties.
As part of his new job duties, Consiglio would contact the principal at a student's home school and look for opportunities to allow that student to...
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