Gregory v. Durham County Bd. of Educ.
| Decision Date | 24 May 1984 |
| Docket Number | Civ. No. C-81-700-D. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of North Carolina |
| Parties | Anne GREGORY, Steve K. Toggerson, and the Durham County Chapter of the North Carolina Association of Educators, Plaintiffs, v. DURHAM COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION and J. Frank Yeager, Superintendent, Defendants. |
James C. Fuller, Jr., Leslie J. Winner, Charlotte, N.C., for plaintiffs.
James B. Maxwell, Durham, N.C., for defendants.
This action is a lawsuit by two teachers in the Durham County school system, Steve K. Toggerson and Anne Gregory, and the local chapter of the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE), as representative of its teacher members, against the Durham County Board of Education (Board of Education) and the Durham County Superintendent J. Frank Yeager. Plaintiffs seek, along with declaratory relief, removal of letters from the two teachers' personnel files which were purportedly written in retaliation for their criticism of the school administration in alleged violation of their first amendment rights.
By order entered February 9, 1983, the court dismissed several of the claims set forth in Plaintiffs' original complaint, and on October 11, 1983, Plaintiffs and Defendant Board of Education stipulated to the dismissal of another. Five claims remained for trial: (1) the claim by Anne Gregory under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 that a letter by an assistant superintendent in her personnel file relating to a grievance she brought against the school administration in the spring of 1980 violates her first amendment right to freedom of speech and right of petition, and (2) her additional claim that the letter violates her employment contract; (3) the claim by Steve Toggerson under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 that a letter in her file by Defendant Yeager regarding an article she wrote for an NCAE publication in 1981 violates her first amendment free-speech rights and (4) her additional claim that the letter and certain oral statements by Yeager constitute libel and slander; and (5) the claim by the Durham County Chapter of the NCAE under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 on behalf of its teacher members that the letters in Gregory's and Toggerson's personnel files chill the members' right to free speech in violation of the first amendment.
Trial by this court without a jury was held on these claims on February 27 through February 29, 1984. At the close of Plaintiffs' evidence, Defendant Yeager moved orally for dismissal of Toggerson's libel and slander claim pursuant to Fed.R. Civ.P. 41(b). The court reserved its ruling. For the reasons set forth below, the court will grant Defendant Yeager's motion and also enter judgment for Defendants on all claims.
1. Plaintiff Anne Gregory is an adult resident of Durham County, North Carolina. Since 1974 she has been employed as
an elementary school teacher by the Board of Education.
2. Plaintiff Steve K. Toggerson is an adult resident of Durham County, North Carolina. Since 1972 she has been employed by the Board of Education as a junior high school teacher.
3. Plaintiff Durham County Chapter of the NCAE is an organization whose members include teachers in the Durham County school system. The original complaint named the Durham County Association of Classroom Teachers (ACT) as the teacher organization representing the Plaintiff teachers, but during the pendency of this litigation it merged into the NCAE. On motion made at trial, the Durham County Chapter of the NCAE was substituted for the Durham County ACT in the complaint.
4. Defendant Board of Education is a corporate governmental body established pursuant to N.C.Gen.Stat. §§ 115C-1, et seq. As such, it has principal responsibility for the control and supervision of the Durham County school system.
5. Defendant J. Frank Yeager is an adult resident of Durham County, North Carolina, and since 1973 has been employed by the Board of Education as Superintendent of the Durham County school system. As Superintendent, he is the chief administrative officer of the school system. See N.C.Gen.Stat. §§ 115C-271 to -278.
6. In 1977, the North Carolina legislature adopted a program, the Primary Reading Program (Program), to provide funds to local school systems for the employment of teacher aides in order to improve reading instruction in the state's elementary schools. Standards, Policies and Guidelines of the Primary Reading Program, promulgated by the State Board of Education, required that teachers receive at least five (5) days of training prior to their participation in the Program. By the spring of 1980, there were four elementary schools in the Durham County system, employing approximately forty-five (45) reading teachers, which had not yet begun the Program, including the school at which Gregory worked. The administration of the Durham County system planned to train these teachers and initiate the Program at these schools at the start of the 1980-81 school year.
7. At a faculty meeting in the spring of 1980, Joyce F. Wasdell, an assistant superintendent of the Durham County system, distributed a memorandum, dated April 22, 1980, to Anne Gregory and other teachers present regarding the schedule for the required Program workshops. They were to begin four (4) weekdays before the previously scheduled starting date for teachers on Tuesday, August 12, 1980, and to continue through Thursday, August 14, 1980. Two of six regular pre-school (i.e., prior to the start of classes) work days were also to be devoted to the Program, bringing the total time to the required five days. The workshops were scheduled to begin early to avoid taking more than two regular preschool work days for the Program, the remaining four days being needed by teachers to prepare their other class and administrative work.
8. Gregory found the scheduling of the Program workshops objectionable because, among other reasons no longer relevant to this litigation, the early start interfered with her vacation plans. In May 1980, Gregory met with an NCAE official and approximately twenty other teachers to discuss the matter. As a result of the meeting, Gregory filed a grievance against Assistant Superintendent Wasdell. At a meeting in early June 1980, Wasdell denied Gregory's request to reschedule the workshops.
9. Gregory exercised her right under the school system's grievance procedure to appeal the denial to the assistant superintendent of personnel. At a meeting on June 18, 1980, he too declined to change the workshop schedule. Gregory pursued her grievance to the next level, Superintendent Yeager. In a letter to Gregory dated July 2, 1980, Yeager defended the scheduling, but indicated that the administration would work with individual teachers to resolve conflicts they had with the workshop schedule that were beyond their control.
10. Gregory interpreted Yeager's letter as providing for only case-by-case relief. Viewing herself as the representative of the other eighteen (18) teachers who had indicated that they would be inconvenienced by the workshop schedule, she found Yeager's letter unsatisfactory because it did not provide a more general solution. She therefore made the final appeal permitted her, to the Board of Education. At its meeting in executive session on July 21, 1980, the Board found that Superintendent Yeager's offer to work with individual teachers on their scheduling problems provided Gregory an adequate administrative remedy and declined to take any other action regarding the matter. It was mentioned at the meeting that nineteen (19) of the forty-five (45) teachers to receive Program training claimed a conflict with the workshop schedule, a fact previously not understood by Wasdell and other administrators. The Board nevertheless, without objection, treated Gregory's grievance as one solely on her own behalf.
11. Now understanding the apparent seriousness of the scheduling problem, Assistant Superintendent Wasdell the day after the Board meeting, July 22, 1980, sent to Gregory and the other teachers who were to participate in the workshops a memorandum setting forth an alternate schedule that would not require them to report to school early. The alternate schedule provided for workshops on Monday, August 18, through Wednesday, August 20, 1980, and again on Monday, August 25, 1980, from 4:00 p.m. until sometime between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. depending on the day. The two regular work days devoted to the Program were also apparently to be attended by those in the alternate workshops in fulfillment of the five-day training requirement. Wasdell indicated that all requests for the alternate schedule were to be made promptly in writing.
12. In response to Wasdell's memorandum of July 22, 1980, Gregory sent her a letter dated July 31, 1980, the text of which read as follows:
In response to your letter dated July 22, 1980, please be advised that it is my intention to report to work on August 18. Because I am not satisfied with the requirement to work from 8:30-3:30 and from 4:oo sic — 10:00 P.M., I have conferred with an attorney who may advise me otherwise.
By this letter, Gregory sought to indicate that she intended to participate in the alternate workshops, but that because of her dissatisfaction with the long work hours involved she had consulted an attorney who might advise her not to attend.
13. Assistant Superintendent Wasdell interpreted Gregory's letter as an unambiguous and shockingly insubordinate refusal by her to attend either the regular or alternate workshops, which she might recant if her attorney advised her accordingly. Wasdell responded with a letter to Gregory dated August 4, 1980, in which she criticized Gregory for her "apparent lack of interest in the instructional program" and disclosed her recommendation to Yeager that Gregory be terminated if she did not attend either set of workshops.
14. Prior to the time...
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