Hall v. Marion School Dist. No. 2

• Decision Date: 26 July 1994
• Docket Number: No. 93-1199,93-1199
• Parties: 93 Ed. Law Rep. 491 Margaret S. HALL, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. MARION SCHOOL DISTRICT NUMBER 2, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 183

31 F.3d 183

93 Ed. Law Rep. 491

Margaret S. HALL, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. MARION SCHOOL DISTRICT NUMBER 2, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 93-1199.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued Oct. 25, 1993.

Decided July 26, 1994.

Kenneth Lendren Childs, Childs & Duff, P.A., Columbia, SC, argued (David T. Duff, David E. Dubberly, on brief), for appellant.

Jeremiah Andrew Collins, Bredhoff & Kaiser, Washington, DC, argued (Susan D. Carle, on brief), for appellee.

Before LUTTIG and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges, and SPROUSE, Senior Circuit Judge.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge WILLIAMS, wrote the opinion, in which Judge LUTTIG and Senior Judge SPROUSE joined.

OPINION

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge:

Marion County School District Number 2 (District) appeals the district court's order, --- F.Supp. ----, requiring it to reinstate Margaret S. Hall to her position as a special education teacher, and to pay her damages and attorney's fees. We affirm.

Margaret S. Hall brought an action in federal district court alleging that the District violated her First Amendment rights under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 (1988), by terminating her from her teaching position. The district court, after a bench trial, held that Hall was not precluded from raising her First Amendment claims in federal court, and that the District, through the actions of the District's School Board (Board), did in fact terminate her employment in violation of her First Amendment rights. ¹

I.

The record evidence before the district court demonstrates the following facts about this controversy which occurred during the 1990-91 school year. Margaret S. Hall was a special education teacher at North Mullins Primary School, located in Marion County, South Carolina. When terminated, Hall had been a teacher for more than twenty-two years and had consistently received excellent teacher evaluations. On December 5, 1990, Hall wrote the first of a series of letters to the editor of the local newspaper, the Marion Star-Mullins Enterprise. The letter congratulated three members of the Board for voting against sending six Board members to a conference in San Francisco, California. In the letter, Hall expressed her outrage at the willingness of the six Board members to spend almost $10,000 of taxpayers' money on a "luxurious vacation." At the conclusion of Hall's letter, the editor of the newspaper noted that Dr. William Foil, Superintendent of the District, refused, for "security reasons," to name the Board members who had requested to attend the conference.

Because Foil declined voluntarily to submit the names, Hall and her husband, Ronald Hall, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to procure the names of the Board members. Hall wrote another letter to the editor criticizing Foil for refusing to name the Board members, and stated that she would submit the names as soon as she obtained them. Hall continued writing letters to the editor of the Marion Star-Mullins Enterprise, criticizing the Board's handling of funds, and her letters to the editor were also published in the Florence Morning News and The State newspapers.

Foil testified at trial that both he and the Board members were very upset over these letters to the editor. He testified that he believed Hall was wrongly subjecting the entire Board to public scorn and criticism. In response to Hall's letters, Foil wrote a memorandum to the Board members which contained the following statement:

Speaking of putting a lid on our current gadfly brings the note on the enclosed newspaper "letter to the editor." We ... cannot say that the barrage of opinions and innuendoes does not bother us. The trick is to not let her know how much a pain she is and where our pain is located! ... Maybe enough rope will allow our gadfly to suspend herself in an awkward position. Hopefully, it will be an uncomfortable one.

(J.A. at 722.) Foil testified that the "gadfly" referred to in the memorandum was Hall, and he admitted at trial that after Hall's initial letters he began to watch for her to do something "which we could address other than her writing letters." (J.A. at 69.)

After Foil's initial memorandum to the Board, Hall and her husband made an additional FOIA request for numerous items of information, including the salaries of District employees and the travel expenses of all school administrators for the previous three years. Foil wrote back with the salary information, but requested a deposit of $500 for research and copying to respond to the travel information. Thereupon, Ronald Hall wrote an editorial criticizing Foil for requesting such a large deposit, and accused Foil of "cover[ing] up" the truth. (J.A. at 661.)

Foil testified at trial that after the second FOIA request, he felt inclined to reply to the Halls. He wrote a memorandum to the Board in which he proclaimed that, because he could not remain quiet any longer, he would print an ad in the next week's paper. The ad read as follows:

REMEMBER THIS

IF YOU WORK FOR A MAN, in Heaven's name, WORK for him. If he pays you wages which supply you bread and butter, work for him; speak well of him; stand by him and stand by the institutions he represents. If put to a pinch, and [sic] ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. If you must vilify, condemn and eternally disparage--resign your position, and when you are outside, damn to your heart's content, but as long as you are part of the institution do not condemn it. If you do that, you are loosening the tendrils that are holding you to that institution, and at the first high wind that comes along, you will be uprooted and blown away, and probably will never know the reason why.

Final Word from BILL FOIL. Paid for with private funds by Bill and his two friends.

(J.A. at 662.)

The Halls were extremely upset over the ad. In another letter published in the local newspaper, Ronald Hall wrote to Daniel Hurrle, the Chairman of the Board, requesting that Foil be reprimanded, that the reprimand be placed in Foil's file, and that a public apology be issued to school employees and the community. Hurrle wrote back stating that "the Board did not read the statement (Remember This) as intimidating. Further, the statement was placed in a display advertisement and paid for by a private citizen exercising his First Amendment rights in freedom of speech." (J.A. at 641.) Several days after Foil informed the Board that he was going to place the "Remember This" ad in the paper, he displayed an openly hostile attitude toward Hall at a Teachers' Council Meeting. Foil admitted in a memorandum to the Board that when he was asked at the meeting to elaborate further on a question he believed to have been raised by Hall, he told the representative who asked the question on Hall's behalf to "tell her to go to hell." (J.A. at 642.)

At school, Foil began to oversee Hall's actions through Cynthia Legette, the principal of North Mullins Primary School, with whom Foil maintained frequent contact. At his request, Legette began to closely monitor Hall's arrivals and departures, and would then report her findings to Foil. Legette sent Hall memoranda criticizing her for such actions as taking leave and leaving a faculty meeting early. Once, Legette actually followed Hall to her gynecological appointment. Foil would then regularly report Legette's findings to the Board through memoranda.

Hall's responses to Legette only served to further increase the tension in the school. She wrote memoranda to Legette, complaining about numerous problems she had with the school system and administration, which she copied to a myriad of people, including her attorney, the State Superintendent of Education, her U.S. Congressman, and then-President Bush. Furthermore, it is clear that as a result of the tension between Legette and Hall, Hall was not popular with the faculty at North Mullins. For instance, at trial several teachers testified that they thought Hall displayed a disrespectful attitude toward Legette, and her memos to Legette were rude and unprofessional. Fellow teachers also testified that Hall was rude at faculty meetings and often read her mail or a book instead of paying attention to the meeting.

In addition to being unpopular among her fellow teachers, there was evidence of Hall's numerous absences during the school year, which she testified were due to illness exacerbated by the tremendous strain she felt. Although Legette testified that Hall's absences were disruptive to the school, she also testified that she approved all of Hall's absences and never reprimanded her for being absent too many days.

There was also evidence of many school visits to Hall from the president of Wildlife Action, a community environmental organization in which Hall was actively involved. Foil, however, admitted at trial that he approved such visits as long as they were not intrusive on classroom activities.

Despite the claims of disruptive behavior, numerous absences, and visitors, in April 1991, Hall was offered a teaching contract for the following year. The contract was offered to her without any conditions or stipulations, although Legette testified at trial that it was possible to put stipulations on these teaching contracts. Legette testified that she felt she had not received sufficient support from Foil to put a stipulation on Ms. Hall's contract.

On April 1, 1991, Dr. Barbara Nielsen, State Superintendent of Education, appointed Hall to serve on a blue ribbon task force in the State Department of Education called "Teachers As Professionals." Hall regarded the appointment as an honor and immediately began working on her duties. Legette and her fellow teachers, however, were rather surprised at her appointment. One teacher testified that she wrote Dr. Nielson to question Ms. Hall's appointment.

In performing her committee duties, Hall distributed a questionnaire soliciting examples of how teachers are treated or not treated as...