Hoots v. Com. of Pa.

Citation703 F.2d 722
Decision Date28 March 1983
Docket NumberNo. 82-5342,82-5342
Parties10 Ed. Law Rep. 59 Dorothy HOOTS, individually and as mother of her children, Janelle Hoots and Jamie Hoots; Mrs. Addrallace Knight, individually and as mother and natural guardian of her children Ronald Knight, Loretta Knight, Terrance Knight, Marc Knight and Byron Knight; Barbara Smith, individually and as mother and natural guardian of her children Tawanda Smith, Tevela Smith, Joseph Smith, Wesley Smith and Eric Smith; on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated Mae Helen Woody, Juanita Jordan v. COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA; Edward X. Hallenberg, President of the Allegheny County Board of School Directors; the Allegheny County Board of School Directors; W. Deming Lewis, Chairman of the Pennsylvania State Board of Education; Michael Sullivan, President of the School District of the Borough of Braddock; The School District of the Borough of Braddock; Andrew Lisyak, President of the School Board of Rankin; the School District of the Borough of Rankin; Leo Campbell, President of the School Board of the School District of the Borough of North Braddock; and the School District of the Borough of North Braddock; the Allegheny Intermediate Unit Board of School Directors; and Edward X. Hallenberg As President of the Allegheny Intermediate Board of School Directors, Churchill Area School District, Edgewood School District, Swissvale Area School District, Turtle Creek Area School District. Appeal of BOARD OF SCHOOL DIRECTORS OF The WOODLAND HILLS SCHOOL DISTRICT.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

Thomas M. Rutter, Jr. (argued), Patrick J. Clair, Goehring, Rutter & Boehm, Pittsburgh, Pa., for appellant.

Thomas J. Henderson (argued), Pittsburgh, Pa., Jack Greenberg, Bill Lann Lee, James S. Liebman, New York City, for appellees, Dorothy Hoots, et al.

Before SEITZ, Chief Judge, and WEIS and BECKER, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

PER CURIAM.

We are advised by the parties in this protracted school desegregation litigation that this eighth appeal on the merits, the sixth in two years, will be known as Hoots XIV. 1 Although many of these appeals have been preliminary skirmishes, this appeal, like Hoots v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 672 F.2d 1107 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 103 S.Ct. 55, 74 L.Ed.2d 60 (1982) ("Hoots IX "), is a frontal assault on the district court's desegregation plan. The previous appeals were mounted by the Allegheny County Intermediate Unit, the Allegheny County School Board, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the former school districts of Edgewood, Churchill, Swissvale, and Turtle Creek. The four school districts are now merged with the General Braddock Area School District (GBASD) to create a new umbrella district known as "Woodland Hills," the appellant here. Although the appellants' names have changed, the essential arguments remain the same.

Appellant argues that the district court fully remedied the constitutional violations by creating a consolidated district and thereby exhausted its jurisdiction; alternatively, that the constitutional violation was resolved by establishing three standard feeder systems to secondary schools, thereby exhausting the court's jurisdiction and leaving it with no authority to issue orders governing elementary schools; and that the court abused its discretion by rejecting appellant's plan and substituting its judgment as to elementary school assignment patterns.

I.

Repeating the factual and legal recitals already set forth in the reported opinions of both this court and the district court would serve no useful purpose. It is sufficient to state the law of the case and to update the history of the proceeding below. In Hoots IX we held that the district court applied the proper legal standard in determining that the creation of the predominantly black GBASD was an act of de jure discrimination, 672 F.2d at 1116, that there was sufficient evidence in the record to support a determination of intentional racial discrimination, id. at 1119, and that the district court's decision to consolidate five separate districts into one was not an abuse of discretion, id. at 1124.

During the pendency of Hoots IX-XI, the district court moved to implement the desegregation order. On July 23, 1981, it ordered defendant Woodland Hills to create three secondary/middle school feeder systems to replace the existing secondary and middle school systems and directed the board to prepare an elementary school desegregation plan for submission to the court by December 15, 1981. On August 13, 1981, the district court approved a 1981-82 student assignment plan for the secondary/middle school feeder systems.

At defendant's request the district court extended the submission date for the elementary school desegregation plan to January 29, 1982. Defendant submitted this plan, but the court found it unacceptable and directed defendant to revise it. On April 22, 1982, as defendant submitted its revised elementary school desegregation plan, plaintiffs also submitted several proposed elementary plans for the court's assistance.

On May 12, 1982, following hearings on the plans, the district court, 539 F.Supp. 335, found defendant's revised plan unacceptable. The court found many of the plaintiffs' plans to be acceptable, however, and directed Woodland Hills to draw up a final plan on the basis of plaintiffs' submissions. Woodland Hills complied with this order, but appealed to this court from the May 12 order.

II.

The Hoots sequence is not our first contact with inter-district de jure segregation requiring creation of a new umbrella district. We confronted the same problem in Evans v. Buchanan, 555 F.2d 373 (3d Cir.) (in banc), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 880, 98 S.Ct. 235, 54 L.Ed.2d 160 (1977), and in Evans v. Buchanan 582 F.2d 750 (3d Cir.1978) (in banc), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 923, 100 S.Ct. 1862, 64 L.Ed.2d 278 (1980). In the present appeal, we find the Evans decisions particularly helpful for their definition of the standard of review.

We note that appellant casts its first two contentions in terms of district court jurisdiction. This requires some clarification. Appellant does not argue that the district court exceeded the dispute resolution power granted by article III of the Constitution and federal statute. This case, then, does not present a question of "subject matter jurisdiction" as that term is usually presented to this court. Moreover, appellant does not appear to contend that there was available an adequate remedy at law and thus that the court lacked "equity jurisdiction." Rather, appellant's arguments go to the authority of the court to fashion the specific remedies imposed.

Therefore, notwithstanding appellant's labelling of its theories, we examine the district court's judgment not with the plenary review appropriate to review for error in subject matter jurisdiction, but search instead for indications that the district court abused its discretion. We defined that standard with specificity in Evans, emphasizing that as a reviewing court we are not empowered to consider remedial orders de novo, that where there has been intentional segregation the fashioning of a remedy is committed to the exercise of the district court's discretion, and that "a school desegregation case does not differ fundamentally from other cases involving the framing of equitable remedies to repair the denial of a constitutional right." 555 F.2d at 378 (quoting Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1, 15-16, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 1275-76, 28 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971)). Thus, in the formulation of orders seeking to remedy the vestiges of intentional segregation, "an improper use of discretion exists only when the judicial action is arbitrary, fanciful, or unreasonable, or when improper standards, criteria, or procedures are used." 555 F.2d at 378. See also Evans v. Buchanan, 582 F.2d at 760.

As a component of our review for abuse of discretion, our standard for examining the district court's fact finding is the familiar clearly erroneous rule. Dayton Board of Education v. Brinkman, 443 U.S. 526, 534 n. 8, 99 S.Ct. 2971, 2977 n. 8, 61 L.Ed.2d 720 (1979) (Dayton II ). It is the responsibility of an appellate court to accept the ultimate factual determination of the fact-finder unless that determination either is completely devoid of minimum evidentiary support displaying some hue of credibility or bears no rational relationship to the supportive evidentiary data. Krasnov v. Dinan, 465 F.2d 1298, 1302-03 (3d Cir.1972). Mindful of the foregoing, we turn now to appellant's contentions.

III.

Appellant's first two arguments concern the extent to which the district court may exercise its remedial authority. Because they share the same basis, we will discuss them together.

Injunctions issued to enforce school desegregation orders are part of the equity powers of federal courts, and the scope of these remedial powers is broad. In Swann, the Supreme Court reiterated that state-imposed segregation by race in public schools denies equal protection of the laws, 402 U.S. at 15, 91 S.Ct. at 1275, and that "[o]nce a right and a violation have been shown, the scope of a district court's equitable powers to remedy past wrongs is broad, for breadth and flexibility are inherent in equitable remedies," id. The federal court's equitable powers are not unlimited, however, and the "nature of the violation determines the scope of the remedy." Id. at 16, 91 S.Ct. at 1276. See also Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U.S. 362, 96 S.Ct. 598, 46 L.Ed.2d 561 (1976); Evans v. Buchanan, 555 F.2d at 379-80.

Thus, the proper focus in determining the appropriateness of an equitable remedy is an inquiry into the nature and extent of the constitutional violation. Appellant essentially argues that the constitutional violation present here consisted entirely of the creation of GBASD as a racially segregated...

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