Johnson v. Chapel Hill Independent School Dist.

• Citation: 853 F.2d 375
• Decision Date: 30 August 1988
• Docket Number: No. 87-2825,87-2825
• Parties: 47 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1498, 47 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 38,227, 48 Ed. Law Rep. 361 Joyce JOHNSON and Robert Bandy, Administrators of the Estate of Leport Walton, Deceased, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. CHAPEL HILL INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)

Page 375

853 F.2d 375

47 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1498,

47 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 38,227, 48 Ed. Law Rep. 361

Joyce JOHNSON and Robert Bandy, Administrators of the Estate of Leport Walton, Deceased, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. CHAPEL HILL INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al Defendants-Appellants.

No. 87-2825.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

Aug. 30, 1988.

Jack Jackson, Tyler, Tex., for Chapel Hill Independent School Dist.

Larry R. Daves, Tyler, Tex., for Johnson and Estate of Walton.

Appeal from the United States District Court For the Eastern District of Texas.

Before REAVLEY, GARWOOD and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.

W. EUGENE DAVIS, Circuit Judge:

The district court, after a bench trial, found that defendants' decision not to renew the teaching contracts of two black school teachers was racially motivated. Defendants concede their liability to plaintiff Johnson and on appeal contest only the district court's calculation of her back pay award. Defendants challenge both liability and damages assessed against them in favor of plaintiff Walton. We affirm in part, reverse in part and remand this case to the district court.

I.

A.

Plaintiffs Joyce Johnson and Laura Walton were two of eleven teachers, six white and five black, whose contracts were not renewed by the Chapel Hill Independent School District (Chapel Hill ISD) at the end of the 1979-80 school year. Plaintiff Johnson exhausted administrative remedies and then sued in federal court, asserting causes of action under Title VII, Sec. 1981, and Sec. 1983. Laura Walton later joined the suit, asserting causes of action only under Sec. 1981 and Sec. 1983. Plaintiffs named as defendants the Chapel Hill ISD; Dr. Claude Harcrow, individually and in his official capacity as the superintendent of the Chapel Hill ISD, and the members of the Board of Trustees of Chapel Hill ISD, individually and in their official capacity.

Plaintiffs sought both equitable and legal relief and defendants timely filed a demand for jury trial. Plaintiffs moved to strike the jury demand on the ground that they were dismissing all legal claims, including all claims other than those for injunctive relief, back pay, and other equitable relief. The district court granted plaintiff's motion, and in August 1983 tried the case without a jury.

B.

The trial record reveals that Walton joined the Chapel Hill ISD faculty in 1976. At that time, she was fifty-seven years old with eighteen year's teaching experience, a Master's degree in Elementary Education, and lifetime certification to teach all areas of elementary school at all levels. Before and after joining the Chapel Hill faculty, Walton taught primarily mathematics.

Walton's claim of intentional discrimination was based primarily on two items of circumstantial evidence. First, Walton contended that she was replaced by a white teacher who held only a bachelor's degree with little teaching experience. Walton admitted that credentials alone are not an adequate measure of a teacher's performance but insisted that she was more qualified than the teacher who replaced her. Walton also testified that she "understood" that a white teacher whose contract was not renewed was warned of his marginal performance and provided with counseling and assistance in an effort to improve his teaching skills. Walton testified that she, on the other hand, received no warning that her teaching was below par and received no assistance.

Plaintiff Johnson taught students in the school district's home bound program. Johnson went into the homes of students who because of illness or disability were unable to attend school. The school district contended at trial that it decided not to renew Johnson's contract in part because of her poor performance as a teacher and in part because the school district's projections for the coming school year showed that Johnson would not be needed to teach home bound students. Johnson contended that the nonrenewal was racially motivated. Shortly after she learned of the nonrenewal, she complained to the EEOC. After she filed this complaint, the school district announced that its projections of need for teachers of home bound students turned out to be erroneous; positions for which Johnson was arguably qualified were later filled. Johnson contends that the board denied a position to her in retaliation for filing her complaint with the EEOC.

C.

The Chapel Hill ISD Board of Trustees, composed of five whites and two blacks, unanimously voted to hire Claude Harcrow as superintendent of the district and he assumed that position in August of 1979. The Board gave Harcrow several mandates, including one to upgrade teaching staff and curriculum. Harcrow thus instituted a program designed to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of his faculty, to improve the performance of individual teachers where possible, and to replace other teachers. To carry out this program, Harcrow and the Board adopted a system of teacher evaluations. Under the evaluation program a teacher's supervisor made scheduled and unscheduled visits to a classroom and rated the teacher's performance on a variety of factors. The teacher's supervisor then made a recommendation to Harcrow who then made his recommendations to the school board, which made final hiring decisions.

Harcrow testified that his primary goal in the teacher evaluation process was to obtain the best possible faculty for the Chapel Hill ISD. He also testified that when making hiring decisions he primarily considered credentials and qualifications, but also gave some consideration to race in an attempt to maintain or improve black representation on the school's faculty. Harcrow testified that race had not been a consideration in the decision not to renew the contracts of eleven teachers after the 1979-80 school year.

In carrying out his program, Harcrow necessarily relied upon the recommendations of a teacher's immediate supervisor. Among those on whom Harcrow relied to evaluate teachers were Jack Fry, a white administrator of programs, and Winston Teal, a black high school principal with immediate responsibility for plaintiff Walton. Both Fry and Teal testified that Harcrow had never suggested that they should consider race in deciding whether to recommend renewal of a teacher's contract. Both men testified that they had never perceived bias or prejudice on Harcrow's part.

Winston Teal testified that he recommended to Harcrow that Walton's contract not be renewed. Teal testified that he based this decision on a November 1979 evaluation of Walton's performance. The trial court rejected Teal's testimony because the court found that the evaluation was based on unduly subjective criteria and because the court concluded that even though the evaluation showed that Walton had some shortcomings it also showed that her performance was generally satisfactory.

The district court thus concluded that both Walton and Johnson were victims of intentional discrimination. The court awarded back pay to both plaintiffs, ordered reinstatement of both plaintiffs, and--to provide an incentive for reinstatement--awarded front pay to both plaintiffs.

Plaintiff Johnson found new employment during the 1980-81 school year, at a salary equal to and eventually greater than her salary at Chapel Hill ISD. Thus, she was awarded $10,000 in back pay and no front pay. The court refused to offset from the award $3,600 in unemployment benefits that Johnson collected before she found new employment.

Plaintiff Walton did not seek another teaching position after the 1979-80 school year. Instead, she received unemployment compensation and then took early retirement and drew a teacher's retirement pension. She also worked part time in a grocery store owned by her and her husband. The store showed no profit between 1980 and 1986 and Walton drew no salary from the business.

The court refused to offset from the award unemployment benefits and retirement benefits that Walton received. Because Walton only worked part time and drew no salary, the court found that she only partly fulfilled her duty to mitigate damages. The court therefore offset the back pay and front pay award by the amount that Walton could have earned working full time at minimum wage.

II.

A.

Appellants contend that the district court clearly erred in finding that defendants intentionally discriminated against Walton. Appellants attack as unprobative the evidence on which the district court relied, and assert that the trial court misconstrued or ignored defendants' evidence.

Appellants first argue that the trial court improperly considered past discrimination in the school district as probative evidence. The only record evidence of racial discrimination in the Chapel Hill ISD consists of the acknowledgement by defendants' witnesses, in response to the trial court's questions, that the school district had a history of racial segregation. Appellants contend that this evidence should be given no weight because every witness who testified on the subject, including those who acquiesced in the trial court's suggestion that racism had in years past been rampant in the Chapel Hill ISD, testified that the School district had been integrated without serious confrontations and expressed satisfaction with and pride in race relations in the schools and in the community.

Defendants next contend that the trial court's preoccupation with past discrimination caused the court erroneously to infer that Dr. Harcrow attempted to limit the number of black faculty members. According to appellants, Harcrow's testimony that he considered race in making hiring decisions was simply a recognition of the importance of affirmative action in hiring blacks on the faculty. We agree with appellants that the district court's conclusion from the testimony recited in the margin ¹ that Harcrow conceded that he had placed a cap on the number of black teachers on the faculty is unwarranted. The only...