Kohn v. Sch. Dist. of the City of Harrisburg

• Decision Date: 22 September 2011
• Docket Number: Civil No. 1:CV–11–0109.
• Citation: 817 F.Supp.2d 487,277 Ed. Law Rep. 808
• Parties: Gerald KOHN, et al., Plaintiffs v. SCHOOL DISTRICT OF the CITY OF HARRISBURG, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Pennsylvania

277 Ed. Law Rep. 808

817 F.Supp.2d 487

Gerald KOHN, et al., Plaintiffs

v.SCHOOL DISTRICT OF the CITY OF HARRISBURG, et al., Defendants.

Civil No. 1:CV–11–0109.

United States District Court, M.D. Pennsylvania.

Sept. 22, 2011.

Walter W. Cohen, Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel LLP, Harrisburg, PA, Brendan D. Hennessy, Sidney L. Gold, Sidney L. Gold & Associates, Philadelphia, PA, for Plaintiffs.

John E. Freund, III, King Spry Herman Freund & Faul, LLC, Bethlehem, PA, Philip Harper, City of Harrisburg, Tiffany Leigh Robinson, Harrisburg, PA, Falco Muscante, Lawrence H. Baumiller, Michael L. Brungo, Roger W. Foley, Jr., Maiello Brungo & Maiello, LLP, Pittsburgh, PA, Aimee L. Willett, Carl P. Beard, Jr., Andrews & Beard Law Offices, Altoona, PA, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM

WILLIAM W. CALDWELL, District Judge.I. Introduction

The plaintiffs are Gerald Kohn, Julie Botel, and Rebecca Hostetler. Kohn is the former superintendent of the Harrisburg School District, Botel the deputy superintendent, and Hostetler the assistant superintendent. They brought this suit to contest the termination of their employment. The action was filed in state court and removed here by the defendants under our federal question jurisdiction. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1446(b) and (c). After removal, Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint.

The defendants are the School District; the District's Board of Control and its members, Gloria Martin–Roberts, Herbert Goldstein, Autumn Cooper, Sanford Long, Jennifer Smallwood, Roy E. Christ, and Esther E. Edwards; the “Elected School Board” and its members, Lola D. Lawson, Lionel Gonzalez, Wayne L. Henry, Randy King, Jeffrey Moore, Tiffiney Penn, Patricia Whitehead–Myers, Roy E. Christ, and Esther E. Edwards. Also named as a defendant is Linda D. Thompson, the Mayor of the City of Harrisburg.

Plaintiffs were terminated by a vote of the seven-member Board of Control without notice or a hearing. In their amended complaint, all three plaintiffs join in seven causes of action, with the gravamen of those claims being that Plaintiffs could not be discharged at will and had a right to notice and a hearing before they could be discharged. Plaintiffs base their claims on the Due Process Clauses of the federal and state Constitutions, the state School Code, the Pennsylvania Local Agency Law, and contract. Kohn makes a separate claim against Mayor Thompson that she violated his right to due process by publicly stigmatizing him in connection with his discharge.

Conversely, Defendants maintain that Plaintiffs were at-will employees who could be fired at any time without any process being due them and that therefore their discharges are not actionable. We are considering five motions to dismiss under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), one filed by the School District, one by Christ and Edwards (members of both the Board of Control and the Elected School board), one by the Elected School Board and its members, one by the Board of Control and its members except for Christ and Edwards, and one by Mayor Thompson. The Board of Control has also filed a motion to dismiss under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(5).

II. Standard of Review

On a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), “[w]e ‘accept all factual allegations as true, construe the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, and determine whether, under any reasonable reading of the complaint, the plaintiff may be entitled to relief.’ ” Byers v. Intuit, Inc., 600 F.3d 286, 291 (3d Cir.2010) (quoted case omitted). The court is not limited to evaluating the complaint alone; it can also consider documents attached to the complaint, matters of public record, and indisputably authentic documents. Delaware Nation v. Pennsylvania, 446 F.3d 410, 413 n. 2 (3d Cir.2006).

With this standard in mind, we present the background to this case, as Plaintiffs allege it.

III. Background

In pertinent part, Plaintiffs allege as follows. “In or around 2000, the Harrisburg School District had the lowest Pennsylvania System of State Assessment (“PSSA”) scores of all the school districts in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The PSSA is an assessment test used to measure a student's attainment of the academic standards while also determining the degree to which school programs enable students to attain proficiency of the standards.” (Am. Compl. ¶ 34). “In addition, the Harrisburg School District had a number of other failing organizational functions and statistics. For example, more students dropped out of school than graduated.” ( Id. ¶ 35).

“In an effort to rehabilitate the School District's, and other Commonwealth school districts', continually failing performance and history of low PSSA scores, the Pennsylvania General Assembly enacted the Education Empowerment Act (Act No. 2000–16) (“EEA”), effective July 1, 2000,” 24 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 17–1701–B to § 17–1716–B (West 2006 & West Supp.2011).

“The Harrisburg School District was determined to have a ‘[h]istory of extraordinarily low test performance’ defined by the EEA as a combined average of sixty percent (60%) or more of students scoring in the ‘below basic level’ of performance on the PSSA in math and reading in the most recent two school years.” ( Id. ¶ 38). Pursuant to the EEA, the School District was certified in July 2000 as an “education empowerment district.” ( Id. ¶ 39).

Under the EEA and an amendment to that act, the mayor of the City of Harrisburg, then Stephen R. Reed, assumed control of the School District on December 19, 2000. ( Id. ¶ 40). The EEA provided for a five-member Board of Control appointed by the mayor to run the District, except for the levying of taxes, which was left to the Elected School Board. ( Id. ¶ 41). A 2007 amendment to the EEA expanded the Board of Control to seven members, five appointed by the mayor and two from the Elected School Board to be selected by the members of the Elected School Board. ( Id. ¶ 42).¹

Under the EEA, Mayor Reed appointed a school district “Empowerment Team” to create the “School District Improvement Plan” required under the act. ( Id. ¶ 43). The Improvement Plan became effective on August 31, 2001. ( Id. ¶ 48). The Plan “acknowledged that the School District had come under the EEA because greater than 50% of the district's students scored in the lowest quartile on the PSSA for two consecutive years.” ( Id. ¶ 49). The Plan “listed as its first and primary goal to reduce the percentage of students scoring in the lowest group on the PSSA to less than 50%.” ( Id. ¶ 51). The Plan also acknowledged that “the district's chronic leadership and management issues” had to be addressed. ( Id. ¶ 50).

The School District and the Board of Control conducted a national search for a superintendent. ( Id. ¶ 58). In July and August 2001, the School District and the Board of Control hired Kohn to be the superintendent and Botel to be the deputy superintendent. ( Id. ¶ 59). Kohn and Botel signed written agreements for five-year terms with an option for another five years. ( Id. ¶ 61). There were never any complaints about their performance during this original employment period. ( Id. ¶ 62).

In December 2005, the School District and the Board of Control exercised the option to renew Kohn's and Botel's contracts for another five years, with an option for a further five-year term. ( Id. ¶¶ 65–66). Kohn's new agreement started on July 16, 2006, and was to end on July 15, 2011. Botel's new agreement began on August 7, 2006, and was to end on August 6, 2011. ( Id. ¶ 67). In December 2005, the School District and Board of Control entered into a five-year employment agreement with Hostetler to serve as assistant superintendent starting December 1, 2005, and ending on December 1, 2010. ( Id. ¶ 68). The three agreements are attached to the complaint as exhibits, and all three are between the respective plaintiff and the School District.

All three agreements contain an identical provision. Quoting from Kohn's agreement, the provision reads as follows:

Dr. Kohn's employment may be suspended or terminated by THE SCHOOL DISTRICT for neglect of duty, incompetency, intemperance or immortality (sic) as set forth in the Pennsylvania School Code of 1949, as amended; 24 P.S. § 10–1080. In any job action, DR. KOHN is entitled to any and all rights available under the Pennsylvania Local Agency law and the Pennsylvania School Code of 1949, as amended; any appeal of said job action shall be taken to the Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin County and to the Pennsylvania appellate courts, if necessary. THE BOARD [of Control] shall not arbitrarily or capriciously call for the dismissal of DR. KOHN and he shall in any event have the right to written charges, notice of hearing, and fair and impartial hearing and appeal as provided for above. At any such hearing or appeal, DR. KOHN shall have the right to be present and to be heard and to be represented by counsel of his choice at SCHOOL DISTRICT expense.

(Am. Compl. ¶ 70) (quoting Kohn Employment Agreement, ¶ 12, Am. Compl., Ex. A). As noted, the Botel and Hostetler agreements contain the identical provision in paragraph 9 (Am. Compl., Ex. B) and paragraph 8, (Am. Compl., Ex. C), respectively, except of course, that in their contracts Botel and Hostetler are named instead of Kohn. This provision essentially prohibits termination of the plaintiffs except for cause and only after notice and a hearing.

“Over the next several years following renewal of the Employment Agreements and the hiring of Hostetler, under the leadership of plaintiffs the School District continued to implement the provisions and strategies of the Improvement Plan—resulting in steady progress toward and meeting the Goals set by the Improvement Plan, including dramatic improvement in the academic performance of district students.” ( Id. ¶ 77). “The Education Empowerment Annual Reports of the PDE specifically noted that ‘since the implementation of the EEA in 2000, significant performance gains have been...