Martin v. Guillot
| Decision Date | 14 June 1989 |
| Docket Number | 88-7143,Nos. 88-7134,s. 88-7134 |
| Citation | 875 F.2d 839 |
| Parties | 53 Ed. Law Rep. 1113 John C. MARTIN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Robert M. GUILLOT, individually and in his official capacity as President of the University of North Alabama; Billy Don Anderson, C. L. Beard, John T. Bulls, Jr., L. Lonnie Flippo, H. Grady Jacobs, E. A. Nelson, Jr., Mary Ella Potts, Jesse Rush, Gene Sanderson, Wayne Teague and George C. Wallace, in their official capacities as Trustees of the University of North Alabama, Defendants-Appellees. John C. MARTIN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Robert M. GUILLOT, Billy Don Anderson, C. Leonard Beard, John T. Bulls, Lonnie Flippo, Alex Nelson, Jr., Mary Ella Potts, Jesse L. Rush and Gene Sanderson, individually and in their official capacities as officers and trustees of the University of North Alabama, Defendants-Appellees. John C. MARTIN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Robert M. GUILLOT, individually and in his official capacity as President of the University of North Alabama, et al., Defendants-Appellants. John C. MARTIN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Robert M. GUILLOT, et al., Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Baxley, Dillard & Dauphin, Joel E. Dillard, Birmingham, Ala., Lindsey Mussleman Davis, Holt, McKenzie, Hold & Mussleman, Florence, Ala., for plaintiff-appellant.
Ernest N. Blasingame, Jr., Florence, Ala., for defendants-appellees.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
Before HILL and VANCE, Circuit Judges, and ATKINS *, Senior District Judge.
A tenured member of a state university's administrative staff was discharged from employment. He commenced this section 1983 case. He now appeals a district court order denying his reinstatement to his former position. Appellees cross-appeal the part of the same order holding them in continued contempt for failing to provide Mr. Martin with procedural due process in 1984. Consequently, appellees also oppose the imposition of a sanction against them and an award of attorneys' fees for appellant.
We affirm the district court's denial of appellant's motion for reinstatement. However, we reverse the order holding cross-appellants in continued contempt and imposing a sanction. Appellant is entitled to an award of attorneys' fees for actions through December 3, 1987, the date that appellees fully afforded appellant his due process rights.
Appellant, John C. Martin, began employment as an instructor at Florence State University, now the University of North Alabama (UNA), in 1966. Eight years later, Mr. Martin, assured of retaining his tenured status, accepted an administrative position as the Director of Student Affairs. By the autumn of 1983, Mr. Martin's chronic obesity led to a dependency on prescription drugs that deleteriously affected his work performance. In February, 1984, after numerous absences from work and a month-long stay in a drug detoxification hospital, Mr. Martin was notified by Dr. Robert M. Guillot, the President of UNA, that his employment was terminated.
After Dr. Guillot rejected Mr. Martin's request to convene a due process hearing to review his employment termination, Mr. Martin filed a complaint against Dr. Guillot in both his official and individual capacities and against the members of the UNA Board of Trustees in their official capacities only. Mr. Martin sought a preliminary injunction pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 to require a due process hearing and order continued compensation from the date of his purported employment termination to the date of the hearing. In addition, Mr. Martin sought an award of reasonable attorneys' fees. Following a non-jury trial, the district court, on April 30, 1984, found that Martin had a property interest in his expected continued employment and ordered the defendants to convene a due process committee hearing and make available review procedures in accordance with the provisions of the Employees Personnel Handbook. The court also ordered that plaintiff be compensated through the date of the due process hearing and instructed plaintiff's counsel to file the claim for attorneys' fees and expenses in accordance with the rules of the court. 1
After a hearing at which the parties presented evidence and elicited testimony, a five-member due process committee voted unanimously to recommend termination of Mr. Martin's employment. Upon his review, Dr. Guillot agreed with the committee's recommendation, and, as president, gave Mr. Martin final notice of his termination. Mr. Martin appealed the termination decision to the board of trustees. Without reviewing the exhibits and depositions introduced at the committee hearing or listening to a tape recording of the hearing, the trustees affirmed the termination decision on June 11, 1984.
In September, 1984, Mr. Martin filed a second suit against Dr. Guillot and the trustees. The district court construed the defendants' motion to dismiss as a motion for summary judgment and granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants. On appeal, this court in an unpublished opinion remanded the action in part, directing the defendants "to accord Martin whatever procedure the Constitution required under sec. 1983." In an amended complaint, Martin petitioned the district court for an order holding defendants in contempt of the court's previous order, and requiring that they purge themselves of that contempt by reinstating him to his former position with back pay and reimbursing his attorney's fees.
In an order entered October 7, 1987, the district court found the defendants in contempt for failing to comply with its order of April 30, 1984, requiring the trustees to provide meaningful review of the decision of the due process committee. Therefore, the court ordered the trustees to read the transcript of the due process committee's hearing and to conduct an appellate review hearing. The board of trustees was given the option of considering supplementary testimony and evidence on a de novo basis in addition to reviewing the record considered by the due process committee. 2 The court retained jurisdiction both to monitor compliance with the order and to determine later the appropriate sanction for the defendants' previous non-compliance. In November, each trustee signed an affidavit certifying that he or she had read the record transcript, and on December 3, 1987, the trustees heard argument from both parties. Without considering supplementary evidence and testimony, the board affirmed the due process committee's decision recommending that Dr. Guillot discharge Martin.
Believing that the trustees and Dr. Guillot had not yet afforded him the "due process" and "equal protection" which had been mandated by this court and ordered by the district court, Mr. Martin filed a motion for an order holding the defendants in continued and persistent contempt of the court's previous orders and requiring them, in order to purge themselves of contempt, to reinstate Martin with back pay through December 3, 1987, and reimburse his attorney's fees. Among the grounds upon which Martin based his motion was that the defendants' refusal to hear or consider the testimony of Professor Jim Davis and the testimony of Martin's subsequent employers denied him equal protection of the laws and due process of law, both procedurally and substantively. As an alternative to this motion, Martin moved for an order which would afford him due process of law and equal protection of the laws through judicial consideration of the deposition of Professor Jim Davis and the offer of proof of the testimony which would have been elicited from Martin's subsequent employers.
On January 15, 1988, the court granted plaintiff's motion for an order holding defendants in continued contempt to the limited extent of requiring them to pay plaintiff an amount approximately equal to back pay through December 3, 1987. Upon payment of the sanction, defendants would be purged of their contempt of court. The district judge also granted Martin an award of attorneys' fees and taxed the costs against the defendants. However, Martin's motion requiring defendants to reinstate him was denied. In its memorandum opinion accompanying its order, the court found that the president and trustees now had afforded Martin both the "due process" and the "equal protection" guaranteed him by the Fourteenth Amendment and the UNA Faculty Handbook. On February 2, 1988, the court ordered that the plaintiff have and recover of defendants, separately and severally, the sum of $14,500.00. This sum approximately represented back pay less the money earned by Martin in subsequent employment through December 3, 1987. The district judge clearly stated that the payment was not meant as compensation to Martin, but rather as a sanction for the defendants' having failed to obey the prior orders of the court. In a subsequent order, the court deemed it appropriate to await the outcome of this appeal before ruling on motions made by Martin's attorneys for fees.
In challenging the district court's denial of his reinstatement, appellant argues that he still suffers from a denial of his rights to due process of law and equal protection of the laws. He asserts that the court erroneously decided that it was within the trustees' discretion whether to consider supplementary evidence and testimony that allegedly support his equal protection and substantive due process claims. Appellant further argues that the court also erred in itself failing to hear and consider those additional materials and decide the entire case de novo.
As a result of these alleged errors, appellant states that his equal protection claim was never genuinely considered, despite the district court's allowing it to be asserted in a post-mandate amended complaint and ordering the taking of the deposition of Jim Davis. 3 Martin insists that the trustees' refusal to consider the Davis...
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