Mercado v. Kingsley Area Schools

• Decision Date: 14 November 1989
• Docket Number: No. 689-40050 CA.,689-40050 CA.
• Citation: 727 F. Supp. 335
• Parties: Angelita MERCADO, Plaintiff, v. KINGSLEY AREA SCHOOLS/TRAVERSE CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS ADULT EDUCATION CONSORTIUM; Traverse City Area Public Schools; Kingsley Area Public Schools; Suttons Bay Area Public Schools; Leland Public Schools; Elk Rapids Public Schools; Leonard Barnhart; and Jerry L. Inman, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan

727 F. Supp. 335

Angelita MERCADO, Plaintiff, v. KINGSLEY AREA SCHOOLS/TRAVERSE CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS ADULT EDUCATION CONSORTIUM; Traverse City Area Public Schools; Kingsley Area Public Schools; Suttons Bay Area Public Schools; Leland Public Schools; Elk Rapids Public Schools; Leonard Barnhart; and Jerry L. Inman, Defendants.

No. 689-40050 CA.

United States District Court, W.D. Michigan, S.D.

November 14, 1989.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Dettmer, Thompson & Parsons by Grant W. Parsons, Read & Sharp by Douglas J. Read, Traverse City, Mich., for plaintiff.

Menmuir, Zimmerman, Kuhn & Bearup by George F. Bearup, Traverse City, Mich., for defendants Traverse City Area Public Schools, Kingsley Area Public Schools, Suttons Bay Area Public Schools and Elk Rapids Public Schools.

OPINION

ENSLEN, District Judge.

In this action, plaintiff Angelita Mercado seeks a declaratory judgment declaring defendant school districts and individuals in violation of the Michigan School Aid Act of 1979 found in Mich.Comp.L. § 388.1708 et seq. ("the Act"). Plaintiff claims 14th Amendment violations, specifically, violations of due process and equal protection rights. Plaintiff seeks an order enjoining defendants from diverting or appropriating any funds received under the adult education program's auspices for any purpose other than the actual and necessary costs of operating the adult education program, and an order that the defendant school districts reimburse all monies diverted from the adult education program. She also seeks compensatory and punitive damages, as well as actual costs and attorney fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988. Plaintiff's jurisdiction for this action arises under 28 U.S.C. § 1343, and although not explicitly stated in her complaint, plaintiff's cause of action arises under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, with pendent jurisdiction over the state law claim.

This case is before the Court on defendants' Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings. Defendants make their motion pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6),¹ asserting that plaintiff has failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Defendants contend they are entitled to judgment as a matter of law on all counts of plaintiff's complaint. They claim plaintiff lacks standing, she does not have a property or liberty interest in adult education, and that plaintiff is not a member of a suspect class and does not have a fundamental right to adult education.

Facts

In her complaint plaintiff Angelita Mercado alleges that in or about February 1986, at age seventeen, and as a single parent, she enrolled in the defendant's adult education program in order to complete her high school equivalency requirements.² Ms. Mercado continued her enrollment in the program through April 1988. While she was enrolled, Ms. Mercado's expectations concerning her education were delayed, frustrated or denied because of the manner in which the defendants conducted the adult education program. Specifically, Ms. Mercado alleges that she encountered the following:

(a) Despite being charged a book deposit for each of four semesters, Ms. Mercado never received any school books;

(b) She was required to furnish her own pencils, paper, craft and other materials, or alternatively the teachers paid for standard materials out of their own pockets;

(c) Adequate bathroom and parking facilities were not provided;

(d) Ms. Mercado was not allowed to use the school library, and alternatively she loaned personal books to the defendants' programs;

(e) She had to temporarily drop out prior to graduation because the defendants' program failed to offer additional classes;

(f) No visual aids were offered;

(g) No filing or storage equipment was provided;

(h) No substitute teachers were provided, necessitating the cancellation of classes unless the regular teachers hired substitutes with their own funds;

(i) Homework assignments could not be given because few books were available;

(j) Available books were outdated and shared by two or three students;

(k) Some classes were taught using magazines as texts;

(l) There was no "organized guidance service," inadequate "support and counseling service" and no "governing board" running the program.

Plaintiff alleges that the defendants misappropriated and diverted approximately $150,000 per year in violation of the Act, causing the hardships outlined above. In addition to violation of state law, plaintiff alleges fourteenth amendment violations; specifically, a violation of property rights without due process and a violation of equal protection.

Standard

Defendant has filed this motion pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.Pro. 12(b)(6). Under this Rule, the Court must limit its inquiry to the pleadings. "If, on a motion for judgment on the pleadings, matters outside the pleadings are presented to and not excluded by the court, the motion shall be treated as one for summary judgment...." Fed.R.Civ.Pro. 12(c). See Granger v. Marek, 583 F.2d 781, 785 (6th Cir.1978). In the case at hand, the Court cannot treat the motion as one for summary judgment. The case has been referred to mandatory arbitration, and under Western District of Michigan Court Rule 43, no Rule 56 motion will be noticed or heard prior to completion of the arbitration process. Thus, in order to address defendant's motion, it must remain a Rule 12(b)(6) motion. I will therefore limit my consideration to matters within the pleadings.

In reviewing the dismissal of a complaint under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), the court must construe the complaint liberally in plaintiff's favor and accept as true all factual allegations and permissible inferences therein. Kent v. Johnson, 821 F.2d 1220, 1223 (6th Cir.1987); Westlake v. Lucas, 537 F.2d 857, 858 (6th Cir.1976). The court must determine whether plaintiff's complaint sets forth sufficient allegations to establish a claim for relief. Dismissals of complaints filed under the civil rights statutes are scrutinized with special care. Kent, 821 F.2d at 1223; Brooks v. Seiter, 779 F.2d 1177, 1180 (6th Cir.1985). The court's task on a 12(b)(6) motion is necessarily a limited one. The issue is not whether a plaintiff will ultimately prevail, but whether the claimant is entitled to offer evidence to support the claims. Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 1686, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974). The complaint must in essence set forth enough information to outline the elements of a claim or to permit inferences to be drawn that these elements exist. Jenkins v. McKeithen, 395 U.S. 411, 89 S.Ct. 1843, 23 L.Ed.2d 404 (1969); German v. Killeen, 495 F.Supp. 822, 827 (E.D.Mich.1980). Conclusory allegations are not acceptable, however, where no facts are alleged to support the conclusion or where the allegations are contradicted by the facts themselves. Vermilion Foam Products Co. v. General Electric Co., 386 F.Supp. 255 (E.D.Mich. 1974). The court cannot dismiss plaintiff's complaint unless "it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of its claim which would entitle it to relief." Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 101-102, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957). With this standard in mind, the court will review the pleadings filed by both parties.

Discussion

Standing

Defendants argue that the plaintiff lacks standing to challenge the funding of their adult education program because no private right of action may be inferred from Michigan's School Aid Act. Defendants contend that the plaintiff lacks standing to pursue her constitutional claims because, as a former student, she has no interest in injunctive relief or prospective reform of the program. The first of these arguments addresses plaintiff's standing to pursue her pendent state claim that the defendants' funding policies violate state law; the second addresses her ability to challenge the funding policies as violative of her federal constitutional rights.

As the Supreme Court held in Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 751, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 3324, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984):

A plaintiff must allege personal injury fairly traceable to the defendant's allegedly unlawful conduct and likely to be redressed by the requested relief.

. . . . .

The injury alleged must be ... "distinct and palpable," ... and not "abstract" or "conjectural" or "hypothetical." The injury must be "fairly" traceable to the challenged action, and relief from the injury must be "likely" to follow from a favorable decision.

See also Virginia v. American Booksellers Assoc., 484 U.S. 383, 392, 108 S.Ct. 636, 642, 98 L.Ed.2d 782, 793 (1988) (plaintiff must "establish at an irreducible minimum an injury in fact ... resulting from the putatively illegal action...."); Simon v. East Kentucky Welfare Rights Organization, 426 U.S. 26, 38-39, 96 S.Ct. 1917, 1924-1925, 48 L.Ed.2d 450 (1976) (plaintiff must make "allegations which, if true, would establish that the plaintiff has been injured in fact by the action she seeks to have reviewed ..."). The injury alleged must result from the defendant's challenged conduct; it may not be an "injury that results from the independent action of some third party not before the court." Simon, 426 U.S. at 41-42, 96 S.Ct. at 1925-1926. Further, plaintiff must allege facts indicating that the injury would be redressed by a favorable ruling. Standing may not be premised, "on little more than the remote possibility, unsubstantiated by allegations of fact, that plaintiff's situation might have been better had defendants acted otherwise, and might improve were the court to award relief." Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 507, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 2209, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975).

The complaint in this case alleges that plaintiff was enrolled in defendants' adult education program between 1986 and 1988. The complaint further alleges that plaintiff was unable to complete her high school education through the program, because the defendants diverted state funds intended to benefit the program to other uses, thus depriving...