Mize v. Jefferson City Bd. of Educ., 95-8793

• Decision Date: 29 August 1996
• Docket Number: No. 95-8793,95-8793
• Parties: Donna MIZE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The JEFFERSON CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION; Donald O. Rooks, Dr., individually and in his official capacity as Superintendent; Lois DeWeese, individually and in her official capacity as former Principal of Jefferson City Elementary School, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 739

93 F.3d 739

Donna MIZE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The JEFFERSON CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION; Donald O. Rooks Dr., individually and in his official capacity as Superintendent; Lois DeWeese, individually and in her official capacity as former Principal of Jefferson City Elementary School, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 95-8793.

United States Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit.

Aug. 29, 1996.

Harlan S. Miller, Matthew C. Billips, Kirwan, Parks, Chesin & Remar, P.C., Atlanta, GA, for appellant.

Phillip L. Hartley, Martha M. Pearson, Harben & Hartley, Gainesville, GA, Frank C. Bedinger, Freeman & Hawkins, Atlanta, GA, for appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Before KRAVITCH and CARNES, Circuit Judges, and HILL, Senior Circuit Judge.

KRAVITCH, Circuit Judge:

In this § 1983 action against the Jefferson City Board of Education and Jefferson City school officials, Donna Mize alleges that she was fired in retaliation for comments she made concerning the disciplinary treatment of one of her students, in violation of her rights under the First Amendment and § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. We agree with the district court that Mize has failed to present evidence sufficient to demonstrate that her discharge was based on her statements. Accordingly, we affirm the grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants.

I.

Mize was employed as an untenured special education teacher in the Jefferson City, Georgia school system during the 1991-92 school year. This was her third year of employment in a program that provided teachers for children with mental disabilities in three school districts. The program was supervised by Dr. Susan Galis, special education director for the Jefferson City School System and the Commerce City School System, and Melanie Brittain, special education director for the Jackson County School District. ¹ The two individual defendants in this case are Dr. Lois DeWeese, principal of Jefferson City Elementary School, and Dr. Donald Rooks, superintendent of the Jefferson City Board of Education.

As an untenured employee, Mize was employed for a renewable one-year term. According to appellees, Mize's contract was not renewed because her performance was inadequate. This claim is supported by considerable evidence. At the beginning of the school year, Brittain had received complaints from one of Mize's paraprofessional teaching aides about the lack of structure in Mize's classroom and Mize's propensity to take long breaks and lunches. After a meeting between Mize and Brittain prompted by these complaints, Brittain, DeWeese, and Galis directed a memo to Mize in September 1991 setting forth guidelines for managing her class. According to Galis, she had never before had to write a memo to a teacher in order to get that teacher to impose the necessary structure and organization reflected in the memo. Furthermore, defendants claim that Mize failed to follow the directives of this memo and that her teaching continued to be inadequate. Galis also testified that based on many visits to Mize's classroom she felt that Mize was not adequately attending to the needs of her students. This testimony was corroborated by Brittain who stated that, in light of the problems in Mize's classroom, she had agreed to provide a parent with "home-based" services after that parent expressed complaints about the lack of structure in Mize's classroom.

In October 1991, Galis--after a meeting that included Mize, DeWeese, Brittain and herself--requested that an outside consultant, Lynda Hale, observe Mize's classroom and provide constructive advice. Hale concluded that Mize was focusing on teaching skills that were inappropriate for students with the level of disability of those in the class and that Mize was a "poor" teacher.

Hale's conclusions were presented to Dr. Galis prior to March 6. On March 6, after already discussing Mize with Brittain, Galis met with Rooks to discuss the renewal of contracts of special education teachers in the shared instruction program. Galis and Rooks both testified at their depositions that Galis verbally recommended to Rooks that Mize's contract not be renewed. Rooks testified that he concurred with Galis's recommendation and made the decision at that time not to rehire Mize. On April 3, 1992, in a meeting with DeWeese, Rooks told the principal that he was not going to renew Mize's contract. Later that same day, DeWeese told Mize that she would not be rehired.

Mize relates a different story of Rooks's decision not to renew her contract. She claims that Rooks's decision not to rehire her did not occur until April 3 and that it was based on the recommendation of DeWeese, which was made in retaliation for statements made by Mize. The statements concerned the following incident: On February 27, 1992, Mize returned from lunch to find that a paraprofessional had placed a severely mentally disabled five-year-old boy in a "time-out room" (i.e., a closet) as punishment for urinating on himself. Mize learned that DeWeese had told the paraprofessional that it was acceptable to place the student in that room if it appeared that he had urinated intentionally. Mize approached DeWeese the following day about the incident, and DeWeese admitted that she had approved of this disciplinary method. A few days later, Mize sent a letter to Rooks complaining about the use of "time-out rooms," and she met with him on March 6, the same day that Rooks had received Galis's recommendation not to renew Mize's contract. Although occurring on the same day, Rooks's meeting with Mize occurred after his meeting with Galis. At the meeting with Mize, Rooks appeared troubled by DeWeese's approach. Afterwards, he investigated the allegations and sent a memo to DeWeese prohibiting the use of "time-out rooms."

Despite Rooks's agreement with Mize that the use of "time-out rooms" was inappropriate, Mize alleges that she was fired in retaliation for her comments concerning the incident in which a student was confined after urinating on himself. She argues that Galis played no role in the decision not to renew her contract and that the argument that she was not rehired because of her poor performance is pretextual. Rather, Mize alleges that Rooks made his decision at the April 3 meeting with DeWeese to discuss the school's personnel. She contends that DeWeese demanded that Mize's contract not be renewed and that Rooks acceded to this demand. In sum, Mize argues that the defendants' contention that Rooks's decision was based on Galis's recommendation is a post-hoc justification for what was, in fact, a retaliatory act by DeWeese.

II.

In deciding a claim of First Amendment retaliatory discharge, a court looks to "(1) whether the employee's speech involves a matter of public concern, (2) whether the employee's interest in speaking outweighs the government's legitimate interest in efficient public service, (3) whether the speech played a substantial part in the government's challenged employment decision, and (4) whether the government would have made the same employment decision in the absence of the protected conduct." Beckwith v. City of Daytona Beach Shores, 58 F.3d 1554, 1563-64 (11th Cir.1995) (citing Bryson v. City of Waycross, 888 F.2d 1562, 1565-66 (11th Cir.1989)).

The third element of the "Bryson" test asks whether there is a "substantial" causal link between the employee's speech and the adverse employment decision. Where causation is lacking, an employee's claim of retaliatory discharge must fail and it is unnecessary to consider the other three elements. Beckwith, 58 F.3d at 1564. Likewise, a claim under § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. § 794, for retaliatory discharge, will also fail if the evidence is insufficient as a matter of law to prove a causal nexus between retaliatory motive and the adverse employment decision. Cf. Morgan v. City of Jasper, 959 F.2d 1542, 1547 (11th Cir.1992) (A necessary element in establishing a prima facie case of retaliatory discharge under Title VII is a "causal connection between the protected activity and the adverse employment action." (citation omitted)). It is to the issue of causation that we now turn.

The district court, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the appellant, held that there was no genuine issue of material fact on the issue of causality. That is, as a matter of law, the proffered evidence was insufficient for a jury to find that the decision not to renew Mize's contract was motivated by a desire to retaliate in response to her expression. We review the district court's summary judgment order de novo, applying the same legal standard employed by the district court in the first instance. Hairston v. Gainesville Sun Publishing Co., 9 F.3d 913, 918 (11th Cir.1993).

The district court must enter an order of summary judgment when, taking the facts in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, there is "no genuine issue as to any material fact." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). Where the nonmoving party has failed to make a sufficient showing "to establish the existence of an element essential to that party's case, and on which that party will bear the burden of proof at trial," there exist no genuine issues of material fact. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2552, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). "Genuine disputes are those in which the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the non-movant. For factual issues to be considered genuine, they must have a real basis in the record." Hairston, 9 F.3d at 919 (citations omitted).

Where the non-movant presents direct evidence that, if believed by the jury, would be sufficient to win at trial, summary judgment is not appropriate even where the movant presents conflicting evidence. It is not the court's role to weigh conflicting evidence or to make credibility determinations; the non-movant's...