Munroe v. Cent. Bucks Sch. Dist.
| Decision Date | 25 July 2014 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 12–03546. |
| Citation | 34 F.Supp.3d 532 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania |
| Parties | Natalie MUNROE, Plaintiff v. CENTRAL BUCKS SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al., Defendants. |
Stanley B. Cheiken, Esquire, Jenkintown, PA, Steven L. Rovner, Rovner Allen Rovner Zimmerman & Nash, Feasterville, PA, for Plaintiff.
Sharon M. O'Donnell, Marshall, Dennehey, Warner, Coleman & Goggin, Camp Hill, PA, Jeffrey P. Garton, Begley Carlin & Mandio, Langhorne, PA, for Defendant.
Plaintiff Natalie Munroe brings this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that Defendants Central Bucks School District, Superintendent N. Robert Laws, and Principal Abram Lucabaugh retaliated against her for the legitimate exercise of her First Amendment rights. Specifically, Munroe claims that the school administration harassed and eventually terminated her after discovering a private blog in which Munroe has expressed criticism of the school, her co-workers, and her students. Having proceeded through discovery, Defendants now move for summary judgment. For the reasons stated below, the motion will be granted.
Except where noted, the key facts are largely undisputed; disputed facts are viewed in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, the non-moving party. Natalie Munroe was hired by the Central Bucks School District in 2006.1 She was assigned to teach English at Central Bucks East High School in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.2 Plaintiff's performance evaluations showed that her supervisors regarded her as an effective, competent teacher.3 One early review, written by a supervising principal and dated October 23, 2006, praised Munroe for her abilities and effort, noting that 4 The evaluations that followed in the next four years are in a similar vein; from 2006 until 2010, all of her regular evaluations deemed her performance “satisfactory.”5 In June of 2008, Defendant Lucabaugh, Plaintiff's immediate supervisor, wrote a letter of recommendation in support of Munroe's application to a graduate program, in which he described Plaintiff as a “woman of utmost integrity, character, and intelligence,” and wrote of her “meticulous, conscientious manner.”6 Munroe received tenure in 2010 on the recommendation of her supervisors.7 Positive evaluations continued until the school's discovery of Munroe's blog in 2011.8
In 2009, Munroe began a blog titled, Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?9 Munroe blogged as “Natalie M” and did not state where she worked or lived.10 Munroe published a total of 84 blog posts between 2009 and 2010, mostly writing about personal matters unlikely to be of interest to the general public, including her food and film preferences, her children, and her regular yoga classes.11 But on a number of occasions, she wrote about her students and co-workers. Without using names or specific dates, Munroe complained about the rudeness and lack of motivation among her students, referring to them as “jerk,” “rat-like,” “dunderhead,” “whiny, simpering grade-grubber with an unrealistically high perception of own ability level” and “frightfully dim.”12 Plaintiff wrote that parents were “breeding a disgusting brood of insolent, unappreciative, selfish brats.”13 She referred to a co-worker by first name and with a vulgar epithet.14 Plaintiff also complained about the school administration, writing that she had observed the administration harass a colleague until he resigned because the administration felt that he was an ineffective teacher.15 Munroe claims that, for most of its history, the blog enjoyed no more than nine subscribed readers, two of whom were the plaintiff and her husband.16
The school administration learned of the blog in February 2011, when a reporter from a local newspaper, The Intelligencer, began asking questions regarding the blog and its contents.17 On February 8, 2011, the reporter wrote in an email seeking comment that “students apparently have been circulating [the blog] on [F]acebook and through other social media.”18 The next day, Lucabaugh summoned Munroe to a meeting, confronted her with printed copies of the blog, and placed her on immediate, unpaid suspension.19 Later that day, Lucabaugh made a statement to the press regarding the blog.20 The following morning, the story was picked up by The Huffington Post, a widely-read internet news site.21 News of Plaintiff's suspension attracted the attention of several major news agencies and syndicates, including CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, Fox News, Reuters, the Associated Press, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.22 Munroe soon appeared in several televised interviews, where she defended her views and insisted that she had been unfairly disciplined.23 Defendant Laws expressed his desire to have Plaintiff's employment terminated.24 Munroe went on planned maternity leave from March 1, 2011, until the end of the semester.25 On June 15, 2011, Lucabaugh authored an evaluation of Munroe that deemed her performance for the preceding academic term “unsatisfactory.”26 On June 20, 2011, Laws submitted an “Educator Misconduct Complaint” to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; the Commonwealth's Office of General Counsel declined to take action.27 Plaintiff returned to work in August 2011, and continued to receive negative evaluations.28 Defendants denied Munroe's request to transfer to another school within the district on the grounds that it was too late to effect such a change under her employment contract.29 Munroe's supervisors required her to complete detailed and exhaustive lesson plans,30 which she felt were deliberately engineered to be too difficult to complete adequately.31 Finally, after receiving notice of the school's intention to terminate her contract,32 Munroe's employment was terminated on June 26, 2012.33
A court will award summary judgment on a claim or part of a claim where there is “no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”34 A fact is “material” if resolving the dispute over the fact “might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing [substantive] law.”35 A dispute is “genuine” if “the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party.”36 “On summary judgment, inferences to be drawn from underlying facts contained in (the moving party's) materials must be viewed in light most favorable to the party opposing the motion.”37
To state a § 1983 claim for unlawful retaliation based on her expression of constitutionally protected views under the First Amendment, Plaintiff must demonstrate that (1) the speech in question was constitutionally protected, and (2) the exercise of that protected speech was a substantial factor in the alleged retaliation.38 The first determination is a matter of law, the second a question of fact.39 Public employees such as Plaintiff do not surrender their constitutional rights as a condition of employment, but courts also have recognized the need of the public employer to maintain efficiency and effectiveness in performance of its official duties.40 Therefore, courts must “balance between the interests of the [employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the [public employer], in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employee.”41
A public employee's speech is protected when he or she (1) speaks as a private citizen upon (2) a matter of public concern, and (3) the employee's interest in exercising his or her First Amendment rights is greater than the employer's interest in the efficient operation of the public agency.42 Although each instance of allegedly protected speech should be considered individually,43 a court must examine the “content, form, and context of a given statement, as revealed by the whole record”44 to determine whether it relates “to any matter of political, social, or other concern to the community.”45 Even if otherwise protected by the Constitution, a plaintiff's interest in exercising his or her First Amendment rights “must outweigh the employer's interest in the effective operations of its public services.”46 This is a “fact-sensitive inquiry” that requires “consideration of the entire record, and must yield different results depending on the relative strengths of the issue of public concern and the employer's interest.”47
Courts have recognized that public employees have the freedom to participate as private citizens in well-informed public debate, including concerning the employee's own work.48 For example, courts generally have attached great weight to the value of statements that give meaningful insight into the operations of a public agency, even if those statements cause some public controversy. 49
The burden falls upon the government employer to show disruption.50 Context is crucial, as the “employing agency's institutional efficiency may be threatened not only by the content of the employee's message but also by the manner, time, and place in which it is delivered.”51
For the purposes of this summary judgment motion, neither party disputes that Munroe wrote as a private citizen in her blog, and that she did not direct her speech to her employers. The parties diverge sharply, however, on the remaining issues.52 After carefully considering the entire record, the Court has determined that although the blog as a whole is dominated by personal issues, within certain blog posts are occasional passages that touch upon broad issues of academic integrity,53 the value of honor,54 and students' lack of effort.55 Each of these topics is a matter of political and social concern, despite the strong language Plaintiff used.56 However, context matters. In Miller v. Clinton County, an employee of a...
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