Pomeroy v. Ashburnham Westminster Regional School, Civil Action No. 03-40283-FDS.

• Decision Date: 18 January 2006
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 03-40283-FDS.
• Citation: 410 F.Supp.2d 7
• Parties: James S. POMEROY, Sr., Plaintiff, v. ASHBURNHAM WESTMINSTER REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

410 F.Supp.2d 7

James S. POMEROY, Sr., Plaintiff, v. ASHBURNHAM WESTMINSTER REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT, Defendant.

Civil Action No. 03-40283-FDS.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

January 18, 2006.

James S. Pomeroy, Ashburnham, MA, pro se.

Joseph T. Bartulis, Jr., William P. Breen, Jr., Murphy, Hesse, Toomey & Lehane LLP, Quincy, MA, for Defendant.

AMENDED MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ON MOTION TO DISMISS

SAYLOR, District Judge.

This is an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by the father of an expelled student against a school district. Plaintiff James S. Pomeroy, Sr., is the administrator of the estate of his deceased son, James S. Pomeroy, Jr. The son, who was then 16 years old, was suspended from Oakmont Regional High School, part of defendant Ashburnham-Westminster Regional School District, on June 10, 2003, for distributing drugs at school. On June 26, after a hearing, he was expelled. Two weeks later, on July 10, he died.

James S. Pomeroy, Sr., as executor of his son's estate, brought this action on December 16, 2003. He is proceeding pro se. The complaint, as modified in response to defendant's motion for a more definite statement, alleges a violation of the son's procedural due process rights. In essence, the father contends that the son did not receive proper written notice of the hearing; was not given the right to be represented by a lawyer or advocate; was not given adequate time to prepare for the expulsion hearing;¹ was not given access to the evidence prior to the hearing;² was not given the right to question witnesses; and was not provided a reasonably prompt, written decision setting forth the specific grounds for the decision. Although the complaint does not indicate the precise basis of the asserted federal right of action, the Court will presume that plaintiff intends to proceed under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

The defendant school district denies that it violated the son's procedural due process rights in any respect. It has moved to dismiss this action for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted on six grounds: (1) that the complaint does not allege an actionable deprivation of procedural due process; (2) that the plaintiff father lacks standing to bring claims on his own behalf; (3) that the claim of the son abated upon his death; (4) that the complaint does not state a Fourth Amendment claim; (5) that the complaint does not state an Eighth Amendment claim; and (6) that the school district cannot be held liable in the absence of any allegation of an unlawful policy or practice.

The Court will interpret the complaint to allege a claim by the father as executor of the son's estate, not in his individual capacity, and therefore the father has standing to bring the claim. Furthermore, and for the reasons stated below, this Court concludes that the motion to dismiss will be denied as to the procedural due process claim, and granted as to the claims based on the Fourth and Eighth Amendments.

I. Background

A. Factual Allegations of the Complaint

The original complaint in this case consisted of a single-page handwritten document with only the barest of factual and legal allegations. Defendants moved for a more definite statement, which was granted by the Court; plaintiff then filed a "reply to motion for more definite statement," setting forth a substantially more detailed version of the facts and the legal claims. Attached to the "reply" were six exhibits, including a portion of Oakmont's expulsion policy and various items of correspondence from Susan Pomeroy (plaintiff's wife), the school, the school district, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Education.

Defendant has now moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted under Fed. R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). Ordinarily, in considering a motion to dismiss, the court is confined to the four corners of the complaint; however, the court may also consider, among other things, "documents the authenticity of which are not disputed by the parties; ... official public records; ... documents central to plaintiff['s] claim; or... documents sufficiently referred to in the complaint." Watterson v. Page, 987 F.2d 1, 3 (1st Cir.1993).

Here, the "reply to motion for more definite statement" is, in substance, an amended complaint. The six attachments to the "reply" are central to plaintiff's claim, and they consist, in part, of official public records. Their authenticity is unopposed by the defendant; in fact, defendant refers to the same documents in support of its motion to dismiss. See Venture Associates Corp. v. Zenith Data Systems Corp., 987 F.2d 429, 431 (7th Cir.1993) ("Documents that a defendant attaches to a motion to dismiss are considered a part of the pleadings if they are referred to in the plaintiff's complaint and are central to her claim.") (quoted approvingly in Beddall v. State Street Bank & Trust Co., 137 F.3d 12, 17 (1st Cir.1998)).³

Accordingly, the Court will consider the complaint, the "reply to motion for more definite statement," and the exhibits to the "reply" together to be an amended complaint for purposes of the motion to dismiss. The factual allegations of that complaint, set forth in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, are summarized below.

B. Summary of Factual Background

In early 2003, James S. Pomeroy, Jr. ("James") was a student at Oakmont Regional High School in Ashburnham, Massachusetts, which is administered by defendant Ashburnham-Westminster Regional School District ("AWRSD"). James was then 16 years old.

On February 28, 2003, James received a ten-day suspension for violating the Oakmont Chemical Health Policy, which prohibits, among other things, buying, selling, or giving away a controlled substance on school grounds.

On June 10, 2003, James received another ten-day suspension for violating the Oakmont Chemical Health Policy. That day, the AWRSD sent a letter to James's parents, plaintiff James S. Pomeroy, Sr. ("Pomeroy") and his wife, Susan, informing them of the suspension. The letter referred to the section of the Oakmont Student Handbook governing violations of the Chemical Health Policy and notified them that an expulsion hearing was scheduled for June 20. In addition, the letter stated that "[i]n light of James's repeated violation of Oakmont's Chemical Health Policy, he must be seen by a certified drug abuse counselor to address any continuing substance issues. A written evaluation from this counselor must be presented on or before the hearing date."

The Oakmont Student Handbook affords students facing expulsion the following procedural rights: (1) written notice of the charges; (2) the right to be represented by a lawyer or advocate (at the student's expense); (3) adequate time to prepare for the expulsion hearing; (4) access to documented evidence before the hearing; (5) the right to question witnesses; and (6) a reasonably prompt, written decision including specific grounds for the decision.

On June 13, 2003, Susan Pomeroy contacted the AWRSD Superintendent, Charles Thibodeau, Jr. She requested access to the documentary evidence against James; Thibodeau allegedly informed her that such access was unnecessary. That same day, she wrote a letter to Thibodeau reasserting her son's right to obtain access to the evidence, stating that the timing of the expulsion hearing did not allow for adequate preparation, and requesting a meeting for the purposes of reviewing the evidence. The Pomeroys apparently were granted access to the physical evidence.

On June 19, Mrs. Pomeroy wrote a second letter to Thibodeau in which she stated that she and her family needed additional time to review the evidence. At some point, the expulsion hearing was postponed from June 20 to June 24.

The hearing was held on June 24, 2003. James was not permitted to bring counsel to the hearing. According to Pomeroy, Oakmont Principal William Waight II had informed Pomeroy during a telephone conversation that if the Pomeroys brought a lawyer, Principal Waight would not attend, and that "[the school district was] not going to bring in all these people [Pomeroy] requested for this hearing ... It will be [the Pomeroys] and the school staff." Pomeroy also contends that James was not permitted to question witnesses, either prior to or during the hearing; in fact, he and James were forced to leave the room when the witnesses were questioned.

By letter dated June 26, 2003, Superintendent Thibodeau advised the Pomeroys that James had been expelled from school for violating the Chemical Health Policy. The letter states that he had considered "the testimony presented in either written or oral forms by school administrators, the Pomeroy family members present, and the three young women who were involved in these incidents with James."

Two weeks later, on July 10, James died. The record does not indicate the cause of his death.

At some point after the hearing, Pomeroy wrote to the Massachusetts Department of Education ("DOE"), complaining that the AWRSD had violated state and federal law in various respects in the course of the suspension and expulsion process. On October 7, 2003, the DOE sent a letter to the AWRSD Superintendent, stating that it had conducted an investigation of the AWRSD's suspension and expulsion policies between July and October of 2003 in response to a written statement of concern by Pomeroy. The letter summarized the steps the DOE took in investigating Pomeroy's complaint, set forth its findings, and instructed AWRSD on "corrective action which must be implemented." Among other things, the DOE instructed the school district to "revise the written notification provided to parents and students regarding suspension/ expulsion and the Student Rights and School Suspension Policy in the high school student handbook to be consistent with the procedural requirements in accordance with [Mass. Gen. Laws ch.] 71, § 37H and 37H½ and Goss v. Lopez, ...