Roane v. Callisburg Independent School Dist.

• Decision Date: 18 April 1975
• Docket Number: No. 74--1055,74--1055
• Parties: Owen D. ROANE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CALLISBURG INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 633

511 F.2d 633

Owen D. ROANE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CALLISBURG INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 74--1055.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

April 18, 1975.

Belvin R. Harris, Gainesville, Tex., Jack G. Kennedy, Professional Corp., James R. Fry, Sherman, Tex., for defendants-appellants.

Frank Hill, Arlington, Tex., for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

Before GEWIN, AINSWORTH and GEE, Circuit Judges.

GEWIN, Circuit Judge:

This dispute, involving the right to continued public employment, requires that we give content to the elusive Fourteenth Amendment proscription on denial of 'property' without due process of law. The appellee Roane, seeking injunctive relief and damages, initiated this suit against his school board employer pursuant to the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1983. Jurisdiction is based on 28 U.S.C. § 1331. ¹ In essence, Roane claims that the school board discharged him in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment when, without a hearing, it refused to permit him to complete his contractual term of employment. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

Due process protections for liberty and property interests, particularly in the educational field, were rejuvenated in the recent Supreme Court decisions of Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972) and Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972). ² In those cases, the Court extensively reviewed the types of interests subject to such protection. Most significantly for this case, Sindermann held that property interests may include more than mere contractual and statutory rights and that an educational institution can be bound by a 'de facto' tenure system if the 'policies and practices of the institution' indicate that a teacher may realistically anticipate renewal of his employment contract. ³ Sindermann thus provides the logical starting point for our analysis. As in most areas of the law, however, the recognition that a leading case may be relevant does not resolve the dispute. Small variations and nuances of fact may distinguish present cases from established precedent. We turn therefore to a careful scrutiny of the factual background of this dispute.

I. Facts

The plaintiff Roane, a retired Air Force officer, is a school teacher and administrator. At the time of trial, he held degrees of Bachelor of Education and Master of Education and in addition had almost completed work on a Doctor-ate of Education. He was first employed by the defendant Callisburg Independent School District in June, 1963 when he became a teacher of mathematics and part-time principal. Two years later he became a full time mathematics teacher. In 1966, he resigned from the defendant school district and taught for a year within another school system. The Callisburg Independent School District rehired him during the summer of 1967, this time as principal of the entire school system. Shortly thereafter, prior to the beginning of the 1967--68 school year, Roane was offered and accepted the position of superintendent of the school district. In 1968 his contract was renewed for a term of one year and in 1969 and 1970 it was verbally renewed for unspecified periods. He held this position until the school district's board of trustees terminated his services as of June 30, 1971.

Roane and the school board of trustees never entered into a written contract. At the time Roane accepted the position as superintendent, however, hiring procedures were governed by the school district's 'Written Rules and Regulations.' These provided that

The Superintendent of schools shall receive as his first contract a term of not less than one year. Thereafter, he shall be elected for a term of from two to five years, at the first regular meeting in January of the year in which his term of office expires. On the first day of July thereafter the term shall begin, continuing for a period of time elected until his successor is elected and qualified.

Both Roane's predecessor and successor were hired in accordance with this policy of granting two year contracts, renewable at the beginning of each year. Evidence adduced at trial suggested that the purpose of this hiring policy was to provide the superintendent with a sense of job security. The written regulations further stated that the superintendent's contract could be terminated upon thirty days notice at the discretion of the school district board of trustees for 'failure to abide by policies of the board,' 'failure to cooperative with the board,' and incompetency.

Roane's relationship with his employers apparently began to deteriorate during 1970 after he vocally disagreed with the school board's classroom construction plans. He had recommended the construction of six new classrooms at one site within the district while a majority of the board advocated that two classrooms be built at each of two sites. Two members of the seven-man board supported Roane's position.

While the parties dispute the reasons for the board's action, the board decided late in 1970 to terminate Roane's employment. He learned of the board's intentions and consequently tendered his resignation at the regularly scheduled meeting on January 4, 1971, apparently to avoid the embarrassment of being fired. The secretary recording the events of the meeting took notes in long-hand, and recorded only that Roane submitted his resignation. Roane, in his own handwriting, amended these notes by inserting the words 'at the end of his present contract (June 30, 1972)' after that portion of the minutes reporting his resignation. The minutes, containing this addendum, were subsequently typed, approved, and signed by the board at the next meeting. One member testified that he noticed that the date of resignation had been added to the motion and therefore declined to sign the minutes. ⁴

In May, 1971, after relations between Roane and the board had eroded still further, the board adopted a motion, over Roane's objection, terminating his service on June 30, 1971. He received no hearing prior to this date, but two weeks later the board held a hearing at which it presented Roane with a list of fourteen reasons for his discharge. These reasons consisted primarily of a series of minor administrative deficiencies such as failure to secure needed repairs, delays in replacing school equipment, and unauthorized transfer of students among schools.

Roane first appealed his discharge to the county school board but that body concluded after a hearing that he had no remedy since he had no written contract. He then filed suit in federal district court. The district court concluded that the Callisburg Independent School Board operated under a de facto tenure system by virtue of its employment practices and written regulations and that Roane therefore enjoyed a 'property interest' in continued employment through June 30, 1972. The court further determined that, even assuming that the post-discharge hearings satisfied due process, the school board presented no constitutionally permissible grounds for the dismissal. The list of incidents of managerial failures, it concluded, resulted from the board's realization that the difference of opinion over the location of new classrooms was insufficient justification for discharge. The district court accordingly awarded Roane $12,504, the amount of one year's salary, plus $6,000 in attorney's fees and directed an expungement from the board's records of all references to his discharge.

II. Property Interest

That Roane sought a remedy under the Civil Rights Act and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not narrow our inquiry to federal constitutional questions. As the Supreme Court suggested in Roth, the Due Process Clause cannot operate in a vacuum; it is only activated when there is some substantial liberty or property interest which is deserving of procedural protections. By its terms, it safeguards 'life, liberty, or property.' The gravamen of Roane's task, therefore, is to establish that he possessed a protectible property interest prior to his dismissal. ⁵ Robinson v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 485 F.2d 1381 (5th Cir. 1973); Skidmore v. Shamrock Ind. School District, 464 F.2d 605 (5th Cir. 1972). Absent some legislative or constitutional provision or some type of contractual or de facto tenure arrangement, the school board enjoys the same power to discharge Roane as it did to hire him. ⁶ See Harnett v. Ulett, 466 F.2d 113 (8th Cir. 1972).

The Supreme Court in recent years has significantly expanded the number of property interests which are subject to Fourteenth Amendment procedural protection. The legitimate receipt of welfare benefits pursuant to statutory authority, Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, 90 S.Ct. 1011, 25 L.Ed.2d 287 (1970), the continuation of public employment after a grant of tenure, Slochower v. Board of Education, 350 U.S. 551, 76 S.Ct. 637, 100 L.Ed. 692 (1956), the right of a college professor or administrator to complete the term of their contracts, Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U.S. 183, 73 S.Ct. 215, 97 L.Ed. 216 (1952), the expectancy of employment of a college teacher who worked under a system of 'de facto tenure', Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972), and a student's legitimate claim of entitlement to public education under state law, Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565, 95 S.Ct. 729, 42 L.Ed.2d 725, (1975), are property interests which may not be infringed without resort to proper procedures.

Yet as Roth has established, 'the range of interests protected by procedural due process is not infinite.' 408 U.S. 570, 92 S.Ct. at 2705, 33 L.Ed.2d at 556--7. To merit due process protections, a person must have more than an 'abstract desire' or even a compelling personal need for the interest in...