Russell v. Harrison

Decision Date16 July 1984
Docket NumberNo. 83-4336,83-4336
Citation736 F.2d 283
Parties18 Ed. Law Rep. 244 Lillie RUSSELL, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Dr. Robert HARRISON, President of the Board of Trustees of Institutions of Higher Learning, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Willie J. Perkins, North Miss. Rural Legal Services, Greenwood, Miss., Alvin O. Chambliss, Oxford, Miss., for plaintiffs-appellants.

William A. Allain, Atty. Gen., Ed Davis Noble, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, Miss., for defendants-appellees.

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

Before THORNBERRY, WILLIAMS and GARWOOD, Circuit Judges.

JERRE S. WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge:

This is an appeal by plaintiffs from an adverse summary judgment in a civil rights action based on alleged violations of substantive and procedural due process. Seventeen former employees 1 of Mississippi Valley State University and Jackson State University brought this action against the Board of Trustees and other university and state officials, 2 alleging due process violations in connection with the premature termination of their one-year contracts of employment. Plaintiffs alleged that the dismissals were not administered pursuant to any uniform and justifiable plan and that the dismissals were processed without affording notice and a hearing. The district court concluded that plaintiffs had not presented a material question of fact as to violations of either substantive or procedural due process. Summary judgments for the defendants were granted on both charges.

We find that the district court's summary judgment on the claim of deprivation of substantive due process should be affirmed. The summary judgment on the claim of deprivation of procedural due process, however, we find to have been in error, because material fact questions were established and the issues should have been submitted to a jury.

Facts

At the October 22, 1982, meeting of the Mississippi Board of Trustees of Institutions of Higher Learning, it was determined that a state of financial emergency existed at Mississippi Valley State University (MVSU) and at Jackson State University (JSU). 3 Pursuant to this finding, the Board of Trustees directed the presidents of both universities to take whatever corrective measures they deemed appropriate in order to restore financial integrity to their respective institutions during the 1982-1983 fiscal year.

According to the district court's findings of fact, the presidents of MVSU and JSU analyzed the staffing patterns throughout their two universities and decided to meet the financial goal by reducing salaries and eliminating positions on the basis of the most efficient staffing per full-time student. The presidents reduced the salaries of several hundred employees and completely terminated contracts with eighty-eight other employees.

Plaintiffs fell in the latter category. Although they each had one-year written contracts guaranteeing employment until the summer of 1983, plaintiffs received notices in early November from the Office of the President informing them that their contracts of employment were being terminated as of November 30, 1982. 4 The letters stated that the termination was necessitated by a state of financial emergency which existed at the universities. The notices did not inform the recipients of any right either to a hearing or an appeal, and none of the plaintiffs formally requested such procedures.

On December 1, 1982, plaintiffs filed a complaint in federal district court alleging violations of statutory and constitutional rights. They simultaneously filed a motion seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction ordering defendants to reinstate plaintiffs to their previous employment status.

After a hearing the next day, the district court denied plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunctive relief. The court concluded that although plaintiffs possibly had a valid state claim grounded in breach of their employment contracts, plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate that they would suffer irreparable injury for which damages would not suffice. The court further found that plaintiffs had not pursued the administrative avenues of appeal provided by the universities. For these reasons, the court concluded that injunctive relief was inappropriate.

Plaintiffs immediately filed an amended complaint following the court's decision on December 2, 1982, and a second verified complaint on December 15, 1982. They based their claims for relief on 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1981, 1982, 1983, and 1985; Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000d et seq.; and the Fifth, Ninth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Plaintiffs sought damages, as well as injunctive and declaratory relief. Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment on both substantive and procedural due process issues. Plaintiffs filed a cross motion for summary judgment solely on the procedural due process claim.

On April 29, 1983, the district court issued a memorandum order granting defendants' motion for summary judgment and denying plaintiffs' motion. Russell v. Harrison, 562 F.Supp. 467 (N.D.Miss.1983). The court recognized that plaintiffs enjoyed a constitutionally protected property interest in their employment and that this property interest could not be deprived without due process of law, Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972). On these facts, however, the court concluded that plaintiffs had been afforded adequate process. The court dismissed plaintiffs' complaint with prejudice as to the federal claims but without prejudice as to their right to pursue claims for breach of contract in state court. Plaintiffs appeal from the adverse summary judgment and dismissal of their complaint, 5 as well as from the denial of their motion for a temporary restraining order.

I. Property Interest

We first address the issue of whether plaintiffs had a constitutionally protected interest in their employment since "[t]he requirements of ... due process apply only to the deprivation of interests encompassed by the Fourteenth Amendment's protection of liberty and property." Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, supra, 408 U.S. at 569 (1972), 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2705; see also, Thompson v. Bass, 616 F.2d 1259, 1264 (5th Cir.), cert. denied sub nom., Thompson v. Turner, 449 U.S. 983, 101 S.Ct. 399, 66 L.Ed.2d 245 (1980).

The district court correctly found that plaintiffs enjoyed a property right in their jobs. Each contract of employment covered a period of one year. Some of the contracts guaranteed one-year employment without any stated conditions for removal. The remaining contracts provided that the employee could be dismissed, but only in limited situations. 6 The conditional contracts provided that the universities had "the power and authority to terminate this contract at any time for malfeasance, inefficiency or contumacious conduct " by the employee. It is clear that based on both the conditional and unconditional contracts, plaintiffs had more than "an abstract need or desire" for employment. On the contrary, the contracts gave plaintiffs "a legitimate claim of entitlement" to employment for the entire year unless sufficient cause was shown to justify their dismissal. Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, supra, 408 U.S. at 577, 92 S.Ct. at 2709; see Bueno v. Donna, 714 F.2d 484, 492 (5th Cir.1983).

By contractually consenting to one year terms of employment, the universities created constitutionally protected property interests in plaintiffs. Once created, these interests could not be destroyed by the universities without providing the procedural and substantive protections guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. See Bueno v. Donna, supra, 714 F.2d at 492.

II. Summary Judgment

Under Rule 56(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, summary judgment is proper if when viewing the evidence most favorably to the nonmoving party, "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." See, e.g. Transource International, Inc. v. Trinity Industries, Inc., 725 F.2d 274, 279 (5th Cir.1984).

While the court must draw all inferences in favor of the party opposing summary judgment, a plaintiff cannot establish a genuine issue of material fact by resting on the mere allegations of its pleadings. On the contrary, "once defendants have made ... sworn denials, summary judgment is appropriate unless plaintiff can produce significant evidence demonstrating the existence of a genuine fact issue." Parsons v. Ford Motor Co., 669 F.2d 308, 313 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 832, 103 S.Ct. 73, 74 L.Ed.2d 72 (1982) (emphasis added).

In this case, the trial court rendered summary judgment for defendants on both substantive and procedural due process claims. On appeal, we are bound by the same standard that controls the district court. Impossible Electronics Techniques, Inc. v. Wackenhut Protective Systems, Inc., 669 F.2d 1026, 1030 (5th Cir.1982).

III. Substantive Due Process

In their complaint, plaintiffs alleged that their Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process were violated in connection with their dismissal because "[n]either Mississippi Valley State University nor Jackson State University were [sic] acting pursuant to any valid Reduction in Force Policy" when they terminated plaintiffs' contracts of employment; nor did the Board of Trustees have a "uniform Reduction in Force Policy ... applicable to the system as a whole." The district court first concluded that the defendants' actions could not be construed as a denial of substantive due process because plaintiffs did not contend that the elimination of their...

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