Rutherford v. Katonah-Lewisboro School Dist.

• Citation: 670 F.Supp.2d 230
• Decision Date: 03 November 2009
• Docket Number: No. 08 Civ. 10486(CM).,08 Civ. 10486(CM).
• Parties: Kathleen RUTHERFORD, Plaintiff, v. KATONAH-LEWISBORO SCHOOL DISTRICT, Dr. Robert Roelle, Superintendent of Schools, and Dr. Karen Benedict, Deputy Superintendent of Schools, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

670 F.Supp.2d 230

Kathleen RUTHERFORD, Plaintiff, v. KATONAH-LEWISBORO SCHOOL DISTRICT, Dr. Robert Roelle, Superintendent of Schools, and Dr. Karen Benedict, Deputy Superintendent of Schools, Defendants.

No. 08 Civ. 10486(CM).

United States District Court, S.D. New York.

November 3, 2009.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Michael Howard Sussman, Sussman & Watkins, Goshen, NY, for Plaintiff.

Lewis R. Silverman, Rutherford & Christie, LLP, New York, NY, for Defendants.

DECISION AND ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART DEFENDANTS' MOTION FOR JUDGMENT ON THE PLEADINGS

McMAHON, District Judge:

In the suburbs, where education is the only priority, there is hyper-sensitivity on the part of all concerned whenever anything remotely out of the ordinary happens at local schools. Community and staff concern is magnified if the unusual activity involves student/teacher interaction. The lawsuit before the Court grows out of just such an incident.

INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff Kathleen Rutherford, a public school teacher, brings this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that the Katonah-Lewisboro School District (the "District"), Superintendent of Schools Dr. Robert Roelle ("Roelle") and Deputy Superintendent of Schools Dr. Karen Benedict ("Benedict") (collectively, "Defendants") violated her constitutional rights in the course of suspending, investigating and transferring her during the summer of 2008. Plaintiff asserts that Defendants (1) violated her Fourteenth Amendment right to substantive due process; (2) infringed upon her First Amendment right to free association by directing her not to communicate with fellow District employees—including her union representative— while she was suspended; and (3) violated her Fourteenth Amendment right to privacy by disclosing certain personal information.

Defendants, having answered, move under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c) for judgment on the pleadings. For the reasons stated below, the Court grants the motion and dismisses all claims against individual defendants Roelle and Benedict. The Court also dismisses Plaintiff's Fourteenth Amendment claims against the defendant school District. The District's motion is denied with respect to Plaintiff's First Amendment free association claim.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Kathleen Rutherford has served as a school teacher in the Katonah-Lewisboro School District for more than two decades.¹ From 1996 until 2008, Plaintiff taught fifth-grade science at the Increase Miller Elementary School. Each year, Plaintiff coordinated and supervised a science fair (the "Science Fair"), in which her students participated.

On June 10, 2008, Deputy Superintendent of Schools Benedict asked Plaintiff to recount what she had done on June 6, 2008, which was the day of the Science Fair. Benedict asked Plaintiff whether she had destroyed student work or raised her voice. Plaintiff denied destroying any student work, and said that if she had raised her voice, it was to make herself heard over the din created by sixty children, not to express anger.

That same day, Benedict advised Plaintiff that she was being placed on administrative leave, with full pay and benefits, pending the District's investigation into her conduct on June 6. Plaintiff was directed "to have no further communication with any District employee," including "any verbal, written or electronic communication whatsoever," during the period of her suspension (the "Directive"). A copy of the June 10, 2008 letter from Benedict to Plaintiff containing this Directive is attached as Exhibit C to the moving declaration of Lewis R. Silverman, dated March 13, 2009 (the "Silverman Declaration").²

Plaintiff alleges that she complied with the June 10 Directive, which she calls a "gag order" (Pl.'s Resp. to Defs.' Mot. to Dismiss, Mar. 23, 2009 ("Pl.'s Br."), at 7), for "several months after its issuance" (Compl. ¶ 21). Plaintiff contends that she was thereby deprived of the right to freely associate with friends, colleagues and her union representative. Plaintiff alleges that no legitimate government interest triggered the Directive, and that it infringed on her First Amendment associational rights.

On June 16, 2008, six days after the Directive was issued, Benedict advised Plaintiff that the Katonah-Lewisboro Board of Education (the "Board") was directing Plaintiff to see a psychiatrist. The Board (and only the Board) has this power under section 913 of New York's Education Law, which authorizes boards of education "to require any person employed by the board of education . . . to submit to a medical examination by a physician . . . in order to determine the physical or mental capacity of such person to perform his or her duties." N.Y. Educ. Law § 913 (Consol. 2009).

Plaintiff further alleges that "defendants listed on a publicly accessible web site the fact that they had directed plaintiff to see a psychiatrist, thereby publicly embarrassing her and depriving her of privacy with regard to this highly personal matter." (Compl. ¶ 15.) The listing in question refers to the District's posting on its website of a resolution passed at the Board's meeting of June 12, 2008. This "Resolution Regarding Education Law § 913" (the "Resolution") is "Item 5.11" in the minutes of the June 12 meeting of the Board, and can be found at Exhibit F to the Silverman Declaration. The Resolution appeared on the District's website as part of the posting of the minutes of the June 12 Board meeting. The allegedly constitutionally offensive Resolution states, in pertinent part:

NOW, THEREFORE, pursuant to Education Law § 913, IT IS HEREBY RESOLVED, that Employee No. 785 is directed to report for a medical examination, which examination will include various medical assessments in order to determine the mental/physical capacity of such person to perform his/her duties as an employee of the Katonah-Lewisboro Union Free School District, the said medical examination to be before Allen Reichman, M.D., at his office located at 190 Willis Avenue, Room 114, Mineola, New York, 11501.

(Silverman Decl. Ex. F at 6.)³ The Court notes that the Resolution refers to Plaintiff not by name, but only as "Employee No. 785," and does not specify the gender of Employee No. 785. The Resolution does not specify that the doctor Employee No. 785 was ordered to see is a psychiatrist.

In August 2008, Plaintiffs suspension ended; however, she was not allowed to resume her position at Increase Mather School, but was involuntarily transferred to a different school in the District. Plaintiff characterizes the involuntary transfer as a punishment and asserts that it violated state law, because the District did not invoke and follow the procedures set forth in section 75 of the New York Civil Service Law (Compl. ¶ 16). That provision controls the discipline of public employees; it also grants non-tenured teachers certain due process rights. see N.Y. Civ. Serv. Law § 75 (Consol. 2009). Plaintiff contends that the transfer signaled to the broader community that she had transgressed, when in fact she had not.

On September 5, 2008, Benedict gave Plaintiff a "counseling memorandum," which Plaintiff asserts "lacked any basis in fact" and was an "outrageous distortion of events." (Compl. ¶¶ 19-20.) The memorandum, which is attached as Exhibit B to the Silverman Declaration, purports to summarize Plaintiffs version of the events of June 6, 2008 (as recounted by Plaintiff in the June 10 meeting), describes the students' (multiple) versions of what happened, reaches conclusions about the propriety of Plaintiffs behavior, and counsels her in that regard. A copy of the memorandum was placed in Plaintiffs personnel file.

The complaint concludes with the allegation that Defendants' actions conveyed to the community that Plaintiff had either engaged in misconduct or was suffering from some sort of mental infirmity—neither of which, she asserts, was true—and that those actions "appear[] to be malicious and intended to appease a member of the Board of Education whose children baselessly complained about the plaintiff in early June 2008." As a result, Plaintiff claims, Defendants' conduct is "conscience shocking." (Compl. ¶¶ 27-28.)

Plaintiff asserts that Defendants' conduct constitutes a deprivation of substantive due process in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment; that the June 10 Directive violated her First Amendment right to free association; and that Defendants' posting of the Resolution violated her Fourteenth Amendment right to privacy. Plaintiff seeks compensatory and punitive damages, as well as an order that would require Defendants to purge Plaintiffs personnel file of any adverse documents relating to this matter, retract the September 5 counseling memorandum, transfer Plaintiff back to the Increase Mather School, and issue her a public apology.

Defendants move under Rule 12(c) for judgment on the pleadings.

DISCUSSION

I. Standard of Review

The standard of review for this Rule 12(c) motion for judgment on the pleadings is identical to the standard of review for a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. U.S. Fid. & Guar. Co. v. Petroleo Brasileiro S.A.Petrobras, No. 98 Civ. 3099(JGK), 2001 WL 300735, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 27, 2001). Thus, the Court must liberally construe all claims, accept all factual allegations in the complaint as true, and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of Plaintiff. See Cargo Partner AG v. Albatrans, Inc., 352 F.3d 41, 44 (2d Cir.2003): see also Roth v. Jennings, 489 F.3d 499, 510 (2d Cir.2007).

However, to survive a motion to dismiss, "a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter . . . to `state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'" Ashcroft v. Iqbal, ___ U.S. ____, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007)). "A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content...