Sanchez v. Sanchez, CIV 87-1258 JC.

• Citation: 777 F. Supp. 906
• Decision Date: 08 November 1991
• Docket Number: No. CIV 87-1258 JC.,CIV 87-1258 JC.
• Parties: Steve SANCHEZ and Donald Sandoval, Plaintiffs, v. Gilbert SANCHEZ, Allen Jahner and Wilton Rogers, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Mexico

777 F. Supp. 906

Steve SANCHEZ and Donald Sandoval, Plaintiffs, v. Gilbert SANCHEZ, Allen Jahner and Wilton Rogers, Defendants.

No. CIV 87-1258 JC.

United States District Court, D. New Mexico.

November 8, 1991.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

James A. Burke, Santa Fe, N.M., for plaintiffs.

John L. Lenssen, Lenssen & Mandel, Santa Fe, N.M., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

CONWAY, District Judge.

THIS MATTER came on for consideration of the defendants' Motion for Judgment Notwithstanding the Verdict, or, In the Alternative, For a New Trial, filed February 11, 1991. The Court has reviewed the memoranda submitted by the parties and the relevant authorities. The Court has further examined those sections of the file pertinent to the issues presented, the proposed instructions of both the plaintiffs and defendants, the objections to the instructions after submission of the case to the jury and the special verdict form as answered by the jury. After a great deal of reflection, I find that the motion is not well-taken and will be denied.

Plaintiffs Sanchez and Sandoval are former employees of New Mexico Highlands University. At the time of their discharges, plaintiffs had been employed at Highlands University for approximately 15 years and 17 years respectively. In addition to their jobs as locksmith and purchasing agent, the plaintiffs also served as coaches of the University wrestling team.

Defendants Sanchez and Jahner are the University President and Vice-President respectively. When the plaintiffs were terminated in 1987, defendant Rogers held the position of Personnel Director. The defendant University officials claim that the terminations of plaintiffs were due solely to the reorganization of the University and its elimination of the wrestling program.

After an eight-day trial on the merits, the jury found that the defendants had discharged both plaintiffs because they had circulated a petition critical of the Highlands University administration. These retaliatory actions were found to be violations under Section 1983 of the plaintiffs' constitutional rights to freedom of speech. Further, on the special verdict form the jury indicated that the defendants had conspired to violate the plaintiffs' constitutional rights and that their rights to procedural and substantive due process were also infringed.

The jury awarded awarded compensatory and punitive damages in the following amounts:

                                       Plaintiff Sanchez           Plaintiff Sandoval
                Defendant      Compensatory       Punitives     Compensatory     Punitives
                Sanchez           $6,750           $90,000        $74,695         $90,000
                Jahner             6,750            90,000         74,695          90,000
                Rogers             1,500            20,000         16,599          20,000
                

Entry of a J.N.O.V. is appropriate "only when the evidence points but one way and is susceptible of no reasonable inferences which may sustain the position against whom the motion is made." EEOC v. Prudential Federal Savings & Loan Ass'n., 763 F.2d 1166, 1171 (10th Cir.1985). In order to grant a new trial, however, the Court must find that the verdict is against the weight of the evidence, that the damages are excessive or that the moving party did not receive a fair trial. See Brown v. McGraw-Edison Co., 736 F.2d 609 (10th Cir.1984). Because I find that the instructions to the jury adequately set forth the correct law to be applied and that the jury's decision is supported by substantial evidence, this Court will not disturb the verdict.

The motion sets forth thirteen assertions of error in the case. Defendants maintain that the refusal by the Court to instruct the jury regarding qualified immunity is the most significant of the alleged errors. Defendants' brief at 2-3. As shown in Section I of this opinion, the defendants are confused on the qualified immunity issue in part because of the guidance the Tenth Circuit has provided to the lower courts. Section II addresses the other alleged errors.

I. Qualified Immunity

Like the indomitable Terminator in the movie of that name, the question of the defendants' entitlement to qualified immunity will not be put to rest. The defendants initially raised this issue on a motion for summary judgment which the Court denied, finding that questions concerning the defendants' motives precluded a finding of qualified immunity. The defendants took an interlocutory appeal from this Order to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. In an unpublished per curiam decision, the panel affirmed this court's denial of qualified immunity, stating:

It is axiomatic that the university officials must be held to the knowledge that employees of the university could not be terminated in retaliation for exercise of speech protected by the first amendment....

The university officials base their defense of qualified immunity on their position that, since their actions with regard to plaintiffs' employment in the summer of 1987 were not in retaliation for the circulation of the petition, the actions were objectively reasonable.

After a complete review of the record on appeal, we agree with the district court. There are material issues of fact vigorously disputed and documented by competent pretrial evidence to support both parties' contentions. "When all inferences from the evidence are drawn in the plaintiffs' favor, plaintiffs have raised a genuine issue of material fact as to whether their exercise of protected First Amendment activity was a substantial or motivating factor in her termination." Laidley v. McClain, 914 F.2d 1386, 1392 (10th Cir.1990) (citing Mt. Healthy City School Dist. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274 97 S.Ct. 568, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977)). Under the circumstances of this case, summary judgment must be denied, and the matter must proceed in the district court.

Sanchez & Sandoval v. Sanchez, Jahner & Rogers, No. 89-2214, slip op. at 6-7 (10th Cir. October 19, 1990).

Prior to trial the defendants submitted a proposed jury instruction addressing the issue of qualified immunity; at trial, they strenuously argued for inclusion of the instruction in the packet of instructions tendered to the jury. Following its earlier rulings, this Court refused to give the qualified immunity jury instruction. In doing so, the Court indicated that it had already ruled: 1) that the speech at issue was protected speech and that at the time of the incidents underlying this action it was clearly established law that the plaintiffs could not be terminated in retaliation for the speech in question; and 2) that whether the employees had been terminated in violation of such rights was an issue of fact for the jury. The jury, consistent with the plaintiffs' theory of the case, found that the plaintiffs had been terminated in violation of their First Amendment rights.

Neither beaten nor even hardly wearied, the defendants indefatigably raise the issue yet again, contending that the "major error is still the failure not to instruct the jury regarding qualified immunity." Defendants' brief at 2-3. The defendants have cause to be persistent. The issue has become unnecessarily confused. There is no doubt that it is both nettlesome and important. The Court will therefore set forth its reasoning in some detail.

A.

At the outset, the Court notes that it would have thought that this issue had been resolved by Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985), in which the United States Supreme Court noted that the availability of the qualified immunity defense is a question of law. Id. at 527-28, 105 S.Ct. at 2816. Any first year law student knows that questions of law do not raise jury issues, since a jury acts only as the trier of fact. Indeed, the Tenth Circuit has stated unequivocally that because qualified immunity is a legal issue, "this issue should not ... be submitted to the jury." Melton v. City of Oklahoma City, 879 F.2d 706, 726 (10th Cir.1989). See Lutz v. Weld County School District No. 6, 784 F.2d 340, 343 (10th Cir.1986);¹see also, Wegener v. City of Covington, 933 F.2d 390, 392 (6th Cir.1991); Hughes v. Meyer, 880 F.2d 967, 994 (7th Cir.1989); Alvarado v. Picur, 859 F.2d 448, 451 (7th Cir.1988); Poe v. Haydon, 853 F.2d 418, 424 (6th Cir.1988), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 1007, 109 S.Ct. 788, 102 L.Ed.2d 780 (1989); Jones v. Chicago, 856 F.2d 985, 994 (7th Cir.1988); Rakovich v. Wade, 850 F.2d 1180, 1201-02 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 968, 109 S.Ct. 497, 102 L.Ed.2d 534 (1988); Holt v. Artis, 843 F.2d 242, 245-46 (6th Cir.1988); and Garionis v. Newton, 827 F.2d 306, 309 (8th Cir.1987).² Nevertheless, the defendants insist that they were entitled to the requested instruction.

The defendants' theory of their qualified immunity defense is straightforward. The defendants asserted at trial that the plaintiffs were terminated not because of their petition but as a result of a university-wide reorganization. They argued that based on the evidence presented at trial, the jury could conclude that the defendants had acted in an "objectively reasonable" manner and thus find that they were entitled to qualified immunity. Essentially, then, the defendants contended that they would be entitled to qualified immunity unless the jury found that they had terminated the plaintiffs in retaliation for exercising their First Amendment rights.³ In light of the Tenth Circuit's remand of this Court's determination that factual issues precluded summary judgment, the defendants argue that the Tenth Circuit transformed the qualified immunity issue in this case into a question of fact and intended for the issue to be decided by the jury. Therefore, the defendants insist, they were entitled to a qualified immunity instruction.

The flaw in the defendants' analysis derives from their failure to distinguish between the subjective element of a plaintiff's substantive constitutional claim and the question of a defendant's state of mind as it has...