Santer v. Bd. of Educ. of E. Meadow Union Free Sch. Dist.

• Decision Date: 06 May 2014
• Citation: Santer v. Bd. of Educ. of E. Meadow Union Free Sch. Dist., 2014 NY Slip Op 3189, 23 N.Y.3d 251, 13 N.E.3d 1028, 990 N.Y.S.2d 442 (N.Y. 2014)
• Parties: In the Matter of Richard SANTER, Respondent, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF EAST MEADOW UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellant. In the Matter of Barbara Lucia, Respondent, v. Board of Education of East Meadow Union Free School District, Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

23 N.Y.3d 251

13 N.E.3d 1028

990 N.Y.S.2d 442

2014 N.Y. Slip Op. 03189

In the Matter of Richard SANTER, Respondent,

v.BOARD OF EDUCATION OF EAST MEADOW UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellant.

In the Matter of Barbara Lucia, Respondent,

v.Board of Education of East Meadow Union Free School District, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

May 6, 2014.

Littler Mendelson, P.C., New York City (George B. Pauta, Craig R. Benson and Ethan D. Balsam of counsel), for appellant in the first and second above-entitled proceedings.

Sherry B. Bokser, New York City, and Richard E. Casagrande, for respondent in the first and second above-entitled proceeding.

Jay Worona, Latham, and Kimberly A. Fanniff, for New York State School Boards Association, amicus curiae in the first above-entitled proceeding.

OPINION OF THE COURT

ABDUS–SALAAM, J.

This appeal involves a teachers' union picketing demonstration that took place on a public street in front of Woodland Middle School (Woodland) in Nassau County. On the morning of March 2, 2007, petitioners-respondents Richard Santer and Barbara Lucia and other members of the East Meadow Teachers Association (EMTA) displayed picketing signs from their cars parked where parents were dropping their children off at school. Respondent-appellant Board of Education of the East Meadow Union Free School District (the District) charged petitioners with misconduct related to the demonstration, alleging that petitioners created a health and safety risk by parking their cars so that students had to be dropped off in the middle of the street instead of at curbside. After their respective hearings, petitioners were found guilty of misconduct and directed to pay a fine.

Petitioners thereafter commenced these proceedings to vacate the arbitration awards, arguing that the disciplinary proceedings commenced against them, and the discipline ultimately imposed, violated their right to free speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Supreme Court denied the petitions but the Appellate Division reversed in each case. Applying the two-part balancing test from Pickering v. Board of Ed. of Township High School Dist. 205, Will Cty., 391 U.S. 563, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968), the court concluded, first, that petitioners' speech addressed a matter of public concern and, second, that the District failed to meet its burden of demonstrating that petitioners' exercise of their free speech rights “so threatened the school's effective operation as to justify the imposition of discipline” (Matter of Santer v. Board of Educ. of E. Meadow Union Free Sch. Dist., 101 A.D.3d 1026, 1028, 957 N.Y.S.2d 196 [2d Dept.2012]; Matter of Lucia v. Board of Educ. of E. Meadow Union Free Sch. Dist., 109 A.D.3d 545, 547, 971 N.Y.S.2d 6 [2d Dept.2013] ).

We agree with the Appellate Division that the picketing demonstration, a form of “speech” protected by the First Amendment, addressed a matter of public concern. We come out differently, however, on the second step of the Pickering test. Viewing the record evidence in light of established federal precedent, we conclude that petitioners' interests in engaging in constitutionally protected speech in the particular manner that was employed on the day in question were outweighed by the District's interests in safeguarding students and maintaining effective operations at Woodland. The District also satisfied its burden of proving that the discipline imposed here was justified because petitioners created a potential yet substantial risk to student safety and an actual disruption to school operations. We therefore reverse.

I.

At all relevant times, petitioners were teachers at Woodland and members of the EMTA, the collective bargaining unit for the District's teachers. The collective bargaining agreement (CBA) expired on September 1, 2004, and for several years following its expiration, the District and the EMTA were unable to reach an agreement over a new CBA. To express their dissatisfaction with the lack of progress, teachers at Woodland engaged in weekly protest activities, including picketing, for over two years prior to the demonstration on March 2, 2007. The teachers generally picketed on Monday and Friday mornings, usually by walking along the sidewalk in front of Woodland carrying union signs as students were arriving for school. Woodland includes grades six through eight, and its students are between 11 and 14 years old. Students typically begin arriving at Woodland at 7:30 a.m. for homeroom class, which begins at 8:12 a.m. Teachers must report to work by 7:55 a.m.; those who drive to Woodland generally park in a teachers' lot behind the school.

Woodland is located on the north side of Wenwood Drive, a relatively narrow, two-way public street that runs in front of the school's main entrance. On an average school day morning, approximately 100 parents drive down Wenwood Drive, pull alongside the curb, and drop off their children at school. The north side of the street has two curb cuts giving access to the sidewalk and pathways that lead to the school buildings. Children exiting cars on the north side generally may proceed directly from the curb to the school without setting foot in the street. Children who are dropped off on the south side of the street, however, must wait at the curb and cross the street as traffic permits.

During the week of February 26, 2007, Woodland EMTA members held a meeting, at which Santer was present,¹ to plan a picketing demonstration to be held on March 2nd. The weather forecast called for heavy rain that day, and the members, evidently not wanting to stand out in the rain but also not wanting to cancel the demonstration due to inclement weather, voted to park their cars along Wenwood Drive and place picketing signs in their car windows so that parents, seeing the signs as they drove by, would be reminded of the ongoing labor negotiations. Santer did not vote because he was the EMTA's building president but he “spoke against” the proposed parking demonstration. According to his hearing testimony, Santer told his colleagues that they could not park in front of the curb cuts on Wenwood Drive because it was illegal to block access to them.² The members amended their vote to keep the curb cuts clear, but Santer still “never personally supported” the demonstration because he was concerned about student safety. Particularly, Santer “didn't want someone doing something stupid [like] pulling out at 7:50 [a.m.] and hitting a kid.”

At approximately 7:30 a.m. on March 2nd, 16 EMTA members parked their cars—eight in total—in front of Woodland along both sides of Wenwood Drive. The weather was rainy as forecasted. The participants parked in legal parking spots off of school property and, as planned, did not block any of the curb cuts. Santer testified that the participants placed picketing signs in their car windows facing the street “so parents going by would see them.”

While the participants' cars were parked on Wenwood Drive, parents dropping off their children could not pull their cars alongside the curb as they regularly did each morning. Because the curb cuts were only about one car-length long, parents would have had to parallel park into them to reach the curb, which proved too difficult on such a narrow two-way street. Consequently, parents driving on both sides of Wenwood Drive had to stop their cars in the middle of the street to drop off their children. This caused traffic to become congested in both directions, and children had to cross through the traffic in the rain to reach the school.

At around 7:30 a.m., Woodland's dean of students, Terrence Chase, and principal, James Lethbridge, observed the teachers' parked cars from inside the school; they could also see the ensuing traffic backup on Wenwood Drive and students having to exit cars in the middle of the street. Chase and Lethbridge testified that the cars were parked end-to-end on both sides of the street for the entire length of the school. The administrators agreed that traffic on Wenwood Drive was much worse than usual as a result of the parked cars, and that they had never before seen parents drop off children in the middle of the street as they were required to do that morning. According to Lethbridge, the parked cars created “a very dangerous situation” by forcing children to exit cars in the middle of the street and “walk[ ] between cars” to get to the school. Neither administrator, nor any District official, asked the participants to move their cars or assisted children in crossing the street, however. In fact, Lethbridge and Chase watched the events unfold from inside the school building.³

As the parents' cars became more and more backed up, Lethbridge called the police because, in his judgment, they were best equipped to handle the “traffic situation.” Meanwhile, secretaries in Woodland's main office fielded a number of phone calls from parents concerned about the traffic backup on Wenwood Drive. Several teachers also called to report that they would be late because of the traffic. Ultimately, 16 of the 19 teachers who arrived late to work on March 2nd cited traffic as their excuse. To compensate for the unprecedented amount of tardy teachers, Chase and Lethbridge had to arrange for coverage of homeroom classes so children would not be left unattended in the classrooms.

The parking demonstration concluded at approximately 7:50 a.m. It is undisputed that no child was hurt during the demonstration. Also, the police never intervened because, according to Lethbridge, they arrived after the demonstration had concluded. As Santer entered the school (he and Lucia arrived on time), Lethbridge directed him to his office, where he asked Santer to explain why he and the other teachers had parked in front of the school and blocked the drop off area. Santer stated that the teachers were informing the public about the EMTA's ongoing labor dispute with the...