Sieger v. Davis Cnty. Sch. Dist.
| Decision Date | 13 December 2022 |
| Docket Number | 1:22CV48 DAK |
| Parties | NICOLE SIEGER, for and on behalf of S.S., a minor; ALONZO LIDDELL and LISA LIDDELL, for and on behalf of J.L., a minor; and KIMBERLY OLSEN, for and on behalf of N.M., a minor; Plaintiffs, v. DAVIS COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT, a county school district; CASSIE GRETHER, an individual; TRACY NOLAN, an individual; and MARTIN HARDY, an individual Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Utah |
Case
This matter is before the court on Defendants' Motion for Dismissal of Second Amended Complaint. On October 25, 2022 the court held a hearing on the motion via Zoom videoconferencing. At the hearing, Bradley R. Blackham and Peter J. Strand represented Defendants Davis County School District (“the District”), Cassie Grether, Tracy Nolan, and Martin Hardy (the “Individual Defendants”) (collectively “Defendants”). Aaron K. Bergman represented Plaintiffs Nicole Sieger, for and on behalf of S.S., a minor; Alonzo Liddell and Lisa Liddell for an on behalf of J.L., a minor; and Kimberly Olsen, for an on behalf of N.M., a minor. After hearing arguments from the parties, the court took the motion under advisement. Having carefully considering the memoranda filed by the parties and the law and facts pertaining to the motion, the court issues the following Memorandum Decision and Order. For the reasons explained below, the court grants in part and denies in part Defendants' Motion to Dismiss the Second Amended Complaint.
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). In reviewing a motion to dismiss, the court assumes the truth of “all well-pleaded facts in the complaint, and draw[s] all reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs.” Dias v. City & Cty. of Denver, 567 F.3d 1169, 1178 (10th Cir. 2009).
Based on the alleged racial harassment and discrimination of three Black students within the Davis County School District Plaintiffs have filed a civil rights action pursuant to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[1] Plaintiffs have also asserted a breach of contract action seeking enforcement of a settlement agreement entered into between the United States Department of Justice (the “United States”) and the Davis County School District. On September 15, 2021, the United States issued a Notice of Findings of Race Discrimination in the Davis school District.[2] The United States “found severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive race based harassment” was regularly committed “in schools across the District” by students against other students. The United States also found “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive racebased harassment by staff in several District schools and services.” In addition, the United States found that the District violated the rights guaranteed to its Black students under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and these pervasive violations had occurred through the District's “discriminatory enforcement of its codes of conduct and referrals to law enforcement.” As a result of the United States' findings of pervasive racial discrimination occurring throughout the District's schools, on October 20, 2021, the United States and the District entered into a Settlement Agreement.[3]
Under the Settlement Agreement, the District promised to “take all necessary and reasonable steps, consistent with Federal law, to end racial harassment, prevent its recurrence, eliminate any racially hostile environment that currently exists in its schools, programs, and activities, and remedy its effects.” The District agreed to take multiple steps in furtherance of the above promise. Knowing that the above material changes would take time to implement, the District agreed to create an “Interim Plan” which would be submitted to the United States no later than November 1, 2021. Furthermore, the District would “take immediate steps to ensure a prompt and equitable response to racial harassment and other discrimination and create interim procedures for responding to and tracking incidents of racial discrimination as well as for assuring appropriate accountability for such occurrences.
Notwithstanding the District's Settlement Agreement with the United States, Plaintiffs allege that the three minor students on whose behalf the instant Complaint was filed (hereinafter referred to as the “Student Plaintiffs”) continued to experience unimpeded racial harassment by students on a daily basis, being called “cotton picker,” the “N” word, “monkey,” and “Poo-Skin”; hearing students make “monkey” sounds toward them on the bus and at school; being informed that Black History Month was being cut short; having other students touch their hair without permission; and hearing students ask for an “N-word pass” so students could freely use racially derogative expletives toward them. The Student Plaintiffs claim that they were told on a daily basis, both figuratively and literally, that “white people are better” and “you're a slave” and to “go back to where you came from.” The Student Plaintiffs also make several allegations of specific incidents involving discriminatory treatment, while District employees allegedly treated the White students involved in these incidents completely differently.
In their Second Amended Complaint, Plaintiffs assert three causes of action: (1) intentional discrimination in violation of Title VI (against the District); (2) a § 1983 claim for violation of Title VI and for violation of the Equal Protection Clause (against all Defendants); and (3) a breach of contract claim based on the Settlement Agreement (against the District).
Through the instant motion, Defendants move the court to dismiss the Second and Third Causes of Action for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Specifically, Defendants argue that the Second Cause of Action (a § 1983 civil rights claim) should be dismissed to the extent the cause of action is subsumed by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d et seq.[4] Additionally, they argue that the Third Cause of Action (a breach of contract claim) should be dismissed on two bases: First, Defendants contend that S.S., J.L., and N.M. are not third-party beneficiaries to the Settlement Agreement between the District and the United States; and second, they argue that Plaintiffs have not sufficiently alleged a breach of contract claim. Defendants have not moved to dismiss the First Cause of Action, which is Plaintiffs' claim against the District for intentional discrimination in violation of Title VI, and thus the First Cause of Action is not at issue in this motion.
Defendants argue that Plaintiffs' attempt to assert a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for both an alleged violation of Title VI and for an alleged violation of the Equal Protection Clause must fail. While Defendants have properly conceded that Plaintiffs' § 1983 cause of action may be premised on the Equal Protection Clause, Defendants contend that Plaintiffs' separate § 1983 cause of action premised on Title VI must fail.
Statutes that are enacted under the Spending Clause, such as Title VI, invoke Congress's power to place conditions on the grant of federal funds. See Barnes v. Gorman, 536 U.S. 181, 185-86 (2002). Congress has enacted four statutes under the Spending Clause that prohibit recipients of federal financial assistance from discriminating based on certain protected grounds. Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, P.L.L.C., 142 S.Ct. 1562, 1569 (2022), reh'g denied, No. 20-219, 2022 WL 2203449 (U.S. June 21, 2022). Title IX is another example of a statute that prohibits recipients of federal financial assistance from discrimination based on certain protected to an alleged violation of Title VI) and is therefore not foreclosed by caselaw and survives the motion to dismiss. grounds. “Title IX was patterned after Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” Cannon v. Univ. of Chicago, 441 U.S. 677, 694 (1979). This similarity is demonstrated by the fact that “the two statutes use identical language” and “provide the same administrative mechanism for terminating federal financial support for institutions engaged in prohibited discrimination.” Id. at 695-96.
When the Supreme Court in Cannon decided whether to imply a private right of action to Title IX, the Court looked to the rights of action in Title VI. The Supreme Court held that Congress drafted Title IX to have the same remedies as Title VI: “We have no doubt that Congress intended to create Title IX remedies comparable to those available under Title VI.” Id. at 703. The Court recognized that when Congress passed Title IX in 1972, Congress “was under the impression that” Title IX “would be similarly enforceable” to Title VI's private actions. Id. at 710-11. Moreover, “[t]he drafters of Title IX explicitly assumed that it would be interpreted and applied as Title VI had been during the preceding eight years.” Id. at 696.
An analysis of whether a § 1983 claim may be based on an alleged violation of Title VI is controlled by the Tenth Circuit's decision in Seamons v. Snow, 84...
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