Standley v. Chilhowee R-IV School Dist.

• Decision Date: 26 October 1993
• Docket Number: R-IV,Nos. 92-2207,92-3059,s. 92-2207
• Citation: 5 F.3d 319
• Parties: 85 Ed. Law Rep. 1010 Hettie STANDLEY, Jana Klein, Marilyn Schoppenhorst, Dara Kiely, Appellants, Arthur Wickman, Plaintiff, Ruthann Burgess, Appellant, v. CHILHOWEESCHOOL DISTRICT, a public corporation, Appellee, Jerry L. Merrell, individually and in his official capacity as superintendent in the ChilhoweeSchool District, Defendant, Yale Turnham, individually and in his official capacity as Principal in the ChilhoweeSchool District, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 319

5 F.3d 319

85 Ed. Law Rep. 1010

Hettie STANDLEY, Jana Klein, Marilyn Schoppenhorst, Dara Kiely, Appellants Arthur Wickman, Plaintiff Ruthann Burgess, Appellant, v. CHILHOWEE R-IV SCHOOL DISTRICT, a public corporation, Appellee Jerry L. Merrell, individually and in his official capacity as superintendent in the Chilhowee R-IV School District, Defendant Yale Turnham, individually and in his official capacity as Principal in the Chilhowee R-IV School District, Appellee.

Nos. 92-2207, 92-3059.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted March 15, 1993.

Decided Sept. 17, 1993.

Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing

En Banc Denied Oct. 26, 1993.

Andrew D. Roth and Jeremiah A. Collins, Washington, DC (Lisa S. Van Amburg, St. Louis, MO, appeared on the brief), for appellants.

Emily Jane Bailey, Kansas City, MO (Robert B. Best, Jr., Kansas City, MO, appeared on the brief), for appellees.

Before BOWMAN and MORRIS S. ARNOLD, Circuit Judges, and MAGNUSON, ^* District Judge.

BOWMAN, Circuit Judge.

Appellants Hettie Standley, Jana Klein, Marilyn Schoppenhorst, Dara Keily, and Ruthann Burgess, ¹ who received verdicts in their favor from the trial jury, appeal from several of the post-trial rulings of the District Court. ²

Appellants are former teachers in the Chilhowee R-IV School District whose teaching contracts were not renewed for the 1989-90 school year. They brought suit against the district, its superintendent, and the principal of their school alleging the following: Count I--under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, the nonrenewal of their contracts was motivated by plaintiffs' speech and associational activities and therefore violated their First Amendment rights; Count II--defendants breached plaintiffs' teaching contracts by failing to provide plaintiffs with proper performance evaluations; Count III--defendants violated Missouri Revised Statutes Sec. 168.128 (1986) by failing to provide plaintiffs with proper performance evaluations; Count IV--defendants violated Missouri Revised Statutes Sec. 168.126.2 (1986) by failing to provide plaintiffs with an accurate statement of the reasons for not renewing their contracts.

The case was tried to a jury. Before the case was submitted to the jury, the parties agreed, due to the duplicative nature of Counts II and III, that Count II be submitted to the jury but that the court determine liability under Count III. The jury returned unanimous verdicts in favor of each plaintiff on Counts I, II and IV. ³ The jury also awarded plaintiffs Standley, Klein, Burgess, and Keily $5000 each in punitive damages under Count I against school principal Yale Turnham.

After the jury verdicts were in, appellants moved for reinstatement to their teaching positions in the Chilhowee R-IV School District, or, in the alternative, for front pay. In its January 7, 1992 order, the District Court denied both forms of equitable relief and also denied appellants' claim for damages under Count III. In its March 31, 1992 order, the court set aside the punitive damages awards against Turnham and also granted judgment as a matter of law in favor of appellees on Counts II and IV. The District Court granted appellants an award of attorney fees and costs, but not in the full amounts appellants had requested. Appellants challenge each of these post-trial rulings.

Appellants contend that they should be awarded reinstatement or, in the alternative, front pay. Reinstatement and front pay are equitable remedies. See Brooks v. Woodline Motor Freight, Inc., 852 F.2d 1061, 1065 (8th Cir.1988). "We review a district court's imposition or denial of equitable relief for abuse of discretion." Foy v. Klapmeier, 992 F.2d 774, 779 (8th Cir.1993). Ordinarily, reinstatement would follow a finding of Sec. 1983 liability for nonrenewal of a teaching contract; in extraordinary circumstances, however, reinstatement may not be the appropriate remedy. See Dickerson v. Deluxe Check Printers, Inc., 703 F.2d 276, 281 (8th Cir.1983) (recognizing that "extreme animosity" between plaintiff and defendant-employer is ground for denying reinstatement). If the trial court decides not to award reinstatement, it then has discretion whether or not to award front pay. Wildman v. Lerner Stores Corp., 771 F.2d 605, 616 (1st Cir.1985).

Appellants argue that no extraordinary circumstances exist to justify the denial of reinstatement. We disagree. The Chilhowee R-IV School District is extremely small; the district has only one school building, which houses all of the approximately 150-155 students in kindergarten through twelfth grade. There are approximately twenty teachers, who must work together every day. The trial record bristles with extensive testimony about the tense and hostile atmosphere that existed at the school, not only between appellants and the individual appellees, but also between appellants and other teachers. One incident that is a telling example of the poor relationship between appellants and the other teachers occurred when certain teachers gave appellant Standley some "tasteless gifts" (cow manure, a pregnancy test kit, and a condom). When one teacher gave the gifts to Standley, the teacher allegedly said, "I enjoyed screwing you out of your job." Tr. at 1404. ⁴ The District Court denied reinstatement because the hostility between appellants and those with whom they must work in this tiny, rural school district would make future cooperation impossible. Indeed, it seems plain that the friction that precipitated this lawsuit and that would dog the school district if appellants were returned to their teaching positions makes reinstatement an ill-advised remedy in this case. See Dickerson, 703 F.2d at 281 ("friction arising from the litigation process itself is not alone sufficient to deny" reinstatement). Considering the totality of the circumstances, we conclude that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in denying appellants reinstatement.

In the alternative, appellants argue that they should be awarded front pay. As noted earlier in this opinion, front pay is an equitable remedy and may be awarded at the court's discretion. Woodline, 852 F.2d at 1065. The question of front pay--whether to award it and in what amount--poses a difficult question for the trial court. After a jury finds Sec. 1983 liability in a loss-of-employment case, the court must attempt to make the plaintiff whole, yet the court must avoid granting the plaintiff a windfall. The court does not know how long the plaintiff actually would have remained working at the job, whether the plaintiff soon would have left for a different, perhaps better-paying, job, or whether the plaintiff soon would have been dismissed for legitimate reasons. Because the trial court must consider many complicated factors in deciding whether to award front pay, this Court applies a deferential standard of review to the trial court's decision. See Duke v. Uniroyal Inc., 928 F.2d 1413, 1424 (4th Cir.1991) (stating that trial court needs discretion in "shaping the appropriate remedy" because of the many factors that must be considered), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 429, 116 L.Ed.2d 449 (1991). Here, appellants were all probationary teachers with one-year contracts. Their contracts were not renewed for the 1989-90 school year. The jury's award of damages compensated appellants for their lost salary and benefits for the 1989-90, 1990-91, and 1991-92 school years. We cannot conclude that the District Court abused its discretion in declining to award front pay, thereby limiting appellants' recovery to the three school years immediately following appellants' final year in the employ of the district.

Appellants contend that it was error for the District Court to grant judgment as a matter of law overturning both the jury's award of punitive damages against Yale Turnham and the jury's verdict under Count IV. We review de novo a district court's grant of judgment as a matter of law, affirming if "the evidence is such that, without weighing the credibility of the witnesses, there can be but one reasonable conclusion as to the verdict." Caudill v. Farmland Indus., Inc., 919 F.2d 83, 86 (8th Cir.1990). Furthermore, we limit our review "to determining whether [plaintiffs] introduced evidence sufficient to create an issue of fact for the jury ... [and,] [l]ike the district court, we must view the evidence in favor of the party that opposed the entry of judgment and give that party all reasonable inferences arising from the facts." Johnson v. Cowell Steel Structures, Inc., 991 F.2d 474, 478 (8th Cir.1993) (citation omitted).

A jury may assess punitive damages under Sec. 1983 "when the defendant's conduct is shown to be motivated by evil motive or intent, or when it involves reckless or callous indifference to the federally protected rights of others." Smith v. Wade, 461 U.S. 30, 56, 103 S.Ct. 1625, 1640, 75 L.Ed.2d 632 (1983). After a careful review of the record, we agree with the District Court that the evidence does not support an award of punitive damages. The evidence that appellants cite in support of the punitive damages award is simply evidence supporting the jury's finding that appellants' First Amendment activities were a motivating factor in the decision not to renew their teaching contracts. That evidence does not rise to the level of "evil motive" or "reckless or callous indifference." We therefore affirm the District Court's decision to overturn the award of punitive damages against defendant Turnham.

Similarly, we conclude that the court did not err in granting appellees' motion for judgment as a matter of law on Count IV. The jury was instructed that in order to find for appellants under Count IV, it must find that the letter that the school district sent to appellants stating the reason for not renewing their contracts "was issued in bad faith and with malice." Instruction No. 84. The instruction was based on the statute, which...