Stansbury v. Sioux City Cmty. Sch. Dist.

• Decision Date: 20 July 2022
• Docket Number: 21-0864
• Parties: DAWN STANSBURY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SIOUX CITY COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT, PAUL GAUSMAN, KIM BURYANEK and BRIAN BURNIGHT, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: Iowa Court of Appeals

DAWN STANSBURY, Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
SIOUX CITY COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT, PAUL GAUSMAN, KIM BURYANEK and BRIAN BURNIGHT, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 21-0864

Court of Appeals of Iowa

July 20, 2022

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Woodbury County, Duane E. Hoffmeyer, Judge.

A plaintiff appeals from a grant of summary judgment against her in her sexdiscrimination case. AFFIRMED.

Jordan Hutchinson of Hutchinson Law Firm, P.L.C., West Des Moines, and Blake Parker, Clinton, for appellant.

Zachary D. Clausen and Douglas L. Phillips of Klass Law Firm, L.L.P., Sioux City, for appellees.

Heard by Tabor, P.J., and Greer and Badding, JJ.

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GREER, Judge.

Missing the tie between her sex and the change in her employment status, the district court summarily dismissed Dawn Stansbury's claim for sex discrimination. Stansbury, a former administrator in the Sioux City Community School District (the District), asserts she was constructively discharged from her position on the basis of her sex. At the onset, because she failed to demonstrate she was subjected to intolerable working conditions, we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment on her constructive discharge claim. Even taking the record in the light most favorable to Stansbury, we agree with the district court that she provided only indirect evidence that the District took adverse employment action against her on the basis of sex. And, even assuming she established a prima facie case of sex discrimination, she could not show the reasons the District provided for her transfer were pretextual.

I. Facts.

Stansbury began teaching in the District in 2001 and was promoted to principal at an elementary school in 2005. By 2008, Stansbury starting serving as principal of Washington Elementary School. Then, in 2014, the District decided to merge Washington with Whittier Elementary School to form Morningside Elementary, with Stansbury at the helm. The shift was not smooth, and the schools' populations and employees struggled to adjust to the change in location and melding of staffs.

To make matters worse, a growing concern at Morningside was violent student behavior, such as students throwing chairs or biting other students and teachers. Stansbury attempted to discuss the issue with District administrators but

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was told only that her teachers should not try to restrain students. To help, the teachers and administrators were also expected to complete MANDT training, which is a de-escalation and physical-restraint training. As of March 2017, the Morningside employees, including Stansbury, had completed no such training. The District's director of learning supports sent an email to Stansbury on March 28 and included Brian Burnight, the District's director of elementary education and Stansbury's supervisor, in the message to relay concerns about the lack of training.

In March 2017, Stansbury was placed on a plan of awareness-a precursor to a plan of assistance, which can result in disciplinary action. The plan served to address a barrage of deficiencies, including mismanaging communication with staff before a planned leave, missing a professional development meeting because she was double-booked, and failing to correct the school's declining reading scores. When Stansbury and Burnight went over the plan, Stansbury told Burnight she felt there was a "target on her back," and Burnight responded that he understood why she would feel that way. Stansbury completed her plan within three months.

During the following school year, Stansbury disciplined a special-education teacher who had failed to keep state-required data relating to students with individual learning plans. The teacher filed a harassment complaint against Stansbury, which the District investigated before concluding it was unfounded. Stansbury met with Associate Superintendent Kim Buryanek; the District's director of student services and equity education, Jen Gomez; and Burnight to go over the results of the investigation. Buryanek told Stansbury at that meeting there were concerns among the Morningside staff, including that Stansbury showed favoritism

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to those who had worked at Washington over those from Whittier-Buryanek went as far as to say the principal position was no longer the best fit for Stansbury. The complaints were discussed vaguely, so Stansbury requested a more in-depth survey of the staff be conducted in 2018 to gather feedback. The feedback was not all positive and identified problem areas with Stansbury's role as principal.

In March of 2018, Burnight told Stansbury she had a choice-she could take a reassignment as a middle school assistant principal or resign. The new position would have the same pay and work the same hours, though with less responsibility and control. According to Stansbury, Burnight informed her that as long as Paul Gausman was superintendent, she probably would not be restored to a headprincipal position and he did not expect her to receive a raise. Burnight denied making these statements. Seeing this as a demotion, Stansbury continued working as principal until June, when she took leave until she eventually resigned in August.

After Stansbury was informed of her expected transfer, a hiring committee (Committee) gathered to interview candidates to be the Morningside principal; the Committee included Burnight. Two women and one man were interviewed. In a deposition, Stansbury alleged that two committee members told her Burnight said he preferred the male candidate because "a man would be better at dealing with student behaviors." Ultimately, the man was hired.

Following her resignation, Stansbury filed a complaint with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission alleging demotion, harassment, and undesirable assignment/transfer due to her age and sex. Then, in February 2019, Stansbury filed suit against the District, Gausman, Buryanek, and Burnight for sex

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discrimination alleging a violation of the Iowa Civil Rights Act (ICRA).^[1] The defendants moved for summary judgment, asking that Stansbury's claim of sex discrimination be dismissed.

The district court found that Stansbury presented sufficient evidence to raise a question of material fact whether the decision to transfer her to an assistant principal role was an adverse employment action but that Stansbury failed to show direct evidence of sex discrimination. In reaching that determination, the court considered the depositions of the two Committee members Stansbury alleged told her about Burnight's comments. In the depositions, one committee member testified she had no recollection of Burnight saying anything about preferring a man; the other committee member testified Burnight said no such thing and she never told Stansbury he did. Concluding she only had indirect evidence, then, the court granted summary judgment because she had not generated evidence to show the reasons provided for her transfer were pretext for sex discrimination. The district court also determined that, while she had generated a factual dispute over whether her transfer was an adverse employment action, she could not show as a matter of law that she was constructively discharged.

Stansbury timely appealed.

II. Standard of Review.

Our review of a grant of summary judgment is for correction of errors at law. Hedlund v. State, 930 N.W.2d 707, 715 (Iowa 2019). A grant of summary judgment is appropriate when the record, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving

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party, "shows no genuine issues of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Id.; Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.981(3). "Even if the facts are undisputed, summary judgment is not proper if reasonable minds could draw different inferences from them and thereby reach different conclusions." Hedlund, 930 N.W.2d at 715 (citation omitted). Our review, then, concerns only "whether a genuine issue of material fact exists and whether the district court correctly applied the law." Id. (citation omitted).

III. The Sex Discrimination Claim Under ICRA.

Stansbury pushes the point that summary judgment is inappropriate because she established genuine issues of fact showing her sex as a motivating factor for the decision to transfer her to assistant principal.^[2] Thus our review is "limited to whether a genuine issue of material fact exists and if the district court correctly applied the law." Hedlund, 930 N.W.2d at 715. We first answer the question of whether Stansbury was constructively discharged as a matter of law. Then we will turn to her claim of discrimination on the basis of her sex as involved in what she characterizes as a demotion.

A. Constructive Discharge.

Stansbury resigned from the District on August 14, 2018. In March 2018 she was told about the District's decision to re-assign her as an assistant principal, but she never started the new position and never signed her contract. Her letter

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of resignation noted she resigned "in duress." The District asserts this is a "quit and sue" scenario. See Haskenhoff, 897 N.W.2d at 591 (noting an employee cannot simply "quit and sue," claiming constructive discharge). The District also maintains that its reasons for her transfer, to help her "learn and develop in the areas of culture and climate" from the middle school administrator, are legitimate and do not support Stansbury's claim of unfair treatment. On the other side of the coin, Stansbury claims she was constructively discharged because, with the transfer to the assistant principal position, she believed she faced the prospect of never being promoted or receiving a raise.

"Constructive discharge exists when the employer deliberately makes an employee's working conditions so intolerable that the employee is forced into an involuntary resignation." Haskenhoff, 897 N.W.2d at 591 (citation omitted). Stansbury directs us to Van Meter Industries v. Mason City Human...