Thomas v. St. Martin Parish Sch. Bd.
| Decision Date | 12 July 2012 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 65–11314. |
| Parties | Theresa D. THOMAS, et al. v. ST. MARTIN PARISH SCHOOL BOARD, et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Louisiana |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Gideon T. Carter, III, Office of Ossie Brown, Baton Rouge, LA, Damon T. Hewitt, Leticia Smith Evans, Rachel Kleinman, NAACP Legal Defense & Educ Fund, New York, NY, Margrett Ford, Shreveport, LA, for Plaintiffs.
J. Phil Haney, New Iberia, LA, I. Jackson Burson, Jr., Eunice, LA, Pamela Wescovich Dill, Robert L. Hammonds, Hammonds & Sills, Baton Rouge, LA, for Defendants.
Pending before the Court are two Motions to Dismiss filed by the School Board of St. Martin Parish (the “Board”). [Record Documents 36 and 46]. The Board argues that Plaintiffs are barred from taking any further action in this case because a final judgment was entered by the Court on December 20, 1974 dismissing this suit. The Board's motions to dismiss place the Court in the unique position of interpreting one of its own orders issued almost forty years ago. For the reasons stated below, the Court finds that the December 20, 1974 Decree did not dismiss this litigation and therefore DENIES the Board's two motions to dismiss [Record Documents 36 and 46].
This Memorandum Order does not address the constitutional status of the St. Martin Parish School System. The Court expresses no opinion today on St. Martin Parish School System's compliance with the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. The Court today decides only a narrow threshold issue that must be addressed before the question of the Board's compliance with the mandate of the United States Constitution may be considered. That issue is whether Judge Putnam's December 20, 1974 Decree was a final judgment dismissing this suit. If the 1974 Decree dismissed this suit, then there is nothing more for this Court to decide. The Plaintiffs could file another suit to right any segregation wrongs, but the Plaintiffs would bear the burden to prove intentional discrimination by the Board in a new action. If the 1974 Decree did not dismiss this suit, then the St. Martin Parish School Board remains under the supervision of this Court and the burden of proof remains with the Board.
III. Factual and Procedural BackgroundA. A Brief Summary of the Litigation Leading to the Pending Motions
In 1965, Plaintiffs filed suit against the Board, alleging that the St. Martin Parish School System was being operated in a racially segregated manner in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. [Record Document 1, p. 1]. On December 20, 1974, after nine years of litigation, this Court issued a Decree declaring that the Board had operated a “unitary” school system for three years, dissolving all existing “regulatory injunctions,” permanently enjoining the Board from operating a segregated school system, placing the case on the inactive docket, and retaining jurisdiction for two years. [Record Document 25–10, pp. 2–4]. In 2009, Chief Judge James discovered that this case still remained on the inactive docket and assigned it to Judge Doherty. [Record Document 2].
Judge Doherty issued a Minute Entry on April 20, 2010 stating that it appeared that the Court had been divested of jurisdiction on December 21, 1976. [Record Document 4, p. 2]. The Court, however, invited the parties to oppose this reading of the Docket. Id. On May 5, 2010, both Counsel for the United States of America and Counsel for Plaintiffs filed responses to the Court's Minute Entry, arguing that the Court had not yet dismissed the case and therefore that the case remained alive. [Record Documents 5 and 9]. The Court held a status conference in open court on June 29, 2010 at which time the Court ordered the parties to search their files to find any non-privileged documents relevant to the question of whether the case had been dismissed in 1974 and to provide those documents to opposing counsel and the Court in order to supplement the incomplete paper docket. [Record Document 22]. All of the documents the parties identified as relevant were filed in the record on February 7, 2011. [Record Document 25].
The case was assigned to Judge Elizabeth Foote on January 27, 2011. On September 14, 2011, the Board moved to dismiss the suit, arguing that further litigation of the desegregation claims brought in 1965 is barred by the doctrine of res judicata. [Record Document 36]. On November 16, 2011, after the Court set out a schedule for the parties to brief this question, the Board filed a more detailed motion to dismiss on substantially the same grounds as their previous motion. [Record Document 46]. The Court heard oral argument on these motions on April 19, 2012.
It bears repeating that the Court's resolution of the issue raised by these motions does not reach the ultimate question of whether the St. Martin Parish School Board is currently in compliance with the requirements of the Constitution. Today the Court only decides the threshold issue of whether this Court was divested of jurisdiction over this suit more than thirty years ago. Keeping the limited nature of this question in mind, the Court will now give a more detailed history of this litigation.
B. The 1965 and 1969 Desegregation Decrees
In 1965, Plaintiffs filed suit against the School Board of St. Martin Parish (“the Board”), alleging that the school system was being operated on a racially segregated basis in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. [Record Document 1, p. 1]. In the same year, the parties agreed that a “freedom of choice” plan would govern student assignments. [Record Document 25–1, pp. 1–2]. In 1969, however, the Fifth Circuit, following the Supreme Court's decision in Green v. Sch. Bd. of New Kent Cnty., 391 U.S. 430, 88 S.Ct. 1689, 20 L.Ed.2d 716 (1968), held that the freedom of choice plan operating in St. Martin Parish and a number of other parishes within the Western District of Louisiana did not satisfy the obligations imposed by the Constitution. Hall v. St. Helena Parish Sch. Bd., 417 F.2d 801, 809 (5th Cir.1969). After the parties failed to agree upon an appropriate new plan, the Court approved the plan submitted by the Board and ordered that it be implemented for kindergarten through eighth grade starting in September 1969 and for grades nine through twelve starting in the fall of 1970. [Record Document 25–3, pp. 14–24]. The plan called for setting up school attendance zones, pairing schools, desegregating faculty and other staff such that the racial composition of staff of a school in no way indicated that the school was intended for one race of students, creating a majority-minority transfer policy, and filing periodic reports with the Court. Id. Commenting on the new plan, the Court stated:
The St. Martin parish School Board has adopted an affirmative and positive approach to the problem of dismantling the dual school system in this parish. Its good faith and intelligent planning is manifest throughout the record.
...
The school desegregation plan originally proposed by the defendants, identified and attached hereto, with the modifications hereinafter set forth, conforms with the requirements imposed upon the defendants by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and is designed to, and will, disestablish the defendant's dual system of schools based on race.
The Court adopted the new plan and “permanently enjoined the defendants ... from discriminating on the basis of race or color in the operation of their parish school system.” Id. at 20.
C. Litigation from 1969 to 1974
From 1970 to 1974 the school board submitted the periodic reports required by the 1969 Decree and the Court actively oversaw the running of the school district, monitored compliance with the 1969 plan, and amended the desegregation plan. On May 16, 1970, the Court approved a construction plan for a new school building and the new attendance zones for students in grades nine through twelve. [Record Document 25–4, pp. 54–55]. On December 8, 1971, the Court amended the 1969 decree to add reporting requirements and faculty and staff assignment requirements. [Record Document 25–5, p. 54]. On February 7, 1972, the Court conducted a hearing on a motion for approval of sites for school construction. [Record Document 25–6, p. 57]. Finding that “neither the construction nor the location of either [school] will tend to reestablish a dual school system” the Court approved the proposed sites. Id. The Court also ordered the Board to file by May 1, 1972 an updated plan for the operation of the school system incorporating both the changes made since the approval of the 1969 plan and any future planned changes. Id. at 58. On October 5, 1973, the Court issued an order declining to rule on a pending motion for declaratory relief by the Board. The motion was prompted by a recent injunction issued by a state district court that conflicted with the busing portion of the desegregation order in place. [Record Document 25–7, p. 11]. The Court declined to rule on the motion until after it had addressed a related issue in another case. Id.
D. Events Precipitating the Unitariness Finding
On December 12, 1973, Judge Putnam ordered counsel to meet and report to the Court within forty-five days regarding whether there was any trend towards “re-establishment of a dual public school system in the parish of St. Martin, Louisiana, and whether or not said school system is otherwise in compliance with the orders of this Court.” Id. at 15. The reconstructed docket does not include any response to this order. On July 10, 1974, in response to a motion by the Board for approval of new school attendance zones, the Court ordered the Board to forward a copy of their pending motion and the ...
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