Trivits v. Wilmington Institute

• Decision Date: 23 June 1976
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 4776.
• Citation: 417 F. Supp. 160
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Delaware
• Parties: Patricia Chalfant TRIVITS, Plaintiff, v. The WILMINGTON INSTITUTE, a corporation of the State of Delaware, et al., Defendants.

417 F. Supp. 160

Patricia Chalfant TRIVITS, Plaintiff, v. The WILMINGTON INSTITUTE, a corporation of the State of Delaware, et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 4776.

United States District Court, D. Delaware.

June 23, 1976.

Alfred J. Lindh, Wilmington, Del., for plaintiff.

B. Wilson Redfearn and Jeffrey S. Goddess of Tybout & Redfearn, P.A., and Henry N. Herndon, Jr. and Jay Paul James of Morris, James, Hitchens & Williams, Wilmington, Del., for defendants.

OPINION

LATCHUM, Chief Judge.

On February 16, 1972, Patricia Chalfant Trivits ("Trivits") was discharged (PX 14, 15, 16)¹ as Chief of the Book Processing Department of The Wilmington Institute ("Institute"), a free public library located in Wilmington, Delaware. On December 7, 1973 Trivits brought this civil rights action against the Institute and two of its officers in their official capacities, viz., Jack W. Bryant ("Bryant"), Director of the Institute and chief executive officer, and Edward B. duPont ("duPont"), president of the Board of Managers of the Institute. (Docket Item 1). Trivits' complaint,² based on 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleged that she was wrongfully dismissed as an Institute employee because the defendants acting under color of state law had deprived her of liberty and property in violation of her substantive and procedural due process rights secured by the Fourteenth Amendment.³ Trivits further alleged that her discharge had been maliciously motivated and that the defendants had circulated a letter to New Castle County officials which contained defamatory information concerning her competence, ability and desirability as an employee. For these alleged injuries Trivits sought (1) reinstatement, (2) an injunction against defendants' communicating to others derogatory statements concerning her employment, (3) compensatory and punitive damages, and (4) suit costs and counsel fees. (Docket Item 1). On July 11, 1974 the defendants consented (Docket Item 17) to plaintiff's filing an amended and supplemental complaint which had been filed previously on June 26, 1974. (Docket Item 15). The amended and supplemental complaint added, as Count II, a state law claim of malicious defamation against the Institute and duPont based upon the publication of a letter written by duPont, under date of September 12, 1973, to the American Library Association ("ALA") which was printed in the February 1974 issue of the journal, American Libraries. (PX 42, pp. 90-94). This Court on October 4, 1974 granted the defendants' motion to dismiss plaintiff's claim based on the EEOA, denied the dismissal motion with respect to the § 1983 claims and deferred ruling on the allegedly pendent state defamation claim until further facts could be developed regarding the § 1983 claims. Trivits v. Wilmington Institute, supra, at 460-462. The parties waived jury trial (Docket Item 57, par. 12) and the case proceeded to trial before the Court sitting without a jury on July 28-31, 1975.⁴

The claims remaining open for final disposition are those based on 42 U.S.C. § 1983 which allege a violation of Trivits' substantive and procedural due process rights and the state law claim of malicious defamation allegedly within the Court's pendent jurisdiction. The background facts are as follows:

From September 30, 1968 until February 16, 1972 (pretrial order pars. 3-7; Tr. 350-357), plaintiff worked in several capacities in the Institute's Book Processing Department. On the latter date Bryant dismissed her from her post as Chief of the Book Processing Department. (Tr. 357-360; PX 2 and 14). Plaintiff contested her discharge at a specially convened "hearing" held on March 8, 1972 before a three-man Special Committee of the Institute's Board of Managers. (Tr. 368-371, 679-690, 736-739, 775). The three Board members who comprised this Committee were (1) duPont, Chairman of the Board, who is employed by a local banking institution, (2) Richard J. Abrams, an attorney in private practice, and (3) J. Edgar Rhodes, a retired officer of a manufacturing company. (Docket Item 31 attachment). Bryant's decision was affirmed by the Special Committee on March 13, 1972. (Tr. 691, 694). Thereafter, Trivits sought relief from the ALA (Tr. 377) and that organization, after conducting a hearing in Wilmington (Tr. 740), published a report in the September 1973 issue of the journal, American Libraries, which was critical of the Institute's dismissal of Trivits. (PX 18). Shortly before publication of the report, Helen Barnett, Library Director of the Delaware Technical and Community College ("Delaware Tech") to whom Trivits had applied for a position as librarian, telephoned Bryant to inquire about Trivits' prior employment because Trivits had listed the Institute as a previous employer. (Tr. 232). Bryant advised Barnett that Trivits had been discharged for cause. (Tr. 233). However, Trivits was hired as assistant librarian at Delaware Tech after Barnett consulted with the ALA, which informed her of the results of its investigation. (Tr. 233, 242, 246). On August 31, 1973, Barnett's superiors briefly considered discharging Trivits as a result of the extensive local newspaper publicity in Wilmington concerning the aforementioned ALA investigation. (Tr. 200, 203-4, 230-1, 238-9). However, Delaware Tech did not dismiss Trivits. (Tr. 227, 239).

On September 12, 1973 duPont wrote a letter to the executive director of the ALA replying to the published report and forwarded a copy to the editor of the American Libraries. (PX 26, 42). Unaware of the existence of duPont's reply letter, Trivits filed the instant suit on December 7, 1973 alleging that her dismissal, as previously indicated, was in violation of 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 2000e. duPont's letter was subsequently published in the February 1974 issue of American Libraries and this prompted Trivits to amend her complaint in order to add the state defamation claim against duPont and the Institute based on the February 1974 publication of duPont's letter to the ALA. (Docket Items 15 and 17).

I. § 1983 DUE PROCESS CLAIMS.

Having considered the testimonial and documentary evidence presented, the Court finds for the defendants on the § 1983 due process claims because the plaintiff failed to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that her dismissal by the Institute constituted action taken "under color of state law,"⁵ that is "state action." United States v. Price, 383 U.S. 787, 794-5, n. 7, 86 S.Ct. 1152, 16 L.Ed.2d 267 (1966).

In order to determine whether a non-governmental entity has engaged in state action, the Court must carefully sift the facts and circumstances presented to it. Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U.S. 715, 722, 81 S.Ct. 856, 6 L.Ed.2d 45 (1961). The most recent articulation of the state action test is found in Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 95 S.Ct. 449, 42 L.Ed.2d 477 (1974), where the Supreme Court held that a state-regulated utility's summary termination of a customer's electric service was not state action, stating:

". . . the inquiry must be whether there is a sufficiently close nexus between the State and the challenged action of the . . . private entity so that the action of the latter may be fairly treated as that of the State itself." Id. at 351, 95 S.Ct. at 453.

See also Broderick v. The Associated Hospital Service of Philadelphia, 536 F.2d 1, at 4 (C.A. 3, 1976). Accordingly, this Court must examine the record developed in this case and trace the history of the Institute in order to identify the extent to which New Castle County and the City of Wilmington⁶ were involved in the funding and operation of the Institute at the time Trivits was dismissed in February 1972 and the connection, if any, between such involvement and plaintiff's dismissal.

In 1857 the "Young Men's Association for Mutual Improvement of the City of Wilmington" received a corporate charter for the maintenance of a private subscription library (11 Del.Laws, Chap. 344); in 1859 the name of the private corporation was changed to "The Wilmington Institute" (11 Del.Laws, Chap. 516). After the passage of 19 Del.Laws, Chaps. 734, and 983 (1893), the Institute became a free public library "opened to the use of citizens of Wilmington," forfeiting its status as a private subscription library in exchange for an exemption from property taxes⁷ and annual appropriations from the City of five thousand dollars plus additional sums computed according to a formula based on the City's population. A further provision of the 1893 law required that the Mayor and five other City officials were to become ex officio members of the Institute's Board of Managers. However, the final section of this legislation expressly provided:

"That the managers of the said institute shall have power to make by-laws and rules for the government of the library and reading rooms."

Twenty-eight years later⁸ in 1921, pursuant to yet another statute, the Institute agreed to transfer a tract of land having a value in excess of $200,000 located in downtown Wilmington to the City of Wilmington in exchange for $200,000, which it was then to combine with its privately endowed building fund of $300,000 in order to finance the construction of its main library. Under the terms of this statute (32 Del. Laws, Chap. 109), the Institute was authorized to retain possession of the land and main library building so long as a free public library was maintained on the premises.⁹ The library property was finally deeded in fee to the City on March 23, 1923 and the City in return granted a perpetual lease of the building back to the Institute with the right of management being held by the Institute. (Docket Item 31, par. 2). At about the same time the City also by indenture recognized that ownership of all books and documents housed in the library belonged to the Institute. (Docket Item 31, par. 29).

The Institute's involvement in providing free library services to New Castle County residents who...