Wagner ex rel. Wagner-Garay v. Fort Wayne Schools

• Decision Date: 19 March 2003
• Docket Number: No. 1:02-CV-82.,1:02-CV-82.
• Citation: 255 F.Supp.2d 915
• Parties: Megan WAGNER, by her next friend, Debra WAGNERGARAY, Plaintiff, v. FORT WAYNE COMMUNITY SCHOOLS, Kenneth Howe, and Joyce Turner, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Indiana

Page 915

255 F.Supp.2d 915

Megan WAGNER, by her next friend, Debra WAGNERGARAY, Plaintiff, v. FORT WAYNE COMMUNITY SCHOOLS, Kenneth Howe, and Joyce Turner, Defendants.

No. 1:02-CV-82.

United States District Court, N.D. Indiana, Fort Wayne Division.

March 19, 2003.

John F. Lyons, Barrett and McNagny, Fort Wayne, IN, for mediator.

W. Randall Kammeyer, Hawk Haynie Gallmeyer and Chickedantz, Fort Wayne, IN, for plaintiff.

Wendy W. Davis, Matthew J. Elliott, Beckman, Lawson, Sandler, Snyder and Federoff, Fort Wayne, IN, for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION AND ORDER

COSBEY, Magistrate Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

The Plaintiff, Megan Wagner ("Wagner"), by her next friend, Debra Wagner-Garay ("Wagner-Garay"), brings this civil rights action against Fort Wayne Community Schools ("FWCS"), challenging its decision to expel her from Lane Middle School ("Lane") for bringing caffeine pills to school and distributing them to other students. Specifically, Wagner raises 14th Amendment procedural and substantive due process and equal protection claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (" § 1983"), and a state law defamation claim against Lane's principal, Kenneth Howe ("Howe"), and assistant principal, Joyce Turner ("Turner").¹

Presently before the Court² is the Defendants' motion for summary judgment filed on January 9, 2003. Because the Defendants' memorandum in support of that motion relies on the affidavit of Judith Platz ("Platz") ("Platz Aff. at") to introduce various documents related to, and relied on during Wagner's expulsion hearing, Wagner filed a motion to strike the affidavit as unsupported by Platz's personal knowledge and containing inadmissible hearsay.³ The motion for summary judgment and the motion to strike have been fully briefed and are ripe for ruling.⁴

The record consists of the Wagner's Affidavit ("PLA.¶ ____"), the affidavit of Kara Bertram ("Bertram Aff. ¶ ____"), Howe's deposition ("Howe Dep. at ____"); Turner's deposition ("Turner Dep. at ___"), the Expulsion Hearing transcript ("Tr. at ____"), FWCS's Behavior Code ("Behavior Code at ____"), and other documents.

For the following reasons, the motions to strike will be DENIED, and the Defendants' motion for summary judgment will be GRANTED.

II. THE MOTION TO STRIKE

In her motion to strike, Wagner seeks to strike Platz's affidavit and, by extension, all or parts of the Defendants' memorandum in support of their motion for summary judgment. Stripped to its essence, Platz's affidavit introduces into evidence 18 FWCS documents, including student statements relied on during the expulsion hearing, various letters notifying Wagner of the charges against her, the transcript of the expulsion hearing, and Platz's decision recommending expulsion.

First, Wagner claims that Platz's affidavit should be stricken because she did not prepare several of the attached exhibits, and they are otherwise outside the scope of her personal knowledge.

Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e) provides that "affidavits shall be made on personal knowledge, shall set forth such facts as would be admissible in evidence, and shall show affirmatively that the affiant is competent to testify to the matters stated therein." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e). To be based on personal knowledge, Platz's affidavit testimony must be "grounded in [her] observation or other first-hand personal experience." Visser v. Packer Eng'g Assoc., Inc., 924 F.2d 655, 659 (7th Cir.1991); E.E.O.C. v. Admiral Maintenance Service, L.P., 17'4 F.R.D. 643, 647 (N.D.Ill.1997).

Here, Platz's affidavit is clearly "grounded in" her observations and first-hand personal knowledge. Indeed, Platz served as the hearing officer at Wagner's expulsion hearing, and in that capacity meticulously documented, in her written decision, the evidence offered at the hearing. Moreover, Platz is certainly competent to testify about the expulsion hearing transcript given that she conducted the hearing. Thus, because Platz was present at the expulsion hearing and because she documented the evidence offered there, her affidavit is clearly based on first-hand knowledge.⁵

Nevertheless, the apparent gravamen of Wagner's motion to strike lies with the hearsay statements contained in these documents, including the expulsion hearing transcript itself. Indeed, Wagner cites to a few cases that generally stand for the proposition that an affidavit must present admissible evidence, and reasons that "Platz would not be able to testify as to the hearsay portions of the expulsion hearing [and other exhibits] and accordingly should not be able to introduce them into evidence through affidavit^]" (Pl.'s M. to Strike at 2.)

However, this argument evidences a fundamental misunderstanding of the Court's role (and apparently Platz's role, too) as well as the procedural posture of this case. More precisely, Wagner complains that the expulsion hearing violated her due process rights, but wants us to ignore what was said and done there, apparently in favor of a new expulsion hearing governed by the Federal Rules of Evidence, replete with formalistic trappings. But "§ 1983 does not extend the right to relitigate in federal court evidentiary questions arising in school disciplinary proceedings." Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 308, 326, 95 S.Ct. 992, 43 L.Ed.2d 214 (1975); see also Osteen v. Henley, 13 F.3d 221, 225 (7th Cir.1993) (due process does not require the judicializing of school disciplinary proceedings). Moreover, as we shall see infra, due process does not require laymen conducting an expulsion hearing to abide by such evidentiary rules. See Boykins v. Fairfield Bd. of Ed., 492 F.2d 697, 701 (5th Cir. 1974) ("the rights at stake in a school disciplinary hearing may be fairly determined upon the `hearsay' evidence of school administrators charged with the duty of investigating the incidents. We decline to place upon a board of laymen the duty of observing and applying the common-law rules of evidence.").⁶

Accordingly, because Platz's affidavit is based on personal knowledge and because any hearsay statements contained in the expulsion hearing transcript and related documents do not provide a basis for exclusion, the Plaintiffs motion to strike will be denied.

III. PROCEDURAL AND FACTUAL BACKGROUND⁷

In April 2001, Wagner, a seventh grader at Lane, observed her grandfather taking some pills and asked him what they were. (Wagner Aff. U 2, 4; Tr. at 30). He explained that they were caffeine pills which helped keep him awake and alert.⁸ (Wagner Aff. 114; Tr. at 30). Later, Wagner took some of these caffeine pills from her grandfather's home without permission. (Wagner Aff. f 5; Tr. at 2, 4, 10, 14-15).

On April 9, 2001, Wagner brought the pills to school, where she ingested one herself, apparently to help stay awake and focused in class.⁹ (Wagner Aff. 15; Tr. at 2, 4, 10, 14-16). Other students quickly learned about Wagner's pills, and between April 9-10 she distributed them to eight other students who, she claims, came to her and asked for them. (Bertram Aff. K3, 5; Platz Aff., Ex. 9, 11; Tr. at 7.) Nevertheless, at least some of the student statements obtained by FWCS suggest that Wagner approached them about the pills. (See Platz Aff., Ex. 5 ("[Wagner] came to my locker and said she had caffeine pills."); Ex. 6 ("[Wagner] asked me to take this [pill]"); Ex. 7 ("[Wagner] said she had some pills. So I took one.")).

However, things soon soured because early on April 11, a concerned parent approached Turner, and explained that her daughter had experienced symptoms including a rapid heartbeat, shaking, muscle tension, an upset stomach, and nausea after taking one of Wagner's pills. (Tr. at 2, 18; Turner Dep. at 18-19.) After receiving this phone call, Turner immediately began an investigation. (Turner Dep. at 19-20.)

A short time later, Howe received a phone call from another upset parent, whose daughter went to the emergency room after experiencing a rapid heart beat, apparently brought about by one of Wagner's pills. (Tr. at 7, 19, 25.) According to the parent, the doctor stated that if the girl had taken another pill, she might have gone into cardiac arrest. (Tr. at 25.)

In the meantime, Turner searched Wagner's locker, confiscated the caffeine pills, and questioned Wagner, who admitted distributing the pills. (Turner Dep. at 19-20). In a written statement, Wagner specifically identified the students who received pills from her, and noted that she refused to give the pills to at least one student who she felt could stay awake in class. (Platz Aff., Ex. 11.) Wagner also wrote that she gave another student a pill "because last year [that student] had ADD." (Id.) According to Wagner, that student "thought she would get high but she didn't." (Id.) In fact, Wagner indicated that all the students who took the pills "wanted a feeling," but she told them that "they wont [sic] get high like they think they will." (Id.)

As a result of the investigation, FWCS suspended Wagner for five days, and sought to expel her until the end of the fall term of 2001 for violating Rule 31 of the student Behavior Code, which prohibits the improper use of drugs, including overthe-counter medication.¹⁰ (Platz Aff., Ex. 15-18.) After receiving notice of the charges, Wagner appeared at an expulsion hearing before Platz on April 25, 2001, with FWCS represented by Turner, and Wagner represented by counsel. (Tr. at 1.)

Once the hearing proceeded, Turner summarized FWCS's investigation and read into the record the statements of six students who took the caffeine pills. Counsel for Wagner cross-examined Turner, presented evidence on behalf of Wagner, submitted 11 letters from various individuals attesting to Wagner's character, and generally argued Wagner's case. Wagner testified that she took a total of two caffeine pills without ever thinking they were over-the-counter medication, never solicited students about the pills, only gave one pill to each of the various students who took them, and refused to provide...