West v. Dooly Cnty. Sch. Dist.

• Decision Date: 22 June 2012
• Docket Number: No. A12A0097.,A12A0097.
• Citation: 316 Ga.App. 330,729 S.E.2d 469,12 FCDR 2080,282 Ed. Law Rep. 679
• Parties: WEST v. DOOLY COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT et al.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

316 Ga.App. 330

729 S.E.2d 469

282 Ed. Law Rep. 679

12 FCDR 2080

WEST

v.DOOLY COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT et al.

No. A12A0097.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

June 22, 2012.

Lakesha Toinette Sawyer, John Taylor Croley Jr., Fitzgerald, for Appellant.

W. Warren Plowden Jr., Callie D. Bryan, Macon, John W. Sherrer Jr., Vienna, for Appellee.

McFADDEN, Judge.

Bobby West filed this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, seeking damages for the defendants' failure to comply with the Georgia Fair Dismissal Act, OCGA § 20–2–940 et seq., when they did not renew his employment contract. He argues that he was a tenured employee of the Dooly County School District and therefore was entitled to due process and the protections of the Fair Dismissal Act before the superintendent decided not to renew his contract. We find that West had not obtained tenure before the legislature abolished it for administrators such as West. We therefore affirm the trial court's grant of summary judgment to the defendants.

West worked for the Twiggs County School District from 1989 until 1994, first as a teacher for six months and then as an assistant principal. In 1994, he began working as a principal in the Dooly County School District for the 1994–1995 school year. West eventually became the assistant superintendent for facilities, transportation and student services, and management. In April 2007, the then-superintendent, John Bembry, informed West that his contract as assistant superintendent would not be renewed. West filed this action against Bembry, the school district, the members of the board of education and others. He now appeals the trial court's grant of summary judgment to the defendants.

We conduct a de novo review of the trial court's ruling on summary judgment, viewing the evidence and all reasonable inferences and conclusions drawn from it in a light favorable to the nonmoving party. Summary judgment is appropriate when no genuine issue of material fact exists and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. A defendant is entitled to summary judgment if it can demonstrate that there is no evidence to create a jury issue on at least one essential element of the plaintiff's case. A defendant need not affirmatively disprove the plaintiff's case, but may prevail simply by pointing to the lack of evidence. If the defendant does so, the plaintiff cannot rest on his pleadings, but must point to specific evidence that gives rise to a triable issue of fact.

(Citations and punctuation omitted.) Latimore v. City of Atlanta, 289 Ga.App. 85, 656 S.E.2d 222 (2008).

1. West's due process claims fail unless he has a protected property interest in his employment. See Thomas v. Lee, 286 Ga. 860, 861, 691 S.E.2d 845 (2010); Dixon v. MARTA, 242 Ga.App. 262, 264(1), 529 S.E.2d 398 (2000). “A party is not entitled to procedural due process where the interest which would be impaired by governmental action does not involve that party's protectible interest in life, liberty, or property.” Atkinson v. Roswell, 203 Ga.App. 192, 196(4), 416 S.E.2d 550 (1992). “ State law determines whether a public employee has a property interest in his or her job,” (citation omitted) Thomas, 286 Ga. at 861, 691 S.E.2d 845, and defines the dimensions of such interest. Dixon, 242 Ga.App. at 264(1), 529 S.E.2d 398. Consequently, we must look to Georgia law to determine whether West had a property interest in his job.

The state law applicable to West's claims is the Fair Dismissal Act, OCGA §§ 20–2–940 through 20–2–947. Under the Act,

certain professional employees of a school district are afforded special procedural rights, commonly referred to as “tenure rights,” when the school district decides not to renew their annual employment contract for a subsequent school year. These procedural rights include the right, upon timely written request by the school employee, to receive written notice of the reasons for the nonrenewal, and the right to a hearing before the local board of education to contest those reasons. OCGA §§ 20–2–940(b), (e); 20–2–942(b)(2). The written notice received by the school employeealso must contain specific information informing the employee of his or her procedural rights. OCGA § 20–2–942(b)(2).

(Citation omitted.) Patrick v. Huff, 296 Ga.App. 343, 345(1), 674 S.E.2d 398 (2009).

The case involves the application of the 1995 amendments to the Act.

Prior to April 7, 1995, a “teacher” was defined broadly under the [Fair Dismissal Act] to include school administrators like high school principals. See OCGA § 20–2–942(a)(4) (1994). Significantly, however, the General Assembly amended the [Fair Dismissal Act] as of that date to exclude school administrators from the definition of “teacher.” See Ga. L. 1995, p. 304, §§ 1–2. Hence, the general rule under the current version of the [Fair Dismissal Act] is that school employees who became school administrators on or after April 7, 1995 are not entitled to the procedural rights afforded teachers with respect to the nonrenewal of their employment contracts. See OCGA § 20–2–942(c)(1).

Patrick, 296 Ga.App. at 345–346(1), 674 S.E.2d 398. However, “ the General Assembly sought to preserve the expectations of school employees who had obtained procedural rights under the [Act] before the statutory scheme excluded school administrators. Accordingly, the General Assembly included a ‘grandfather’ clause in the [Act].” Patrick, 296 Ga.App. at 346(1), 674 S.E.2d 398. With some conditions, administrators who had obtained such Fair Dismissal Act procedural rights before April 7, 1995, would retain them. See Ga. L. 1995, p. 304–305, § 3. OCGA § 20–2–942(c)(1) provides:

A person who first becomes a school administrator on or after April 7, 1995, shall not acquire any rights under this Code section to continued employment with respect to any position of school administrator. A school administrator who had acquired any rights to continued employment under this Code section prior to April 7, 1995, shall retain such rights: (A) In that administrative position which such administrator held immediately prior to such date; and (B) In any other administrative position to which such administrator has been involuntarily transferred or assigned, and only in such positions shall such administrator be deemed to be a teacher for the purpose of retaining those rights to continued employment in such administrative positions.

The key, then, to determining whether West had a property interest in his employment is to determine whether West obtained “any rights to continued employment ... prior to April 7, 1995.”

(a) West did not obtain tenure rights before April 7, 1995. Although he may have acquired tenure rights when he worked as an administrator in Twiggs County by virtue of the length of his employment there, he left that county to begin working in Dooly County, another school system. OCGA § 20–2–942(b)(4) provides that a teacher (or pre-April 7, 1995 administrator) who had obtained rights under the Act by working for a particular school system, who was subsequently employed by another school system, and “who accept[ed] a second consecutive school year contract from the local board at which the teacher [was] subsequently employed” is entitled to retain those rights. See also Dorsey v. Atlanta Bd. of Ed., 255 Ga.App. 104, 105(1), 564 S.E.2d 509 (2002). Consequently, the exact date that West accepted his second contract of employment as an administrator with the Dooly County School District, the contract for the 1995–1996 school year, is important. West, an administrator, was considered a teacher under the Act until April 7, 1995, and obtained rights under the Act by working for the Twiggs County school system. He was subsequently employed by the Dooly County school system and had accepted his second-year contract in the spring of 1995. If he had accepted that contract before April 7, 1995, he would have been entitled to retain those rights, with some conditions. OCGA § 20–2–942(c)(1).

West testified that he was not sure of the date he accepted the second contract with Dooly County. He does not have a copy of the contract. The school district does not have a copy of the contract, either, because it shredded the 1979 through 1998 personnel records in its possession. However, Bembry testified that West did not accept the contract prior to April 7, 1995. He testified that the board recognized that West had not signed the contract in time because it attempted to grant him tenure at the board meeting in 1996, albeit unsuccessfully as discussed in Division 6 below.

The defendants presented contracts of three other administrators from the 1995–1996 school year, copies of which they obtained from the school district's attorney or the administrators themselves, and all showed that these administrators were offered their contracts on April 28, 1995. The defendants also presented the affidavit of the school district's business manager from the period, who testified that in the normal course of her business, she would print and offer the employment contracts to all administrators on the same date. She testified that, based on the date of the three other administrators' contracts, she could “state with reasonable certainty” that West was not offered his contract before April 7, 1995. Although West presented evidence that in past years contracts had been issued before April 7, he did not rebut the testimony that contracts were issued to all administrators on the same day each year.

Because West came forward with no specific evidence showing that he accepted his second-year contract prior to April 7, 1995, he has not shown that he obtained tenure rights and he does not fall within the grandfather clause. The trial court properly granted the defendants summary judgment on this ground. Latimore, 289 Ga.App. at 85, 656 S.E.2d 222.

(b) Nor did West have a protected expectation interest in prospective tenure. In Board of Regents of State Colleges...