Bounds v. Country Club Hills Sch. Dist. 160

DR. QUINTELLA BOUNDS, Plaintiff, v. COUNTRY CLUB HILLS SCHOOL DISTRICT 160, DR. TAMARA YOUNG, in her individual capacity, JACQUELINE DOSS, in her individual capacity, BARBARA SWAIN, in her individual capacity, MICHAEL T. HUMPHREY, in his individual capacity, MARGO E. BROWN, in her individual capacity, DORIS J. BLACKWELL, in her individual capacity, SHARON MACK, in her individual capacity, and DR. EARLINE SCOTT, in her individual capacity, Defendants.

No. 20 C 3283

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, Eastern Division

May 11, 2022

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

HON RONALD A. GUZMÁN, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Plaintiff Dr. Quintella Bounds, the former Director of Student Services for Country Club Hills School District 160 (“District”), brought this lawsuit asserting both a federal due process claim alleging a violation of her property interest in her ongoing employment in her position for the 2020-2021 school year and a state-law claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress related to her suspected Covid-19 illness while employed with the District. Defendants, the District and the individual board members serving during the events at issue, now move for summary judgment. For the reasons explained below, the Court grants the motion for summary judgment as to the federal claim and declines to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state-law claim.

UNDISPUTED MATERIAL FACTS

Because it affects the factual landscape, the Court begins with Defendants' motion to strike portions of both Plaintiff's responses to their statements of fact and the affidavits she includes in support of her opposition to their motion. (Defs.' Mot. Strike, ECF No. 110). Defendants' motion to strike is denied because such motions are disfavored, and Defendants were free to raise objections within their reply brief. LR 56.1(e)(2).

That said, the Court will not allow Plaintiff's conduct to go unremarked. The Court's standard practice for motions for summary judgment is to require adherence to the pertinent Local Rules and to disregard statements of fact or any portions thereof that do not comply. See LR 56.1(d)(2). Plaintiff's factual statements and responses are deficient in several respects. First, in her responses to Defendants' statements of fact, she included arguments and additional facts not directly responsive to Defendants' factual statements and not set forth within her factual statement. (Pl.'s Am. Resp. Defs.' Rule 56.1 Stmt., ECF No. 103, at 3-14, ¶¶ 7, 8, 9, 17 19, 21, 35, 38, 40, 44, 51.) Such responses are improper see LR 56.1(d)(4), (e)(2), because Defendant lacks a “mechanism to ‘reply' to the Plaintiff's responses and thereby dispute the contentions raised in the Plaintiff's responses.” Anderson v. Iacullo, 963 F.Supp.2d 818, 822 (N.D. Ill. 2013) (cleaned up). Second, Plaintiff's statement of additional facts variously includes arguments, lacks evidentiary support, overstates the cited evidence, and fails to narrow the citations sufficiently. (See, e.g., Pl.'s Stmt. Add'l Facts, ECF No. 103, ¶¶ 2, 3, 6, 11.) Third, Plaintiff's opposing brief references facts not contained within her statement of facts. (See, e.g., Pl.'s Mem. Law Opp'n Defs.' Mot. Summ. J., ECF No. 100, at 5.) The Court's review of the motion was hampered by Plaintiff's inattention to the Local Rules and the details of her submissions, as set forth above and in additional notes below. In its discretion, the Court will consider the supported facts that are material to the due process analysis. Read as generously to Plaintiff as the supported record permits, the facts, undisputed unless noted, are as follows.

Plaintiff was hired as Director of Student Services for the District for the 2019-2020 school year. (Pl.'s Am. Resp. Defs.' Rule 56.1 Stmt., ECF No. 103, ¶¶ 1-2.) The parties do not identify the exact timeline in their factual statements, but the Court infers that the Board voted to hire Plaintiff in mid-April 2019, and Plaintiff and the Board (through its then-Superintendent Dr. Goodsell) later that month executed a written employment agreement, apparently backdated April 16, 2019, which “memorialized the terms of [Plaintiff's] employment.” (Id. ¶ 9; see also Pl.'s Dep., ECF No. 92-1, at 10:16-19, 99:12-102:8.) Plaintiff indicates that there was some delay in the signing of the agreement because the original draft was missing a term, added after she brought the omission to the attention of “her supervisor”; in the meantime, she performed some unpaid duties for her new role, including reviewing staffing and providing opinions related to her department. (Pl.'s Am. Resp. Defs.' Rule 56.1 Stmt., ECF No. 103, ¶ 17; ECF No. 92-1, at 10:24-11:5, 12:1-7.) The final 2019-2020 employment agreement specified that Plaintiff was “hired and retained beginning July 1, 2019, for a period not to exceed June 30, 2020.”^[1] (Pl.'s Am. Resp. Defs.' 56.1 Stmt., ECF No. 103, ¶ 9.) It further stated that, unless “otherwise [] provided, no subsequent alteration, amendment, change, or addition to this Agreement shall be binding upon the parties unless reduced to writing and duly authorized and signed by each of them.” (Id. ¶ 9.) The Board expressly “retain[ed] the right to repeal, change or modify any policies or regulations which it has adopted or may hereafter adopt, subject however, to restrictions contained in the Illinois School Code and other applicable law.” (2019-2020 Emp. Agreement, ECF No. 92-4, at 5.)

As the 2019-2020 school year neared its close, Dr. Earline Scott, then the District Superintendent, met with Plaintiff in February 2020 to review her performance and informed Plaintiff that, though no salary increases were anticipated, Dr. Scott would recommend that Plaintiff be rehired on the same terms as her 2019-2020 employment. (Pl.'s Stmt. Add'l Facts, ECF No. 103, ¶ 12; Pl.'s Sur-Reply, ECF. No. 116, at 3-4.) Board meeting minutes from March 24, 2020 reflect that the Board “approved the Employment Agreements” for several school administrators, including Plaintiff, “for the period of July 1^st, 2020, through June 30^th, 2021.” (Pl.'s Am. Resp. Defs.' Rule 56.1 Stmt., ECF No. 103, ¶ 34.) Dr. Scott emailed the pertinent administrators and indicated that each would need to sign and return a forthcoming employment agreement by March 31, 2020. (Id. ¶ 11.) Dr. Scott sent an employment agreement for the 2020-2021 school year to Plaintiff on March 25, 2020, with a reminder to sign and return it by March 31, 2020. (Id. ¶ 12.) Within minutes, Plaintiff emailed Dr. Scott regarding whether the vacation-day provision was correct, as it contained fewer days than the 2019-2020 agreement. (Id. ¶ 15.) Dr. Scott called Plaintiff to explain that she had recommended an unchanged number of vacation days to the Board; she surmised that the Board must have changed that term in Plaintiff's agreement and suggested that Plaintiff address that change with the Board. (Id.)

On March 25, 2020, Plaintiff became ill with suspected Covid-19 (a confirming diagnostic test was unavailable to her then). (Id. ¶¶ 22, 23.) She visited the emergency room late that night and was advised to quarantine for fourteen days; on her return to the emergency room on March 27, 2020, she was diagnosed with tonsillitis. (Id. ¶¶ 22, 23.) Plaintiff did not sign the proffered 2020-2021 agreement by March 31, 2020. (Id. ¶¶ 18, 31.) On April 1, 2020, Dr. Scott telephoned Plaintiff, who was still ill and quarantining at home, to follow up, and Plaintiff responded that she wanted her attorney to examine the contract. (Id. ¶ 47.) On April 2, 2020, Dr. Scott called again to inform Plaintiff that the Board had requested that Plaintiff's position be posted because she had not returned a signed employment agreement, and Plaintiff asked Dr. Scott to stop calling her at home.^[2] (Id. ¶ 29; Pl.'s Stmt. Add'l Facts, ECF No. 103, ¶ 26.) The Board also posted the position of another administrator who had not returned a signed contract by March 31, 2020. (Pl.'s Am. Resp. Defs.' Rule 56.1 Stmt., ECF No. 103, ¶¶ 49-50.) The Board mailed Plaintiff a letter indicating that it had posted her position because she had not returned the signed agreement by March 31, 2020. (Id. ¶¶ 29-30.)^[3]

In April 2020, Plaintiff spoke with Dr. Adrienne Merritte, a Vice Principal at Southwood Elementary School in the District. (Pl.'s Aff., ECF No. 103-4, ¶ 5.) Dr. Merritte told Plaintiff that Dr. Merritt had worked the 2019-2020 school year without a contract and shared an anecdote related to her employment agreement for the 2020-2021 school year. (Pl.'s Stmt. Add'l Facts, ECF No. 103, ¶ 7 (citing ECF No. 103-4).) Two other individuals, Dr. Donna Henry and JoShandra Perry, began their employment with the District in a manner similar to Plaintiff-the Board voted to hire them, and they executed written employment agreements in the following weeks.^[4] (Pl.'s Stmt. Add'l Facts, ECF No. 103, ¶¶ 6, 8.)

On May 26, 2020, Plaintiff filed this lawsuit. She has not been employed with the District since June 30, 2020. She insists that the Defendants deprived her of a property interest in employment for the 2020-2021 school year, violating her due process rights, and that Defendants intentionally inflicted emotional distress related to her presumed Covid-19 illness in March 2020. Defendants have moved for summary judgment on both claims, and the motion is fully briefed.

DISCUSSION

“The court shall grant summary judgment if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a). “A factual dispute is genuine if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party.” Davis v Kayira, 938 F.3d 910, 914 (7th Cir. 2019). The movant...