Hamilton v. Montgomery County Bd. of Educ.

122 F.Supp.2d 1273

Wilbert HAMILTON, Plaintiff, v. MONTGOMERY COUNTY BD. OF EDUC., et al., Defendants.

No. Civ.A. 99-D-507-N.

United States District Court, M.D. Alabama, Northern Division.

October 19, 2000.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Artur Davis, Valerie Hicks Powe, Birmingham, Ala., for plaintiff.

"Spud" Seale, Martha Ann Miller, Hill, Hill, Carter, Franco, Cole & Black, Montgomery, Ala., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

DE MENT, District Judge.

Before the court is Defendants' Motion For Summary Judgment ("Motion"), which was filed August 17, 2000. Plaintiff filed a Response on September 6, 2000, and Defendants filed a Reply on September 12, 2000. After careful consideration of the arguments of counsel, the relevant law, and the record as a whole, the court finds that Defendants' Motion is due to be granted in part and denied in part.

I. JURISDICTION AND VENUE

The court exercises subject matter jurisdiction over this action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question jurisdiction) and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871). Neither party contests personal jurisdiction or venue.

II. SUMMARY JUDGMENT STANDARD

A court considering a motion for summary judgment must construe the evidence and make factual inferences in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986); Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 157, 90 S.Ct. 1598, 26 L.Ed.2d 142 (1970). Summary judgment is entered only if it is shown "that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." FED.R.CIV.P. 56(c).

At this juncture, the court does not "weigh the evidence and determine the truth of the matter," but solely "determine[s] whether there is a genuine issue for trial." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249-50, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986) (citations omitted). This determination involves applying substantive law to the substantive facts that have been developed. A dispute about a material fact is genuine if a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party, based on the applicable law in relation to the evidence developed. See id. at 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505; Barfield v. Brierton, 883 F.2d 923, 933 (11th Cir.1989).

The moving party bears the initial burden of establishing the absence of a genuine issue of material fact. See Celotex, 477 U.S. at 323, 106 S.Ct. 2548. The burden then shifts to the non-moving party, which "must do more than simply show that there is some metaphysical doubt as to the material facts." Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 586, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986). An action will be dismissed when the record taken as a whole could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for the non-moving party. See id. at 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348.

III. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

This case involves two main issues. The first is whether racial discrimination or retaliation played a role in the non-selection of Plaintiff Wilbert Hamilton, a black male, for the position of head basketball coach at Jefferson Davis High School in June 1998. The second is whether Hamilton's filing of this present lawsuit has prevented him from obtaining myriad other coaching positions within the Montgomery County Public Schools since May 1999.

Wilbert Hamilton has more than twenty years of experience as an educator and coach. He was the varsity boys basketball coach at Jefferson Davis High School for fourteen years, winning more than 300 games and the only state championship in the school's history. But all the glitters is not gold. During the 1996-97 season, allegations arose that are not often heard at the high school level: namely, that Hamilton had violated state athletic rules by recruiting to Montgomery several players from the continent of Europe. Then-School Superintendent John A. Eberhart directed Jefferson Davis Principal Elizabeth Armistead to investigate these allegations.¹ In January 1997, following the investigation, Hamilton was placed on administrative leave. One of his assistant coaches, Lovell "Skipper" Jenkins, finished up the season. (Armistead's Dep. at 54; Eberhart's Dep. at 13; Hamilton Aff.)

In May 1997, Superintendent Eberhart recommended the non-renewal of Hamilton's contract, and the Board approved the recommendation by a split vote. Hamilton subsequently filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"), as well as a lawsuit in October 1997. He remained with the district as a classroom teacher. (Hamilton Aff.)

That summer, school administrators gathered names of aspiring candidates to be Jefferson Davis's head varsity basketball coach for the 1997-98 season. The administration forwarded those names to Armistead. Eberhart directed her to chair an interview committee and recommend a new basketball coach, whose name would then be submitted to the Board of Education for its approval. Hamilton did not apply.

The committee looked seriously at the names of several applicants, including Terry Posey.² The committee eventually rejected all of the applicants. Posey, unofficially was their third choice. (Armistead's Dep. at 60-64.) Disappointed with the applicant pool, the committee decided to keep Jenkins at the helm for another season. (Id. at 64-65; Mot. at 11.) At some point during the 1997-98 school year, Hamilton says, the athletic director at Jefferson Davis told him that he could maintain an active advisory role with the program, so long as he did not attend practices or sit on the bench during games. (Hamilton Aff.) Armistead, however, says that she instructed Hamilton and Jenkins that Hamilton's involvement with the program was limited strictly to answering specific questions posed to him by Jenkins. Other than that, he was "to have nothing to do with the program." (Armistead's Dep. at 92.) In the meantime, Hamilton dropped his original lawsuit. (Hamilton Aff.)

The position of head coach was posted again in May 1998, and Eberhart directed Hamilton to head up another interview committee. Hamilton applied, and the committee recommended his appointment. Eberhart placed Hamilton's name among the list of personnel candidates he recommended for approval by the Board of Education. The Board received the list prior to its scheduled monthly meeting, which was to be held June 11, 1998. (Eberhart Aff.)

A day or two before the meeting, Board member H.W. "Buddy" Brendle contacted Eberhart and voiced his objections to the recommendation. Brendle has a controversial history as a board member, and the record reflects tendencies of racism. (Lewis Aff; Wilson Aff; Brendle's Dep. at 5-73.) At the meeting on June 11, Eberhart asked the Board to withhold action on the Hamilton recommendation. The Board complied. (Eberhart's Dep. at 57.) Eberhart's deposition best reflects what led to his decision:

Q: Do you recall why no action was taken on Coach Hamilton?

A: Yeah. I think I asked the board to withhold action on that particular item.

Q: And why did you do that?

A: On a day right before the board meeting — and I can't tell you the exact day and time, but it was somewhere — the time was somewhere in the early afternoon. I received about two telephone calls in succession, just about. One call was from Mr. Brendle. And Mr. Brendle called and said, I see that you've recommended Coach Hamilton for the position and that y'all haven't interviewed everybody and you haven't given everybody a fair chance; you're just going ahead and putting Hamilton in that job like I thought you would....

And I said, well, we followed the regular process. And he says, well, no, you haven't. And he said, I'm going to have somebody to [sic] call you because you haven't followed this process. And I said, fine, I'll be glad, you know, to talk to them. I said, we want to treat everybody fairly; we want to do the process right.

So that was the end of our conversation. And soon thereafter I did get a call from a person who sounded by his voice to be a little bit older than normal people who called in. And I do not recall that person's name, but my recollection is he introduced himself by name and he said that he had been the coach and physical ed director at Huntingdon College for a number of years and that one of his former players or students or some sort was very much interested in the job and that we wouldn't even interview him and that that person had used to work in the school system and that that was wrong and that we shouldn't do that. You know, he was kind of castigating me about that.

. . . . .

Q: And the second call you received, did that person reference Terry Posey by name? Did that person identify Terry Posey as the candidate for —

A: Yeah. I think he gave — and for me, that was the first time that I'd heard of that name or the first time it had sunk in, you know, that — you know somebody may have showed me a list with ten names on it or something, but, you know, they were just —

Q: Was that the first conversation you recall having about Terry Posey?

A: Yeah, that there was somebody. Right. That was the beginning of my conversation. So I got a hold of Ms. Buskey [a school district administrator]. Find out, you know, Ms. Buskey, who applied, who came for the interviews. And she went over the list with me, and she had Terry Posey's name on the list. And I said, well, this person applied? Yes, he applied. Well, was he interviewed? And she said, no, that he wasn't. And I asked, why not? And the answer was that he was not able to come to the interview and that we did not kind of hear back from him or something.

And so I delved into that a little bit more: Why not? What was the problem? And as I understand the problem, was that he was down on the Gulf Coast, I think Pensacola, Florida. And in the summertime he was a part of a fishing boat job and that he went out on the fishing boats with whoever ...