Kelley v. Shelby Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 2:14-cv-2632-SHL-cgc

198 F.Supp.3d 842

Marcia KELLEY, Ida Steinberg, Laverne Jackson, Paul Banks and the Memphis-Shelby County Education Association, Plaintiffs,

v.SHELBY COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION and Superintendent Dorsey E. Hopson, II, Defendants.

Dale Thompson, Plaintiff,

v.Shelby County Board of Education and Superintendent Dorsey E. Hopson, II, Defendants.

No. 2:14-cv-2632-SHL-cgc

No. 2:14-cv-2633-SHL-cgc

United States District Court, W.D. Tennessee, Western Division.

Signed August 3, 2016

Richard L. Colbert, Courtney Lynch Wilbert, William Walter Franklin Wilbert, Kay, Griffin, Enkema & Colbert, PLLC, Nashville, TN, for Plaintiffs.

Ashley Satterfield Patterson, Mary Wu, Lori Hackleman Patterson, Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz, Memphis, TN, for Defendants.

ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT AND DENYING DEFENDANTS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

SHERYL H. LIPMAN, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

This case concerns an employment dispute motivated by competing interpretations of Tennessee's Tenure Act, before this Court on removal by Defendants. (ECF No. 1.) The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment on August 31, 2015. (ECF No. 33.) By agreement of the parties, Plaintiff Thompson's case was consolidated with this action on November 25, 2015. (Thompson v. Shelby Cnty Bd of Ed., 2:14-cv-2633-SHL-cgc, ECF No. 42.)

The parties do not dispute the material facts—this matter is purely a legal dispute.

Plaintiffs argue that Defendants violated Tenn. Code Ann. § 49–5–511 and deprived them of their constitutional rights to due process when Plaintiffs were laid off from their teaching positions with Shelby County Schools in the summer of 2014. Plaintiffs seek compensatory damages, back pay, reinstatement and declaratory relief. In contrast, Defendants assert that they strictly complied with Tennessee law, the United States Constitution and the Family and Medical Leave Act ("FMLA") when laying off Plaintiffs. The issues here revolve around competing interpretations of both Tennessee's teacher tenure laws and federal law protecting tenured government employees.

On December 2, 2015, the Court granted the parties' request to proceed on a case stated basis. (ECF No. 46.) At the parties' request, on December 21, 2015, the Court heard oral argument on the cross-motions for summary judgment in lieu of a trial. As more fully outlined below, the Court concludes that the process Defendants implemented to effect layoffs in the summer of 2014 violated Tenn. Code Ann. § 49–5–511(b) because the Shelby County Board of Education improperly delegated its power to the Shelby County Schools' administration. However, the Court also holds that Defendants' layoff process did not violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Finally, Defendants did not violate the Family and Medical Leave Act ("FMLA") with respect to Plaintiff Thompson's termination.

FINDINGS OF FACT¹

The events in this case took place in the aftermath of the merger between Memphis City Schools and Shelby County Schools in 2013, resulting in a new school district called Shelby County Schools ("SCS"), governed by the Shelby County Board of Education ("Board of Education"). After the merger, a number of municipalities located within the district formed their own school districts. The new school districts drew away a significant number of students from the newly-formed SCS. As a result of the projected decline in student enrollment after the 2013-2014 school year, SCS had to reduce the number of teachers on its payroll for the 2014-2015 school year. (ECF No. 33-2 at ¶ 3.) Although 1,908 teachers also moved to the new municipal school districts, and 342 teachers resigned or retired at the end of the 2013-2014 school year, the projected enrollment shortfall required further system-wide reductions of teaching positions before the 2014-2015 school year. (See id. at ¶ 6.)

To effectuate these reductions, SCS implemented the "excessing" process that is at issue in this case. First, the Board of Education approved a resolution authorizing an overall reduction in teaching positions within SCS. (ECF No. 40-1 at 17.) After approving the general reduction in force, without any specific numbers or positions to be eliminated, the Board of Education delegated the task of deciding which specific teaching positions to eliminate to the Superintendent and school principals. (Id.) Pursuant to the resolution to reduce the size of the teaching force, the SCS Budget Office received projected system-wide enrollment numbers,² calculated the number of teaching positions allowed at each school, and then relayed this information to the principals of each school. (Id. at ¶ 9.) Each school's principal then recommended which teaching positions should be eliminated. (Id. at ¶ 11.) In making these recommendations, the principals were not required to prefer tenured teachers over non-tenured teachers solely by virtue of their tenured status. Instead, a teacher's effectiveness, as measured by state evaluation standards, as well as his or her qualifications were the main determinants in whether a teacher was retained. (ECF No. 29 at ¶ 14; ECF No. 40-1 at ¶14.) The principals' decisions were then submitted to the SCS Human Resources Department for review and approval under the supervision of Superintendent, Dorsey Hopson, II. (ECF No. 33-2 at ¶ 12.)

After the excessing decisions were approved by Human Resources, the school principals informed the affected teachers that their positions would be abolished. (ECF No. 33-2 at ¶14; see ECF No. 29 at ¶ 6.) If the excessed teachers desired to continue working within the SCS system, they had to apply for positions at schools with vacancies. (See ECF No. 33-2 at ¶ 15.) If an excessed teacher did not successfully obtain a vacant position by June 15, then that teacher was notified via letter that he or she would be officially laid off on June 30. (Id. at ¶ 17.) The letter was signed by Superintendent Hopson. The letter also stated that the dismissed teacher would be placed on what is known as the "list for reemployment,"³ pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. 49–5–511(b)(3). (Id. at ¶ 17.) While principals were required to interview qualified teachers from the reemployment list for vacancies, they were not required to afford preferential treatment to the teachers on the list, and principals could also consider other applicants alongside those teachers on the reemployment list. (ECF No. 33-2 at ¶ 21; ECF No. 29 at ¶¶ 18–19.)

All individual Plaintiffs were laid off in the summer of 2014 according to the above-described process. (ECF No. 29 at ¶¶ 6–7.) Plaintiff Thompson was on approved FMLA leave when all positions at her school, Northside High School, were abolished, requiring all faculty there to reapply for jobs. Plaintiffs Kelley and Steinberg found employment within SCS for the 2014-2015 school year.⁴ (ECF No. 33-2 at ¶¶ 38, 40.) Plaintiff Banks eventually found employment within SCS, but not until after the 2014-2015 school year. (Id. at ¶ 41.) Plaintiff Jackson, a cosmetology teacher, has not found employment since being laid off in the summer of 2014. Plaintiff Thompson could not find a new teaching position after being laid off and elected to retire.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

Because of the lack of any factual disputes, the Court allowed the parties to proceed on a "case stated" basis in lieu of traditional summary judgment. "In a case stated, the parties waive trial and present the case to the court on the undisputed facts in the pre-trial record." Hartford Cas. Ins. Co. v. Ewan, 890 F.Supp.2d 886, 890 (W.D.Tenn.2012) (internal quotations omitted). When reviewing the undisputed facts, the Court need only make reasonable inferences therefrom, and then issue findings of fact and conclusions of law in accordance with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a). Id.

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

Plaintiffs argue that the process by which they were laid off violated both federal and state law, and seek declaratory relief as well as statutorily-mandated back pay for themselves and similarly situated teachers. First, Plaintiffs facially challenge the excessing process as a violation of Tennessee's Tenure Act. They assert that, according to the statute, decisions to dismiss tenured teachers from their positions can only be made by a school district's board of education, not the superintendent, school principals, or human resources department. Plaintiffs also assert that Defendants' layoff process did not comport with the most recent prior version of Tenn. Code Ann. § 49–5–511(b), which gave preferential treatment to tenured teachers in the rehiring process. Plaintiffs argue that version of the statute applied to Defendants' conduct at issue here. Finally, Plaintiffs aver that, because a tenured position is a constitutionally-protected property right, SCS violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by failing to provide them with adequate procedural protections when abolishing their teaching positions. Plaintiff Thompson separately alleges that Defendants' layoff process amounted to an interference with her right to return to work after her FMLA leave.

Defendants argue, as a threshold issue, that Plaintiffs Thompson, Kelley, Steinberg, Banks and the Memphis-Shelby County Education Association do not have standing to seek declaratory relief. Defendants also contend that they operated based on a legal delegation of authority from the Board of Education to the Superintendent under Tennessee's Tenure Act to remove and replace tenured teachers. Finally, they argue that they complied with the current version of Tenn. Code Ann. § 49–5–511(b), which they contend is the applicable law, and which does not provide preferential treatment to laid-off tenured teachers. Therefore, according to Defendants, because its layoff process complied with the applicable law, it did not violate the Constitution or the FMLA.

I. Standing of Plaintiffs Thompson, Kelley,...