Case Title: School Board City of Portsmouth v. Colander

Citation: 

Docket Number: 982466

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 1999-09-17T00:00:00Z

Document:
PRESENT: Carrico, C.J., Compton, Hassell, Keenan, Koontz, 
and Kinser, JJ., and Whiting, Senior Justice 
 
THE SCHOOL BOARD OF THE CITY OF PORTSMOUTH 
 
 
 
 
OPINION BY 
v.  Record No. 982466    SENIOR JUSTICE HENRY H. WHITING 
 
 
 
September 17, 1999 
 
LATASHA COLANDER 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF PORTSMOUTH 
Johnny E. Morrison, Judge 
 
 
In this appeal, we consider whether a high school 
student established a cause of action against a school 
board pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which states, in 
relevant part: 
Every 
person 
who, 
under 
color 
of 
any 
statute, 
ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State 
. . . subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen 
of the United States or other person within the 
jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, 
privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution 
and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an 
action at law. 
 
42 U.S.C. § 1983 (emphasis added). 
 
In 1995, the school administration at Wilson High 
School in Portsmouth discovered that, beginning in late 
1991 or early 1992, John Crute, a teacher and women's track 
coach, had been secretly videotaping the plaintiff, Latasha 
Colander, and other members of the women's track team in 
various stages of undress in the women's locker room at the 
high school. 
 
In 1996, after the plaintiff learned of Crute's 
activities, she filed this action asserting a number of 
claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Crute, the school 
board, the superintendent of schools, the principal, and 
the athletic director.  She also filed common law claims 
against Crute, but those claims are not pertinent to our 
resolution of this appeal. 
 
Prior to trial, the three school officials were 
dismissed on summary judgment.1  At trial, Crute admitted 
liability.  In returning verdicts against Crute and the 
school board, the jury awarded damages in the following 
sums: $43,000 in compensatory damages and $500,000 in 
punitive damages against Crute, and $250,000 in 
compensatory damages against the school board. 
Judgment was entered on the verdicts, and the school board 
appeals.  Applying well-settled principles of appellate 
review, we will review the facts in the light most 
favorable to the plaintiff who is fortified with a jury 
verdict approved by the trial court. 
 
In 1988 and 1989, more than two years before the 
secret videotaping that precipitated the present litigation 
                     
1 Apparently, those three officials were not in office at 
the time of the acts giving rise to the alleged § 1983 
iability. 
l
 
 
2
began, Crute videotaped a number of team members in various 
track uniforms with their knowledge and consent.  During 
this period, 14-year-old Lakesha Coletrain, a team member, 
agreed to Crute's request that she remain after track 
practice to be videotaped in her track uniform for a 
portfolio Crute said he was preparing for each girl.  After 
the other members of the team had left the school, 
Coletrain went with Crute to a remote area of the school 
building where Crute videotaped her in eight different 
track uniforms. 
 
Each time Coletrain changed uniforms, she went into a 
classroom and closed the door.  Crute asked Coletrain to 
remove her underpants to change into one uniform that was 
cut high in the pubic area because he said that the uniform 
did not look good with the underpants.  During the 
videotaping session, Crute instructed Coletrain to stretch 
her legs on the floor and over a hurdle.  He told her that 
if the stretching hurt, she could grunt because it would 
not be heard on the videotape since he would talk over it. 
Upon Coletrain's return home, her parents questioned 
her about the videotaping session and learned that 
Coletrain had been alone with Crute during the three to 
four hour period in which he videotaped her.  The next day, 
 
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her father went to the school and demanded that Crute give 
him a copy of the tape, which Crute did the following day. 
Both parents viewed the tape and the father testified 
that the tape "looked like it had just been spliced," and 
was "about a three-minute version" of the taping session.  
He also testified that the tape showed his daughter in 
eight different track uniforms that looked like bathing 
suits, that she had her leg propped up as if she were 
jumping a hurdle, that the camera was "zooming in on her 
crotch, zoomed in on her rear," that he heard Crute's voice 
in the background encouraging her to stretch her legs while 
in a stretching pose, and that Crute was also doing "a lot 
[of] moaning and groaning." 
Upon hearing the Coletrains' complaint about the tape 
and Crute's conduct the next day, the superintendent of 
schools ordered Judith Kirman, the high school principal, 
to conduct an investigation to ascertain whether Crute had 
done anything objectionable or inappropriate.  Crute 
furnished copies of the videotapes to Kirman and the school 
officials who assisted in the investigation.  The 
investigators viewed a copy of each track member's tape 
during their separate interviews with most of the team 
members and their parents or guardians. 
 
4
Although the Coletrains and another parent thought 
that Crute's actions were inappropriate, other parents did 
not.  Kirman and the other school officials concluded that 
Crute had done nothing objectionable or inappropriate.  In 
accordance with the school policy of "progressive 
discipline," no record of the incident was kept in Crute's 
personnel file because it was the first complaint against 
Crute and, upon investigation, it had been found to be 
groundless. 
Nevertheless, upon terminating the investigation, 
Kirman ordered Crute to modify his past practices by (1) 
confining the videotaping of team members to "track meets 
when the girls were running," (2) taking a female chaperone 
to out-of-school-district track meets, and (3) refraining 
from driving team members home in his car after track 
practices.  Although Crute violated the second and third 
orders on one or more occasions, there was no evidence that 
anyone was aware of his violation of the first order until 
the 1995 discovery of the secret videotaping. 
It was then discovered that, beginning in late 1991 or 
early 1992, Crute had concealed one of the school's video 
cameras in a storage room adjoining the women's locker 
room.  He used the camera to secretly videotape track 
members, including the plaintiff, changing their clothes.  
 
5
The plaintiff's motion for judgment claims that Crute's 
actions were in violation of her "constitutional right to 
bodily security and integrity to be free from unjustified 
intrusions on her personal security, and to personal 
privacy."  The plaintiff also alleged that the school board 
had knowledge of Crute's activity and of his "propensity to 
behave inappropriately towards the students under his 
direction and control based on prior complaints," yet "made 
and enforced a policy of allowing defendant Crute to 
continue his inappropriate behaviors by failing to take 
immediate and decisive action to end such conduct." 
The school board has raised a number of questions on 
appeal, but we find dispositive issues concerning the 
school board's alleged violation of its duty to the 
plaintiff under § 1983 and the causal connection of that 
violation to the deprivation of the plaintiff's 
constitutional rights.  The plaintiff claims, however, that 
we cannot reach these issues because the school board 
failed to raise them in the trial court.  We disagree with 
that claim. 
The record shows that in its motion to strike the 
plaintiff's evidence at trial, the school board cited 
Commissioners of Bryan County v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397 
(1997), and argued as follows:  "Congress did not intend to 
 
6
impose liability on a municipality unless deliberate action 
attributable to [the] municipality itself is a moving force 
behind the plaintiff's deprivation of federal 
rights. . . .[I]t must be deliberate indifference on behalf 
of the school officials. . . .[T]he facts. . .cannot rise 
to the level of constituting an official policy of the 
School Board and a causal connection to a federal violation 
of the plaintiff's Constitutional rights. . . .There's been 
no deliberate indifference shown by anyone."  We think 
these statements were sufficient to preserve for appeal the 
issues we find dispositive, and we will proceed to the 
merits of the case. 
The right of action advanced by the plaintiff arises 
under a federal statute.  Therefore, we apply federal 
jurisprudence in determining her rights.  Federal Deposit 
Insurance Corporation v. Mapp's Ex'r, 184 Va. 970, 974, 37 
S.E.2d 23, 24 (1946); Southern Ry. v. Wilmouth, 154 Va. 
582, 589, 153 S.E. 874, 876 (1930).  Although 
"municipalities and other local governmental bodies are 
'persons' within the meaning of § 1983," a § 1983 plaintiff 
must show that the governmental body itself "caused" the 
deprivation of the plaintiff's constitutional rights.  
Bryan County, 520 U.S. at 403. 
 
7
The plaintiff's claim is that the school board's 
facially lawful decision to retain Crute as a teacher after 
the Kirman investigation and not to take special 
precautions to prevent future improper conduct by him 
caused a violation of her constitutional rights.  She 
relies primarily upon the 1988-89 videotaping of team 
members, the school's "progressive discipline" policy, its 
allegedly inadequate investigation of those incidents, and 
its conduct following the investigation. 
The school board responds that, as a matter of law, 
these matters of Crute's conduct prior to the secret 
videotaping were insufficient to establish the necessary 
violation of a duty to the plaintiff and a causal 
connection between the board's conduct and the subsequent 
deprivation of the plaintiff's federal rights.  We agree 
with the school board. 
In Bryan County, a sheriff's facially lawful decision 
to hire a deputy sheriff without proper investigation of 
his background was claimed to have caused a violation of 
the plaintiff's § 1983 rights when the deputy sheriff 
assaulted her upon her arrest.2  520 U.S. at 399-400.  In 
                     
2 Bryan County stipulated that the sheriff was the final 
"decisionmaker" for the county in the hiring matter.  As 
such, the Court held that his actions fairly could have 
 
8
reversing the lower courts' affirmation of a jury's verdict 
against the county for such alleged violations, the Court 
noted that § 1983 does not impose liability on a county 
under traditional employer-employee relationships with an 
employee tortfeasor.  Instead, 
[a] plaintiff must also demonstrate that, through 
its deliberate conduct, the municipality was the 
"moving force" behind the injury alleged.  That is, a 
plaintiff must show that the municipal action was 
taken with the requisite degree of culpability and 
must demonstrate a direct causal link between the 
municipal action and the deprivation of federal 
rights. 
 
520 U.S. at 404 (second emphasis added). 
Thus, although a governmental body may have been 
negligent in regard to the plaintiff's federal rights, in 
order to show that it "caused" the violation of those 
rights, "[a] plaintiff must demonstrate that [the 
governmental] decision reflects deliberate indifference to 
the risk that a violation of a particular constitutional or 
statutory right will follow the decision."  520 U.S. at 
411.  And, the required "'deliberate indifference' is a 
stringent standard of fault, requiring proof that a 
municipal actor disregarded a known or obvious consequence 
of his action."  520 U.S. at 410. 
                                                             
been treated as actions of the county.  Bryan County, 520 
U.S. at 403-04. 
 
9
Reasonable persons might conclude that Crute should 
have been discharged or more carefully monitored after the 
Kirman investigation.  However, in our opinion, the 
evidence is insufficient to support a conclusion by 
reasonable persons that the above-described school board 
actions reflected the required deliberate indifference to 
the risk that he would violate the plaintiff's § 1983 
rights in the manner alleged.  Therefore, we hold, as a 
matter of law, that the school board did not cause the 
violation of the plaintiff's § 1983 rights. 
Accordingly, we will reverse the judgment of the trial 
court against the school board and enter final judgment 
here for the school board. 
Reversed and final judgment. 
 
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