Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-89-03074/USCOURTS-ca10-89-03074-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

IL ti ~ 

llfliwd Statti Coorr of Ap,nJs 

Tenth Circuit 

SANDRA K. STANEART, ) 

) 

Plaintiff-Appellant ) 

and Cross-Appellee, ) 

V • ) 

) 

BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF RANSOM ) 

MEMORIAL HOSPITAL; J. DEWEY ) 

SMITH; BETTY KIMBALL; DON ) 

McKELVEY; ALFRED METTENBURG; ) 

DONALD SELLERS, and DAVID ) 

DRUMRIGHT, ) 

) 

Defendants-Appellees ) 

and Cross-Appellants. ) 

JUN 11990 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

Nos. 89-3062 and 89-3074 

(D.C. No. 86-2448-0) 

(Dist. of Kansas) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before ANDERSON, EBEL and CHRISTENSEN,** Circuit Judges. 

Sandra K. Staneart was employed at a public hospital in 

Kansas. After she was terminated, she filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 

§ 1983 against the hospital's Board of Trustees, the individual 

members of the Board, and the Hospital Administrator. The 

complaint alleged that the termination unconstitutionally deprived 

her of due process in relation to a property interest in continued 

employment arising from the language of the hospital's employment 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall not 

be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, except 

for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of the case, 

res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 36.3. 

** Honorable A. Sherman Christensen, United States District Judge 

for the District of Utah, sitting by designation. 

Appellate Case: 89-3074 Document: 010110036135 Date Filed: 06/01/1990 Page: 1 
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manual. The district court found the individual defendants 

qualifiedly immune and granted summary judgment in their favor. 

Staneart v. Board of Trustees of Ransom Memorial Hosp., 684 

F.Supp. 1573 (D. Kan. 1988). The claim against the Board was 

tried to a jury, which found that Staneart had no property 

interest in continued employment. Staneart appeals both the 

summary judgment and the jury verdict. We affirm in full. 1 

Background 

Staneart was appointed in May 1980 as the Director of Nursing 

at Ransom Memorial Hospital, a county hospital located in Ottawa, 

Kansas. At that time she was given an employment manual outlining 

hospital policies including grievance procedures, disciplinary 

matters, and employment termination policies. The manual 

contained a list of inappropriate behavior and serious misconduct 

which would be deemed sufficient grounds for discharge or 

dismissal. Staneart signed the brief statement at the end of the 

manual to the effect that she had read and understood its 

contents. 

During her employment at the hospital Staneart received 

favorable performance evaluations. However, friction developed 

between herself and J. Dewey Smith, the Hospital Administrator. 

Assertedly because of this friction in their personal working 

relationship, Smith informed Staneart that she was terminated as 

of March 24, 1986. The next day the Board of Trustees discussed 

1 Because we are denying Staneart's appeal, we do not reach any 

of the issues raised in the cross-appeal. 

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Staneart's termination in closed session and later reconvened in 

open session where it voted against rescinding the dismissal. 

Staneart appealed the decision directly to Smith as the hospital's 

administrator, a grievance procedure provided for in the employment manual. Smith declined to reconsider his decision in light 

of Staneart's appeal and she pursued the matter by appealing 

directly to the Board. Although the Board offered to give 

Staneart an evidentiary hearing before an impartial third party, 

and apparently entered into some discussions with Staneart's attorney concerning such a hearing, no hearing was ever held. 

Staneart eventually commenced this action against the Board of 

Trustees, its members both individually and in their official 

capacity, and against Smith. 

Although Staneart raises several issues on appeal, we address 

only one of them at length. Staneart contends that the trial 

court erroneously refused to grant her motion for a directed 

verdict on the basis that the hospital employment manual, adopted 

by the Board of Trustees, constituted a legislative act by the 

Board and that its terms therefore had the force of law 

automatically giving rise to a property interest in continued 

hospital employment. 2 Alternatively, she argues that the jury 

should have been instructed that a property interest in public 

employment may arise from legislative action as well as by express 

2 Under Kansas law, the board of trustees of a county hospital is 

empowered to "make and adopt such bylaws and rules and regulations 

for the management and control of the hospital as it deems necessary so long as the same are not inconsistent with" other state 

statutes, county resolutions, or applicable city ordinances. Kan. 

Stat. Ann. § 19-4610 (1988). 

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or implied contract. 3 

Discussion 

Termination of employment generally does not implicate due 

process concerns unless the terminated employee has some vested 

property interest in the employment. 

declared that 

The Supreme Court has 

To have a property interest in a benefit, a person 

clearly must have more than an abstract need or desire 

for it. He must have more than a unilateral expectation 

of it. He must, instead, have a legitimate claim of 

entitlement to it. 

Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577 (1972). Although Section 1983 liability is ultimately a question of federal law, in 

determining whether Staneart had a property interest in continued 

employment sufficient to invoke procedural due process protection 

we must look to state law. Bishop v. Wood, 426 U.S. 341, 344 

(1976); Vinyard v. King, 728 F.2d 428, 431-32 n.10 (10th Cir. 

1984). 

This court has held that the mere adoption of an employment 

manual by a governmental unit which is otherwise empowered to 

promulgate binding rules and regulations does not automatically 

3 Staneart also objects to several evidentiary rulings by the 

district court which prevented her from introducing evidence, most 

of which apparently related to the atmosphere of animosity 

existing in the hospital at the time of her termination and the 

Hospital Administrator's contribution to that unpleasant 

atmosphere. None of the evidence which Staneart offered to admit 

had any bearing on the crucial issue of whether or not a property 

interest had arisen in her employment with the hospital, thus 

entitling her to adequate procedural safeguards prior to and after 

termination. We conclude, therefore, that Staneart has not shown 

any abuse of discretion by the district court in these evidentiary 

matters which would require reversal. See Brown v. Reardon, 770 

F.2d 896 (10th Cir. 1985) (evidentiary rulings reviewed for abuse 

of discretion); State Office Sys., Inc. v. Olivetti Corp. of Am., 

762 F.2d 843 (10th Cir. 1985). 

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give rise to a property interest entitled to due process protection. E.g., Williams v. West Jordan City, 714 F.2d 1017, 1019-20 

(10th Cir. 1983) (personnel manual adopted by defendant city did 

not confer a property interest in continued public employment 

under Utah law); see also Bradley v. Colonial Mental Health & 

Retirement Servs. Bd., 856 F.2d 703, 708 n.11 (4th Cir. 1988) 

("[T]he existence of a personnel manual is not a litmus test for 

due process."). Adoption of an employment manual by a 

governmental agency does not alone create a cognizable property 

interest unless the manual is itself an expression of state law or 

policy sufficient to unilaterally bind the employing authority. 

In determining what effect the manual has under Kansas law 

our inquiry is essentially whether "under these circumstances we 

believe the [Kansas] Supreme Court would find a property interest 

in continued employment protected by the fourteenth amendment." 

Vinyard v. King, 728 F.2d at 432; see Bishop v. Wood, 426 U.S. at 

344 ("A property interest in employment can, of course, be created 

by ordinance •.. [;] however, the sufficiency of the claim of 

entitlement must be decided by reference to state law."). 

Ordinarily, "Kansas law holds that a unilateral expression in 

a personnel manual, which is not bargained for, cannot alone be 

the basis for an employment contract •.. 114 and does not itself 

4 The facts of this case are distinguishable from those in 

Vinyard v. King, 728 F.2d 428, 432 (10th Cir. 1984), and several 

other cases involving the law of different states. In Vinyard, 

the court expressly noted that under Oklahoma law, the employment 

manual alone probably would have been sufficient to create a 

property interest even if the employer had been a private entity. 

Moreover, we are free, as we discussed in our opinion in Vinyard, 

to arrive at varying conclusions based on the law of different 

states. See id. at 431 n.10 ("There is nothing here inconsistent 

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create a property interest in continued employment. Conaway v. 

Smith, 853 F.2d 789, 794 (10th Cir. 1988) (citing Rouse v. Peoples 

Natural Gas Co., 605 F.Supp. 230, 232 (D. Kan. 1985)); see Morriss 

v. Coleman Co., Inc., 738 P.2d 841, 848-49 (Kan. 1987). 

Kansas courts have not definitively addressed the issue 

whether an employment manual alone may give rise to a property 

interest if the manual is issued by a rule-making governmental 

body. 5 We view one particular case, however, as strong indication 

that Kansas courts would not recognize a property interest simply 

with our [previous] decision[s]" interpreting the law of different 

states.). 

5 The issue of employment manuals as they relate to implied 

contracts of employment under Kansas law has been addressed 

repeatedly by the District Court for the District of Kansas. 

"[Most] of the decisions on this issue resolve whether sufficient 

evidence exists for the implied contract claim to survive summary 

judgment ..•. " Enstrom v. Beech Aircraft Corp., 712 F. Supp. 

841, 852 (D. Kan. 1989) (citing,~' Johnson v. City of Wichita, 

687 F. Supp. 1501, 1507-08 (D. Kan. 1988); Boyd v. Doskocil 

Sausage Co., 686 F. Supp. 875, 877-78 (D. Kan. 1988); Laughlin v. 

Board of County Comm'rs. 647 F. Supp. 937, 940-41 (D. Kan. 1984); 

Kistler v. Life Care Centers of Am., Inc., 620 F. Supp. 1268, 1270 

(D. Kan. 1985); Fletcher v. Wesley Medical Center, 585 F. Supp. 

1260, 1263-64 (D. Kan. 1984)); see,~' Derstein v. Benson, 714 

F. Supp. 481, 491 (D. Kan. 1989). Many of these decisions are 

based on the conclusion that little more than properly worded 

provisions of an employee manual need be alleged in order to 

present a material question of fact sufficient to survive summary 

judgment on the issue of a property interest arising from an 

implied employment contract under Kansas law. Although we 

conclude that the unilateral adoption of the employee manual by 

the Board did not legislatively create a property interest in 

continued employment under Kansas law, nothing in our opinion is 

inconsistent with the conclusion that such a manual is evidence 

that the parties entered into an implied contract. Rather, we 

base our analysis on the conclusion that the employment manual did 

not replace an implied contract in creating the property interest. 

Cf. Plummer v. Humana of Kansas, Inc., 715 F. Supp. 302, 304 (D. 

Kan. 1988) (mere existence of employee handbook insufficient to 

survive summary judgment; "No issue of intent is presented because 

plaintiff shows the court no evidence which would indicate [the 

employer] intended to create an employment contract.''). 

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by virtue of the hospital employment manual. In Riddle v. City of 

Ottawa, 754 P.2d 465, 469-70 (Kan. Ct. App. 1988) a city employee 

alleged that his termination violated his due process rights in 

that a property interest had been created by the city personnel 

regulations which granted him status as a permanent employee who 

could only be disciplined for cause. The court rejected his argument, concluding that "These rules and regulations are not state 

law. II Although the holding in Riddle was also based on a 

specific statutory provision granting the city council full 

discretion to terminate city employees without cause, we view the 

Riddle decision as clear evidence that the provisions of the 

hospital employment manual do not rise to the level of state 

policy and therefore do not 

interests. 

unilaterally create property 

Our view is bolstered by the strong presumption under Kansas 

law that public employees may be dismissed without cause. As a 

public employee of a county hospital, Staneart is subject to the 

general law of Kansas that 

the tenure of any office not provided for in the [state] 

constitution may be declared by statute, and when not so 

declared such office shall be held at the pleasure of 

the appointing authority. 'Kansas law clearly 

establishes the incumbent to a public office enjoys no 

property or vested interest in public office.' 

Stoldt v. City of Toronto, 678 P.2d 153, 160 (Kan. 1984) (quoting 

Leek v. Theis, 539 P.2d 304 (Kan. 1975)). Given the clear preference for "at-will'' public employment expressed and promulgated on 

a statewide basis by much more authoritative bodies than the 

Hospital Board of Trustees, the relatively informal provisions of 

this personnel manual simply are not "rules or regulations,'' under 

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Kansas law, sufficient to create a property interest in continued 

employment. See Cooley v. Pennsylvania Hous. Fin. Agency, 830 

F.2d 469, 472 (3rd Cir. 1987) ("Because of the long tradition of 

at-will public employment, it must be assumed that when the 

legislature speaks, it does so explicitly, and if, in their 

wisdom, it chose to grant tenure to the •.. employees, it would 

have enacted an appropriate provision."). 

Although the Kansas legislature expressly authorized the 

Board to make "bylaws and rules for the management and 

control of the hospital ••• ," that grant of legislative power 

extended only to such rules and regulations "not inconsistent" 

with state and local law. Just as courts elsewhere have concluded 

that other states, by their silence on the issue of public 

employee tenure, look to government agency employment manuals as a 

source of state law, we conclude that Kansas, by its established 

"at-will" policy, does not recognize this manual as such. Compare 

Wofford v. Glynn Brunswick Mem. Hosp., 864 F.2d 117, 120 (11th 

Cir. 1989) and Guy v. Mohave County, 701 F.2d 73, 76-77 (9th Cir. 

1982) (where Arizona law provided that any public employee "whose 

term is not fixed by law" serves "at the pleasure of appointing 

power," provision in sheriff's office employment manual proscribing termination except "for just cause" did not create a property 

interest) with Conley v. Board of Trustees, 707 F.2d 175, 179-180 

( 5th Cir. 1983) ( "The Mississippi legislature made no choice 

between terminable at will and for cause for its county hospital 

employees, leaving to its presumably specialized boards the task 

of adopting appropriate policies [;] the hospital's 

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rules ... thus express state policy."). As far as its "legislative" effect under Kansas law, the employment manual involved here 

is nothing more than a managerial tool authorized by the Board to 

inform employees of periodic changes in management philosophy. 

See Batterton v. Texas Gen. Land Office, 783 F.2d 1220, 1223 (5th 

Cir.) ("informal understandings and customs contrary, and 

subsequent, to" an "officially promulgated position, one way or 

the other, on the issue of tenure "cannot be "the source of 

an employee's property interest."), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 914 

(1986). 

Based on these considerations, and having found nothing which 

would indicate that the district court's interpretation of Kansas 

law is incorrect, we agree with the district court that the 

Board's adoption of the employee handbook would not in itself be 

interpreted by the Kansas Supreme Court as giving rise to a 

cognizable property interest in continued employment except as it 

may support the finding of an implied contract. Therefore, the 

district court properly denied Staneart's motion for a directed 

verdict. Likewise, the district court correctly refused to 

instruct the jury on Staneart's alternate theory of property 

interest. 

Although the employee manual alone was insufficient under 

Kansas law to create a legislatively enacted property interest in 

Staneart's position at the hospital, Kansas courts have gradually 

recognized an exception to the "at-will" employment doctrine where 

a contract of employment can be implied by the overall conduct of 

the parties, including the issuance of an employee manual. 

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Compare Johnson v. National Beef Packing Co., 551 P.2d 779, 781-82 

(Kan. 1976) with Allegri v. Providence-St. Margaret Health Center, 

684 P.2d 1031, 1034-36 (Kan. Ct. App. 1984). Under Kansas law, 

"the determination of whether there is an implied contract in 

employment requires a factual inquiry" and is ''normally a question 

for the jury.'' See Morriss v. Coleman Co., Inc., 738 P.2d at 848 

(citing Allegri v. Providence-St. Margaret Health Center, 684 P.2d 

at 1031). In this case the jury determined that no such express 

or implied contract existed. Based on our review of the record, 

we conclude that the jury's verdict is based on appropriate jury 

instructions relating to this issue, and that it is supported by 

ample evidence. 5 

Staneart's other contentions on appeal are irrelevant where 

no property interest exists which must be protected. Absent a 

cognizable property interest, she has no cause of action. Even if 

we had concluded that Staneart had a property interest in her 

employment, the foregoing discussion amply demonstrates that her 

legal status under Kansas law was extremely doubtful at best. 

Where the individual Board members and the Hospital Administrator 

acted without violating any clearly established right, they are 

entitled to qualified immunity from suit in their individual 

5 Staneart also objects to the form of the jury verdict which 

permitted the jury to find specifically that no property interest 

arose as the result of an express or implied employment contract. 

Staneart's objection in this regard merely restates her argument 

that the jury instructions erroneously excluded consideration of 

the potential legislative effect of the Board's adoption of an 

employee manual. Our conclusion that the promulgation of the 

employee manual is insufficient, in itself, to give rise to a 

cognizable property interest under Kansas law disposes of 

Staneart's contention concerning the jury verdict form. 

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capacity. See Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 639 (1987); 

Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818-19 (1982). The district 

court therefore correctly granted summary judgment in favor of the 

individual defendants. 

For the reasons stated above, the judgment of the district 

court is AFFIRMED. 

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ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

Stephen H. Anderson 

Circuit Judge 

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