Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-91-02051/USCOURTS-ca10-91-02051-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 

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PUBLISH FILED 

United States Co11rt~f Appcnb Tent.'l C1rcu1t 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS OCT 2 9 1991 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

TEXAN ITA COLE 1 ) 

) 

Plaintiff-Appellee, ) 

) 

v. ) 

) 

RUIDOSO MUNICIPAL SCHOOLS; RUIDOSO ) 

BOARD OF EDUCATION, ) 

) 

Defendants, ) 

) 

and ) 

) 

SUPERINTENDENT SID MILLER, individually ) 

and in his official capacity; BOARD ) 

PRESIDENT W. R. "STORMY" EDWARDS; ) 

BOARD MEMBER DON SWALANDER; BOARD ) 

MEMBER ROD ADAMSON; BOARD MEMBER MIKE ) 

MORRIS; BOARD MEMBER FRED LYNN WILLARD, ) 

individually and in their official ) 

capacities, ) 

) 

Defendants-Appellants. ) 

No. 91-2051 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW MEXICO 

(D.C. No. CIV-89-1332-JP) 

Submitted on the briefs: 

Daniel H. Friedman, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 

Defendants-Appellants. 

for 

Susan G. Morrison, Austin, Texas, and Ray Twohig, Albuquerque, New 

Mexico, for Plaintiff-Appellee. 

Appellate Case: 91-2051 Document: 01019291340 Date Filed: 10/29/1991 Page: 1 
Before ANDERSON, BARRETT, and TACHA, Circuit Judges. 

BARRETT, Senior Circuit Judge. 

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App . P . 

34(a); lOth Cir. R. 34.1.9. The case is therefore ordered 

submitted without oral argument. 

Defendants appeal the district court's denial of the portion 

of their Motion for Summary Judgment seeking qualified immunity on 

Plaintiff's procedural due process claim. On appeal, Defendants 

argue that the district court erred in denying qualified immunity 

on Plaintiff's procedural due process claim because New Mexico law 

did not clearly establish that the failure to renew

1 Plaintiff's 

public school principal contract at its expiration triggered due 

process requirements and because there were no genuine issues of 

material fact barring the individual Defendants from qualified 

1 For purposes of this case, there are three types of personnel 

actions that require definition: discharge, nonrenewal, and 

reassignment. Discharge concerns the termination of an employee 

during the term of the employment contract. Nonrenewal occurs at 

the end of the employment contract when the school board 

terminates an employee and chooses not to rehire the employee for 

a subsequent school year. Reassignment involves transfer of an 

employee to a different employment assignment in a subsequent 

year. 

2 

Appellate Case: 91-2051 Document: 01019291340 Date Filed: 10/29/1991 Page: 2 
immunity protection. we reverse, concluding Defendants are 

entitled to qualified immunity. 

Pursuant to a one-year contract, Plaintiff served as 

principal of the Ruidoso Middle School for the 1987-88 school 

year. On March 8, 1988, the school board decided, due to 

budgetary restraints, not to offer Plaintiff a principal contract 

for the 1988-89 school year. The minutes of the board meeting 

indicated that Plaintiff would be reassigned to an elementary 

teaching position. In addition to budget concerns, the school 

board was also concerned about Plaintiff's conflict with several 

faculty members. This concern, however, was not mentioned in the 

school board's minutes in order to spare Plaintiff's feelings and 

reputation. Plaintiff accepted the teaching contract for 1988-89, 

but resigned during the school year to move to Florida with her 

husband. 

Thereafter, Plaintiff commenced this action, in relevant part 

pursuant to 42 u.s.c. § 1983, alleging, inter alia, denial of due 

process rights. 2 Defendants filed a Motion for Summary Judgment 

contending that they were entitled to qualified immunity. The 

district court denied qualified immunity protection on the due 

process claim. The district court's sole explanation for doing so 

was as follows: 

Defendants argue that the termination was a non-renewal 

of plaintiff's contract; plaintiff contends that her 

termination was part of a reduction-in-force action that 

required certain procedural guarantees. Since there are 

genuine issues of material fact as to this claim, I 

2 Plaintiff also alleged discrimination and retaliation 

under Title VII, denial of equal protection under 

violation of the Equal Pay Act, and state law claims. 

claims 

§ 1983, 

3 

Appellate Case: 91-2051 Document: 01019291340 Date Filed: 10/29/1991 Page: 3 
cannot conclude that defendants are entitled to judgment 

as a matter of law. 

Plaintiff appealed. 

"We have interlocutory appellate jurisdiction under Mitchell 

v. Forsyth, 472 u.s. 511 (1985), even though the district court 

based its denial of the motion on a finding that disputed material 

facts exist in the case." Austin v. Hamilton, F.2d __ , No. 

90-2024, slip op. at 2 (lOth Cir. Sept. 24, 1991). We decide the 

legal issues before us by applying a de novo standard of review. 

Eastwood v. Department of Corrections, 846 F.2d 627, 629 (lOth 

Cir. 1988). 

The affirmative defense of qualified immunity is 

available to government officials in actions brought 

pursuant to 42 u.s.c. § 1983. A government official is 

entitled to immunity from liability if the official's 

conduct as alleged in the complaint did not violate 

"clearly established statutory or constitutional rights 

of which a reasonable person would have known. " The 

unlawfulness must be apparent "in light of preexisting 

law. " The questions of what the current applicable law 

is, whether that law was clearly-established at the time 

the official's action occurred, and whether the 

official's acts were objectively reasonable, are 

questions of law for the court to determine. If 

material factual disputes exist with regard to the 

actions of the official, summary judgment on the basis 

of qualified immunity is not possible. 

Campbell v. Mercer, 926 F.2d 990, 992 (lOth Cir. 199l)(citations 

omitted). 

The issue on appeal is whether it was clearly established 

that Plaintiff had a property right in employment entitling her to 

due process protections before the nonrenewal of her administrator 

contract. Plaintiff's constitutional claim depends on whether she 

had a property right in continued employment as a principal. Id. 

Property rights "are created and their dimensions are defined by 

4 

Appellate Case: 91-2051 Document: 01019291340 Date Filed: 10/29/1991 Page: 4 
existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent 

source such as state law 0 0 0 0 

II Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 

u.s. 564, 577 (1972); see also Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. 

Loudermill, 470 u.s. 532, 538 (1985). 

New Mexico law provides that school administrators may have 

employment contracts of one or two years. N.M. Stat. Ann. 

§ 22-10-11B(4). Any person employed by contract has no legitimate 

expectation of reemployment, and no contract is to be construed as 

an implied promise of continued employment pursuant to a 

subsequent contract. Id. section 22-10-11E. While certified 

school instructors have certain rights under the statutory scheme, 

administrators have no tenure rights as administrators. See id. 

sections 22-10-12 to 22-10-14.1; see also Hayden v. Lee, 562 P.2d 

833, 834 (N.M. 1977)(administrators are neither tenured nor 

untenured). Only certified school instructors with three or more 

years of service are entitled to procedural due process prior to 

nonrenewal; the statutory scheme does not give similar protection 

to administrators at the expiration and nonrenewal of their 

contracts. See N.M. Stat. Ann. §§ 22-10-14, 22-10-14.1. Although 

the statutes provide no assurance of employment, they do provide 

certain procedural protections to administrators who are 

discharged during a school term. In addition to procedural 

protections, the school board may discharge an administrator 

during the term of an employment contract only for "good and just 

cause." Id. section 22-10-17. 

In this case, Plaintiff was not discharged during the term of 

her employment contract. Rather, her contract as principal was 

5 

Appellate Case: 91-2051 Document: 01019291340 Date Filed: 10/29/1991 Page: 5 
not renewed at the end of the year, and she was reassigned to a 

teaching position. Under such circumstances, New Mexico law did 

not afford Plaintiff any procedural protections for the nonrenewal 

of her administrator contract. 

Plaintiff argues that her nonrenewal as principal was based 

on illegal reasons. Plaintiff maintains she was entitled to the 

procedural protections afforded to certified school instructors, 

including written notice of termination, written reasons for the 

school board's nonrenewal action, nonrenewal not based on 

arbitrary, capricious, or illegal reasons, and a hearing before 

the board to contest the nonrenewal. See N.M. Stat. Ann. §§ 22-

10-12 to 22-10-14.1. To support her argument, Plaintiff cites to 

N.M. Stat. Ann. § 22-10-16. Section 22-10-16 provides that the 

procedural protections that attend termination do not apply to a 

person without a standard teaching certificate, an instructor 

employed to fill the position of an instructor entering the 

military, a person who is sixty-five years old prior to the last 

day of the school year, and a person not qualified to teach. 

Previously, school administrators had been included in the list of 

persons excepted from procedural due process. Accordingly, 

Plaintiff contends that section 22-10-16, as applicable to her, 

provides due process protections to both teachers and 

administrators. 

Plaintiff's arguments may be correct if she had been 

completely terminated. Although her principal contract was not 

renewed, Plaintiff was reassigned to a teaching position. Nothing 

6 

Appellate Case: 91-2051 Document: 01019291340 Date Filed: 10/29/1991 Page: 6 
in the statutes indicates that such a reassignment triggers 

procedural protections. 

Even if it could successfully be argued that section 22-10-16 

applies, the argument is not so conclusive as to prove that the 

school board reasonably should have known that Plaintiff was 

entitled to such protections. The procedural protection statutes 

are not to "be construed as creating any statutorily created 

property right." Id. section 22-10-14F. Also, the nonrenewal 

procedural protection statutes specifically refer to certified 

school instructors. Id. sections 22-10-12 to 3 22-10-14.1. The 

definitions sections of the New Mexico statutes distinguish 

between certified school instructors and administrators. See id. 

section 22-1-2D, E. Accordingly, even if section 22-1-16 applies, 

Defendants are still entitled to qualified immunity. 

New Mexico law does not create a property interest that is 

subject to federal constitutional guarantees. Defendants, 

therefore, were entitled to qualified immunity. Accordingly, we 

conclude the district court erred in denying Defendants' Motion 

for Summary Judgment. 

The judgment of the United States District Court for the 

District of New Mexico is REVERSED. The action is REMANDED for 

proceedings on Plaintiff's claims which are still pending before 

the district court. 

3 The procedural protections applying to discharge during a 

contract term expressly apply to both instructors and 

administrators. N.M. Stat. Ann. §§ 22-10-17 to 22-10-18. 

7 

Appellate Case: 91-2051 Document: 01019291340 Date Filed: 10/29/1991 Page: 7