Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-alnd-2_03-cv-03087/USCOURTS-alnd-2_03-cv-03087-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 29:2601 Family and Medical Leave Act (1993)

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA

SOUTHERN DIVISION

IRIS J. MILLS,

Plaintiff,

v.

BIRMINGHAM BOARD OF

EDUCATION,

Defendant.

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CIVIL ACTION NO.

03-AR-3087-S

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Motions pursuant to Rule 50(a), F.R.Civ.P., were timely filed

both by plaintiff, Iris J. Mills (“Mills”), and by defendant,

Birmingham Board of Education (“the Board”). Before submitting the

case to the jury, Mills voluntarily dismissed her claim of

retaliation brought under the Family and Medical Leave Act

(“FMLA”). This rendered moot the Board’s Rule 50(a) motion,

insofar as it challenged Mills’s retaliation claim. The court

took the unmooted Rule 50(a) motions under advisement without

ruling on them, and submitted the case to the jury both on Mills’s

claim for breach of contract and on her claim for interference with

her rights under the FMLA. The jury found for Mills on both of her

said claims and assessed compensatory damages in the sum of $75,000

against the Board under both theories. The jury had been

instructed that Mills cannot recover actual damages more than once.

The jury was also instructed that a bad faith violation of the FMLA

by the Board would call for the imposition of liquidated damages in

FILED

 2005 Sep-22 PM 01:16

U.S. DISTRICT COURT

N.D. OF ALABAMA

Case 2:03-cv-03087-WMA Document 52 Filed 09/22/05 Page 1 of 4
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the form of a doubling of any actual damages awarded for an FMLA

violation itself.

Although the court finds ample evidence upon which a

reasonable jury could find, as this jury apparently did, that the

Board breached a material term of the contract between the parties,

namely, the Board’s obligation to remove all references to Mills’s

previous termination proceeding from her personnel file, and

although the court also finds that there was ample evidence upon

which a reasonable jury could find, as this one did, that Mills

performed her obligations under the contract, the court, upon

reflection, can find no evidence upon which a reasonable jury could

find a causal connection between the Board’s failure to remove

seven pieces of paper from Mills’s personnel file and Mills’s loss

of salary and benefits occasioned by her subsequent termination.

There was simply no proof that Mills’s termination was the

proximate consequence of the Board’s breach of the contract. The

high degree of importance of the breached provision to Mills does

not subtract from her obligation to prove the essential element of

proximate causation. While the contract could not accomplish a

waiver by Mills of future access to intermittent FMLA leave, even

if that was the Board’s intent in negotiating the contract

reference to her tardiness and absences (prospective federal

statutory causes of action arising out of adverse employment

actions cannot be waived in advance of the conduct complained of),

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neither did this contract guarantee that Mills would not be

terminated. Not only was there no evidence laying Mills’s

termination at the feet of the Board’s having left references to

her prior dispute with the Board in her personnel file, but there

was no evidence to connect Mills’s failure to obtain other teacher

employment after her termination with the existence of the fateful

pieces of paper that were left in her personnel file in violation

of the Board’s promise to remove them.

If Mills had sought damages for mental anguish as a proximate

consequence of the Board’s not fulfilling its promise with respect

to her personnel file, the court does not know what it would have

done, or what the jury would have done, in light of Alabama Pattern

Jury Instruction ¶10.28, which expresses an arguably applicable

proposition of Alabama law as follows:

Where the contractual duty or obligation is so related

with matters of mental concern or apprehensiveness or

with the feelings of the party to whom the duty is owed,

that a breach of that duty will necessitate or reasonably

result in mental anguish or suffering and such matters

were reasonably within the contemplation of the parties

when the contract was made, then in such event, if the

plaintiff is entitled to recover, he would be entitled to

recover such sum as would reasonably compensate him for

such mental anguish and physical suffering.

For the reasons discussed above the Board’s Rule 50(a) motion will

be granted as to Mills’s claim of breach of contract.

Mills’s FMLA claim is a different matter. It has several

unique and intriguing aspects, most of which were discussed, if not

Case 2:03-cv-03087-WMA Document 52 Filed 09/22/05 Page 3 of 4
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resolved, by and between the court and counsel during trial. Upon

reflection, the court finds that there was substantial evidence

upon which a reasonable jury could find, as this one did, the

essential elements of Mills’s FMLA claim of interference, i.e.,

that the requisites for FMLA entitlement were present (even without

a precise definition of the unpaid leave desired by her or due

her), and that her said entitlement was interfered with by the

Board, causing her actual monetary loss of $75,000. Furthermore,

there was sufficient evidence upon which the jury could find, as

this jury did, that the Board did not act reasonably and in good

faith when it violated the FMLA. This is true even without the

probable adverse effect of the contrived affidavit made by the

Board’s Director of Human Relations. Accordingly, the court will

deny the Board’s Rule 50(a) motion insofar as Mills’s FMLA claim is

concerned.

A separate final judgment will be entered.

DONE this 22 day of September, 2005. nd

_____________________________

WILLIAM M. ACKER, JR.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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