UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 11-1590

JANNETTE HENRY-DAVENPORT,

Plaintiff – Appellant,

v.

THE SCHOOL DISTRICT OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY,

Defendant – Appellee,

and

SAMANTHA J. INGRAM, individually and as an employee of The 

School District of Fairfield County; HAROLD HEATH, 

personally and as a board member of The School District of 

Fairfield County; ROBERT DRAKE, personally and as a board 

member of The School District of Fairfield County; HENRY 

MILLER, personally and as a board member of The School 

District of Fairfield County; REBECCA MCSWAIN, personally 

and as a board member of The School District of Fairfield 

County,

Defendants.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of 

South Carolina, at Rock Hill. Matthew J. Perry, Jr., Senior 

District Judge. (0:08-cv-03258-MJP)

Argued: September 20, 2012 Decided: November 26, 2012

Before TRAXLER, Chief Judge, DAVIS, Circuit Judge, and Max O. 

COGBURN, Jr., United States District Judge for the Western 

District of North Carolina, sitting by designation.
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Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

ARGUED: Glenn Walters, Sr., Orangeburg, South Carolina, for 

Appellant. Carol Brittain Ervin, YOUNG CLEMENT RIVERS, LLP, 

Charleston, South Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Stephen 

Lynwood Brown, YOUNG CLEMENT RIVERS, LLP, Charleston, South 

Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

Appellant Janette Henry-Davenport was employed by the 

Fairfield County School District (“FCSD”) in various capacities 

since 1983. At the beginning of the 2007-2008 school year, 

Appellant held the position of Deputy Superintendent for Human 

Resources and Administration for FCSD, at an annual salary of 

$98,036. FCSD paid Appellant her full salary through the end of 

the school year, but the FCSD Superintendent notified her in 

April 2008 that her administrative contract for the 2008-2009 

school year would be at a reduced salary of $75,000. Appellant 

requested a hearing before the Board of Trustees but did not 

receive one. She was subsequently reassigned to the position of 

FCSD Director of Food Service.

Appellant brought this action in state court against 

the FCSD, alleging that the FCSD violated her statutory rights 

under South Carolina’s Teacher Employment and Dismissal Act (the 

“Teacher Act”), see S.C. Code §§ 59-25-410 to -530, by demoting 

her and reducing her salary without a hearing. Appellant also 

asserted a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the 

FCSD’s failure to provide her a dismissal hearing deprived her 

of due process.* 

 * Appellant’s complaint asserted other claims that are not 

at issue on appeal. Also, Appellant sought relief from various 

individual FCSD employees; the claims against the individual 

(Continued)
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The action was removed to federal district court and 

the parties filed cross motions for summary judgment. Appellant 

staked her position on Johnson v. Spartanburg County School

District 7, 444 S.E.2d 501 (S.C. 1994), in which the South 

Carolina Supreme Court held that an assistant principal, despite 

holding an administrative rather than a teaching position, was 

protected under the Teacher Act. See id. at 502. In response, 

the FCSD argued that in 1998, the South Carolina General 

Assembly effectively overruled the Johnson decision when it 

enacted § 59-24-15 to exclude employee rights to an 

administrative position or particular administrative salary from

the scope of the Teacher Act: 

§ 59-24-15. Rights of certified education personnel 

employed as administrators.

Certified education personnel who are employed as 

administrators on an annual or multi-year contract 

will retain their rights as a teacher under the 

provisions of Article 3 of Chapter 19 and Article 5 of 

Chapter 25 of this title but no such rights are 

granted to the position or salary of administrator. 

Any such administrator who presently is under a 

contract granting such rights shall retain that status 

until the expiration of that contract.

(emphasis added).

The District Court denied the cross motions for 

summary judgment pending resolution of a certified question to 

 

defendants were dismissed, and Appellant does not challenge 

their dismissal on appeal. 
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the South Carolina Supreme Court: “Does South Carolina law, 

pursuant to S.C. Code Ann. § 59-24-15, afford a certified 

educator employed as an administrator rights as available under 

the Teacher Employment and Dismissal Act when she is denied a 

hearing to contest her administrative demotion and salary 

reduction?” Henry-Davenport v. Sch. Dist., 705 S.E.2d 26 (S.C. 

2011). The South Carolina Supreme Court answered that question 

in the negative because Johnson had been legislatively 

overruled: 

[T]he legislature enacted section 59-24-15 after the 

Johnson decision, and the plain language of the 

statute directly contradicts the holding in Johnson. 

The statute plainly states that an administrator has 

no rights in her ‘position or salary,’ and the 

legislature made no exception or distinction 

concerning the administrator’s status as a certified 

educator.

705 S.E.2d at 28. Subsequently, the district court granted 

FCSD’s renewed motion for summary judgment on the ground that 

the State Supreme Court’s disposition of the certified question 

defeated Appellant’s claims. In so doing, the court rejected 

Appellant’s argument that the South Carolina Supreme Court’s 

decision regarding the certified question had an impermissible 

retroactive effect on her vested property rights.

On appeal, Appellant raises the same fatally deficient 

retroactivity argument. Appellant’s argument is fundamentally 

flawed in a number of ways, but the most conspicuous problem is 
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that the South Carolina legislature enacted § 59-24-15 in 1998, 

long before the conduct at issue in this case occurred. Thus, 

because § 59-24-15 does not “reach conduct and claims arising 

before the statute’s enactment,” Ward v. Dixie Nat’l Life Ins. 

Co., 595 F.3d 164, 172 (4th Cir. 2010), there is clearly no 

impermissible retroactive effect in play. To the extent 

Appellant contends that she still retains any statutory rights 

pertaining to her administrative salary and position despite 

clear and unequivocal language to the contrary in § 59-24-15 and 

Henry-Davenport, we reject this argument out of hand. Appellant 

fails to point to any language in the Teacher Act that would 

support her position that the FCSD violated her statutory rights 

or deprived her of due process. 

Accordingly, we affirm the decision of the district 

court.

AFFIRMED