Opinion ID: 418010
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Accrual of the Cause of Action and the June 9 Board Meeting

Text: 10 Griffen was notified on May 13, 1977 that his contract would not be renewed. On June 9, 1977, the school board provided Griffen with a hearing and declined to take action leading to a renewal of Griffen's contract. Because Griffen's suit was filed June 8, 1979, the June 9, 1977 date is crucial. Below Griffen argued that his cause of action did not accrue until June 9, 1977. This argument is foreclosed by Delaware State College v. Ricks, 449 U.S. 250, 101 S.Ct. 498, 66 L.Ed.2d 431 (1980), holding that reconsideration of a discriminatory decision does not draw the accrual of a cause of action past the initial date of decision. Griffen does not press this argument on appeal. 11 Instead, Griffen argues on appeal that the June 9, 1977, decision constitutes an independent actionable event. This allegation was made in Griffen's complaint: 12 On June 9, 1977, the Board of Trustees of the Big Spring Independent School District voted not to renew Plaintiff's contract to teach in the District. Plaintiff alleges that the School Board, acting in concert with Defendants McKenzie, Smith and Robbins, took this action on account of Plaintiff's race. 13 Record at 3. Thus, the claim that the June 9, 1977 meeting was an independent actionable event was before the court from the very first. 14 The trial court handled this allegation by holding that [t]he board took no action after the hearing of June 9, 1977 but let stand its decision in May. Record at 255. Big Spring here makes the same argument--the board did nothing on June 9, so no cause of action arose on that date. We are not persuaded that a sin of omission cannot be an actionable event. 15 The board, by its own rules, was obligated to give Griffen a hearing. A hearing necessitates a decision whether to alter the status quo. The fact that the board chose to preserve the status quo does not cause the decision to evaporate into the mists. If the decision to preserve the status quo were nondiscriminatory, such as a review of the principal's recommendation under some kind of plain error standard, Griffen will not prevail. On the other hand, Griffen might well be able to show that the decision to preserve the status quo was itself discriminatorily motivated. Ricks certainly does not preclude this common-sense notion. Cf. Al-Hamdani v. State University, 438 F.Supp. 299 (W.D.N.Y.1977) (improper review of tenure decision may itself give rise to Title VII claim). In short, we hold that Griffen has alleged a cause of action accruing on June 9, 1977, that will withstand the plea of limitations; in light of the rest of our holding, however, this portion is of little practical import.