Opinion ID: 773974
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Mr. Vallas and Ms. Johnson's Claim of Qualified Immunity

Text: 28 We now turn to Mr. Vallas and Ms. Johnson's assertion that they are entitled to qualified immunity for their actions with respect to Mr. Townsend's due process claim. [G]overnment officials performing discretionary functions generally are granted a qualified immunity and are 'shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.' Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 614 (1999) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)). Whether an official may be held personally liable for his or her unlawful actions turns on the objective legal reasonableness of the action, assessed in light of the legal rules that were clearly established at the time it was taken. Wilson, 526 U.S. at 614 (quotation marks and citations omitted); see also May v. Sheahan, 226 F.3d 876, 881 (7th Cir. 2000). In order to be clearly established, the contours of a right asserted must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he or she is doing violates that right. See Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987); May, 226 F.3d at 881. 29 As a general rule, a court evaluating a claim of qualified immunity must first determine whether the plaintiff has alleged the deprivation of an actual constitutional right at all, and if so, proceed to determine whether that right was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation. Wilson, 526 U.S. at 609 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); see also Saucier v. Katz, 121 S.Ct. 2151, (2001); County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 841 n.5 (1998); Jacobs v. City of Chicago, 215 F.3d 758, 766 (7th Cir. 2000). 11 Deciding the constitutional question before addressing whether a right was clearly established promotes clarity in the legal standards for official conduct, to the benefit of both . . . officers and the general public. Wilson, 526 U.S. at 609. 30 To establish a violation of Section 1983, Mr. Townsend claims that the defendants deprived him of a property in terest in his tenured teaching position without due process of law. Procedural due process claims require a two-step analysis. The first step requires us to determine whether the plaintiff has been deprived of a protected interest; the second requires a determination of what process is due. Strasburger, 143 F.3d at 358. In this case, Mr. Townsend points to Illinois state law to establish the property interest at issue. See Pleva v. Norquist, 195 F.3d 905, 914 (7th Cir. 1999). The district court concluded that, according to Illinois law, Mr. Townsend had a property interest in being assigned to a certified teaching position and that his temporary reassignment to the Central Office without any teaching duties therefore constituted removal from his teaching position, a deprivation of his property interest. R.37 at 20. We respectfully part company from the district court on this point. In our view, the Board's actions did not deprive Mr. Townsend of a protected property interest. 31 The parties agree that Mr. Townsend, having served the proper probationary period, was a tenured teacher and that, under Illinois law, he may not be removed except for cause. 105 ILCS 5/34-85; see also Shegog v. Board of Educ. of City of Chicago, 194 F.3d 836, 837 (7th Cir. 1999). Consequently, Mr. Townsend had a protected property interest in his teaching position. See Gleason v. Board of Educ. of City of Chicago, 792 F.2d 76, 79 (7th Cir. 1986); Patkus v. Sangamon-Cass Consortium, 769 F.2d 1251, 1263 (7th Cir. 1985). 32 The district court also concluded that Mr. Townsend suffered a deprivation of this property right because the defendants' actions constituted removing him from his teaching position. In evaluating this aspect of the district court's decision, we begin by noting that the purpose of the tenure provisions of the Illinois Code is to assure teachers of experience and ability a continuous service and rehiring based upon merit rather than failure to be rehired for reasons that are political, partisan or capricious. Hansen v. Board of Educ. of Sch. Dist. No. 65, 502 N.E.2d 467, 471 (Ill. App. Ct. 1986). In line with this purpose, the word removed as used in the tenure statutes has been interpreted not to be limited to instances of complete termination, but to instead encompass any reduction in the extent of employment. See Hansen, 502 N.E.2d at 472; Caviness v. Board of Educ. of Ludlow Cmty. Unit Sch. Dist. No. 2, Madison County, 375 N.E.2d 157, 158-59 (Ill. App. Ct. 1978) (noting that otherwise, a board could merely nibble away and reduce one's employment until economic necessity forced the tenured teacher to resign). As a result, a teacher is removed from his position when the length of his contract or the amount of hours associated with his teaching duties are permanently reduced. See Birk v. Board of Educ. of Flora Cmty. Unit Sch. Dist. No. 35, Clay County, 472 N.E.2d 407, 409 (Ill. 1984) (per curiam) (teacher's contract reduced from ten months to nine months); Caviness, 375 N.E.2d at 158-59 (teacher's contract reduced from full- time to part-time); see also Costello v. Governing Bd. of Lee County Special Educ. Ass'n, 623 N.E.2d 966, 978 (Ill. App. Ct. 1993) (same). However, a transfer or reassignment is not a removal when it does not move a teacher out of a position for which he has received tenure as a certified employee. See Bart v. Board of Educ. of City of Chicago, 632 N.E.2d 39, 42-43 (Ill. App. Ct. 1993) (holding that because Section 34-84 of school code referred only to teachers and principals and plaintiff was transferred from assistant principal position to teacher position, plaintiff did not have tenure in assistant principal position for which he was not certified); Newby v. Board of Educ., Lake Zurich Cmty. Unit Sch. Dist., No. 95, 368 N.E.2d 1306, 1307 (Ill. App. Ct. 1977) (holding that reassignment from guidance counselor position to teaching position did not deprive plaintiff of property interest when plaintiff only acquired tenure as certified employee of the school district). 33 In determining that Mr. Townsend was removed from his teaching position in this case, the district court placed significant reliance on Hansen v. Board of Educ. of Sch. Dist. No. 65, 502 N.E.2d 467 (Ill. App. Ct. 1986). In that case, the plaintiff was a tenured music teacher who, due to poor job performance, was permanently reassigned to an itinerant position that required him to monitor students while they used school buses, ate and attended study hall. Hansen, 502 N.E.2d at 470. The new position involved no substantive teaching responsibilities. See id. The Board of Education authorized the hiring of a replacement teacher and froze the plaintiff's salary at the previous year's level. See id. The salary freeze was imposed, the superintendent testified, because the plaintiff's new duties were not worth more money. See id. The Illinois Appellate Court held thatbecause, under the applicable tenure law, 105 ILCS 5/24-12, 12 the plaintiff was required to be certified as a teacher, he had acquired tenure as a teacher. See id. at 472. As a result, because the plaintiff's reassignment had deprived him of all teaching responsibilities, the court found the Board's action to be the equivalent of a removal or dismissal under the tenure law. See id. 34 We do not believe that the circumstances of Mr. Townsend's case are similar to those in Hansen or to the other cases previously noted in which Illinois courts have found a teacher to be removed from his teaching position. Each of those cases involved the permanent or indefinite shelving of a tenured teacher in a new, lesser type of employment status with tangible economic ramifications. See Costello, 623 N.E.2d at 978; Hansen, 502 N.E.2d at 470; Birk, 472 N.E.2d at 408; Caviness, 375 N.E.2d at 158. In Mr. Townsend's case, however, the Board only temporarily transferred him from his teaching position, pending an investigation regarding the death of a child, and it provided Mr. Townsend with his full teacher's salary while it did so. Within two months, the Board alerted him that it would not seek more than a thirty-day suspension in the matter; soon after that, it indicated that he would be returned to his teaching position at Julian in the future. This type of temporary reassignment in the wake of a serious safety incident is a foreseeable aspect of the duties of being a teacher. We do not believe that Illinois courts would say that the defendants rearrange[d] teaching positions or assignments in ways which defeat the rights of tenured teachers and circumvent the purpose and spirit of the tenure laws. Hansen, 502 N.E.2d at 471. Consequently, such a temporary removal from the classroom, specifically circumscribed for an important educational purpose, does not constitute a removal from a teaching position that can be characterized as the deprivation of a cognizable property right. 35 In Spinelli v. Immanuel Lutheran Evangelical Congregation, Inc., 515 N.E.2d 1222, 1229-30 (Ill. 1987), the Illinois Supreme Court interpreted Section 24-12's removal or dismissal language not to include temporary suspensions, but indicated that tenured teachers who face suspension are entitled to procedural due process. Both Section 24-12 and Section 34-85 (at issue in Mr. Townsend's case) provide that, in the process of seeking to remove or dismiss a teacher, if the Board deems it necessary, it may suspend that teacher pending a hearing, but if acquitted the teacher shall not suffer any loss of salary by reason of the suspension. See 105 ILCS secs. 5/24-12 & 5/34-85. Following Spinelli, there is some authority for the proposition that Illinois grants a tenured teacher a property interest in employment without suspension. See Sweeney v. Board of Educ. of Mundelein Consol. High Sch. Dist. 120, Lake County, Ill., 746 F. Supp. 758, 765 (N.D. Ill. 1990). Although the Board told Mr. Townsend it would seek his suspension, he never actually was suspended in this case, nor do we believe that the sort of temporary removal from teaching duties, without significant economic impact, involved in this case can be considered as tantamount to a suspension. We therefore need not decide definitively whether, as some courts have indicated, Illinois teachers only have a property right in not being suspended without pay, such as was the case in Spinelli. See Sweeney, 746 F. Supp. at 766 n.17; Massie v. East St. Louis Sch. Dist., #189, 561 N.E.2d 246, 249-50 (Ill. App. Ct. 1990); Combs v. Board of Educ. of Avon Ctr. Sch. Dist. No. 47, 498 N.E.2d 806, 810 (1986); Fender v. School Dist. No. 25, Arlington Heights, Cook County, 347 N.E.2d 270, 276-77 (Ill. App. Ct. 1976). 36 Even if we were to consider Mr. Townsend's temporary reassignment as tantamount to a suspension, under the existing case law, a suspension with pay would not constitute the deprivation of a property right subject to federal constitutional protections. See Gilbert v. Homar, 520 U.S. 924, 929-30 (1997); Board of Educ. v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 544-45 (1985); Levenstein v. Salafsky, 164 F.3d 345, 351 (7th Cir. 1998); Crim v. Board of Educ. of Cairo Sch. Dist. No. 1, 147 F.3d 535, 546-47 & n.25 (7th Cir. 1998). In this case, during Mr. Townsend's temporary reassignment to the Central Office, he received his full teacher's salary. The district court found that this meant that [e]ssentially, [Mr. Townsend] was suspended with pay. R.37 at 24-25. However, the court further noted that, while at the Central Office, Mr. Townsend lost the opportunity to receive pay for his duties as a coach of extracurricular sports. In the district court's view, this loss of the opportunity to earn additional income, not attributable to his tenured position as a teacher, requires that we characterize this situation as a suspension without pay triggering federal due process protections. In our view, the temporary loss of this possibility for additional income does not warrant the characterization given the situation by the district court. We have recognized that removal or suspension from a tenured position might produce indirect economic effects that trigger the protection of the Due Process Clause. See Bordelon v. Chicago Sch. Reform Bd. of Trustees, 233 F.3d 524, 530-31 (7th Cir. 2000); Swick v. City of Chicago, 11 F.3d 85, 86 (7th Cir. 1993). Nevertheless, we do not believe that the temporary loss of this possibility for additional income is the sort of deprivation that triggers the protection of federal due process. We have stated that deprivations of property are not actionable under the Constitution unless they are atypical and significant in relation to the inevitable 'deprivations' that people suffer as a result of contractual disputes and the other ordinary frictions of life. Baerwald v. City of Milwaukee, 131 F.3d 681, 683 (7th Cir. 1997). We believe that Mr. Townsend's loss of income from coaching jobs not protected by tenure rights was a foreseeable possibility for any teacher in this situation, one that would not impact a constitutionally cognizable property right. Cf. Baerwald, 131 F.3d at 683 (noting that it cannot be that every dispute over sick leave, or every interruption in pay because of an injury or illness, or every denial of a fringe benefit . . . is, unlike discharge, or suspension without pay, or permanent refusal to reinstate, a constitutional controversy just because the employee is a tenured public employee.) (internal citations omitted); Altman v. Hurst, 734 F.2d 1240, 1242 (7th Cir. 1984) (holding that plaintiff's expectation interest in scheduling of vacation time was not the stuff of constitutional torts); Brown v. Brienen, 722 F.2d 360, 365 (7th Cir. 1983) (Disputes over overtime, over work assignments, over lunch and coffee breaks do not implicate the great objects of the Fourteenth Amendment.). 37 There also was some discussion in the district court's opinion and at oral argument about whether Mr. Townsend could have been placed temporarily in a teaching position at another school during the time when his return to Julian was delayed, or whether he ever sought such an action. Both the complaint and the demand letter that Mr. Townsend's attorney sent to the Board during his reassignment indicate only that he wished to be returned to his teaching position at Julian. See R.1 at 7 & R.34 at Ex.7. Assuming that the matter is properly before us, we do not think that the defendants' decision to delay Mr. Townsend's return to Julian until calm had returned to the educational environment ought to alter our basic analysis. The temporary nature of the removal made any burden on the tenure rights of Mr. Townsend within the foreseeable bounds of his expectations. 38 As an alternative ground for its decision, the district court concluded that Mr. Townsend could claim a deprivation of a property interest on the theory that the Board's actions amounted to a constructive discharge. A constructive discharge is a situation in which an employer, without firing an employee, makes his working conditions so miserable that a reasonable person would be compelled to resign. See Hunt v. City of Markham, 219 F.3d 649, 655 (7th Cir. 2000); Brown v. Ameritech Corp., 128 F.3d 605, 608 (7th Cir. 1997). On appeal, Mr. Townsend maintains that the district court's conclusion was correct and analogizes this case to that described in Parrett v. City of Connersville, 737 F.2d 690, 694 (7th Cir. 1984). In Parrett, an Indiana police detective was permanently reassigned to a line captain position. Id. at 693. He had a property right in the latter position and could be removed only for cause and only after notice and a hearing. See id. at 694. Nevertheless, in this position, the plaintiff was assigned no police duties, was forced to sit in a windowless room that was formerly a storage closet and spent his entire shift at a desk with nothing to do. See id. at 693. This enforced idleness caused him to suffer a nervous collapse and prompted his retirement from the police force. Id. We held that such conditions amounted to a constructive discharge, as the [e]nforced idleness was not only a humiliating counterpoint to [the plaintiff's] years as detective chief but would if prolonged have depreciated his professional skills to the point where it would have been difficult for him to work his way back . . . to a responsible position. Id. at 694; see also Wozniak v. Conry, 236 F.3d 888, 889 (7th Cir. 2001) (holding that plaintiff university professor could survive summary judgment on constructive discharge claim where university removed him from tenured faculty position, barred him from teaching future classes, cancelled his research funds and permanently reassigned him to manage a Web site), cert. denied, 121 S.Ct. 2243 (2001); Levenstein, 164 F.3d at 351 (finding that constructive discharge was adequately alleged where university forbid plaintiff, a physician with a reputation spanning several continents, from seeing patients for eleven months and then permanently reassigned him to a job reviewing old medical training videotapes from his home, forcing him to resign). 39 We believe that the facts of this case are far different than those in Parrett and that they do not support recovery on the ground that Mr. Townsend was constructively discharged. As an initial matter, Mr. Townsend did not quit his job during the period of the transfer. Although this factor is not fatal to his constructive discharge claim, see Wozniak, 236 F.3d at 890; Hunt, 219 F.3d at 655, in conjunction with the circumstances surrounding his temporary reassignment, it does indicate that Mr. Townsend knew that the Board's actions were not of the kind that would make it difficult for him to work his way back . . . to a responsible position. Parrett, 737 F.2d at 694; cf. Wozniak, 236 F.3d at 890 (holding that constructive discharge could be shown where permanent loss of tenure track position deprived plaintiff not only of the possibility of tenure but also of research support, scholarly publications, professional recognition and chance to obtain consulting work). As we have noted, Mr. Townsend was told less than two months after his reassignment to the Central Office that the Board would only seek his suspension without pay for thirty days due to the incident. Soon after, the Board assured him that his reassignment would not be permanent and that he would be returned to teaching at Julian when classes began in the fall. Indeed, Mr. Townsend was in fact later reinstated to his teaching position. As a result, Mr. Townsend was aware that he did not face the prospect of an indefinite or permanent reassignment to a job that provided little professional responsibility. See Brown, 128 F.3d at 608 (constructive discharge not shown by plaintiff, in part because he knew that undesirable reassignment was temporary and had no reason . . . to think that he would spend the rest of his life on it). 40 Lastly, unlike the situation in Parrett, where action was taken against the plaintiff due to a personal vendetta against him, see Parrett, 737 F.2d at 693, here the defendants faced a difficult problem. Mr. Townsend's transfer came after a serious incident that had cost a child his life, an event that may have occurred during the seventh-period swimming class that Mr. Townsend taught. Evidence from investigatory reports suggested that, after the class, Mr. Townsend had been alerted to the fact that a student's clothes were left lying on the deck of the pool, but that he took no action and went on to coach a baseball practice. Additionally, although Mr. Townsend's eventual return to Julian was delayed, that delay was due to significant unrest at the school, in part related to the events surrounding Wilson's death. Cf. Ulichny v. Merton Cmty. Sch. Dist., 249 F.3d 686, 703 (7th Cir. 2001) (indicating that seriousness of disciplinary incident and political fallout from it, prompting school board to reassign plaintiff from principal to assistant principal position, was a factor militating against finding that circumstances of action were objectively unreasonable and amounted to constructive discharge). These circumstances made Mr. Townsend's temporary reassignment a reasonable response to a difficult situation, not the type of objectively unreasonable action by an employer that may often lead to a finding of a constructive discharge. 41 Although there may be situations in which a temporary reassignment from an employment position would extend for such a long or indefinite period of time and under circumstances that are particularly onerous as to give rise to a constructive discharge claim, this case hardly presents that scenario. Consequently, we cannot agree with the district court's conclusion that Mr. Townsend can make out a claim for constructive discharge. 42 Because Mr. Townsend has not established that he was deprived of a federally protected property right, Mr. Vallas and Ms. Johnson are entitled to qualified immunity. See Wilson, 526 U.S. at 609; County of Sacramento, 523 U.S. at 841 n.5.