Opinion ID: 772253
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Whether Plaintiff Would Suffer Irreparable Harm Without the Injunction

Text: 99 When addressing this factor, the district court began by noting that Sixth Circuit authority is clear that a nontenured teacher does not have a constitutional right to teach a particular class. See Parate v. Isibor, 868 F.2d 821, 832 (6th Cir. 1989). (J.A. at 134.) After acknowledging this premise, the district court went on to state, without any supportive authority, that because Plaintiff is a professor under continuing contract at MCC and indeed has been teaching there for 32 years, . . . he has a right to continued employment at MCC. (J.A. at 134.) Then, relying upon Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274 (1977), the district court stated that [a]lthough [Plaintiff] does not have a liberty interest in his teaching position, if he was suspended for First Amendment activities then he has established irreparable harm. (J.A. at 134.) 100 We find the district court's opinion misguided in this regard. First, the district court takes the preliminary injunction factors out of sequence claiming that the irreparable harm inquiry is determinative; then the court finds, without any legal support, that because Plaintiff has been teaching under a contract for thirty-two years, he has a right to continued employment; then the court finds that Plaintiff does not have a liberty interest in his teaching position; and then the court goes on to say that despite the lack of a liberty interest in his teaching position, if Plaintiff can succeed in showing that he was suspended in violation of his First Amendment rights, he can show irreparable harm - which brings us right back to the first preliminary injunction factor which the district court should have considered at the outset. To further complicate matters, the district court never addressed the harm that Plaintiff would allegedly suffer if the injunction was not granted. It merely concluded that [Plaintiff would] suffer irreparable injury if he was suspended for engaging in First Amendment activities. 101 Apparently, the district court was attempting to show that because Plaintiff is not tenured, it is unlikely that he would succeed on his § 1983 claim for violation of his Fourteenth Amendment rights, absent a showing that his First Amendment rights were violated. This is a correct proposition of law, see Mt. Healthy, 429 U.S. at 283-84, and would likely be true if Plaintiff could succeed on his First Amendment claim. See, e.g., Connection Distributing Co., 154 F.3d at 288. However, we do not believe that Plaintiff has shown a substantial likelihood of succeeding on the merits of his First Amendment claim, and where the injury is purely economic in nature, a preliminary injunction is not necessary in any event. See Celebrezze v. Nuclear Regulatory Comm'n, 812 F.2d 288, 290 (6th Cir. 1987). To that end, Plaintiff would not have suffered irreparable harm had the injunction been denied insofar as the little more than four months' suspension Plaintiff received without pay was compensable with monetary damages. Although Plaintiff contends that harm would have resulted without the injunction because his teaching style was being interfered with and his First Amendment rights were being violated, Plaintiff has not shown that his speech was protected by the First Amendment. 102