Court Opinion

ID: 9472255
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:54:29.252704+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:50.037149
License: Public Domain

E. GRADY JOLLY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I fully concur with the majority in its holding that the district court’s judgment on the plaintiffs’ first amendment claims should be affirmed and its judgment on the due process property interest claims reversed. I dissent, however, from the panel’s holding that the due process-liberty interest claims should be remanded, because I find no evidence in the record to support them. I would simply reverse the judgment with respect to those claims.
Although testimony presented at trial indicates that the grievance procedure was invoked by the plaintiffs’ colleagues at least in part because of tensions and pressures in the school environment resulting from the conflict between the plaintiffs and others over the Right to Read program, the testimony does not support the plaintiffs’ assertion that stigmatizing charges were made against them at the public hearing before the school board. Some of the board members testified at trial that they did not recall any names, including those of the plaintiffs, having been mentioned in connection with the grievance. Other board members testified that they were aware that the complaints were directed at the plaintiff. However, the plaintiffs offered no testimony which indicates that any specific false comments were directed at either of the plaintiffs which would deprive them of a liberty interest. Reading the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, I can only conclude that the plaintiffs were characterized by their fellow teachers as overcritical and difficult to work with. Mere charges of uncooperativeness or inability to work harmoniously with colleagues made in relation to an employee’s discharge do not deprive that indi*261vidual of his “freedom to take advantage of other employment opportunities” nor do they impugn that person’s “good name, reputation, honor, or integrity.” 1 The dismissal must be shown to have resulted in a “ ‘badge of infamy,’ public scorn, or the like.” Ball v. Board of Trustees of Kerrville Independent School District, 584 F.2d 684, 685 (5th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 972, 99 S.Ct. 1535, 59 L.Ed.2d 788 (1972). I find no evidence in the record before us that charges were made against the plaintiffs of which it can fairly be said that they “might seriously damage [the plaintiffs’] standing and associations in [their] community.” 2 In addition, there is no evidence that the school board, merely by entertaining unfavorable comments by the plaintiffs’ co-workers, gave any form of official imprimatur to these charges, a necessary foundation to a claim such as the one raised by the plaintiffs.
Because there was no evidence to support it, it was error for the trial judge to submit the plaintiffs’ due process liberty interest claim to the jury, and the judgment below should be reversed without remand in this respect. Even though the defendants failed to question at trial the sufficiency of the evidence on the due process-liberty interest claim, it seems to me to be a manifest miscarriage of justice to require the defendants to submit to a second trial of a claim in support of which the plaintiffs produced no evidence at the first trial.

. See Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 573, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2707, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972).

. Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. at 573, 92 S.Ct. at 2707.