No procedural due process for administrators under Teacher Act

By PAUL THARP, Staff Writer

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Overruling 15-year-old precedent, the state Supreme Court has held that school administrators do not have the right to a hearing to contest reductions in pay or reassignments under the Teacher Employment and Dismissal Act.

The justices made the ruling in an answer to a certified question from the U.S. District Court in a lawsuit brought by a former Fairfield County deputy superintendent for human resources and administration against the school district, its superintendent and school board members.

The case is Henry-Davenport v. Fairfield County (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-010-11, 3 pp.).

Jannette Henry-Davenport sued the district in 2008 alleging wrongful demotion, civil-rights violations under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and federal Constitutional violations of procedural and substantive due process. She also named Superintendent Samantha J. Ingram, as well as four school board members as defendants.

The individual defendants moved to dismiss the claims on the basis of qualified immunity. District Judge Matthew J. Perry granted dismissal of the claims against Ingram and the other individual defendants in 2009 on the grounds that they were entitled to qualified immunity.

The district then answered the complaint, both parties engaged in discovery and both parties ultimately moved for summary judgment, said Charleston attorney Carol B. Ervin, who represented the school district.

She said Henry-Davenport made both federal due-process and state-law claims against the district, but the federal and state claims were bound together. “The issue of whether or not the plaintiff had any due-process rights turned on whether or not she had a property interest in her position and entitlements,” Ervin said.

That was an issue of state law, which prompted the federal court to certify its question to the S.C. Supreme Court. 

The question was whether S.C. Code Ann. § 59-24-15 afforded “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?”

The answer, given existing precedent and legislation, was less than clear. “To my knowledge, no state court had ever interpreted the statute in question,” Ervin said.

In the court’s opinion, authored by Justice John W. Kittredge, the Supreme Court overruled Johnson v. Spartanburg County School Dist. No. 7, 314 S.C. 340 (1994), a case where an assistant principal challenged a reduction in his pay. In that case, the court held, “[t]he loss of wages was an injustice that violated the Teacher Act’s procedural safeguards,” and the assistant principal was entitled to a hearing to challenge the loss of wages.

But Johnson, Justice Kittredge observed, was decided before the legislature enacted the S.C. Educational Accountability Act of 1998.

“Certified education personnel who are employed as administrators on an annual or multi-year contract will retain their rights as a teacher,” Justice Kittredge wrote, “… but no such rights are granted to the position or salary of administrator.”

Justice Kittredge focused on a phrase from the 1998 enactment – “but no such rights are granted to the position or salary of administrator” – finding that the legislature had intended “to expressly exclude” the right to a hearing to contest demotion or cuts in salary to an administrator.

“[T]he plain language of the statute,” Justice Kittredge wrote, “directly contradicts Johnson‘s holding.” The court’s answer to the certified question, then, was no. An administrator does not have a right to a hearing to challenge a demotion, reassignment or reduction in salary.

“This is an important decision,” Ervin said, “particularly given these tough economic times. School districts are being forced to make budget cuts and to reorganize personnel. It is helpful to them to know that they can transfer an administrator and make reductions in salary as needed, without having to have a hearing for each affected administrator and potentially be facing litigation if they don’t.”

Ervin said Henry-Davenport continues to work in the Fairfield County School District as director of food services. According to Henry-Davenport’s complaint, her salary is now $75,000, compared with the $93,036 she made as deputy superintendent for human resources and administration.

The demotion came after Ingram became superintendent in 2007 and began issuing “unjustified written warnings, counseling statements, letters of concern and reprimand, and plac[ing] derogatory information in Henry-Davenport’s personnel file to justify eventual termination,” Henry-Davenport alleged in her complaint.

In early 2008, Ingram notified Henry-Davenport that she would be reassigned, with a corresponding reduction in pay totaling $23,036 annually.

Henry-Davenport alleged that Ingram acted unilaterally without the prior approval of school board members and in contravention of various school board rules and policies. By voting to approve Ingram’s actions, Henry-Davenport alleged, the school board “ratified unlawful conduct.”

Henry-Davenport alleged that Ingram’s and the school board’s conduct deprived her of procedural and substantive due process and alleged violation of procedural safeguards in the Teacher Employment and Dismissal Act as well as civil-rights violations under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. She sought compensatory and punitive damages “all in a sum not less than $10 million.”

The school district removed the case to federal court, where eventually the competing motions for summary judgment were filed.

Ervin said she believes the Supreme Court’s answer to the federal court’s question will be “outcome determinative.” Without a property interest under state law, she said, Henry-Davenport’s federal claims collapse.

The case will return to federal court, where Judge Perry will likely make rulings on the competing motions for summary judgment, according to Ervin.

Henry-Davenport’s attorney did not return Lawyers Weekly’s calls for comment before deadline.

Opinion Brief

Case name: Henry-Davenport v. Fairfield County School District

Court: S.C. Supreme Court

Judges: Justice John W. Kittredge; Chief Justice Jean Hoefer Toal, concurring; Justices Costa M. Pleicones and Kaye G. Hearn, concurring; Acting Justice Howard King, concurring.

Date: Jan. 18, 2011

Plaintiff’s attorney: Glenn Walters (Orangeburg)

Defendants’ attorneys: Brian Quisenberry, Carol B. Ervin and Stephen L. Brown (Charleston)

Issue: Does state 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?

Holding: No. 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 the 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.