Lee v. Regents of University of California , 221 F. App'x 711 ( 2007 )

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES CO URT O F APPEALS
February 23, 2007
FO R TH E TENTH CIRCUIT Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
DA VID LEE,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v. No. 06-2008
(D.C. No. CIV-04-1087 JP/W DS)
R EG EN TS O F U N IV ER SITY OF (D . N.M .)
CALIFO RNIA, d/b/a Los Alamos
National Laboratory; G. PETER
N A N O S; C AR OLY N MA N G ENG;
LEE M cATEE; W ILLIAM F. EISELE;
JAM ES R. BLAND; SAND RA
GO GO L; and VICTORIA M cCA BE,
Defendants-Appellees.
OR D ER AND JUDGM ENT *
Before O’BRIEN, PO RFILIO, and A ND ER SO N, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiff David Lee appeals from the district court’s order denying his
request for reconsideration with respect to its earlier order dismissing his
*
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination of
this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is
therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is
not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata,
and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value
consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
complaint for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
12(b)(6). Having jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.
Background
A. Lee’s Termination
This case arises out of the termination of Lee’s employment with the Los
Alamos National Lab (“Lab”). According to Lee’s complaint, he began working
at the Lab in 1993 as a technical staff member and team leader of the
Radiological Engineering Team (“RET”) within the department known as
HSR-12. In A pril 2002, Sandra G ogol, a probationary employee under Lee’s
supervision, complained to James Bland, another staff member, that Lee had been
treating her unfairly. Lee maintains that these complaints were false. He also
contends, however, that Bland “harbored considerable resentment” towards him
because he had replaced B land as the RET team leader. Aplt. App. at 10. He
claims that because of this animosity, Bland encouraged Gogol to take her
complaints directly to Lee M cAtee, a high-level manager who also harbored “one
or more personal grudges” against Lee. Id. at 11. Gogol followed Bland’s advice
and told M cAtee that Lee had been mistreating her and that she wanted a job
transfer.
Based on Gogol’s accusations, M cAtee and Bland, acting in concert with
Victoria M cCabe of the human relations office and W illiam Eisele, the HSR-12
group leader, “set in motion a chain of retaliatory events that was eventually to
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culminate in [Lee’s] termination.” Id. at 13. First, Eisele told Lee that he was to
have no further contact with Gogol. Then, M cCabe opened an investigation into
Gogol’s complaints. According to Lee, the investigation “was unfair, inadequate,
biased, and not calculated to yield reliable results,” and was instead “designed to
gather sufficient adverse material concerning [Lee] to provide a pretextual basis
for disciplining him.” Id. at 14. He concedes, however, that M cCabe interviewed
him tw ice as part of her investigation.
In August 2002, after a meeting between M cCabe, Eisele, and M cAtee, Lee
was suspended, demoted, and formally reprimanded for various infractions that he
claims he did not commit. The Lab ultimately terminated his employment in
November 2002.
B. The District Court Proceedings
On September 29, 2004, Lee sued Gogol, Bland, M cAtee, M cCabe, Eisele,
and the Regents of the University of California 1 under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming
that he was deprived of a property interest in his job without due process in
violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. His complaint, however, does not
describe any inadequacies in the process used to fire him. Instead, Count I, which
1
The Lab is managed by the University of California. Lee also sued the
director of the Lab, G. Peter Nanos, and the acting deputy director, Carolyn
M angeng, based on alleged defamatory statements made about him to his
subsequent employer. Lee did not seek reconsideration of the dismissal of his
defamation-related claims, however, and Nanos’s and M angeng’s actions do not
appear to be otherwise relevant to the § 1983 claim at issue in this appeal.
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is his § 1983 claim, states only that the defendants “deprived [him] of rights
protected by § 1983, specifically, the right to be suspended or terminated only for
just cause.” A plt. App. at 17. The defendants moved to dismiss the § 1983 claim
based on Lee’s failure to challenge the termination process. They argued that the
Due Process Clause only protects against governmental deprivations without due
process of law , and since Lee alleged only that he was terminated without cause,
his complaint failed to state a § 1983 claim.
In a thorough and well-reasoned opinion, dated M ay 17, 2005, the district
court considered whether the defendants w ere entitled to qualified immunity with
respect to the § 1983 claim. The court explained that first it had to determine
whether Lee had alleged a violation of his procedural due process rights. See id.
at 58; Tonkovich v. Kan. Bd. of Regents, 159 F.3d 504, 516 (10th Cir. 1998). If
so, it would have to reach the next question of “whether the right allegedly
implicated was clearly established at the time of the events in question.”
Tonkovich, 159 F.3d at 516 (quotation omitted).
Properly limiting its review to the allegations in Lee’s complaint, see Issa
v. Comp USA, 354 F.3d 1174, 1179 (10th Cir. 2003) (explaining that a plaintiff
cannot rely on briefing to supplement complaint), the district court concluded that
the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity, because the complaint did not
state a due process violation. Thus, the court did not have to decide whether the
constitutional right at issue was clearly established. As the court explained, Lee’s
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allegation that he was fired without cause was insufficient to invoke the
protections of § 1983.
“In procedural due process claims, the deprivation by state
action of a constitutionally protected interest in ‘life, liberty, or
property’ is not in itself unconstitutional; what is unconstitutional is
the deprivation of such an interest without due process of law.”
Aplt. App. at 59 (quoting Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U.S. 113, 125 (1990)). Since
the complaint challenged only the propriety of the deprivation and not the
adequacy of the termination process, the district court concluded that the
complaint failed to state a procedural due process claim. 2
The court went further, however, and found that even if Lee had challenged
the adequacy of the termination process, his § 1983 claim would still have failed
because it was evident from the complaint that Lee was accorded adequate
process. Citing Cleveland Board of Education v. Louderm ill, 470 U.S. 532, 545,
546 (1985), the court explained that “[a] pretermination hearing ‘need not be
elaborate’ nor does it need to be a full-blown evidentiary hearing. . . . All that due
process requires is ‘notice and an opportunity to respond.’” Aplt. A pp. at 59-60.
Here, the court determined that M cCabe’s pre-termination interviews of Lee
showed that he was provided with notice and an opportunity to respond, which
was all that due process required. It went on to hold that Lee’s failure to allege
2
The court and the defendants assumed for purposes of the motion to dismiss
that Lee had a valid property interest in his continued employment with the Lab.
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that he had requested and been denied a post-termination hearing waived any
arguments based on the lack of such a hearing. Id. at 92; see Pitts v. Bd. of Educ.
of U.S.D. 305, 869 F.2d 555, 557 (10th Cir. 1989) (holding that plaintiff’s failure
to request pre-termination hearing waived right to challenge hearing in court);
Alvin v. Suzuki, 227 F.3d 107, 116-19 (3rd Cir. 2000) (rejecting plaintiff’s § 1983
claim because plaintiff failed to use formal grievance process).
On M ay 27, 2005, Lee filed a motion asking the court to reconsider its
dismissal of his § 1983 claim. He argued that since a § 1983 claim carries no
exhaustion requirement, he was not required to request a post-termination hearing
before filing suit. The district court interpreted the motion as “essentially
question[ing] the correctness of [its] prior Order” and therefore “evaluate[d] [the]
motion under Rule 59(e) for manifest error.” Aplt. App. at 91. It rejected Lee’s
exhaustion argument, explaining that the issue was not one of exhaustion but
whether Lee had a § 1983 claim to begin with. “A due process violation does not
occur until a state fails to provide due process, and ‘exhaustion simpliciter is
analytically distinct from the requirement that the harm alleged . . . has
occurred.’” Id. at 92 (quoting Alvin, 227 F.3d at 116). Lee, the court explained,
lacked a constitutional claim to begin with because the complaint itself described
a process sufficient under the Fourteenth Amendment. And again, the court held
that Lee had waived any challenge to the fairness of a post-termination hearing by
failing to request such a hearing. Consequently, the court determined that its
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earlier order was not manifestly erroneous and denied the Rule 59(e) motion. Lee
then filed this appeal, challenging the district court’s denial of his Rule 59(e)
motion.
Analysis
It is w ell-settled that a R ule 59(e) motion should only be granted “to
correct manifest errors of law or to present newly discovered evidence.” Jennings
v. Rivers, 394 F.3d 850, 854 (10th Cir. 2005) (quotation omitted). W hen a district
court denies such a motion, we review its decision for abuse of discretion. Id.This includes a “review to determine that the discretion was not guided by
erroneous legal conclusions.” Id. (quotation omitted).
Lee argues on appeal that the procedures in place for Lab employees
subject to termination are so biased in favor of the Lab that a fired employee
should not be required to partake of them in order to raise a procedural due
process claim. Specifically, he argues that section 111.34 of the Lab’s
Administrative M anual, which precludes the hearing officer from issuing
subpoenas, is hopelessly unfair, because although the Lab can compel current
employees to testify on its behalf, the claimant has no means to compel unwilling
witnesses to give testimony on the claimant’s behalf. He concludes by arguing
that “a fired public employee may not be required to take advantage of a state
grievance or hearing procedure that does not provide the due process to which the
plaintiff is entitled.” Opening Br. at 15.
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This argument, although based on a more specific challenge to the Lab’s
post-termination procedures, is simply another take on the exhaustion argument
that Lee asserted vigorously before the district court. W e agree with the district
court, however, that exhaustion is not the issue. Lee’s § 1983 claim fails not
because he refused to jump through the requisite hoops, but because he
affirmatively pled that he was afforded notice and an opportunity to respond
before he was terminated. W e also agree with the district court that Lee waived
any challenge to the fairness of the Lab’s post-termination hearing procedures
because he never requested a post-termination hearing. And as the district court
stated, he cannot make a futility argument with respect to the post-termination
process based on alleged unfairness in the pre-termination process. See Alvin,
227 F.3d at 119 (explaining that bias in early stages of termination process does
not prove bias in later stages). In short, for the same reasons stated by the district
court in its D ecember 12, 2005, order denying Lee’s Rule 59(e) motion, we
conclude that Lee failed to show that the court’s finding with respect to qualified
immunity was manifestly erroneous. Therefore, the court clearly acted within its
discretion in denying Lee’s Rule 59(e) motion, and its judgment must be, and is,
A FFIRME D.
Entered for the Court
Terrence L. O’Brien
Circuit Judge
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