Curtis v. Montgomery County Public Schools , 242 F. App'x 109 ( 2007 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 05-2251
NATHANIEL L. CURTIS,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
versus
MONTGOMERY COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS, Officially
known as: Montgomery County Board of
Education; THERASSE GILES; MARLA LEVINE; PAULA
GORDON; ROCHELLE KRAUS; DR. STAN SCHAUB;
ELIZABETH L. ARONS, ED.D; DONALD KOPP; LARRY
A. BOWERS; ROBERT H. HACKER; ROBERT S.
SHAFFNER; MONTGOMERY COUNTY BOARD OF
EDUCATION; MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND,
Defendants - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Greenbelt. Peter J. Messitte, District Judge. (CA-
00-2687-PJM; CA-01-860-PJM)
Submitted: July 16, 2007 Decided: July 24, 2007
Before MICHAEL and MOTZ, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Ralph T. Byrd, Laytonsville, Maryland, for Appellant. Charles W.
Thompson, Jr., County Attorney, Marc P. Hansen, Deputy County
Attorney, Patricia P. Via, Principal Counsel for Litigation, Sharon
V. Burrell, Principal Counsel for Self-Insurance Appeals,
Rockville, Maryland, for Appellees.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:
A permanent employee of the Montgomery County Public Schools
asserts that the Montgomery County Board of Education violated his
Fourteenth Amendment right to due process by firing him without
adequate pre-dismissal notice. The district court rejected this
claim, granting summary judgment to the Board of Education. We
affirm.
I.
In 1997, Nathaniel Curtis began working as an instructional
assistant at Brown Station Elementary School. Through his
employment, Curtis participated in a mentoring program. After
Curtis invited his mentees to his house and had individual lunches
with them, Principal Paula Gordon met with Curtis to discuss
parental concerns, and issued written guidelines for the mentoring
program. Two teachers who worked with Curtis subsequently
expressed concern to Gordon that Curtis had an unhealthy
relationship with some of his mentees.
Gordon sought advice from her supervisor, who referred the
case to the personnel department. In a letter dated April 16,
1999, Dr. Elizabeth Arons, Director of Personnel Services, notified
Curtis that he was being placed on administrative leave with
salary, pending an investigation into allegations of inappropriate
conduct with students. After notifying Curtis of his suspension
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with pay, the Board of Education then contacted the police and
initiated its own internal investigation. During the course of the
Board’s investigation, Curtis was given an opportunity to meet in
person with investigators to respond to the allegations against
him, and to respond to written questions about his conduct. He met
with investigators for, in his own words, “well over an hour on
Tuesday, April 20” to discuss the charges against him, and he sent
the Board detailed written responses to questions on April 30.
Based on the internal investigation, Rochelle Kraus (a
staffing specialist) recommended that Curtis be dismissed. Various
members of the personnel department agreed, and after reviewing the
entire file, Larry A. Bowers, the Acting Deputy Superintendent of
Schools, notified Curtis of his dismissal by letter dated May 26,
1999.
The Board provided Curtis with an extensive post-termination
process. The May 26 letter explained that Curtis could appeal the
decision through a contractually agreed upon grievance procedure,
and informed Curtis where he could find information about the
process. Upon receipt of the May 26 letter, Curtis filed a
grievance with the Board of Education. Two separate hearing
officers, Robert Hacker and Robert Shaffner, heard Curtis’s
grievance pursuant to the administrative process. They both upheld
the Board’s decision to discharge Curtis. Curtis failed to pursue
an available third level of this administrative process.
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Curtis filed two civil actions against the Montgomery County
Board of Education and various individual defendants, which the
United States District Court for the District of Maryland
consolidated and stayed pending the outcome of state court
litigation. The district court then granted the defendants’
motions for summary judgment. With respect to the lone issue
Curtis raises on appeal, the district court concluded that Curtis
was given adequate notice and an opportunity to be heard before he
was fired.
II.
The parties agree that Curtis held a property interest in his
continued employment with the school system, which could only be
deprived “pursuant to constitutionally adequate procedures.”
Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 541 (1985).
The only issue before us is whether Curtis received sufficient
notice before he was dismissed on May 26, 1999. Curtis concedes
that he had notice of the serious allegations against him, but
asserts that he was not given notice of the possible consequences
of the investigation. We hold that he was provided with all of the
notice he was due.
In Loudermill, the Supreme Court explained that the
Constitution requires that an employee be given “notice and an
opportunity to respond” before being dismissed. Id. at 546. This
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pre-termination process, the Court explained, need only provide “an
initial check against mistaken decisions,” when, as in this case,
it is followed by a full post-termination hearing. Id. at 545.
Curtis does not dispute that before his dismissal he was
notified of the charges against him and provided an opportunity to
present his side of the story both in a meeting and in writing.
Curtis contends that this pre-termination process was nevertheless
insufficient because he was not given formal notice that his
dismissal was a possible outcome of the Board’s investigation.
Curtis points to the Loudermill Court’s statements that the pre-
termination process should determine “whether there are reasonable
grounds to believe that the charges against the employee are true
and support the proposed action,” and that due process requires
“[t]he opportunity to present reasons . . . why proposed action
should not be taken,” id. at 545-46.
Loudermill, however, does not make detailed pre-termination
notice of the possible range of proposed disciplinary actions a
formal requirement of due process. In fact, the Loudermill Court
articulated the precise process due before dismissal: “The tenured
public employee is entitled to oral or written notice of the
charges against him, an explanation of the employer’s evidence, and
an opportunity to present his side of the story.” Id. at 546(emphasis added). This list was meant to be exhaustive. As the
Court explained, “[t]o require more than this prior to termination
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would intrude to an unwarranted extent on the government’s interest
in quickly removing an unsatisfactory employee.” Id. Neither
Loudermill nor any other case from the Supreme Court makes detailed
notice of the possible disciplinary actions a formal requirement of
pre-dismissal process.
Curtis relies heavily on a First Circuit case, Cotnoir v.
Univ. of Me. Sys., 35 F.3d 6, 11-12 (1st Cir. 1994), the only case
from the courts of appeals to find a pre-dismissal process
insufficient for not notifying the employee of the proposed
termination.* Cotnoir, however, presents a remarkably different
situation from the case at hand. In that case, the dismissed
employee, a college professor, was given an opportunity to
participate in an investigation concerning a student’s improper
conduct. He was given no reason to believe that he himself could
be dismissed from his job as a result of the investigation, and so
lacked a meaningful opportunity to be heard.
*
This circuit has never held a pre-dismissal process
inadequate for failing to provide precise notice of the proposed
cause of action. Cf. Gray v. Laws, 51 F.3d 426, 438 (4th Cir.
1995) (finding that a public employee who was given notice of a
proposed deprivation and an opportunity to respond “received far
more pre-termination process than is constitutionally required”);
Hanton v. Gilbert, 36 F.3d 4, 7 (4th Cir. 1994) (quoting
Loudermill, 470 U.S. at 546, for the point that prior to
termination, “‘the tenured public employee is entitled to oral or
written notice of the charges against him, an explanation of the
employer’s evidence, and an opportunity to present his side of the
story’”); Garraghty v. Jordan, 830 F.2d 1295, 1300 (4th Cir. 1987)
(same).
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In the case at hand, in contrast, the Board notified Curtis in
writing on April 16, 1999, before beginning its internal
investigation, that he was being suspended with pay pending the
outcome of the investigation. This warning to Curtis -- that he
was the subject of the investigation, that the allegations against
him were serious, and that he was being placed on indefinite
suspension -- should have made him well aware of the possible
consequences of the investigation. After receiving the letter,
Curtis engaged meaningfully in the pre-dismissal process provided
him, responding to the charges against him both in person and in a
formal written statement. In so doing, Curtis demonstrated that he
was on notice of the serious possible consequences of the Board’s
investigation. In sum, Curtis received all of the pre-deprivation
process he was due.
III.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm. We dispense with oral
argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately
presented in the materials before the court and argument would not
aid in the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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