Janmeja v. L S U Agri & Mech ( 1997 )

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
_____________________
No. 96-30280
_____________________
BRIJ M. JANMEJA,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY AGRICULTURAL &
MECHANICAL COLLEGE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS;
ALLEN A. COPPING, Individually and in his
capacity as President of the LA State
University System; LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY
AT EUNICE; MICHAEL SMITH, Individually and in
his capacity as Chancellor of LA State
University at Eunice; DONALD O. ROGERS,
Individually and in his capacity as Vice-Chancellor
of Academic Affairs of LA State University at
Eunice; THERESA DEBECHE, Individually and in her
capacity as Head of the Division of Nursing and
Allied Health of LA State University at Eunice;
EDWARD CALLOWAY, Individually and in his capacity
as Director of the Respiratory Care Program of
Louisiana State University at Eunice,
Defendants-Appellees.
_________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Western District of Louisiana, Lafayette
(95-CV-263)
_________________________________________________________________
April 14, 1997
Before JOLLY, JONES, and WIENER, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:*
*
Pursuant to Local Rule 47.5, the court has determined that
this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except
under the limited circumstances set forth in Local Rule 47.5.4.
This appeal presents the question whether a state employee
demoted from his administrative position after refusing to sign a
letter in the course of an evaluation proceeding has raised viable
claims under either the First or the Fourteenth Amendment. After
reviewing the record, studying the briefs, and considering the
arguments presented to this court, we have concluded that the
district court did not err in dismissing the claims.
I
Brij M. Janmeja is a tenured associate professor at Louisiana
State University at Eunice (“LSU-E”), a two-year community college
under the supervision and management of the Louisiana State
University Board of Supervisors. Until September 1994, Janmeja
concurrently held the administrative position of Director of the
Respiratory Care Program at LSU-E.
The Respiratory Care Program undergoes an accreditation review
process, conducted by the Joint Review Committee for Respiratory
Therapy Education, every five years. A portion of this process is
a self-study, which Janmeja was responsible for overseeing. In
response to inquiries from the Joint Review Committee for
Respiratory Therapy Education, Janmeja drafted a letter attributing
the high attrition rate at the LSU-E program to the inadequate
academic preparation of entering students.
2
Janmeja’s supervisor, Theresa deBeche, did not approve of the
letter, suggesting that the attrition issue was more complex than
suggested by Janmeja’s letter.1 Janmeja refused deBeche’s request
to redraft the letter, and deBeche subsequently redrafted the
letter to include a more comprehensive analysis of the attrition
issue. Janmeja refused to sign the re-drafted letter unless his
supervisors allowed him to add a disclaimer to the document. His
supervisors declined, and deBeche signed the letter and submitted
it to the Joint Review Committee for Respiratory Therapy Education.
After the incident, Janmeja’s supervisors left a note
requesting that he meet with them immediately. Upon arriving at
the meeting, Janmeja was told that he had been reassigned to the
position of Director of Clinical Education effective immediately.
This reassignment, amounting to an administrative demotion, did not
affect Janmeja’s tenured position or salary as an associate
professor.
Janmeja filed this action against the Louisiana Board of
Supervisors, various LSU-E officials, deBeche, and the faculty
member who replaced him as Director of the Respiratory Care
Program. He alleged violations of 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985,
claiming that he was demoted for exercising his right to free
1
DeBeche suggested that the causes of the high attrition rate
also included the faculty’s educational methodologies and the
program’s design and location, among other factors.
3
speech and that he had been denied his right to procedural due
process, and sought reinstatement to the position of Director of
the Respiratory Care Program, money damages and attorneys’ fees.
The defendants filed for summary judgment claiming Eleventh
Amendment immunity and qualified immunity. The district court
dismissed all of Janmeja’s claims, except his claims for
prospective injunctive relief against the individual defendants in
their official capacities to redress alleged violations of
Janmeja’s rights to free speech and procedural due process.
Janmeja’s First and Fourteenth Amendment claims proceeded to
a bench trial. At the conclusion of Janmeja’s evidence, his First
Amendment claim was dismissed on the basis that the speech was not
a matter of public concern and, even if it were, Janmeja’s interest
in commenting on the matter was not greater than the defendants’
interest in promoting the efficiency of the public service they
performed. At the conclusion of all evidence, Janmeja’s due
process claim was dismissed because he failed to pursue the
internal grievance procedure provided by LSU-E.
Janmeja appeals only from the district court’s rulings on his
First and Fourteenth Amendment claims.
II
A
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A public employee may not be discharged for exercising his
right to free speech under the First Amendment. Thompson v. City
of Starkville, 901 F.2d 456, 460 (5th Cir. 1990). In order to
prevail on a claim of this nature, the plaintiff must first
establish that the speech involved a matter of public concern. Id.
We review de novo the trial court’s decision that Janmeja’s speech
was not a matter of public concern. Terrell v. University of Texas
Sys. Police, 792 F.2d 1360, 1362 n.2 (5th Cir. 1986).
This court has set forth the following standard for
determining when speech relates to a matter of public concern:
Because almost anything that occurs within a public
agency could be of concern to the public, we do not focus
on the inherent interest or importance of the matters
discussed by the employee. Rather, our task is to decide
whether the speech at issue in a particular case was made
primarily in the plaintiff’s role as a citizen or
primarily in his role as an employee. In making this
determination, the mere fact that the topic of the
employee’s speech was one in which the public might or
would have had a great interest is of little moment.
Id. at 1362; see also Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 147 (1983)
(“[W]hen a public employee speaks not as a citizen upon matters of
public concern, but instead as an employee upon matters only of
personal interest, absent the most unusual circumstances, a federal
court is not the appropriate forum in which to review the wisdom of
a personnel decision taken by a public agency allegedly in reaction
to the employee’s behavior.”).
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Janmeja’s draft of the proposed self-study letter was clearly
prepared in the course of his duties as an employee. The letter
did not address a matter of public concern, and the district court
did not err in dismissing his First Amendment claim.
B
In order to establish a claim for denial of procedural due
process, a plaintiff must demonstrate that he had a property
interest or right in the position from which he was removed.
Browning v. City of Odessa, 990 F.2d 842, 844 (5th Cir. 1993). The
existence of a property interest in employment is determined by
state law. See Moulton v. City of Beaumont, 991 F.2d 227, 230 (5th
Cir. 1993).
Louisiana adheres to the doctrine of “employment at will.”
Gilbert v. Tulane Univ., 909 F.2d 124, 126 (5th Cir. 1990). Under
this doctrine, employment is not a property right unless there is
a specific contract provision granting such a right. Moulton, 991
F.2d at 230.
Louisiana State University regulations provide that tenure
attaches only to academic positions, not administrative
assignments; therefore, because Janmeja’s demotion affected only
his administrative position, a non-tenured position, he had no
property interest in the position of Director of the Respiratory
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Care Program and failed to state a procedural due process claim
under the Fourteenth Amendment.2
III
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court
is
A F F I R M E D.
2
The district court ruled that Janmeja had a property interest
in his administrative position, specifically an “individual right
to market himself,” and dismissed the claim because Janmeja failed
to exhaust LSU-E’s internal grievance procedure. We find it
unnecessary to address the exhaustion issue, because, as noted
above, we find that Janmeja had no property interest in his purely
administrative assignment. See Terrell, 792 F.2d at 1362 n.3
(“When the judgment of the district court is correct, it may be
affirmed on appeal for reasons other than those given or relied on
below.”).
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