PUBLISH
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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FILED
No. 94-8667 U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
-------------------------------------------- ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
04/05/99
D. C. Docket No. 91-CV-47-2-MAC (WDO)
THOMAS K. KAHN
CLERK
CAROL FLOYD, CARLA FLOYD, MARY ANN DRAKE,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
Cross-Appellees,
versus
IRIS WAITERS, Security Chief, Board of Public
Education and Orphanage for Bibb County,
WILLIAM DECKER BOOKER, Security Guard, Board
of Public Education and Orphanage for Bibb
County,
Defendants,
KENNETH BRONSON, Security Guard, Board of
Public Education and Orphanage for Bibb
County, JOHN NICHOLSON, Head of Operations,
Board of Public Education and Orphanage for
Bibb County, STEPHEN MASSEY, President, Board
of Public Education and Orphanage for Bibb
County, THOMAS HAGLER, Superintendent, Board
of Public Education and Orphanage for Bibb
County, HARRY TINKER,
Defendants-Appellees,
Cross-Appellants.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Georgia
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(April 5, 1999)
ON REMAND FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Before EDMONDSON and COX, Circuit Judges, and FAY, Senior Circuit Judge.
EDMONDSON, Circuit Judge:
We earlier decided this case in Floyd v. Waiters,
133 F.3d 786 (11th
Cir. 1998). The Supreme Court vacated our judgment and instructed us to
reconsider the case in the light of its decision in Gebser v. Lago Vista
Indep. Sch. Dist.,
118 S. Ct. 1989 (1998). We have done so. We reinstate
our prior decision and opinion.
Briefly stated, in Floyd, we wrote that a Title IX plaintiff must
establish two things to survive summary judgment in a cause of action
against a school district like Bibb County’s for the discriminatory acts of
its employees. First, some supervisor with authority to take corrective
action was placed on notice of the bad conduct. See
id. at 792 & n.13.
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Second, the supervisor possessing this authority was a school official high
enough up the chain-of-command that his acts constitute an official
decision by the school district itself not to remedy the misconduct. See id.
at 790-792. Given the circumstances of this case, we held that there could
be no Title IX liability.
In Gebser, the Supreme Court faced a sexual-harassment-by-a-
teacher case under Title IX. The Court pointed out the contractual nature
of Title IX and rejected school district liability based on either respondeat
superior or constructive notice. See Gebser,
118 S. Ct. at 1997. Then the
Court tied school district liability to an official decision by the school
district not to remedy a known act of misconduct. For school district
liability, the Court stressed that some “appropriate person” in the school
district must have actual notice of the misconduct. See
id. at 1999.
The Court did not go into detail about who would be an appropriate
person; it did not need to do so to decide Gebser: in Gebser no one in the
pertinent school district other than the offending teacher himself knew of
his misconduct. See
id. at 1993. The Court did say, however, that the
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appropriate person must necessarily be an “official” of the school district
and must have the authority to end the discrimination. See
id. at 1999. But
these preconditions were set out in the context of “at a minimum” -- a
minimum which was not met in Gebser -- and not set out as a fully
developed, complete standard.*
In our view, our decision in this case is consistent with the Supreme
Court’s decision (and reasoning) in Gebser. The judgment of the district
court is again AFFIRMED.
*
By the way we, given the record before us, also conclude as a
matter of law that Mr. Waiters and Mr. Tinker (the two district
employees who have been especially singled-out by plaintiffs) were not
school district school officials and that they also lacked authority to end
the pertinent discrimination.
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