Williams v. Shelby County Board of Education

Filing 237

ORDER ON PLAINTIFF'S TEACHER TENURE ACT CLAIM. Signed by Judge Thomas L. Parker on 08/13/2020. (kah)

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE
WESTERN DIVISION

SONYA P. WILLIAMS,
Plaintiff,
v.
SHELBY COUNTY BOARD OF
EDUCATION,
Defendant.

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No. 2:17-cv-02050-TLP-jay
JURY DEMAND

ORDER ON PLAINTIFF’S TEACHER TENURE ACT CLAIM

Defendant Shelby County Board of Education (the “Board”) moves the Court for a
determination of the type of damages Plaintiff is entitled to under her Teacher Tenure Act
claim, Tennessee Code Annotated § 49-5-511(b). (ECF No. 122.) In particular, Defendant
argues that Plaintiff’s damages are limited to back pay and that reinstatement is not warranted
here. (Id. at PageID 3292.) The School Board’s October 2018 Resolution which purportedly
brought Plaintiff’s excision into compliance with § 49-5-511(b)(1), prompted Defendant’s
motion. (See ECF No. 122-3.)
Because of this new development, the Court granted Plaintiff time and space to conduct
limited discovery about the Board’s adherence to the requirements of the Teacher Tenure Act.
(See ECF No. 116.) Plaintiff conducted supplemental discovery and has now responded to
Defendant’s motion. (ECF No. 150.) For the reasons below, the Court finds that Plaintiff’s
damages are limited to back pay as Defendant’s excision now complies with the Teacher Tenure
Act.

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BACKGROUND
This is another case in which the Shelby County School System’s (“SCS”) violated the
Tennessee Teacher Tenure Act’s reduction in force (“RIF”) provision, Tennessee Code
Annotated § 49-5-511(b). 1 In March 2016, Plaintiff was terminated from her position as an
Adult Education Advisor at the Messick Adult Education Center, part of the Adult Education
Program of the SCS. (ECF No. 1 at PageID 6.) When the State of Tennessee pulled the grant
funding the program, SCS closed the Messick Adult Education Center and excised Plaintiff.
(ECF No. 46 at PageID 313.) Plaintiff received a letter of termination from SCS Superintendent
Dorsey Hopson at that time. (ECF No. 49 at PageID 847.) Yet the Board took no action on
Plaintiff’s termination in 2016.
The closing of the Messick Adult Center and Plaintiff’s termination followed a
tumultuous period in SCS’s history. When the Memphis City School System merged with SCS
in 2013, a mass student exodus prompted SCS to reduce the number of teaching positions
district wide. See Kelley v. Shelby Cty. Bd. of Educ., 751 F. App’x 650, 652 (6th Cir. 2018).
This prompted many lawsuits over the procedures used by SCS to terminate teachers under the
RIF policy. See e.g., Kelley v. Shelby Cty. Bd. of Educ., 198 F. Supp. 3d 842 (W.D. Tenn.
2016); Haynes v. Shelby Cty. Bd. of Educ., No. 17-cv-2305-SHL-cgc, 2018 WL 1558284 (W.D.
Tenn. Jan. 30, 2018).

1

SCS’s approach to excising teachers when it becomes necessary to reduce the number of
positions within the system has led to many lawsuits. See, e.g., Kelley v. Shelby Cty. Bd. of
Educ., 198 F. Supp. 3d 842 (W.D. Tenn. 2016); Haynes v. Shelby Cty. Bd. of Educ., No. 17-cv2305-SHL-cgc, 2018 WL 1558284 (W.D. Tenn. Jan. 30, 2018). This case, like those, evidences
the Board’s failure to adhere to its statutory duty to ensure that each teacher excised as part of a
reduction in force policy receives the protections afforded under the Act.
2

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In Kelley, the trial court found that the school system’s procedures violated the Teacher
Tenure Act’s RIF provision because the Board had taken no action about the layoffs other than
authorizing the overall reduction in force. See 198 F. Supp. 3d at 851–52. In response to the
district court’s decision, the Board passed a resolution on October 5, 2016 (the “October 2016
Resolution”), ostensibly ratifying the terminations during the 2013–2014, 2014–2015, and
2015–2016 school years. (See ECF No. 122 at PageID 3293.) The October 2016 Resolution
included a list of named employees whose excision the Board was ratifying. 2 (ECF No. 122-1.)
The district court in Kelley, after reconsideration of the damages due, determined that the
Board’s resolution had brought the excisions into compliance with the Teacher Tenure Act. See
751 F. App’x at 653–54. And so it capped the plaintiff’s damages on the date of the resolution.
Id.
The Sixth Circuit affirmed the trial court’s decision to cap damages as of the date of the
Board Resolution. See 751 F. App’x at 656. That decision prompted the Board to pass yet
another resolution on October 30, 2018 (the “October 2018 Resolution”), in an apparent effort
to ratify the termination of certain excessed employees whose names it had omitted (like
Plaintiff’s) from the October 2016 Resolution. (ECF No. 122-3.) The Board passed the
October 2018 Resolution shortly before the trial of this case. This later resolution is important
because the Board listed Plaintiff’s name. (Id. at PageID 3328.)
Defendant’s attorney heard about the October 2018 Resolution on January 8, 2019—one
week before the pretrial conference scheduled here. (See ECF No. 122 at PageID 3295.)
Plaintiff’s counsel did not find out about it until January 10, 2019. (Id.) Defendant’s attorney

2

The Board failed to include Plaintiff, Dr. Sonya Williams’ name in that October 2016
Resolution. (ECF No. 122-1.)
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argued at the pretrial conference that Plaintiff’s remedy under the Teacher Tenure Act was now
definitively limited to back pay because the Board ratified Plaintiff’s termination. As a result,
according to Defendant’s counsel, only a question of law remains—the damages to which
Plaintiff is now entitled. (Id. at PageID 3300.) According to Defendants, because the Board
intended to ratify Plaintiff’s excision in October 2016, the October 2018 ratification now
retroactively caps her damages. (ECF No. 122 at PageID 3294.) Plaintiff’s counsel objected.
And so the Court allowed the parties to engage in limited, supplemental discovery and to submit
briefs on the issue. (See ECF Nos. 122 & 150.) 3 The Court will now address these issues.
LEGAL STANDARD
I.

Tennessee Teacher Tenure Act Requirements
Under the Teacher Tenure Act school boards may reduce the number of teaching

positions and nonlicensed positions in the system when necessary because of a decrease in
enrollment or for other good reason. Tenn. Code Ann. § 49-5-511(b)(1). The statute grants the
board of education of each school system the authority “to dismiss such teachers or nonlicensed
employees based on their level of effectiveness” as determined by Tennessee law. Id. The
school board cannot delegate its authority to terminate a teacher as part of a RIF policy. Kelley,
751 F. App’x at 655. That said, the school board may delegate the authority to perform each
individual employee’s evaluation. Id. The school board itself must, however, “approve the
evaluation process and guidelines, mak[e] the ultimate employment decisions, and provid[e]
notice of termination to the laid-off teachers.” Id.

3

In the meantime, this Court closed the case temporarily to certify questions of state law for the
Tennessee Supreme Court to answer. (ECF Nos. 193 and 194.) In March 2020, the Tennessee
Supreme Court chose not to certify those questions. (ECF No. 198.) So this Court reopened the
case and is now ready to proceed. (ECF No. 204.)
4

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After a teacher’s termination as part of a RIF process, the statute mandates that teachers
“rated in the three (3) highest categories based on evaluations . . . shall be placed on a list for
reemployment.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 49-5-511(b)(3). The teacher has a right to remain on the
reemployment list until they accept an “offer of reemployment for a comparable position within
the local education association” or “rejects four bona fide offers of reemployment for
comparable positions within the [local education association].” Tenn. Code Ann. § 49-5511(b)(4).
II.

Statutory Analysis – Questions of Fact Versus Questions of Law
“Statutory interpretation is a question of law . . . .” United States v. Cassidy, 899 F.2d

543, 545 (6th Cir. 1990) (quoting In re Vause, 886 F.2d 794, 798 (6th Cir. 1989)). Statutory
compliance, on the other hand, is a mixed question of law and fact. See Williams v. Mehra, 186
F.3d 685, 690 (6th Cir. 1999) (holding that determining whether the defendants were
deliberately indifferent was a mixed question of law and fact). Courts consider issues over the
acts performed by the parties “subsidiary or basic fact[s].” Id. Whether these alleged facts
show a violation of a statute is then a question of law. See Williams, 186 F.3d at 690 (holding
that it was a question of law whether the defendants’ actions violated the law).
ANALYSIS
The parties disagree about whether Defendant excised Plaintiff according to the Teacher
Tenure Act, Tennessee Code Annotated § 49-5-511(b)(1). These disputes include (1) whether
the October 2016 Resolution applies to Plaintiff; (2) whether the October 2018 Resolution
complies with state law; (3) whether income Plaintiff earned outside SCS reduces her potential
back pay damages; and (4) whether the Court should cap damages when the Board acts on

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Plaintiff’s excision or when the SCS notifies Plaintiff notice of her termination. (See ECF Nos.
122 & 150.)
To begin with, the parties’ disputes turn on applying the facts to the law. The
disagreements are not about the basic facts of Plaintiff’s excision and the Board’s actions. As a
result, whether Defendant excised Plaintiff in accordance with the Teacher Tenure Act is a
question of law. And the Court may rule on this issue.
I.

The Board Violated the Teacher Tenure Act
To start, the Board violated the Teacher Tenure Act when it excised Plaintiff without the

Board making the final determination. The Board violated the Act’s non-delegation principle
because the superintendent made the final determination and not the Board. See Kelley, 751 F.
App’x at 654–55. Even so, the fact that the Board once violated the statute does not forever
preclude it from complying with the Act by making the final determination on Plaintiff’s
termination. By its resolution in October 2018, the SCS Board took action on Plaintiff’s
termination in compliance with the Teacher Tenure Act. Id. at 656 (By ratifying the illegal
excision, “the Board was in effect taking ultimate responsibility for the excessing decisions,
bringing the previously unlawful terminations into compliance with Tennessee law.”)
That said, Defendant’s assertion that the Court cannot find that the Board violated the
statute is illogical. (See ECF No. 122 at PageID 3296 n.4.) And Defendant’s argument that
Plaintiff is entitled to no damages because the ratification of her excision relates back to the date
it notified her of the termination, invalidating Plaintiff’s claim for any damages, is likewise
mistaken. Because the Board may now be following the law does not erase everything that
happened before. Kelley, 751 F. App’x at 656. (“The Board’s post hoc resolution . . . cannot

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cure the harm caused by the improper layoff[] . . . .”). To hold otherwise would greatly
prejudice Plaintiff and give no substance to the statute.
So now the Court will address the measure of damages Defendant owes Plaintiff.
II.

Damages Owed to Plaintiff
The reduction in force provision of the Teacher Tenure Act, § 49-5-511(b) does not itself

provide a remedy for a violation of its provisions. That said, courts have applied the remedy
provided in § 49-5-511(a)(3)––back pay and reinstatement––to violations of the reduction in
force provision. See Kelley v. Shelby Cty. Bd. of Educ., 198 F. Supp. 3d 842, 855 (W.D. Tenn.
2016) (finding that the remedy for a violation of Tenn. Code Ann. § 49-5-511(b) is the same as
the one for § 49-5-511(a)(3)); Lee v. Franklin Cty. Spec. Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ., 237 S.W.3d
322, 337 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2007) (same); Randall v. Hankins, 675 S.W.2d 712, 714 (Tenn. Ct.
App. 1984) (same).
Defendant argues that Plaintiff’s sole remedy is back pay for the time between her
excision and when the Board ratified her excision. 4 (ECF No. 122 at PageID 3292.) Plaintiff,
on the other hand, insists that she has a right to full back pay with prejudgment interest,
reinstatement to a comparable position, and restoration of her service credits for tenure
purposes. (ECF No. 150 at PageID 3655.)
Plaintiff’s position here goes too far. Plaintiff has no right to reinstatement because, by
ratifying her excision and bringing it into compliance with the Teacher Tenure Act, “the Board
effectively foreclosed this avenue of relief.” See Kelley v. Shelby Cty. Bd. of Educ., Nos. 14-cv2632-SHL-cgc & 14-cv-2633-SHL-cgc, 2017 WL 11139931, at *6 (W.D. Tenn. Aug. 24,

4

The parties also dispute whether the Board properly ratified Plaintiff’s excision by the October
2016 Resolution or the October 2018 Resolution. The Court addresses that dispute below. See
infra pp. 9–10.
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2017). Similarly, Plaintiff has no right to restoration of her service credits for tenure purposes
because, “under the plain language of the statute, [a plaintiff] is not entitled to recover for career
ladder benefits, vacation days, sick days, retirement contribution, or social security
contribution.” Munford v. Bd. of Educ. of City of Memphis, 173 S.W.3d 452, 457 (Tenn. Ct.
App. 2004).
On that basis, the Court finds that Plaintiff has a right to back pay for the time between
her termination and the ratification of her excision. The Court now turns to the parties’
arguments about when the Board ratified the termination and other limitations on damages.
III.

Limitations on Plaintiff’s Back Pay Damages
A.

Plaintiff’s argument that the Board Resolution in October 2018 does not
apply

Plaintiff argues that the October 2018 Resolution does not apply to her because
Defendant is still not following the Teacher Tenure Act. (ECF No. 150 at PageID 3651.)
Plaintiff alleges that, by failing to transfer her to a comparable position because she had the
highest level of effectiveness on her most recent evaluation, Defendant has violated the Teacher
Tenure Act. (Id.) And so, Plaintiff argues, her damages are continuing. (Id.)
Plaintiff is right that the Tenure Act requires that a reduction in force be based on a
teacher’s “level of effectiveness.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 49-5-511(b) (2014). And no one disputes
that Plaintiff’s evaluation scores here were a five out of five. (ECF No. 47 at PageID 325–30.)
But Defendant need not transfer Plaintiff into a similar position. Instead, the 2014 Tenure Act
provides “[a] teacher rated in the three (3) highest categories based on

evaluations . . . who

has been dismissed because of abolition of a position shall be placed on a list for
reemployment.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 49-5-511(b)(3).

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The Court recently held that there was a dispute of material fact on whether Defendant in
fact placed Plaintiff on the reemployment list. (See ECF No. 220.) This issue will go to the
jury at trial. But that dispute applies to Plaintiff’s Fourteenth Amendment claim under 42
U.S.C. § 1983. Plaintiff’s Teacher Tenure Act claim, however, relates to her excision resulting
from a reduction in force and whether Superintendent Hopson terminated her in violation of the
statute. (See ECF No. 1.)
What is more, whether Defendant placed Plaintiff on the reemployment list does not
affect the calculation of her damages under the Tenure Act. See Kelley, 198 F. Supp. 3d 842
(capping damages at the date of the Board Resolution, rather than the date of placement on the
reemployment list). Besides, even if Defendant includes a teacher on the reemployment list, it
does not guarantee a job for Plaintiff because “[a] principal may refuse to accept the placement
or transfer of a teacher . . . [based on] [t]he teacher’s most recent evaluations . . . .” Tenn. Code
Ann. § 49-5-511(b)(3); see also Lee v. Franklin Spec. Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ., 237 S.W.3d 322,
334 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2007) (holding that the previous version of the statute did not “mandate
that a board of education must re-employ [a] teacher” whom it placed on the reemployment
list). For that reason, if Defendant places a teacher on the reemployment list, Defendant might
never hire that teacher again for a position within SCS. Placement on the reemployment list,
therefore, does not affect the measure of Plaintiff’s damages.
The Court has already found above that the Board’s October 2018 Resolution brought
Defendant’s excision of Plaintiff into compliance with § 49-5-511(b)(1). See supra p. 6. But
Defendant’s failure to transfer her to another position does not violate the Tenure Act. As a
result, Plaintiff’s argument that her damages are continuing is unpersuasive.

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B.

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Applying the October 2016 Resolution as a limitation on damages

Defendant now argues that the Board properly excised Plaintiff when it passed the
October 2016 Resolution. 5 (ECF No. 122 at PageID 3296.) This position is based on the
district court’s ruling in Kelley, which capped the plaintiffs’ damages on the date of the October
2016 Resolution even though some plaintiffs’ names did not appear on that resolution. (Id.)
Yet there is no indication that the parties even litigated this timing issue in Kelley. The Court
therefore finds this portion of the decision in Kelley to be extraneous and not critical to that
court’s holding. Had the district court in Kelley addressed the omission of a plaintiff’s name
from the resolution and if that date were important to the parties, in all likelihood the result
there would be consistent with the holding here. The takeaway from Kelley is that when the
Board took proper action on the excision, that Board action capped the plaintiffs’ damages. But
the Board did not take proper action in 2016 here and so this Court need not make that finding.
Defendant further argues that the October 2018 Board Resolution was a mere
clarification of the earlier 2016 resolution. (ECF No. 122 at PageID 3294.) In particular,
Defendant claims that the Board’s 2018 resolution incorporated the names of those employees
listed as if it had included them on its earlier 2016 Resolution. (Id.) This would then cap her
back pay as of October 2016. This argument is based the Board’s alleged intention to include
Plaintiff’s name on the excised employees listed on the October 2016 Resolution. But
Defendant fails to add legal support for this position. Defendant instead seems to argue that the
October 2016 Resolution is effective because it says so.

5

At one time, Defendant asserted that the Court could not find that it violated the Teacher
Tenure Act when it terminated Plaintiff.
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There is no dispute that Plaintiff’s name does not appear on the October 2016 Resolution.
(See ECF No. 122-1.) The Court thus finds that the October 2016 Resolution by itself does not
cap Plaintiff’s damages. The Board alone has the authority to authorize a teacher’s dismissal
under the excision provisions of the Teacher Tenure Act. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 49-5511(b)(1); Kelley, 751 F. App’x at 655. The Board omitted Plaintiff’s name from the October
2016 Resolution. And so the Board did not act on her excision then. The Board therefore did
not comply with the Teacher Tenure Act as of that date.
C.

The October 2018 Resolution does not retroactively cap Plaintiff’s damages
under the October 2016 Resolution

In a slightly different argument than Section B above, Defendant argues that this Court
should cap Plaintiff’s damages as of October 2016 because the Board intended to include her
name on that Resolution but mistakenly left it off. (ECF No. 122 at PageID 3294.) And so the
October 2018 Resolution should then operate to reach back in time and cure that omission from
two years before. Id. In response, Plaintiff argues that this Court should not cap her damages
based on the October 2016 Resolution because Defendant did not include her name then. (ECF
No. 150 at PageID 3648–49.) She further argues that the October 2018 Resolution had nothing
to do with the resolution from 2016. Id.
The Court agrees with Plaintiff here. The October 2018 Resolution, seeking to
incorporate new teachers’ names to the 2016 Resolution by reference, does not retroactively cap
Plaintiff’s damages to October 2016. Defendant provides no law or convincing argument for its
contention that the October 2018 Resolution should retroactively cap Plaintiff’s damages. (See
ECF No 122.) Again, Defendant’s argument instead seems to be that the 2016 Resolution
controls because it says so.

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But Defendant’s position does not hold water. At the outset, Kelley dictates that a
plaintiff’s damages are capped at the date the Board came into compliance with the Tenure Act.
Kelley, 198 F. Supp. 3d at 842 (capping damages at the date of the Board Resolution). The
Court has already found above that the Board’s October 2018 Resolution brought Defendant’s
excision of Plaintiff into compliance with § 49-5-511(b)(1). See supra p. 6. Therefore,
Plaintiff’s damages are capped on October 30, 2018—the date of the October 2018 Resolution
which bears her name.
What is more, simply because the Board may now be following the law does not erase
everything that happened before. See Kelley, 751 F. App’x at 656. (“The Board’s post hoc
resolution . . . cannot cure the harm caused by the improper layoff[] . . . .”). The Court is
unwilling to find that the Board can erase two years of harm suffered by Plaintiff merely
because Defendant insists—without any proof or convincing argument—that it intended to
excess her in 2016.
While the Court holds above that the October 2018 Resolution properly excessed Plaintiff
and capped her damages at that point, the Court is unwilling to find that such action reaches
back to cap her damages as of October 2016. To ignore the two years of harm suffered by
Plaintiff because Defendant left her name off the October 2016 Resolution leads to an untenable
result. And to hold otherwise would not only greatly prejudice Plaintiff but it would also give
no effect to the Tenure Act.
For these reasons, the Court finds that Plaintiff has a right to back pay damages from her
termination (March 7, 2016) through the October 2018 Resolution date (October 30, 2018).

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D.

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The effect of outside income on Plaintiff’s damages

Defendant also contends that the Court should cap any back pay on the date that Plaintiff
began any later full-time employment, if that date occurred before the resolution ratifying her
excision. (ECF No. 122 at PageID 3295 n.2.) But Plaintiff argues that her back pay damages
are only offset where she obtains alternative employment within SCS. (ECF No. 150 at PageID
3655–57.) And because Plaintiff has not obtained alternative employment within SCS, Plaintiff
insists that there should be no offset of the damages owed to her under § 49-5-511(b). (ECF
No. 150 at PageID 3655–57.)
Again, Defendant’s position here is unpersuasive. The Tennessee Supreme Court has
stated that § 49-5-511(a)(3) entitles a “vindicated teacher to an award of ‘full salary’ without
offset for money the teacher earned or could have earned in other employment.” Thompson v.
Memphis City Schs. Bd. of Educ., 395 S.W.3d 616, 629 (2012). Besides, Defendant cannot
offset Plaintiff’s back pay by earnings procured through alternative employment outside SCS.
Kelley, 2017 WL 11139931 (holding that, under Tennessee Code Annotated § 49-5-511(a)(3),
“each Plaintiff is entitled to full back pay without offset for the period of time beginning on July
1, 2014, to the earlier of the date of the Board Resolution or the date that a particular Plaintiff
procured alternative employment within the school system”) (emphasis added). And the remedy
provided in § 49-5-511(a)(3)––back pay and reinstatement––has been applied to violations of
the reduction in force provision. See Kelley, 198 F. Supp. 3d at 855 (finding that the remedy for
a violation of Tenn. Code Ann. § 49-5-511(b) is the same as § 49-5-511(a)(3)); Lee, 237 S.W.3d
337 (same); Randall, 675 S.W.2d at 714 (same).
The Court thus finds that Defendant is not entitled to an offset of damages owed for any
earnings Plaintiff procured through alternative employment outside SCS. And because no one

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disputes that Plaintiff has not obtained alternative employment within SCS (ECF Nos. 150 at
PageID 3656; 130 at PageID 3368), the Court finds that Defendant receives no offset for money
Plaintiff earned or could have earned in other employment.
CONCLUSION
For all the reasons above, the Court finds (1) that Defendant violated the Tennessee
Teacher Tenure Act, (2) that Plaintiff has a right to back pay only, (3) that her back pay
calculation runs from Plaintiff’s termination on March 7, 2016, through October 30, 2018, 6 and
(4) Defendant cannot offset any earnings from employment outside SCS from Plaintiff’s
entitlement to back pay.
SO ORDERED, this 13th day of August, 2020.
s/Thomas L. Parker
THOMAS L. PARKER
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

6

The date of the October 2018 Resolution bringing Plaintiff’s excision into compliance with the
Teacher Tenure Act.
14