# Smith-Hosch, Ed.D v. Bramble

> District Court, D. Maryland · August 28, 2019

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10202387

## Case

- **Court:** District Court, D. Maryland
- **Decided:** August 28, 2019
- **Opinion:** 100trialcourt
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10202387

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- discussing “same decision” defense in the context of §1983 claims against individual board members

## Opinion text

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND

:
MARIA SMITH-HOSCH
:

v. : Civil Action No. DKC 18-3659

:
GLENN L. BRAMBLE, et al.
:

MEMORANDUM OPINION
Presently pending and ready for resolution in this employment
case brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42
U.S.C. §§2000e et seq. and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, is the motion to
dismiss filed by Defendants Glenn Bramble, Phillip Rice, and Laura
Layton. (ECF No. 7).1 The issues have been fully briefed, and

1 Plaintiff amended her complaint after these Defendants filed
their motion to dismiss. “Normally, an amended complaint
supersedes the original complaint.” Pac. Bell Tel. Co. v. Linkline
Commc'ns, Inc., 555 U.S. 438, 456 (2009)(citing 6 C. Wright & A.
Miller, Federal Practice & Procedure § 1476, pp. 556–557 (2d
ed.1990)). Sometimes, for reasons of judicial economy:

defendants should not be required to file a
new motion to dismiss simply because an
amended pleading was introduced while their
motion was pending. If some of the defects
raised in the original motion remain in the
new pleading, the court simply may consider
the motion as being addressed to the amended
pleading. To hold otherwise would be to exalt
form over substance.

Buechler v. Your Wine & Spirit Shoppe, Inc., 846 F.Supp.2d 406,
415 (D.Md. 2012), aff'd, 479 F. App'x 497 (4th Cir. 2012)(quoting
6 Wright et al., § 1476, at 638 (2010 ed.)). Here, the first
amended complaint does not remedy the alleged defect raised in the
the court now rules, no hearing being deemed necessary. Local
Rule 105.6. For the following reasons, the motion to dismiss
will be denied.
I. Background
A. Factual History
Unless otherwise noted, the facts outlined here are set forth
in the amended complaint and construed in the light most favorable

to Plaintiff. The Dorchester County Board of Education (the
“Board”) is a five-member body tasked with management of all
educational matters that affect Dorchester County, Maryland. Md.
CODE ANN., Educ. § 4-101. At all relevant times, the Board consisted
of President Glenn Bramble, Vice President Phillip Rice, and Member
Laura Layton (collectively, the “Individual Defendants”), as well
as Members LeOtha Hull and Glen Payne. In the summer of 2017, the
Board made a series of staffing and personnel changes. First, the
Board hired Dr. Diana Mitchell as superintendent. (ECF No. 13, at
16). Dr. Mitchell is the first African American superintendent of
Dorchester County. Id. Second, the Board restructured upper-

management under Dr. Mitchell, eliminating two assistant

original motion. The first amended complaint merely adds the Board
as a defendant without altering the substance or legal sufficiency
of the claims against these Defendants.
2
superintendent positions and replacing them with four “cabinet”
positions. Id. at 17. One of these four cabinet positions is the
Director of Secondary Education which Plaintiff Dr. Maria Smith-
Hosch applied for, interviewed for, and received via an offer
letter dated August 7, 2017. Id. at 15.

Prior to her hiring as the Board’s Director of Secondary
Education, Dr. Smith-Hosch — who is African-American — had spent
42 years as an employee of Prince George’s County’s Board of
Education (“PGCBE”). Id. at 9. Dr. Smith-Hosch retired from PCGBE
effective September 1, 2017, but her nearly contemporaneous hiring
and retirement ran up against MD. CODE ANN., State Pers. & Pens. §
22-406: “An individual who is receiving a service retirement
allowance under this title may not be employed within 45 days of
the date the individual retired[.]” Thus, Dr. Smith-Hosch was
designated a “retired rehired” employee and her official start
date was delayed until October 15, 2017, although she volunteered
her time in an advisory capacity prior to that date. Id. at 25,

26.
In February of 2018, a fight broke out at a local Dorchester
County high school which roiled the community, the Board, and Dr.
Mitchell’s cabinet. Id. at 28, 29. The fight — described as
“involving African American students and staff” — quite literally
3
divided the community along racial lines, with black and white
community members at the ensuing Board meeting allegedly sitting
on opposite sides of the room. Id. In the aftermath of the fight,
the community pressured the Board to implement security and safety
plans, with some community members allegedly going so far as to

offer money to the individual defendants if they would fire Dr.
Mitchell and her cabinet, including Dr. Smith-Hosch. Id. at 30,
32.
In the spring of 2018, Mr. Bramble ordered Dr. Mitchell to
investigate Dr. Smith-Hosch over allegations that she had been
“bullying” several principles working under her, all of whom were
white. Id. at 34. This missive came from Mr. Bramble himself and
not from the Board as a whole. Id. Dr. Mitchell reluctantly
acceded to Mr. Bramble’s order and launched an investigation. Id.
at 37. That investigation ultimately refuted the allegations of
“bullying” and turned up just one complaint: a principal serving
under Dr. Smith-Hosch, Ms. Lynn Sorrells, expressed some

discomfort over the fact she was tasked with supervising Dr. Smith-
Hosch’s husband, Dr. Benjamin Hosch, who was then serving as a
“retired rehired” assistant principal at Ms. Sorrells’ school.
Id. at 38.

4
Mr. Bramble met Dr. Mitchell’s findings with skepticism,
however, and, on May 17, called for Dr. Smith-Hosch’s immediate
termination. Id. at 39, 40. In the ensuing vote on May 22, Mr.
Bramble, Mr. Rice, and Ms. Layton, composing a bare majority of
the Board, voted for Dr. Smith-Hosch’s termination. Id. at 44.

Over the next few months, the Board also took action against three
other African-American employees, terminating Dr. Hosch, placing
Dr. Mitchell on paid administrative leave, and doing the same for
Arcelius Brickhouse, another African-American cabinet member. Id.
at 59. The complaint makes no reference to any supposed reason
for Dr. Hosch’s termination. The complaint does, however, state
that the Board’s decision to place Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Brickhouse
on leave had to do with an alleged conspiracy between the two of
them and Dr. Smith-Hosch “to give an African American candidate
for assistant principal the interview questions in advance of his
interview[.]” Id. at 61. That interview took place on August 9,
2018 — over two months after Dr. Smith-Hosch’s termination. Id.

B. Procedural Background
Plaintiff filed suit against the three named Defendants on
November 29, 2018. In the initial complaint, Dr. Smith-Hosch
stated that:

5
Upon the EEOC’s issuance of the Notice of Right to Sue,
Dr. Smith-Hosch will be amending her lawsuit to add the
Board as the defendant to her race discrimination claim
under Title VII, which arises from the same set of facts
supporting her § 1983 claim against the Individual
Defendants.
Id. at 3. In the meantime, the Individual Defendants moved to
dismiss on January 21, 2019. (ECF No. 7).
On April 16, 2019, this court granted Plaintiff’s unopposed
motion for leave to file the first amended complaint, adding a
Title VII claim against the Board itself pursuant to the EEOC’s
April 9, 2019 Notice of Right to Sue. (ECF No. 12).
II. Standard of Review
The purpose of a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) is to
test the sufficiency of the complaint. Presley v. City of
Charlottesville, 464 F.3d 480, 483 (4th Cir. 2006). A plaintiff’s
complaint need only satisfy the standard of Rule 8(a), which
requires a “short and plain statement of the claim showing that
the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2). “Rule
8(a)(2) still requires a ‘showing,’ rather than a blanket
assertion, of entitlement to relief.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly,
550 U.S. 544, 556 n. 3 (2007). That showing must consist of more
than “a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action”
or “naked assertion[s] devoid of further factual enhancement.”
6
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (internal citations
omitted).
At this stage, all well-pleaded allegations in a complaint
must be considered as true, Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266
(1994), and all factual allegations must be construed in the light

most favorable to the plaintiff, see Harrison v. Westinghouse
Savannah River Co., 176 F.3d 776, 783 (4th Cir. 1999) (citing Mylan
Labs., Inc. v. Matkari, 7 F.3d 1130, 1134 (4th Cir. 1993)). In
evaluating the complaint, unsupported legal allegations need not
be accepted. Revene v. Charles Cnty. Comm'rs, 882 F.2d 870, 873
(4th Cir. 1989). Legal conclusions couched as factual allegations
are insufficient, Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678, as are conclusory factual
allegations devoid of any reference to actual events, United Black
Firefighters v. Hirst, 604 F.2d 844, 847 (4th Cir. 1979); see also
Francis v. Giacomelli, 588 F.3d 186, 193 (4th Cir. 2009). “[W]here
the well-pleaded facts do not permit the court to infer more than
the mere possibility of misconduct, the complaint has alleged, but

it has not ‘show[n] . . . that the pleader is entitled to relief.’”
Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679 (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2)). Thus,
“[d]etermining whether a complaint states a plausible claim for
relief will . . . be a context-specific task that requires the

7
reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common
sense.” Id.
III. Analysis: Individual Board Member Liability under § 1983
The Amended Complaint asserts that each of the three
individual defendants “usurped” his or her role as a Board Member
and voted in favor of Plaintiff’s termination, on the basis of

race. The Amended Complaint also alleges that Mr. Bramble ordered
the superintendent to investigate Plaintiff. Plaintiff argues
that by voting in favor of her “termination,” the Individual
Defendants “acting under color of state law, caused a deprivation
of a federal right.” (ECF No. 9, at 19) (citing Hafer v. Melo,
502 U.S. 21, 25 (1991)). The sole argument of the Individual
Defendants is that causation is lacking. Because, they contend,
“the board of directors acts as a unit,” Hecht v. Resolution Trust
Corp., 333 Md. 324, 332 (1994), individual board members cannot be
said to have “caused” the deprivation in question. (ECF No. 7, at
6).
Defendants cite two unreported trial court decisions to try

to make their argument: Hanifee v. Bd. Of Educ. Of Kent Cty., 2010
WL 723772 (D.Md. Feb. 24, 2010), and Moore v. Bd. Of Educ. of
Baltimore Cty., 2017 WL 3172820 (D.Md. July 25, 2017). Neither,
however, is factually identical to this case, and Defendants
8
attempt to carry their rationale too far. In Hanifee, the
Plaintiff — a member of the Kent County, Maryland Board of
Education — brought suit against his fellow board members over an
alleged conspiracy to deprive him of his First and Fourteenth
Amendment Rights. The court found against Hanifee for a litany of

reasons: 1) Hanifee could “not make any specific allegations
regarding individual conduct” by the individual board members; 2)
the lack of any “clearly established” federal right meant that the
individual board-members were protected by qualified immunity; and
3) because “a local governmental body disciplining one of its
members is a ‘core legislative act’ and therefore protected by
legislative immunity.” Hanifee, 2010 WL 723772, at *6.
In addressing the first reason for granting a motion to
dismiss Hanifee’s complaint, the court noted the inability of a
Maryland county’s Board of Education to act as anything but a
cohesive unit. Id. (“In Maryland, individual Board members and
employees have no authority to take actions against other Board

members.”)
Moore, the other case Defendants rely on to make their
causation argument, includes similar language. There, the
plaintiff brought suit, not against any individual school board
members, but against the board’s legal counsel for his role in
9
causing the board to deprive plaintiff of her federal rights.
Moore, 2017 WL 3172820, at *4. In Moore, as in Hanifee, the court
stressed that “under Maryland law, a county’s Board of Education
decides all matters of public education — neither its individual
board members nor its legal counsel has individual decision making

authority.” Id.
Surely no individual board member or board employee may be
held liable for the actions of a board as a whole. If, however,
a plaintiff can make 1) specific allegations regarding the
individual conduct of a member of board, and 2) that individual
action is found to have deprived the plaintiff of a federal right,
then the individual member of that board may be held liable for
his or her actions under § 1983.
This conclusion flows from the blackletter standard for §
1983 claims: “to establish personal liability in a § 1983 action,
it is enough to show that the official, acting under color of state
law, caused the deprivation of a federal right.” Hafer v. Melo,

502 U.S., at 25 (emphasis added). See also, Lyles v. Montgomery
Cty., MD, 162 F. Supp. 2d 402, 405 (D.Md. 2001) (“To state a
claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a plaintiff must allege that the
defendant, while acting under color of state law, violated a
federal right.”) There can be no doubt that when a member of a
10
Maryland board of education casts a vote, he or she does so “under
color of state law.” And, if it is alleged, and then proven, that
an illegal reason was a motivating factor in the individual’s vote,
and a change in that person’s vote would alter the outcome of the
Board’s decision, causation can be shown. See, e.g., Quigg v.

Thomas Cty. School Dist., 814 F.3d 1227, 1244 (11th Cir.
2016)(discussing “same decision” defense in the context of §1983
claims against individual board members). This notion of
“causation” is the flip-side of the recognized “cat’s paw” theory
of liability of an employer for acts of a supervisor without
ultimate decision-making authority. Weathersbee v. Baltimore City
Fire Dept., 970 F.Supp.2d 418, 425 n. 4 (D.Md. 2013) (citing Staub
v. Proctor Hosp., 562 U.S. 411 (2011)).
Other courts have recognized the potential viability of
claims under § 1983 against individual board members under similar
circumstances. See, e.g., Martin v. Shelby Cty Bd. of Educ., 756
Fed.Appx. 920, 925 (11th Cir. 2018); Zurchin v. Ambridge Area School

Dist., 300 F.Supp.3d 681, 692 (W.D.Pa. 2018); Williams v. Alhambra
School Dist., 234 F.Supp.3d 971 (D.Ariz. 2017); Pettis v. Nottoway
Cty School Bd., 2013 WL. 3063704, at *7 (E.D.Va., October 31,
2014); Smith v. Brockton School Dist., 2008 WL 11414565, at *6-7

11
(D. Mont. November 24, 2008); Dunlop v. Colgan, 687 F.Supp. 406
(N.D. Ill. 1988).
The Individual Defendants’ motion to dismiss rests entirely
on the premise that individual school board members can, under no
circumstances, be held liable under §1983 for the consequences of

their votes. Neither the case law in this circuit, nor the others
that have addressed it, support this premise. Unlike in Hanifee,
Plaintiff identifies specific, individual conduct by each of the
Individual Defendants: namely, their votes regarding Dr. Smith-
Hosch’s termination. It is enough that Plaintiff plausibly alleges
that the Individual Defendants’ votes were 1) motivated by
discriminatory animus, 2) intended to cause an adverse employment
action, and 3) that each vote proximately caused the adverse
employment action.
IV. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, the motion to dismiss filed by
Defendants Bramble, Layton and Rice will be denied. A separate
order will follow.

/s/
DEBORAH K. CHASANOW
United States District Judge
12

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10202387. Public record. Not legal advice.