“Where an employee has no enforceable expectation in the deprived position or salary, grievance rights under employer policies cannot create a property interest.”
How later courts described this case
- “Where an employee has no enforceable expectation in the deprived position or salary, grievance rights under employer policies cannot create a property interest.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 11-1590
JANNETTE HENRY-DAVENPORT,
Plaintiff – Appellant,
v.
THE SCHOOL DISTRICT OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY,
Defendant – Appellee,
and
SAMANTHA J. INGRAM, individually and as an employee of The
School District of Fairfield County; HAROLD HEATH,
personally and as a board member of The School District of
Fairfield County; ROBERT DRAKE, personally and as a board
member of The School District of Fairfield County; HENRY
MILLER, personally and as a board member of The School
District of Fairfield County; REBECCA MCSWAIN, personally
and as a board member of The School District of Fairfield
County,
Defendants.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Rock Hill. Matthew J. Perry, Jr., Senior
District Judge. (0:08-cv-03258-MJP)
Argued: September 20, 2012 Decided: November 26, 2012
Before TRAXLER, Chief Judge, DAVIS, Circuit Judge, and Max O.
COGBURN, Jr., United States District Judge for the Western
District of North Carolina, sitting by designation.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ARGUED: Glenn Walters, Sr., Orangeburg, South Carolina, for
Appellant. Carol Brittain Ervin, YOUNG CLEMENT RIVERS, LLP,
Charleston, South Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Stephen
Lynwood Brown, YOUNG CLEMENT RIVERS, LLP, Charleston, South
Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:
Appellant Janette Henry-Davenport was employed by the
Fairfield County School District (“FCSD”) in various capacities
since 1983. At the beginning of the 2007-2008 school year,
Appellant held the position of Deputy Superintendent for Human
Resources and Administration for FCSD, at an annual salary of
$98,036. FCSD paid Appellant her full salary through the end of
the school year, but the FCSD Superintendent notified her in
April 2008 that her administrative contract for the 2008-2009
school year would be at a reduced salary of $75,000. Appellant
requested a hearing before the Board of Trustees but did not
receive one. She was subsequently reassigned to the position of
FCSD Director of Food Service.
Appellant brought this action in state court against
the FCSD, alleging that the FCSD violated her statutory rights
under South Carolina’s Teacher Employment and Dismissal Act (the
“Teacher Act”), see S.C. Code §§ 59-25-410 to -530, by demoting
her and reducing her salary without a hearing. Appellant also
asserted a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the
FCSD’s failure to provide her a dismissal hearing deprived her
of due process. *
*
Appellant’s complaint asserted other claims that are not
at issue on appeal. Also, Appellant sought relief from various
individual FCSD employees; the claims against the individual
(Continued)
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The action was removed to federal district court and
the parties filed cross motions for summary judgment. Appellant
staked her position on Johnson v. Spartanburg County School
District 7, 444 S.E.2d 501 (S.C. 1994), in which the South
Carolina Supreme Court held that an assistant principal, despite
holding an administrative rather than a teaching position, was
protected under the Teacher Act. See id. at 502. In response,
the FCSD argued that in 1998, the South Carolina General
Assembly effectively overruled the Johnson decision when it
enacted § 59-24-15 to exclude employee rights to an
administrative position or particular administrative salary from
the scope of the Teacher Act:
§ 59-24-15. Rights of certified education personnel
employed as administrators.
Certified education personnel who are employed as
administrators on an annual or multi-year contract
will retain their rights as a teacher under the
provisions of Article 3 of Chapter 19 and Article 5 of
Chapter 25 of this title but no such rights are
granted to the position or salary of administrator.
Any such administrator who presently is under a
contract granting such rights shall retain that status
until the expiration of that contract.
(emphasis added).
The District Court denied the cross motions for
summary judgment pending resolution of a certified question to
defendants were dismissed, and Appellant does not challenge
their dismissal on appeal.
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the South Carolina Supreme Court: “Does South Carolina law,
pursuant to S.C. Code Ann. § 59-24-15, afford a certified
educator employed as an administrator rights as available under
the Teacher Employment and Dismissal Act when she is denied a
hearing to contest her administrative demotion and salary
reduction?” Henry-Davenport v. Sch. Dist., 705 S.E.2d 26 (S.C.
2011). The South Carolina Supreme Court answered that question
in the negative because Johnson had been legislatively
overruled:
[T]he legislature enacted section 59-24-15 after the
Johnson decision, and the plain language of the
statute directly contradicts the holding in Johnson.
The statute plainly states that an administrator has
no rights in her ‘position or salary,’ and the
legislature made no exception or distinction
concerning the administrator’s status as a certified
educator.
705 S.E.2d at 28. Subsequently, the district court granted
FCSD’s renewed motion for summary judgment on the ground that
the State Supreme Court’s disposition of the certified question
defeated Appellant’s claims. In so doing, the court rejected
Appellant’s argument that the South Carolina Supreme Court’s
decision regarding the certified question had an impermissible
retroactive effect on her vested property rights.
On appeal, Appellant raises the same fatally deficient
retroactivity argument. Appellant’s argument is fundamentally
flawed in a number of ways, but the most conspicuous problem is
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that the South Carolina legislature enacted § 59-24-15 in 1998,
long before the conduct at issue in this case occurred. Thus,
because § 59-24-15 does not “reach conduct and claims arising
before the statute’s enactment,” Ward v. Dixie Nat’l Life Ins.
Co., 595 F.3d 164, 172 (4th Cir. 2010), there is clearly no
impermissible retroactive effect in play. To the extent
Appellant contends that she still retains any statutory rights
pertaining to her administrative salary and position despite
clear and unequivocal language to the contrary in § 59-24-15 and
Henry-Davenport, we reject this argument out of hand. Appellant
fails to point to any language in the Teacher Act that would
support her position that the FCSD violated her statutory rights
or deprived her of due process.
Accordingly, we affirm the decision of the district
court.
AFFIRMED
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