The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed the ruling of a district court that the Board of Governors at Marshall University as well as several school administrators are not entitled to qualified immunity in a case where a former compliance director claimed he was fired from his job in violation of his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process.
In essence, the panel of judges deferred to the allegations made by the plaintiff that the administrators made a calculated decision to use plaintiff David Ridpath as a scapegoat for NCAA rules violations and minimize any damage to the university’s athletic department.
Ridpath became a compliance director for the Marshall University athletic department in 1997. Approximately two years later, Ridpath was informed that several Marshall football players were involved in academic fraud. They had received an advance copy of a physical education test. He then informed the NCAA, which prompted an investigation of the alleged violation. In the course of that investigation, Ridpath found more violations involving illegitimate jobs for student athletes.
It was at this point that members of the coaching staff allegedly “attempted to cover up their wrongdoing, and began blaming Ridpath and the Compliance Office for any improprieties.” Further, he was allegedly encouraged by school administrators to vigorously defend the university, a position that did not sit well with the NCAA.
Allegedly taking fire from both sides, Ridpath agreed to be reassigned from compliance director to director of judicial programs, despite lacking the necessary education or training for this position. Ridpath was given a raise to accept the new position. “As an additional inducement for the transfer, administrators Layton Cottrill, and Edward Grose (as agents of the University) agreed to inform the NCAA and the public that Ridpath’s reassignment was not the result of any wrongdoing on his part as Compliance Director,” wrote the court in quoting Ridpath’s complaint. “In contravention of this agreement, however, Richard Hilliard (Special Legal Counsel to the school) subsequently informed the NCAA that Ridpath’s reassignment was a ‘corrective action’ taken by the University to remedy its NCAA rules violations.”
The NCAA noted the “corrective action” that was Ridpath’s reassignment in its report. While there was some concern expressed about the “scapegoating” of Ridpath, certain threats were allegedly made by administrators that dissuaded him from initially seeking to correct the record.
Ridpath eventually filed a lawsuit in August 2003 against the Board of Governors of Marshall University; Cottrill, Grose and another administrator; then-Head Football Coach Bob Pruett; and Hilliard. He alleged that he “was unable to procure other employment, however, because his professional reputation had been permanently damaged by the ‘corrective action’ label placed on his reassignment from Marshall University’s Department of Athletics.” Specifically, he asserted his claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 that his “Fourteenth Amendment right to due process was violated by the Board, the Administrators, and Hilliard, and that his First Amendment right to free speech was infringed in one way by the Board and the Administrators, and in a second way by these Defendants and Coach Pruett.”
Initially, the defendants sought dismissal under Rule 12(b) (6), without arguing that qualified immunity shielded any of them from suit. After Ridpath filed an amended complaint, the defendants asserted a qualified immunity defense. After the district court denied that argument, the defendants appealed.
“In view of basic principles of qualified immunity, we can easily dispose of the Board’s assertions of this defense,” held the panel of judges. “Qualified immunity may be invoked by a government official sued in his personal, or individual, capacity. See Graham, 473 U.S. 159 at 165-67, 87 L. Ed. 2d 114. This defense is not available in an official-capacity suit brought against a government entity or a government officer as that entity’s agent. Id.”
The panel noted in its assessment of whether the administrators were entitled to qualified immunity that “Ridpath has identified the constitutional right at issue as the right to procedural due process when governmental action threatens a person’s liberty interest in his reputation and choice of occupation. See Bd. of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 573 & n.12, 33 L. Ed. 2d 548 (1972)”
After reviewing the allegations, it wrote that “Ridpath’s allegations are more than sufficient to show that he was subjected to an involuntary and significant demotion in connection with the stigmatizing ‘corrective action’ label.
“(T)hese allegations establish that Ridpath’s reassignment was neither voluntary nor an innocuous transfer,” it added. “Rather, it was a significant demotion to a position outside his chosen field, rendering it tantamount to an outright discharge.”
This damaged the defendants’ contention that the effect on Ridpath’s employment status was not “sufficient to invoke his right to procedural due process.”
The defendants also lost on other key fronts as they tried to prove that the plaintiff’s protected liberty interest was not implicated and that they were entitled to qualified immunity.
B. David Ridpath v. Board of Governors Marshall University et al.; 4th Cir.; No. 04-1314, No. 04-1328; 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 11693; 5/11/06
Attorney of Record: (for appellants) Charles R. Bailey, Bailey & Wyant, P.L.L.C., Charleston, West Virginia. (for appellee) Jason Eskwith Huber, Forman & Huber, L.C., Charleston, West Virginia.
