A federal judge from the Northern District of Illinois has granted in part a school district’s motion to dismiss the claim of a student athlete who alleged that the district and various school officials retaliated against him after he moved from one school to another school within the same school district.
Devon Hodges “was a star of the basketball team” at Romeoville High School (RHS) when he moved to the attendance area of Bolingbrook High School (BHS).
Shortly thereafter, he alleged, staff members of the Valley View Community Unit School District 356U “falsely accused him of residency violations, spread false rumors about him, sabotaged his meetings with college recruiters and otherwise harassed him for leaving the RHS basketball team.” In his second amended complaint, Hodges asserted 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims against the defendants for their alleged violations of his Constitutional rights as well as an indemnification claim against Valley View, pursuant to the Illinois Tort Immunity Act.
Citing Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), the defendants moved to dismiss.
The court first considered Count I of the second amended complaint in which the plaintiff asserted a First Amendment retaliation claim against the individual Valley View defendants. “To state a viable claim, plaintiff must allege that he engaged in constitutionally protected speech, defendants took adverse action against him and their action was motivated, at least in part, by plaintiff’s speech,” wrote the court, noting Springer v. Durflinger, 518 F.3d 479, 483 (7th Cir. 2008). “The first element is lacking here because plaintiff alleges that defendants’ retaliation was prompted by his mother’s speech, not his own. Count I is, therefore, dismissed.”
Turning to Count II, in which the plaintiff asserted “an equal protection class of one claim against the individual defendants,” the court wrote “such a claim requires allegations that defendants ‘intentionally’ treated (the plaintiff) differently from others similarly situated and that there is no rational basis for the difference in treatment.” United States v. Moore, 543 F.3d 891, 896 (7th Cir. 2008).
Hodges maintained that, unlike other students whose families moved within the district during a school year, the defendants tried to harass him into continuing to attend RHS. Citing case law, the court dispatched with the defendants’ arguments that the plaintiff failed to identify a similarly situated person or that it was shielded by qualified immunity.
It then turned to Count III in which the plaintiff alleged that the defendants’ conduct violated his substantive due process rights. “To state a viable claim, plaintiff must specifically identify the fundamental liberty interest that he contends defendants have violated,” wrote the court citing Khan v. Gallitano, 180 F.3d 829, 833 (7th Cir. 1999). The plaintiff never identified such an interest.
As for Count IV, in which the plaintiff sought to hold the board liable for the equal protection violation alleged in Count II, the court wrote that the plaintiff “must allege that the constitutional violation resulted from, among other things, action by person with final policymaking authority.” See Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs. of City of N.Y., 436 U.S. 658, 694, 98 S. Ct. 2018, 56 L. Ed. 2d 611 (1978); McCormick v. City of Chi., 230 F.3d 319, 324 (7th Cir. 2000). The plaintiff maintained that the district superintendent was the final policymaker.
Illinois state law, however, “vests the Valley View School Board” with the power, not the superintendent. “Thus, any action taken or approved by (the superintendent) with respect to the plaintiff’s transfer is not, as a matter of law, a basis for holding the Valley View Board liable for the alleged equal protection violation.”
Count V, meanwhile, centered on the plaintiff’s allegation that the Valley View defendants conspired with the two other defendants named in this suit, the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) and its Executive Director Marty Hickman, to deprive him of his equal protection rights.
“To state a § 1983 conspiracy claim,” wrote the court, “the plaintiff must allege that: ‘(1) a state official and private individual(s) reached an understanding to deprive the plaintiff of his constitutional rights; and (2) those individual(s) were willful participants in joint activity with the State or its agents.’ Fries v. Helsper, 146 F.3d 452, 457 (7th Cir. 1998). Though the plaintiff alleges in great detail the correspondence among his mother, the Valley View defendants and the IHSA defendants concerning the plaintiff’s residence in the attendance area of, and eligibility to play basketball for BHS, they do not support the inference that the private and public actor defendants agreed to deprive the plaintiff of his equal protection rights. On the contrary, the only inference that these allegations support is that certain Valley View defendants refused to press and/or attempted to defeat the plaintiff’s case with the IHSA, but when the plaintiff’s mother took action on her own, the IHSA ruled that the plaintiff was eligible to play for BHS. Accordingly, the plaintiff has not stated a viable conspiracy claim.”
Lastly, the court considered and denied the motion to dismiss Count VI — an indemnification claim against Valley View pursuant to section 9-102 of the Illinois Tort Immunity Act, finding the claim can be made as “an independent cause of action.” Wilson v. City of Chic., 120 F.3d 681, 685 (7th Cir. 1997).
Devon Hodges vs. Valley View Community Unit School District 356U, et al.; N.D. Ill.; 11 C 8418, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 180875; 12/21/12
Attorneys of Record: (for plaintiff) Jason R. Craddock, Sr., LEAD ATTORNEY, Law Office of Jason R. Craddock, Chicago, IL. (for defendants) Todd Kenneth Hayden, LEAD ATTORNEY, Susan W. Glover, Robbins, Schwartz, Nicholas, Lifton & Taylor, Ltd., Mokena, IL; Amanda Tiebert Collman, Robbins, Schwartz, Nicholas, Lifton & Taylor, Ltd., Chicago, IL. David Joel Bressler, LEAD ATTORNEY, Dykema Gossett Rooks Pitts PLLC, Lisle, IL; Melanie Jeanne Chico, Dykema Gossett PLLC, Chicago, IL.
