A federal judge from to District of Connecticut has granted the summary judgment motion of a school district and several of its employees, who were sued by a disgruntled football coach for Constitutional law violations after he was fired.
Specifically, the court found that the district did not deprive the plaintiff of a protected right and that the conduct of the individual defendants did not satisfy the “extreme and outrageous” requirement necessary to withstand the summary judgment motion.
Plaintiff Brian K. Mignault, Sr. was a paid assistant football coach at Ledyard High School in 1979, and in each year from 1993 to 2005. The Plaintiff’s father, William F. Mignault, Sr., served as LHS’s head football coach for 42 years before retiring in 2007.
Ledyard has a district-wide nepotism policy, adopted on December 21, 1994, that states in relevant part: “Members of the same family may be employed in the same department or work location when approved in writing by the Superintendent. However, a family member shall not be approved for a position that places him or her in a direct line of supervision with regard to the other family member.” The policy was in place when the Plaintiff was hired for each season from 1995 to 2005 to work in a position where he was in a direct line of supervision with his father.
The situation, however, was complicated by the fact that at the beginning of the fall 2005 football season, the plaintiff’s son, Marc Mignault, became the team’s starting quarterback. This was a controversial choice as many of the fans seemed aligned with another quarterback. Those fans voiced their displeasure from the stands with various chants directed at the plaintiff and his son. After the game in question, the plaintiff’s wife, Nancy Mignault, sent a complaint to the District Superintendant Michael H. Graner regarding the conduct. The district subsequently arranged for a school administrator to attend home football games and for a public address announcement to be made at home football games concerning fan behavior.
During the course of the season, a complaint was lodged by several parents of current and former football players that the plaintiff was violating a district-wide bullying policy.
School Principal Marcia P. Griffin, a defendant in the case, launched an investigation. A report was issued on November 10, 2005, under the signatures of Griffin and Athletic Director Peter Vincent, also a defendant. The report found that the evidence supported four of the complaints made against the plaintiff: “(1) That the Plaintiff had on one occasion inappropriately grabbed a football player by his face mask; (2) that on one occasion the Plaintiff had used inappropriate language in speaking to a player; (3) that the Plaintiff was consistently tardy to football practice; and (4) violation of the Nepotism policy. The Report also found that eight complaints made against the Plaintiff were unsubstantiated: (1) that the Plaintiff intimidated a specific player during and after a football game in 2004; (2) that the Plaintiff retaliated against a player in response to a phone call made by the parent of that player; (3) that the Plaintiff commonly used inappropriate language to discipline players; (4) that the Plaintiff compared other players’ performances unfavorably with his relatives’ performances and didn’t allow any criticism of his relatives’ performances by other players; (5) that rules were not consistently applied to the Plaintiff’s relatives; (6) that the Plaintiff consistently bullied a specific player; (7) that the Plaintiff put his personal family interest above the interest of the football team; and (8) that the Plaintiff ‘mentally breaks kids down.’”
The report listed five directives: “(1) the Plaintiff was not to touch any player in a threatening or unsafe manner; (2) the Plaintiff was to meet with the head coach and Vincent to create a plan to address the negative perception of the Plaintiff’s coaching style; (3) former players would not be allowed on the sidelines during games or be allowed to ‘take the role of a coach in addressing the team’; (4) the Plaintiff was to arrive at practice by 3:30 p.m. on a regular basis; and (5) the Plaintiff’s evaluations were to be done by the athletic director, and not by the Plaintiff’s father.”
Graner also decided that given the district-wide nepotism policy, the plaintiff would be stripped of his title as a paid coach after the 2005 season in favor of being a volunteer coach.
Shortly after the report was issued, a controversy arose over its public dissemination. “After meeting privately with his attorney for approximately one hour, however, the Plaintiff consented to the public release of the entire Report,” wrote the court.
On November 18, 2005, two parents, one of which happened to be a school employee, placed copies of the report on cars at Ledyard High School. That same day, more parents placed copies of the report on cars at Harvard H. Ellis Technical High School, where the plaintiff was employed as the school principal.
The plaintiff complained to the Connecticut State Police and also to Graner regarding the placement of the redacted report on cars at the schools. The attorney for the Ledyard School Board advised him that there was not much they could do about the redacted report since the report was a public document and had only been redacted and not rewritten by those distributing it. Graner contacted the Ledyard Police about the placement of the redacted report on cars at Ledyard High School and was informed that the Town of Ledyard did not have an ordinance prohibiting the distribution of flyers on cars.
The plaintiff sued, alleging violations of his federal and state constitutional rights. The defendants moved for summary judgment.
On the procedural due process claim, the judge noted that Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-222e “does not mandate that an athletic coach can only be dismissed for cause, and thus the statute does not confer a property interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.” Esposito-Cogan v. East Haven Bd. of Education, No. 3:07-CV-681 (CFD), 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28994, 2009 WL 839015 (D. Conn. March 30, 2009); Patria v. East Hartford Bd. of Education, No. 3:07CV00428 (DJS), 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 125270, 2009 WL 840667 (D. Conn. March 31, 2010). “The court believes the reasoning in Esposito-Cogan and Patria to be sound and concludes that the holdings of those cases squarely apply to the procedural due process claim in this case,” it held.
The court also favored the defendants on the plaintiff’s substantive due process claim. “Aside from asserting a property interest in his continued employment as a paid assistant football coach, the plaintiff’s amended complaint does not identify a fundamental right that was denied by the defendants,” it wrote.
The plaintiff’s claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress similarly failed. He had alleged that as a principal at a neighboring school, he “was humiliated and scorned by his professional and home community. He was then terminated from his paid assistant coach position, in order to mollify several parents who made repeated complaints to defendant Graner about the plaintiff during the 2005-2006 school year. The plaintiff has been consumed by this personal loss and humiliation.”
The court, however, pointed out that the plaintiff “had agreed to the public release of the report. Additionally, when the Defendant Graner contacted the Ledyard Police Department about the placement of copies of the report on cars at Ledyard High School, he was advised that the Town of Ledyard had no ordinance against such conduct and that such conduct was not illegal.”
In summary, the court concluded that the conduct relied upon by the plaintiff did not satisfy the “extreme and outrageous” requirement necessary to state an intentional infliction of emotional distress claim under Connecticut law.
Brian K. Mignault, Sr., v. Ledyard Public Sch., et al.; D.Conn.; No. 3:08CV01063 (DJS); 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 51829; 5/16/11.
Attorneys of Record: (for plaintiff) John O’Hyun Kim, LEAD ATTORNEY, Law Office of John O’Hyun Kim, Stratford, CT; John R. Williams, LEAD ATTORNEY, New Haven, CT. (for defendants) David S. Monastersky, LEAD ATTORNEY, Howd & Ludorf, Hartford, CT. Barry J. Ward, LEAD ATTORNEY, New London, CT; Gary Charles Kaisen, Jeffrey William Kennedy, Sean R. Caruthers, LEAD ATTORNEYS, Milano & Wanat LLC, Branford, CT.
