PHILADELPHIA - The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a former volunteer member of the board of trustees of a charter school.
In the ruling on Dec. 19, U.S. District Judge Gerald Austin McHugh said Mary Steffey failed to state a claim because “the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of due process extends only to legally cognizable liberty and property interests.”
“Because state law did not create such interests with respect to her volunteer position, Ms. Steffey fails to state a claim,” the opinion states.
According to the opinion, Steffey alleged that the defendants deprived her of a property interest in her volunteer position as an elected member and president of the Agora Cyber Charter School’s Board of Trustees without due process of law. She also asserts that the defendants improperly deprived her of a Fourteenth Amendment liberty interest in her reputation, the district court added.
“She was elected president of the board in March 2014 and removed from the board two years later, without what she contends was her constitutional right to notice and an opportunity to be heard,” the opinion stated.
The district court said property interests are not created by the Constitution, but rather from other sources such as state law.
“Pennsylvania law doesn’t establish an entitlement to at-will paid or volunteer government positions, nor to positions on an elected school board of trustees,” the opinion stated.
The court added that all paid public employment is at-will and that all public employees therefore lack a legitimate entitlement to continued employment. Steffey argued that she is not a paid employee of the school or the board, but the district court said it wouldn't matter even if she were.
“Even if she were, she would have no legitimate entitlement to continued employment because at-will employees — which all Pennsylvania employees are absent explicit enabling legislation — have none,” the opinion stated.
McHugh said Steffey was an unpaid member of the school board of trustees and “she points to no state or local law that expressly created a tenured property interest in that volunteer position.”
The district court added that Steffey had no liberty interest in her volunteer trustee position.
“The Fourteenth Amendment’s liberty clause protects reputation, not job tenure,” the opinion stated. “To state a due process claim for reputational harm, some stigma to reputation plus deprivation of some additional right or interest is necessary.”
According to the stigma-plus test, cited by the district court, the test has been applied to determine when an employer “creates and disseminates a false and defamatory impression about the employee in connection with his termination.”
“When such a deprivation occurs, the employee is entitled to a name-clearing hearing,” the opinion stated.
In the volunteer context, the district court said there is no liberty interest where the plaintiff has failed to show that her “future employment opportunities have been adversely affected by her expulsion.”
According to the opinion, Steffey claims that removing her from the board implied that she neglected her duty, was convicted of a felony, or had interests detrimental to the Cyber Charter School.
“But plaintiff was a volunteer and her allegation regarding injury to her future employment prospects is too conclusory to meet the 'stigma-plus test' and survive a motion to dismiss,” the opinion stated.