PITTSBURGH – A former Waynesburg Central High School student has lost his attempt to reconsider the dismissal of his lawsuit - one resulting from his expulsion for suspected drug use.
On April 3, 2019, Sawyer Cole first sued Central Greene School District and several administrators, alleging a violation of his constitutional rights concerning his expulsion from the high school.
On June 24, those same defendants filed a motion to dismiss the case and U.S. Magistrate Judge Cynthia Reed Eddy ruled on that motion in an opinion issued Dec. 27.
According to Eddy, Cole argued school officials tried to force him to offer a urine sample for drug analysis when the district’s policy requires a saliva test. At a disciplinary hearing after Cole’s suspension, his father also said his son was ill and under the effects of cold medicine on the day of his suspected drug use.
Though the school expelled Cole because he failed to submit to a urine drug test, he appealed to the Greene County Court of Common Pleas – which overturned the expulsion on Feb. 16, 2018, and reinstated Cole provided he assented to a drug and alcohol evaluation and comply with recommended treatment. Cole returned to school and graduated on time.
His lawsuit alleged a violation of 14th Amendment due process rights, municipal liability claims in that the district failed to train and supervise administrators, violations of Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure and malicious use of process claims.
Eddy said the district’s procedures in the suspension and expulsion process “were constitutionally sufficient” such to defeat Cole’s procedural due process claim, and that his substantive due process claim failed because Cole’s right to a free public education is enumerated in the Pennsylvania Constitution, not the U.S. Constitution.
Cole’s municipal liability claims failed, Eddy explained, because he failed to sufficiently allege which formal policies the district supposedly contravened. Further, once Eddy determine Cole’s constitutional rights hadn’t been infringed, it became impossible to hold the district liable for “failure to train and supervise” employees to prevent such an infringement.
Eddy also said the district didn’t violate Cole’s 4th Amendment rights when a school nurse administered a brief medical exam and a school resource officer reported Cole showed signs of drug use, per his training in that field.
“The search was justified at its inception because there were reasonable grounds for suspecting the search would turn up evidence that (Cole) had violated either the law or the rules of the school,” Eddy wrote.
“This is an objective standard. … The nurse simply checked his blood pressure, pulse and pupils. Unlike in the criminal context, where officers need probable cause to conduct a search, a school search is constitutionally permissible if there is ‘a moderate chance of finding evidence of wrongdoing.’”
On Jan. 10, Cole filed objections in seeking to reconsider the dismissal, with one of numerous others being that the motion to dismiss contained numerous citations to a transcript of an earlier administrative disciplinary proceeding which was conducted and administered by the School District was done outside of the record of the case.
“The transcript is an unverified, unsworn document from the plaintiff’s expulsion hearing and the accuracy and authenticity has never been established and is not a judicial proceeding. There is no clarity as to who testified under oath in that proceeding and merely recites that ‘witnesses were severally sworn’ but makes no identification of those severally sworn,” according to the reconsideration motion.
Cole further felt there was not probable cause to suspect him of drug use.
“The reasonable expectations of the School District were never established. The plaintiff has properly pled that no there was not any reasonable grounds to believe that he was anything but tired, no slurred speech, no smell or alcohol or drugs, no lack of coordination, or any other indicia of intoxication,” per the reconsideration motion.
“The court disregarded the allegations of the plaintiff that the search had no chance of turning up any evidence of a violation of the rules of the school. The plaintiff has alleged that these would not provide any such reasonable grounds and that the defendants could not have had reasonable grounds to so believe such a thing.”
However, Eddy denied the reconsideration motion on March 26.
“Plaintiff asserts that the Court should not have considered the transcript of the expulsion hearing, which he himself relied upon in the complaint. Defendants attached the transcript to their motion to dismiss in support of its arguments,” Eddy said.
“In addition, plaintiff herein did not object to the use of the transcript in his brief in opposition and therefore waived the objection. Furthermore, the plaintiff himself referenced the testimony contained in the transcript multiple times in his opposition brief. He cannot now expect the Court to ignore it.”
Eddy stated the Court also overruled Cole’s objection as he was incorrect when he argued “the Court erred in holding that state law notification requirements determine whether he stated a federal constitutional claim.”
The plaintiff is represented by Adam J. Belletti of Pollock Morris Belletti, in Waynesburg.
The defendants are represented by Susan T. Roberts and Michael J. Roche Jr. of Peacock Keller, in Washington.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania case 2:19-cv-00735
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com