IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
No. 92-8451
CHARLES WILLIAMS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY
HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER ET AL.,
Defendants,
EDWARD C. SALTZSTEIN, JOSEPH
BROWN, III and JAMES C. LEWIS,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Texas
(October 22, 1993)
Before POLITZ, Chief Judge, HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judge, and
DAVIDSON,* District Judge.
HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judge:
A professor claims that the decision to reduce his salary
violated the Constitution. We affirm the district court's grant of
judgment as a matter of law against the professor.
I.
Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center hired Dr. Charles
Williams as an associate professor and director of anesthesiology
*
District Judge of the Northern District of Mississippi,
sitting by designation.
research in 1982 at an annual salary of $42,016.92, assigning him
to the El Paso Regional Academic Health Center. The university
granted him tenure in March 1986. In September 1987 he became
director of research in the department of surgery and his
compensation increased to $68,004 per year: $64,000 in base salary
and $4,204 in fringe benefits.
Part of Williams's salary came from the Medical Practice
Income Plan, a fund collected from professional activities of the
physician faculty members. In early 1989, Dr. Edward Saltzstein,
the department chair, told Williams that as of September 1, 1989,
MPIP funds would not be used to augment Williams's salary because
Williams had not generated the expected amount of grant money.
Saltzstein sent a memo to Williams stating his plans and reasons on
March 21, 1989. In mid-1989 the surgery department received budget
documents indicating that Williams was entitled to the full $68,000
salary. A form was filled out in early September to amend the
budget to reflect Williams's lower salary, which was approved by
administrators Dr. Joseph Brown III & James Lewis. September 1,
1989, Williams began receiving an annual salary of $46,449.
In 1991 Williams sued the University Health Science Center,
the medical school's Medical Practice Income Plan, Saltzstein,
Brown and Lewis, alleging that his salary decrease had been
achieved by denying him procedural and substantive due process and
that the decrease gave rise to state law claims for intentional
infliction of emotional distress and breach of contract. In 1992
he voluntarily dismissed all his claims except for his
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constitutional claims against the university officials in their
individual and official capacities. Those claims were tried to a
jury in July 1992, and at the close of Williams's case-in-chief the
district court granted the officials' oral motion for judgment as
a matter of law.
II.
A.
Any property interest Williams had in his entire salary was
tenuous at best, as we will explain. In any event, he received
the process due him. The Supreme Court has identified three
factors to weigh in deciding how much process a property interest
deserves:
[F]irst, the private interest that will be affected by
the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous
deprivation of such interest through the procedures used,
and the probable value, if any, of additional or
substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the
Government's interest, including the function involved
and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the
additional or substitute procedural requirement would
entail.
Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335 (1976). The "minimal"
process set out by our cases applying Eldridge is notice of the
reasons for a proposed deprivation and some opportunity to respond
to the substance of the allegations before a final deprivation
occurs. See Eguia, 756 F.2d at 1139.
Williams received this baseline procedural protection. In
early 1989, Saltzstein told Williams that MPIP funds would no
longer be used to augment his salary and Williams would have to
generate grant funds himself. On March 21, 1989, Saltzstein sent
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the memo to Williams described earlier. On both occasions Williams
responded. Nothing more was required on these facts.
A state university has a significant interest in having
reasonable discretion to administer its educational programs.
Texas Faculty Ass'n v. University of Texas at Dallas, 946 F.2d 379,
385-86 (5th Cir. 1991). See also Board of Curators v. Horowitz,
435 U.S. 78 (1978); Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975) (both
finding that student suspension requires minimal process because of
the freedom of action required for effective school
administration). The strength of that interest gives schools
leeway in making broad budget decisions that may affect only a few
employees. See generally Texas Faculty, 946 F.2d at 387-89.
Williams's interest in a specific level of income does not
outweigh the state's. Eguia v. Tompkins, 756 F.2d 1130 (5th Cir.
1985), required few procedural safeguards for the decision to
withhold a final paycheck because the interest was "substantial,
but . . . [not] of the same magnitude as the interest of a person
'on the very margin of subsistence' in the receipt of governmental
benefits." Id. at 1138 (quoting Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254,
264 (1970)). This case involves more money over a longer period
than the check at issue in Eguia, but falls short of the
termination decisions contested in Texas Faculty, 946 F.2d at 384.
Significantly, the low risk of erroneous decision making entailed
by the process used further erodes Williams's claim that he
deserved more process. See Texas Faculty, 946 F.2d at 386. The
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district court properly granted judgment as a matter of law on all
procedural due process claims.
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B.
Alternatively, the district court correctly granted judgment
to defendants in their individual capacity. The uncertainty about
Williams's asserted property right in his entire salary gave the
administrators qualified immunity to claims for money damages.
Government officials sued in their individual capacities for money
damages enjoy qualified immunity from liability for money damages
if their conduct did not violate clearly-established law of which
a reasonable official would have been aware. Anderson v.
Creighton, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3038-39 (1987). Property interests are
created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or
understandings under state law. Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S.
564, 577 (1972). An interest can arise from a "mutually explicit
understanding" between an employer and employee. Perry v.
Sinderman, 408 U.S. 593, 601 (1972).
An expectation of employment carries with it some protected
expectations as to a salary. In some situations that expectation
can encompass an employee's entire salary. See Eguia v. Tompkins,
756 F.2d 1130, 1138 (5th Cir. 1985); Orloff v. Cleland, 708 F.2d
372, 378 (9th Cir. 1983). But the more detailed and conditional
the understanding becomes between employer and employee, the weaker
the linkage becomes between those understandings and the Due
Process Clause. See Mangaroo v. Nelson, 864 F.2d 1202, 1206-08
(5th Cir. 1989). At some point the linkage is uncertain enough to
justify qualified immunity for an official accused of breaking it.
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This relationship arguably passes that point. The background
to the relationship includes two university regulations that
envision an employment relationship with some "ebb and flow."
First, the tenure regulations allow annual adjustments in a tenured
professor's salary:
A tenured appointment assures the right of the faculty
member to a continuing academic position of employment.
The tenured faculty member's contract, however, is
subject to possible annual adjustments regarding salary,
rank, and conditions of employment.
§ 06.04(5)(A) ("Conditions of Tenured Appointments"). Second,
section 2.31 of the MPIP bylaws states that "[i]t is expressly
understood that each member's augmentation as determined under
Section 2.33, shall not be guaranteed to any such member." Section
2.33 mandates that each member's augmentation shall be determined
annually based on the recommendations of various administrators and
approval of the president.
Given the uncertainties underlying the employment relationship
between the university and Doctor Williams, we cannot say that the
law clearly established that his property interest in the entirety
of his salary was constitutionally protected. The "mutually
explicit understanding" between the university and Dr. Williams
rested on periodic evaluations and salary revisions. A reasonable
administrator could have concluded on these facts that Dr.
Williams's salary could be adjusted without treading on ground
clearly protected by the Constitution. The district court
correctly granted judgment as a matter of law in favor of the
administrators on the issue of their qualified immunity.
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III.
We now turn to Williams's substantive due process claims. To
state a substantive due process claim a plaintiff must show that
the government's deprivation of a property interest was arbitrary
or not reasonably related to a legitimate governmental interest.
Brennen v. Stewart, 834 F.2d 1248, 1256 (5th Cir. 1988). Judicial
evaluation of academic decisions requires deference and they are
overturned only if they are "such a substantial departure from
accepted academic norms as to demonstrate that the person or
committee responsible did not actually exercise professional
judgment." Regents of the Univ. of Michigan v. Ewing, 474 U.S.
214, 225 (1985). Defendants Saltzstein, Brown, and Lewis each
testified that Williams's salary was reduced for lack of grant
productivity and lack of funded grant salary support. The district
court properly granted judgment as a matter of law on all claims
involving substantive due process.
AFFIRMED.
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