Ribeau v. Katt, No. 11-3205 (10th Cir. 2012)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff-Appellant David R. Ribeau, Jr., appealed a district court's grant of summary judgment to Defendants-Appellees Dean Katt and Richard Smith. The district court dismissed Plaintiff's 42 U.S.C. 1983 claim alleging that Defendants violated his right to procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Mr. Smith was Plaintiff's immediate supervisor at the Unified School District 290 (USD 290) in Ottawa, Kansas. Plaintiff worked as a maintenance mechanic. In 2008, Plaintiff was fired after 24 years on the job for alleged poor work performance. Mr. Katt, USD 290's superintendent, told Plaintiff that the USD 290 Board of Education had given its approval for his termination. Due to the Defendants' representations, Plaintiff believed he could not file a grievance because the Board had already approved his termination. The Board, however, had not yet given its approval: the Board did not approve Plaintiff's termination until approximately one month later. The district court found Plaintiff was an at-will employee and had no protected property interest in his continued employment. Plaintiff timely appealed to the Tenth Circuit. Upon review, the Court found that any entitlement Plaintiff had to a pre-termination Board hearing derived from his express employment contract. The language of that contract was unambiguous and did not provide for a pre-termination hearing before the Board. Plaintiff therefore had no legitimate claim of entitlement to a pre-termination hearing under state law, and the district court was correct to dismiss his 1983 claim.
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