Thursday, Sept. 2, 2004 | 11:05 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- A federal appeals court Wednesday upheld a $75,000 judgment against the Clark County School District for its retaliation against a kindergarten teacher because she won a prior suit against the district.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Trudi Lytle, a teacher at the Marion B. Earl Elementary School, was entitled to the award plus $239,268 in fees for her lawyers.
Lytle in 1992 sent a letter to her state senators criticizing a new program starting in the district. The district sought to transfer her to another school. When she refused the transfer, she was fired. She sued claiming the district violated her First Amendment rights.
A jury in 1994 awarded her $135,000 and ordered her reinstated to Marion Earl School.
In October 1995, Lytle filed another lawsuit claiming she was being singled out for retaliation because she won the first lawsuit.
The appeals court, in a decision written by Judge William A. Fletcher, said "Even minor acts can constitute retaliation sufficient" to support a claim.
The court said Lytle presented evidence that showed Assistant Superintendent Edward Goldman investigated her request for two days of sick leave, requiring her to submit several notes from physicians to support her request.
The paid sick leave was denied. But she took the leave and her pay was never docked. Goldman testified at trial that he denied the sick leave because they were identical to days on which Lytle was to attend meetings that she had previously requested to be rescheduled.
Lytle claimed Goldman also ratified actions by others who took retaliatory steps against Lytle. She was reprimanded in front of her class after she went to another teacher's classroom to retrieve some materials she thought were hers.
Lytle was required after that to ask permission to go into another teacher's classroom. She was called into meetings with her supervisors in late 1994 and early 1995 to discuss her performance. These conferences were made into the form of progressive discipline that was placed in her personnel record.
She said a log of her daily activities was kept by school district officials and that administrators failed to adequately investigate her complaints of harassment. The presiding judge at her trial in Las Vegas, David Ezra, found that these were not isolated incidents of retaliation, "but rather established a pattern of conduct which supported a (jury) finding of ratification of retaliatory acts, as required to impose municipal liability."
The appeals court said, "There was sufficient evidence from which a jury could conclude that Goldman approve of the retaliatory acts by Principal Robert Wondrash and Area Superintendent Eva Simmons, rather than simply failed to overrule them."
In its appeal, the school district argued that the elective board of trustees was the only authorized policymaker and that since Lytle had not shown any retaliatory action taken by the board, there was no basis for district liability.
The court said, however, that former Superintendent Brian Cram and Goldman had final policymaking authority.
After trial Lytle asked for $399,865 in attorney fees but the judge reduced that to $239,268. Her attorneys also asked for $29,871 in costs but the court awarded them $1,770.
Both sides appealed the attorney fees awards but the appeals court upheld the findings of the lower court.
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