Emotional Distress--intentional infliction--conduct not sufficiently extreme and outrageous
The trial court did not err by granting summary judgment in favor of defendant board of
education on plaintiff teacher's claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress, because: (1)
plaintiff has not shown defendant's conduct was sufficiently extreme and outrageous when her
evidence shows defendant was following its procedures for evaluating and eliminating
problematic teachers; and (2) even assuming various school personnel went through these
motions in bad faith based on personal animosity toward plaintiff, their conduct did not go
beyond all possible bounds of decency.
Roger W. Rizk, P.A., by Roger W. Rizk, for plaintiff-
appellant.
Smith, Helms, Mulliss & Moore, L.L.P., by James G.
Middlebrooks, John G. McDonald, and T. Jonathan Adams, for
defendant-appellee.
HUDSON, Judge.
Plaintiff appeals from the trial court's grant of summary
judgment to defendant on plaintiff's claim for intentional
infliction of emotional distress. We affirm the trial court.
In her complaint and in a supporting affidavit, plaintiff
alleged the following: she served for many years as an exemplary
teacher with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. However, in the
fall of 1996, when plaintiff gave a student a B in a math class,
the student's parent complained to the school's assistant
principal, Linda Kiser (Kiser), who was a friend of the parent.
Following this incident, there was a change in attitude towardplaintiff on the part of Kiser, and plaintiff was subjected to a
hostile atmosphere at work.
In November 1996, Kiser changed posted conduct rules in
plaintiff's classroom without plaintiff's permission. In January
1997, the test scores of plaintiff's class were falsified to show
that they were below those of the class of a first-year teacher at
plaintiff's school. Plaintiff was embarrassed when the test
results were published to her fellow teachers. She determined that
Kiser had placed the test results of two failing students who were
not in plaintiff's class with plaintiff's scores and had placed the
scores of one of plaintiff's excellent students with the first-year
teacher's scores. Although the error was corrected, the new
results were not distributed to the teachers in written form.
In February, plaintiff's principal informed her that she
desired plaintiff to move to a different school. Between 10 March
1997 and 5 June 1997, plaintiff was subjected to more than fifteen
classroom observations and conference meetings. In April, she was
placed on remediation and given an improvement plan with
requirements she deemed onerous, including that she rewrite daily
schedules and submit them for approval by the administration,
submit lesson plans to the principal on a weekly basis, and conduct
weekly conferences with administrators.
In May 1997, plaintiff was given two letters of
insubordination, including one for declining to sign the
improvement plan noted above. Furthermore, she was videotaped
teaching a lesson, which plaintiff found intrusive. She was placedon probation in June despite complying with most of the principal's
directives and despite her students' receiving a level 3 (with 4
being the highest) in every subject in their test scores.
In July 1997, plaintiff received calls from principals at
other schools informing her that her name had been placed on a
"displacement list." The Director of Human Resources told her this
was a mistake, but that she was being transferred to a different
school. Plaintiff was told she would have no input regarding her
new placement, even though she requested that she be relocated to
a school near her children. Plaintiff informed the Director of
Human Resources she did not want her son to have to ride the school
bus, because he would then have to take increased medication for
his attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Nevertheless, she was placed at a school a long distance from
her children's school and was required to report to work 45 minutes
earlier than her children's school began. She was furthermore
placed in a kindergarten classroom, despite not having experience
teaching kindergarten, and was not provided with a kindergarten
start-up kit having a value of $1,500, which deprived her students
of having the same materials as other beginning kindergarten
classes.
Plaintiff alleged that as a result of the above actions, she
experienced major depression, chronic anxiety, sleep disturbances,
weight loss, and general malfunctioning on a daily basis. She
furthermore alleged that her family suffered extreme stress,
resulting in her husband's developing cracked teeth and herchildren failing their course work and having to attend summer
school.
Defendant moved for summary judgment on the grounds that
plaintiff could not prove the elements of her claim, and that it
had governmental immunity against the suit due to its lack of
insurance. Judge John M. Gardner granted defendant's motion for
summary judgment on the basis that there was no genuine issue of
material fact as to the outrageous conduct element of plaintiff's
claim. Plaintiff filed notice of appeal to this Court.
In ruling on a motion for summary judgment, the trial court
must determine whether the pleadings, affidavits, and discovery
materials submitted by the parties establish "that there is no
genuine issue as to any material fact and that any party is
entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." N.C.R. Civ. P. 56(c).
The moving party has the burden to show the lack of a triable issue
and may meet this burden by showing that the non-moving party
cannot produce evidence to support an essential element of its
claim. Boudreau v. Baughman, 322 N.C. 331, 342, 368 S.E.2d 849,
858 (1988). Moreover, the court must view the evidence presented
in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Roumillat v.
Simplistic Enterprises, Inc., 331 N.C. 57, 63, 414 S.E.2d 339, 342
(1992).
The elements of a claim for intentional infliction of
emotional distress are: (1) extreme and outrageous conduct (2)
which is intended to and does cause (3) severe emotional distressto another. Dickens v. Puryear, 302 N.C. 437, 452, 276 S.E.2d 325,
335 (1981). The conduct in question must be "so outrageous in
character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible
bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious and utterly
intolerable in a civilized community." Hogan v. Forsyth Country
Club Co., 79 N.C. App. 483, 493, 340 S.E.2d 116, 123, disc. review
denied, 317 N.C. 334, 346 S.E.2d 140 (1986)(quoting Restatement
(Second) of Torts § 46, Comment d (1965)). It is for the court to
decide whether defendant's alleged behavior rises to the level of
being extreme and outrageous, as it is a question of law. Id. at
490, 340 S.E.2d at 121.
Taking all of plaintiff's allegations as true, we do not
believe she has shown defendant's conduct was sufficiently extreme
and outrageous to make out a claim for intentional infliction of
emotional distress. For the most part, her allegations show
defendant was following its procedures for evaluating and
eliminating problematic teachers. Even assuming various school
personnel went through these motions in bad faith, based on some
personal animosity toward plaintiff, their conduct did not go
"beyond all possible bounds of decency."
In Wagoner v. Elkin City Schools' Bd. of Education, 113 N.C.
App. 579, 440 S.E.2d 119, disc. review denied, 336 N.C. 615, 447
S.E.2d 414 (1994), the plaintiff's principal, inter alia, visited
the gym while she was teaching and stared at her for "minutes at a
time," did not show up for scheduled evaluations, told her one daythat if he were grading her, he would give her an "F," swi
tched her
from physical education teacher to an ISS coordinator, placed her
office in a small room with a temperature of 90 to 100 degrees and
no phone, denied her the opportunity to attend workshops in her
area, assigned her different working hours than the other teachers,
told her she had the worst job in the school, and returned a
student that had pushed plaintiff to her classroom.
This Court held that while the principal's conduct may well
have been insulting to the plaintiff and have caused her to suffer
"indignities," we did not regard his behavior "as atrocious, and
utterly intolerable in a civilized community." Id. at 586, 440
S.E.2d at 124. Plaintiff in this case has not established a fact
pattern more egregious than that presented by Wagoner.
We conclude that the trial court did not err in granting
defendant's motion for summary judgment on the ground that
plaintiff could not prove an essential element of her claim.
Affirmed.
Judges GREENE and MCCULLOUGH concur.
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