United States District Court, W.D. Arkansas, Texarkana Division
MARY TURNER, et al. PLAINTIFFS
v.
LAFAYETTE COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al. DEFENDANTS ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION and ARKANSAS STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION INTERVENORS
ORDER
Susan
O. Hickey, Chief United States District Judge
Before
the Court is the Motion for Stay Pending Appeal and to
Expedite (ECF No. 75) filed by Intervenors Arkansas
Department of Education and Arkansas State Board of
Education. (“ADE and SBE”). Defendant Lafayette
County School District (“LCSD”) has responded.
(ECF No. 78). The Court finds the matter ripe for
consideration.
I.
BACKGROUND
On
January 17, 2019, the Court entered an order (the
“modification order”) modifying a consent decree
executed by Plaintiffs and LCSD (the “Turner
Decree”) to explicitly prohibit the segregative
interdistrict transfer of students from LCSD to other school
districts, unless such a transfer is requested for education
or compassionate purposes and is approved by LCSD's
school board on a case-by-case basis.[1] (ECF No. 72). On February
15, 2019, the ADE and SBE filed a notice of appeal as to the
modification order. That same day, the ADE and SBE filed the
instant motion, asking the Court to issue a stay of the
modification order pending the outcome of the appeal and
asking the Court to shorten the other parties' time to
respond to the instant motion. On February 20, 2019, the
Court denied the ADE and SBE's request to shorten the
other parties' response time. (ECF No. 77). On March 1,
2019, LCSD filed a response opposing the instant motion. (ECF
No. 78). On March 4, 2019, Plaintiffs moved to adopt
LCSD's response by reference, and the Court granted
Plaintiffs' motion on March 5, 2019. (ECF Nos. 80, 81).
For the
reasons discussed below, the Court finds that the ADE and SBE
have not met their burden to receive a temporary
administrative stay of the modification order or a full stay
pending the appeal of the modification order.
II.
DISCUSSION
In
deciding whether to grant a motion to stay an order pending
appeal, the Court considers the following four factors: (1)
the likelihood of the movant's success on the merits of
the appeal; (2) whether the movant will be irreparably harmed
absent a stay; (3) whether issuance of the stay would
substantially injure the non-moving party; and (4) where the
public interest lies.[2] Hilton v. Braunskill, 481 U.S.
770, 776 (1987). Courts must consider the relative strength
of the four factors, balancing them all, with the most
important factor being the likelihood of success on appeal.
Brady v. Nat'l Football League, 640 F.3d 785,
789 (8th Cir. 2011). As the moving parties, the ADE and SBE
bear the burden of proving that the weight of the four
factors warrant a stay. See James River Flood Control
Ass'n v. Watt, 680 F.2d 543, 544 (8th Cir. 1982)
(per curiam). With this standard in mind, the Court will now
address each of the four factors as they relate to the
instant motion for a stay pending appeal.
A.
Likelihood of Success on the Merits
The
first factor asks whether the moving party is likely to
succeed on appeal. Hilton, 481 U.S. at 776. The
moving party need not establish an absolute certainty of
success. Iowa Utils. Bd. v. F.C.C., 109 F.3d 418,
423 (8th Cir. 1996).
The
modification order found that modification of the
Turner Decree was proper because a significant
change in law warranted revision of the decree and because
the proposed modification was suitably tailored to the
changed circumstance. In the present motion, the ADE and SBE
advance three arguments as to why the Court's ruling is
likely to be reversed on appeal: (1) that no significant
change in law occurred to warrant modification and that the
Court misinterpreted the Turner Decree, (2) that the
modification was not suitably tailored because it imposed an
impermissible interdistrict remedy, and (3) the modification
order unlawfully violates students' equal protection
rights. The Court will separately address each of these
arguments.
1.
Significant Change in Facts or Law
The ADE
and SBE's first argument is that the enactment of Act
1066 of the Regular Session of 2017 (the “2017
Act”) was not a significant change in law justifying
modification because the Turner Decree did not
explicitly concern the interdistrict transfer of students
from LCSD to elsewhere. Specifically, the ADE and SBE argue
that the 2017 Act was not a significant change in law because
LCSD did not show that the law had an actual effect on the
Turner Decree, thereby making it unworkable. This
argument is repetitive of an argument that the ADE and SBE
previously made in the underlying briefing that gave way to
the Court's modification order, and that the Court
expressly considered and rejected. Without restating the
entire modification order, the Court found[3] that “LCSD
[had] shown that a significant change in circumstances [was]
present, justifying modification of the Turner
Decree.” (ECF No. 72, p. 13). The Court reasoned that
the 2017 Act requires that, for LCSD to receive an exemption
from school choice, the Turner Decree must contain
specific restrictive language that was contemplated by and
built into the Arkansas Public School Choice Act of 1989 (the
“1989 Act”), which was in effect at the time the
decree was executed. Thus, the 2017 Act prevents LCSD from
claiming an exemption from participating in school choice,
thereby presenting a change in law that justified
modification of the decree.
The ADE
and SBE also argue that the Court misinterpreted the
Turner Decree. They argue that this case and the
Turner Decree have nothing to do with the
interdistrict transfer of students, and the parties to the
Turner Decree did not believe that the decree
encompassed that subject. Thus, they argue that the Court
erred by looking beyond the four corners of the
Turner Decree and finding that the parties to the
decree intended to prohibit student transfers which result in
the segregation of LCSD's student body.
The
Court's modification order considered and rejected this
argument, finding that the Turner Decree, by its
explicit terms, “clearly intended to prohibit
any racial discrimination occurring within the LCSD
school district, including preventing student transfers which
result in segregation of LCSD's student body.” (ECF
No. 72, p. 12). In reaching this conclusion, the Court was
mindful of the Eighth Circuit's instruction that courts
interpreting a consent decree “are not to ignore the
context in which the parties were operating, nor the
circumstances surrounding the order.” United States
v. Knote, 29 F.3d 1297, 1300 (8th Cir. 1994). Although
the Court noted that the Turner Decree did not
explicitly prohibit the interdistrict transfer of students,
the Court also considered the context in which the parties
were operating and the circumstances surrounding the order,
thereby finding that “it was unnecessary for the
parties to draft the Turner Decree in a way that
explicitly barred segregative inter-district student
transfers because that limitation was contemplated by the
school choice law in place at the time.” (ECF No. 72,
p. 12). Thus, the Court did not misconstrue the consent
decree, but rather interpreted it using its plain language
and by properly considering the context in which the parties
negotiated and executed the Turner Decree and the
circumstances surrounding the decree.[4]
For the
above reasons and for the reasons stated in the modification
order, the Court finds that the ADE and SBE are unlikely to
succeed on appeal with arguments that the Court previously
considered and rejected. Cf. St. Jude Med., Inc. v.
Access Closure, Inc., No. 4:08-cv-4101-HFB, 2012 WL
12919351, at *1 (W.D. Ark. Oct. 2, 2012) (“[I]f the
Court thought [the movant's] position was likely to
succeed on appeal, the Court would not have decided against
[the movant] in the first place.”). The ADE and SBE
have presented no additional argument or on-point caselaw to
cause the Court to reverse course from its prior ruling.
Thus, the Court finds that they are unlikely to succeed on
appeal with these arguments.
2.
Interdistrict Remedy
The ADE
and SBE further argue that the modification order imposes an
impermissible “interdistrict remedy, ” and is,
therefore, not suitably tailored to the changed circumstances
outlined by the Court. The ADE and SBE assert that the
claimed interdistrict remedy is inappropriate because the
Turner Decree only dealt with alleged intradistrict
violations. This line of argument was addressed and found
unpersuasive in the modification order. (ECF No. 72, p. 15).
Specifically, the Court observed that the modification would
not directly restrict any other school district's
actions. That being said, the Court noted that the
modification would have an indirect impact on other school
districts in that they would be unable to receive LCSD
students via school choice transfers because LCSD would be
barred from granting segregative interdistrict transfers.
However, the Court stated that the ADE and SBE had cited no
binding authority finding that a remedy like the modification
constituted an interdistrict remedy and that the Court was
unaware of any such authority.[5] The Court further noted instances
in which courts had found that the remedy implemented was
interdistrict, such as forced consolidation of school
districts, imposition of an interdistrict magnet school plan,
and creation of an interdistrict student bussing
plan.[6] (ECF No. 72, p. 16).
The ADE
and SBE now attempt to re-litigate this issue. To the extent
that the ADE and SBE present the same or substantially
similar arguments as previously addressed by the modification
order, the Court again finds those arguments unpersuasive.
The ADE and SBE, however, do present one new, though similar,
argument that was not raised in the briefing of the
underlying motion. Specifically, the ADE and SBE assert that
the granted modification is impermissible because it had an
“interdistrict purpose, ” arguing that a remedy
that has an interdistrict purpose “is impermissible in
cases with no interdistrict violation.” (ECF No. 76, p.
12-13). The ADE and SBE state that:
The Court's Modification Order undoubtedly has such an
“interdistrict purpose.” Indeed, its express
purpose is to affect the racial demographics of [LCSD]
relative to the surrounding districts. Because the
Modification Order's purpose is to affect the racial
makeup of [LCSD] relative to the surrounding schools by
preventing student ...