Levanti v. Tippen

585 F. Supp. 499, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16900
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. California
DecidedMay 7, 1984
DocketCiv. 83-1654-T
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 585 F. Supp. 499 (Levanti v. Tippen) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Levanti v. Tippen, 585 F. Supp. 499, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16900 (S.D. Cal. 1984).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

TURRENTINE, District Judge.

Plaintiff, who represents himself, is an attorney admitted to the practice of law in Connecticut and Rhode Island. Plaintiff applied and was certified by the California Committee of Bar Examiners (“the Committee”) to be an attorney applicant for the July, 1982 bar examination. Plaintiff received the “Attorneys’ Exam Policy Statement” from the Committee. Plaintiff was thereby informed of his option to take either the General Bar Examination (“GBE”), consisting of the Multistate Bar Examination (“MBE”) and nine essay questions, or the Attorneys’ Examination, which consists solely of the essay portion of the GBE. Plaintiff was further notified that:

For the past several examinations, the passing rate has been higher on the MBE than on the Essay Examination. Statistically, then, the attorney applicant should take the GBE (both Essay and MBE) as there is a better than even chance the MBE score will raise the grade assigned to his/her performance.

The Policy Statement did not explain the Phase I grading process discussed below.

*501 Plaintiff chose to take the July, 1982 Attorneys’ Exam and did so. He received a grade of 69.4%. A score of 70% was the minimum passing grade. Plaintiff was not certified by the Committee for admission to the legal profession in California on the ground that he failed the bar exam. An explanation of the phased grading system used to assess the July, 1982 bar exam was routinely enclosed with the letter sent to the plaintiff informing him that he had failed the exam.

Phase I of that process involves the grading of only the MBE and three of the nine essays. If an applicant scores high enough on this abbreviated review, he passes without having his other essays read. A handful of borderline applicants pass in this manner when they would have failed if their exams were fully examined. Since he did not take the MBE portion of the exam, Levanti’s exam was ineligible for Phase I grading.

Plaintiff wrote to the Committee and requested a refund of his exam fee and the “formation [sic] of a statistical equation” which would place attorney examinees “in parity” with those who took the GBE and were eligible for Phase I grading. Apparently, plaintiff would have the Committee toss a calculated uncertainty factor into the grading of attorney exams or conduct a lottery so that he would have some sort of “wild card” chance of passing an exam he has failed.

Plaintiff filed a petition with the Committee in which he presented the gist of the constitutional arguments raised in Counts I, II and III of his complaint. That petition was considered and denied. Mr. Levanti thereupon filed a petition for a writ of review in the California Supreme Court pursuant to Cal.Bus. & Prof.Code § 6066. He raised his constitutional arguments again and the issues were fully briefed by plaintiff and the State Bar of California. On May 25, 1983, the California Supreme Court denied Levanti’s petition.

Plaintiff then sought relief in this Court by filing an action against the State Bar and the Committee of Bar Examiners, seeking injunctive relief as well as almost $2,000,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. The Court dismissed that action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under the Eleventh Amendment to the Federal Constitution on November 2, 1983. Plaintiff was given leave to amend.

Levanti filed an amended complaint, naming individual members of the State Bar and the Committee in their official capacities. Defendants moved to dismiss on a variety of jurisdictional and substantive grounds. Since arguments advanced by the parties in respect to the defendants’ motion to dismiss made use of material outside the pleadings — specifically facts in the affidavit of Jane Peterson Smith, the Director of Examinations for the Committee — the Rule 12(b)(6) motion was converted by the Court into a Rule 56(c) motion. See 5 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice & Procedure § 1366 (1969). The parties were given an additional five weeks in which to prepare arguments pertaining to the summary judgment motion, with particular attention to the substantive constitutional challenges raised in Counts I, II and III of the amended complaint.

Summary judgment is appropriate only when no genuine issue of material fact exists and the moving party is clearly entitled to prevail as a matter of law. The evidence and pleadings in such a case are to be construed in favor of the party opposing the motion. Ybarra v. Reno Thunderbird Mobile Home Village, 723 F.2d 675, 677 (9th Cir.1984). Most of the issues before this Court are purely “legal” ones such as subject matter jurisdiction, which are properly resolved at this point in the proceedings. Plaintiff’s constitutional challenges to the Phase I grading process used by the defendants are also ripe for review, as there are no material factual disputes over the mechanics of the process or the information that plaintiff was provided about that process or the information that plaintiff was provided about that process prior to sitting for the exam. There are merely disagreements as to the ramifications of certain facts. For example, the *502 parties agree that Levanti received a score of 69.4% on his exam. Defendants characterize this as a failing grade, since the minimum passing grade is 70%. Levanti, for reasons of his own, prefers to characterize his grade as “neither passing nor failing,” despite the fact that it was the basis for denying his application for admission to the California Bar. No trial is required to resolve disputes of this sort.

Plaintiff’s claim that further discovery is needed before a Rule 56 motion may be considered is without merit. All of the relevant information which Levanti seeks in his interrogatories has already been provided in the sworn affidavits of Jane Peterson Smith, the Director of Examinations. Plaintiff objects that these declarations were not made under oath, an assertion belied by the recitations of the affidavits themselves. In any event, “neither a desire to cross-examine an affiant nor an unspecified hope of undermining ... her credibility suffices to avert summary judgment.” National Union Fire Insurance Co. v. Argonaut Insurance Co., 701 F.2d 95, 97 (9th Cir.1983).

The clash over the constitutional challenges to Phase I grading revolves not about the facts of the grading process but about the constitutionality of its impact on non-resident attorney applicants to the bar. Sufficient uncontested facts are before the Court to justify consideration of a motion for summary judgment.

I. SUBJECT MATTER JURISDICTION.

Defendants move to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Resolution of this issue requires a careful examination of just what Levanti seeks to achieve in this action. The plaintiff attacks both the decision which denied him admission to the bar, and the general rules of Phase I grading. He has repeatedly asserted that his own admissions decision is not in issue, yet his submissions to this Court belie that statement.

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Bluebook (online)
585 F. Supp. 499, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16900, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/levanti-v-tippen-casd-1984.