Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_06-cv-02128/USCOURTS-azd-2_06-cv-02128-6/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 28:1343 Violation of Civil Rights

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WO

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

American Federation of State, County and

Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO, Local

3190, 

Plaintiff, 

vs.

Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, et

al., 

Defendants. 

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No. CV 06-2128-PHX-SMM

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION AND

ORDER

Pending before the Court is Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s Complaint for

failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. (Dkt. 21.)

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO,

Local 3190’s (“Local 3190”) Complaint alleges that Defendants Maricopa County (the

“County”) and Maricopa County Manager David Smith (“Smith”) have prohibited “labor

organizations, such as Local 3190 from using various public, designated public and limited

public fora for communication with County employees and distribution of information about

the Union” in violation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and 42

U.S.C. § 1983. (Dkt. 1 at ¶47.)

The Complaint further alleges that, “[b]y prohibiting labor organizations, such as

Local 3190 from using public, designated public, limited public and non-public fora for

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communication with County employees . . . but not imposing comparable restrictions on . .

. organizations . . . engaging in the same or similar political activities,” Defendants “are

interpreting and subjectively enforcing the County Policy on solicitation and posting in a

discriminatory manner that violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth

Amendment and 42 U.S.C. § 1983.” (Id. at ¶50.)

Local 3190’s Complaint seeks (1) a declaration that County Policies A1502 and

A1917 regarding posting and solicitation in the workplace are facially unconstitutional and

unenforceable under the First and Fourteenth Amendments (Count III); (2) a declaration that

the manner in which the County and County Manager are interpreting and enforcing County

Policies and Procedures A1502 and A1917 regarding posting and solicitation in the

workplace violates the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth

Amendments(Count IV); (3) an injunction prohibiting Defendants from enforcing County

Policies and Procedures A1502 and A1917; and (4) attorneys’ fees, expenses, and costs

incurred under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 and 28 U.S.C. § 1920. (Dkt. 1 at 21-22 (C)-(F).) 

STANDARD OF REVIEW

Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) authorizes a court to dismiss a claim on the basis of a

dispositive issue of law. Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 326 (1989). A complaint may

not be dismissed for failure to state a claim “unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff

can prove no set of facts in support of [the] claim which would entitle [the plaintiff] to

relief.” Usher v. City of Los Angeles, 828 F.2d 556, 561 (9th Cir.1987) (quoting Conley v.

Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46 (1957)). If as a matter of law it is clear that no relief could be

granted under any set of facts that could be proved consistent with the allegations, under Rule

12(b)(6) a claim must be dismissed, without regard to whether it is based on an outlandish

legal theory or on a close but ultimately unavailing one. See Neitzke, 490 U.S. at 327. On

a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, the court must presume all factual allegations

of the complaint to be true and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving

party. Usher, 828 F.2d at 561. A court is not required to accept legal conclusions cast in the

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form of factual allegations if those conclusions cannot reasonably be drawn from the facts

alleged. McGlinchy v. Shell Chemical Co., 845 F.2d 802, 810 (9th Cir. 1988). Because the

Court’s review is limited to the factual allegations of the Complaint, it will exclude any

factual assertions made by either party in their briefs.

DISCUSSION

A. First Amendment Claim

In Count III, Local 3190 alleges that Defendants have violated the First Amendment

by prohibiting “labor organizations, such as Local 3190, from using various public,

designated public and limited public fora for communication with County employees.” (Dkt.

1 at ¶47.) Among other things, Local 3190 alleges that the “public, designated public and

limited public fora” include “[County] bulletin boards, lunch and break rooms, employee

lounges, meeting rooms, assigned employee mailboxes, and email,” “the County intranet

website, the County Employee Benefits Fair, [County] employee pay envelopes or paychecks

and . . . common areas where County employees frequently congregate” (collectively, the

“County Fora”). (Id., ¶21.) 

Defendants contend Count III should be dismissed because “none of the purported

violations arise in a public forum” and, “where public fora and designated public fora exist

on County property, the County has not interfered at all with the Union’s attempts to

communicate with County employees.” (Dkt. 20 at 10.) The Court disagrees. 

Taking the well-pled facts in Local 3190’s Complaint as true, the Court finds that

Local 3190 has stated a First Amendment claim because whether the alleged County Fora

are “public, designated public and limited public fora” is inherently a factual question and

Local 3190 has alleged sufficient facts to withstand a motion to dismiss. 

In Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, 473 U.S. 788, 800

(1985), the Supreme Court explained that it “has adopted a forum analysis as a means of

determining when the Government's interest in limiting the use of its property to its intended

purpose outweighs the interest of those wishing to use the property for other purposes.” The

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Supreme Court identified three types of fora: traditional public fora such as streets and

parks, where speech has the highest level of protection; designated public fora in which the

government, if it chooses to allow speech, is bound by the same standards that apply to

traditional public fora; and nonpublic fora that the government may reserve “for its intended

purposes, communicative or otherwise, as long as the regulation on speech is reasonable and

not an effort to suppress expression merely because public officials oppose the speaker’s

view.” Perry Educ. Ass’n v. Perry Loc. Educators’ Ass’n, 460 U.S. 37, 45-47 (1983)

(internal citations omitted). The touchstone for determining whether government property

is a designated public forum is the government’s intent in establishing and maintaining the

property. Cornelius, 473 U.S. at 802. Moreover, in “determining when the government’s

interest in limiting the use of its property to its intended purpose outweighs the interest of

those wishing to use the property for other purposes,” id. at 800, the Court “must examine

the terms on which the forum operates,” including fact-specific terms, such as government

intent, and the policy and practice of the government. Hooper v. City of Pasco, 241 F.3d

1067, 1075 (9th Cir. 2001). 

The Cornelius factors require a court to look at the character of the forum in the nature

of the property, its compatibility with expressive activity, and the consistent policy and

practice of the government. A number of forum cases emphasize the importance of these

objective indicia of intent and the fact that consistent practice can, on occasion, overcome

a bare statement of intent to the contrary. See e.g., Perry, 460 U.S. at 47 (“[t]he use of the

internal school mail by groups not affiliated with the schools is no doubt a relevant

consideration. If by policy or by practice the Perry School District has opened its mail

system for indiscriminate use by the general public, then [plaintiff] could justifiably argue

a public forum has been created.”); Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260,

269 (1988) (school newspaper published by journalism class found to be a nonpublic forum

on the basis of the district court’s “factual findings” about the degree to which the class

instructor actually controlled the details of publication). 

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 1 Although the Court previously granted Local 3190’s Application for a Preliminary

Injunction based on factual evidence presented by Local 3190, all extraneous documents outside

the pleadings have been excluded from the Court’s determination of whether Defendants’

Motion to Dismiss should be granted. North Star Int’l v. Arizona Corporation Comm’n, 720

F.2d 578, 582 (9th Cir. 1983) (“a motion to dismiss is not automatically converted into a motion

for summary judgment whenever matters outside the pleading happen to be filed with the court

and not expressly rejected by the court”).

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 A court applying the tenets of these cases to a motion under Rule 12(b)(6) “may

dismiss a complaint only if it is clear that no relief could be granted under any set of facts

that could be proved consistent with the allegations,” Hishon v. King & Spalding, 467 U.S.

69, 73 (1984); accord Conley, 355 U.S. at 45-46. Moreover, where government action is

challenged on First Amendment grounds, a court should be especially “unwilling to decide

the legal questions posed by the parties without a more thoroughly developed record of

proceedings in which the parties have an opportunity to prove those disputed factual

assertions upon which they rely.” City of Los Angeles v. Preferred Communications, 476

U.S. 488, 494 (1986). Local 3190 has alleged facts clearly stating that the County has a

practice – if not a policy – of “permitting” various types of First Amendment activity to take

place in County Fora but has interfered with Local 3190’s attempts to communicate with

County employees in the very same fora. See Dkt. 1 at ¶¶18-20, 33-34, 50. Because

identifying the County’s intent, policies and practices in the present case will raise inherently

factual issues that cannot be resolved on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the Court will deny

Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss Count III of the Complaint.1

B. Equal Protection Claim

In Count IV, Local 3190 alleges that Defendants have violated the Equal Protection

Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by prohibiting labor organizations, such as Local 3190,

“from using public, designated public and non-public fora” to communicate with County

employees, but “not imposing comparable restrictions on individuals, corporations,

associations, organizations, or other entities engaging in the same or similar political

activities, speech, assembly and petitioning of the government.” (Dkt. 1 at ¶50.) Defendants

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argue that Count IV fails to state a claim for relief because “the Union offers no evidence that

in truly public areas the County has discriminatorily applied its solicitation policy against

them.” (Dkt. 20 at 13, emphasis added.) The Court rejects Defendants’ argument.

At this stage of the litigation, the Court must accept Local 3190’s well-pleaded

allegations as true. Hishon, 467 U.S. at 73. A complaint may not be dismissed for failure

to state a claim “unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in

support of [the] claim which would entitle [the plaintiff] to relief.” Usher, 828 F.2d at 561

(citation omitted). In the present case, Local 3190 has alleged that Defendants are

prohibiting labor organizations from using public and designated public fora to communicate

with County employees, but have not imposed comparable restrictions on other

organizations. Because it is not clear, as a matter of law, that no relief could be granted

under any set of facts that could be proved consistent with Local 3190’s allegations, the

Court will deny Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss Count IV of the Complaint. See Police Dept.

of City of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 96 (1972) (“under the Equal Protection Clause,

not to mention the First Amendment itself, government may not grant the use of a forum to

people whose views it finds acceptable, but deny use to those wishing to express less favored

or more controversial views”).

CONCLUSION

For the reasons set forth above, the Court will deny Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss.

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED DENYING Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO, Local 3190’s

Complaint. (Dkt. 21.)

DATED this 14th day of March, 2007.

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