Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-06-02021/USCOURTS-ca8-06-02021-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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*

The HONORABLE DONALD P. LAY assumed permanent disability

retirement status on January 3, 2007. This opinion is being filed by the remaining

judges of the panel pursuant to 8th Cir. R. 47E.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 06-2021

___________

Richard Osborne; Jerome Sammon, *

*

Plaintiffs - Appellants, *

*

v. * Appeal from the United States

* District Court for the

Arlyn Grussing, in his individual * District of Minnesota.

capacity and in his official capacity as *

Director of the Rice County Department *

of Planning and Zoning, et al., *

*

Defendants - Appellees. *

___________

Submitted: November 15, 2006

 Filed: February 26, 2007

___________

Before LOKEN, Chief Judge, LAY*

 and MELLOY, Circuit Judges.

___________

LOKEN, Chief Judge.

Richard Osborne and Jerome Sammon own residential property on Circle Lake

in Rice County, Minnesota. They commenced this § 1983 suit against Rice County

and four County officials, alleging that defendants were selectively enforcing

provisions of the Rice County Zoning Ordinance in retaliation for plaintiffs’ public

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 The HONORABLE JOHN R. TUNHEIM, United States District Judge for the

District of Minnesota.

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criticism of the County’s lax enforcement of environmental and zoning regulations

against a substantial Circle Lake housing development. After the County was

dismissed by stipulation, the remaining parties filed cross motions for summary

judgment. The district court1

 granted defendants summary judgment. Osborne and

Sammon appeal. We affirm.

I.

In early 2004, Osborne and Sammon repeatedly criticized the Rice County

Planning Commission (the “Commission”) and the Rice County Planning and Zoning

Office (“P&Z”) for failing to enforce environmental and zoning regulations against

a lakeshore housing project being developed by local businessmen Jerry Anderson and

Dan Wenstrom. In early July, Melissa Bokman, a P&Z environmental planner, and

employees of the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) investigated formal

complaints by Anderson and Wenstrom that Osborne and Sammon had each violated

environmental regulations and county ordinances two to three years earlier when

Osborne installed rock fill (“rip-rap”) along his shoreline and Sammon built a

retaining wall within the “shore impact zone” of his property. The investigators

concluded that Osborne and Sammon each used more than ten cubic yards of fill for

his project and therefore violated the ordinance requiring a grading and filling permit.

See Rice County, Minn., Zoning Ordinance § 506.11(B)(3)(a). DNR and P&Z staff

agreed that Rice County would “take the lead on resolving both violations.” 

When notified of the alleged violations, Osborne and Sammon applied for

“after-the-fact” conditional use permits for their shoreline improvements. The

Commission took up the applications as separate agenda items at its meeting on

October 7, 2004. A transcript of that meeting is part of the summary judgment record

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on appeal. When Osborne spoke, Commission Chairman Ross Nelson said, “You’re

a lawyer; and you didn’t know a permit was required for this work,” “You have a

higher obligation to know the law,” and “Shame on you for seeking a permit two and

a half years after the fact.” Commissioner Jim Brown said it was “ironic” and

“insulting” for Osborne to have criticized P&Z while violating the zoning ordinances

himself. Osborne accused the Commission and P&Z of selectively enforcing the

ordinance in retaliation for his on-going criticism. The Commissioners insisted they

were treating Osborne the same way they treated others.

When Sammon spoke, he objected to removing his retaining wall, as the current

ordinance requires, because the ordinance in effect when he built his wall without the

required permit did not ban retaining walls. The Commissioners responded that,

having initially failed to comply with the zoning ordinance, Sammon must comply

with the ordinance in effect when he applied for an after-the-fact permit. One

Commissioner commented, “Mr. Osborne says we’re not enforcing things in the

ordinance. Maybe we’re starting to enforce the things in the ordinance.” 

After lengthy discussions with both Osborne and Sammon, the Commission

adopted the recommendations of P&Z staff and granted Osborne and Sammon afterthe-fact permits subject to numerous costly conditions, including the likely removal

of Osborne’s rip-rap and the mandatory removal of Sammon’s retaining wall. Rather

than complying with these conditions or challenging the County’s actions in state

court, Osborne and Sammon filed this § 1983 action seeking damages and injunctive

relief for defendants’ alleged retaliation against plaintiffs’ First Amendment-protected

criticism of the Commission and the P&Z. The district court granted the individual

defendants summary judgment on the ground that Osborne and Sammon “have failed

to set forth facts showing a causal connection between their protected First

Amendment activity and the County’s investigation and enforcement of environmental

regulations.” 

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Osborne and Sammon further allege that they were embarrassed by the verbal

tongue-lashings they received at the October 2004 Planning Commission meeting.

These remarks are of course relevant in assessing defendants’ motives for taking

enforcement action. But the remarks themselves were not actionable injury because

they would not “deter a person of ordinary firmness from continuing to speak out.”

Naucke v. City of Park Hills, 284 F.3d 923, 928 (8th Cir. 2002); see Carroll v. Pfeffer,

262 F.3d 847, 850 (8th Cir. 2001), cert. denied 536 U.S. 907 (2002). Plaintiffs’

assertions that other after-the-fact permit applicants received a friendlier reception at

the June 17, 2004, Commission meeting are inadmissible hearsay. See Herr v.

Airborne Freight Corp., 130 F.3d 359, 361 n.4 (8th Cir. 1997). 

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II.

It is well-settled that “as a general matter the First Amendment prohibits

government officials from subjecting an individual to retaliatory actions, including

criminal prosecutions . . . on the basis of his constitutionally protected speech.”

Hartman v. Moore, 126 S. Ct. 1695, 1701 (2006) (citation and quotation omitted). To

prevail in an action for First Amendment retaliation, “plaintiff must show a causal

connection between a defendant’s retaliatory animus and [plaintiff’s] subsequent

injury.” Id. at 1703. In this case, it is clear that Osborne and Sammon engaged in

First Amendment-protected activity when they publicly criticized the County’s

enforcement practices, and that regulatory actions forcing them to obtain costly afterthe-fact grading and filling permits were sufficient injury to support a First

Amendment retaliation claim.2

 Thus, as the district court recognized, the crucial

summary judgment issue is whether Osborne and Sammon made a sufficient showing

of causation. 

Osborne and Sammon concede that the alleged retaliatory injury -- the costs of

complying with after-the-fact permit conditions -- result from their earlier violations

of the Rice County Zoning Ordinance in installing rip-rap and building a retaining

wall without the required grading and filling permits. This complicates the causation

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inquiry. As the Supreme Court explained in Mt. Healthy City School Dist. v. Doyle,

429 U.S. 274, 285 (1977):

A rule of causation which focuses solely on whether protected conduct

played a part, “substantial” or otherwise, in a decision [to enforce a

regulatory ordinance] could place [the violator] in a better position as a

result of the exercise of constitutionally protected conduct than he would

have occupied had he done nothing.

Accordingly, the Court held in Mt. Healthy that plaintiff, a school teacher, could not

recover by proving that his First Amendment-protected telephone call to a local radio

station played a “substantial part” in the defendant school board’s decision not to

renew his contract, if the school board then proved “by a preponderance of the

evidence that it would have reached the same decision . . . even in the absence of the

protected conduct.” Id. at 287. As the Court has recently explained, this is a but-for

causation standard. “If there is a finding that retaliation was not the but-for cause of

the discharge, the claim fails for lack of causal connection between unconstitutional

motive and resulting harm, despite proof of some retaliatory animus in the official’s

mind.” Hartman, 126 S. Ct. at 1704. 

This case does not involve a public employee seeking to reverse an adverse

employment action. We deal here with retaliation claims by citizens seeking to avoid

the consequences of their illegal actions. In a regulatory enforcement situation, the

government has an even stronger interest in not putting the violator “in a better

position as a result of the exercise of constitutionally protected conduct,” so it is not

surprising that later cases point toward a stricter causation requirement in this context

than the burden-shifting standard adopted by Mt. Healthy in the public employment

context. For example, the Supreme Court held in Hartman that, when the alleged

retaliatory injury is a criminal prosecution, proof that the prosecutor lacked probable

cause to commence the prosecution is an affirmative element of the plaintiff’s case.

126 S. Ct. at 1706-07. Similarly, we have repeatedly held that a prisoner fails to state

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a claim for retaliatory discipline “when the alleged retaliation arose from discipline

imparted for acts that a prisoner was not entitled to perform,” i.e., for violations of

prison rules. Goff v. Burton, 7 F.3d 734, 738 (8th Cir. 1993) (quotation omitted), cert.

denied, 512 U.S. 1209 (1994).

Recognizing that we must craft a causation standard “with details specific to”

this type of case, Hartman, 126 S. Ct. at 1703, we conclude that a plaintiff who seeks

relief from valid adverse regulatory action on the ground that it was unconstitutional

retaliation for First Amendment-protected speech must make the same showing that

is required to establish a claim of selective prosecution -- “that he has been singled out

for prosecution while others similarly situated have not been prosecuted for conduct

similar to that for which he was prosecuted [and] that the government’s discriminatory

selection of him for prosecution was based upon . . . his exercise of his first

amendment right to free speech.” United States v. Catlett, 584 F.2d 864, 866 (8th Cir.

1978), citing United States v. Berrios, 501 F.2d 1207, 1211 (2d Cir. 1974).

Applying this standard, we agree with the district court that Osborne and

Sammon failed to show that the Commission and P&Z staff selectively enforced the

Rice County Zoning Ordinance. It is undisputed that, due to inadequate resources,

P&Z staff investigate violations of the ordinance only when a citizen files a complaint

against a particular landowner. Though acknowledging formal complaints were filed

against them, Osborne and Sammon note the complaints were filed by Anderson and

Wenstrom, developers with a motive to retaliate because Osborne and Sammon had

publicly opposed the developers’ housing project. But regulatory and law

enforcement agencies routinely act on the basis of information provided by private

parties who harbor a grudge or who hope to benefit personally from their complaints,

such as jealous competitors, disgruntled former employees, confidential informants,

and cooperating co-conspirators. When such a complaint results in enforcement

action, we do not impute the complainant’s ulterior motive to the government

enforcers. Thus, absent proof that one or more defendants induced Anderson and

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In the district court, defendants submitted affidavits by Anderson and

Wenstrom declaring that they filed the complaints on their own initiative. Osborne

and Sammon complain that the district court granted summary judgment before they

could conduct discovery on whether there was collusion between defendants and these

complainants. But plaintiffs filed a cross motion for summary judgment and never

filed a Rule 56(f) motion asking for a continuance to permit additional discovery.

Thus, the discovery issue was not properly preserved. 

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Wenstrom to file complaints in order to camouflage a governmental intent to retaliate,

the source of the accurate complaints that Osborne and Sammon were violating the

ordinance is irrelevant.3

Osborne and Sammon also complained that they were the first Circle Lake

landowners to be cited for installing rip-rap or building a retaining wall without a

grading and filling permit. At the October 2004 hearing, the Commissioners

responded that similar after-the-fact permit requirements had been imposed on

landowners at other Rice County lakes. Osborne and Sammon submitted no summary

judgment evidence to the contrary. To support his after-the-fact permit application,

Osborne submitted photographs of rip-rap installed by other Circle Lake landowners.

When he complained of selective enforcement at the October 2004 hearing, the

Commissioners asked whether he had filed the photos as complaints. Osborne said,

“I hadn’t at the time. But if you want me to, then I’ll file them as a complaint right

now.” Plaintiffs did not dispute defendants’ summary judgment affidavits averring

that Osborne’s complaints were then investigated. 

Nor is there evidence that defendants enforced after-the-fact grading and filling

permit requirements more harshly because Osborne and Sammon engaged in First

Amendment-protected activity. At the October 2004 hearing, when Osborne

complained of selective enforcement, P&Z staff and the Commissioners explained that

the same conditions had been imposed on other after-the-fact permit applicants, and

that one condition was based upon DNR shoreline restoration requirements. The

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Commissioners also noted a letter from the DNR advising that if Rice County did not

require removal of Sammon’s retaining wall, “then the DNR will.” In responding to

defendants’ motion for summary judgment, Osborne and Sammon failed to refute this

concrete evidence of equal, non-discriminatory enforcement action.

Thus, the summary judgment record establishes that this case is a polar opposite

of Garcia v. City of Trenton, 348 F.3d 726 (8th Cir. 2003), which Osborne and

Sammon cite as “strikingly similar.” In Garcia, the city had a policy of only enforcing

parking restrictions in response to citizen complaints. Despite the absence of such

complaints, the mayor issued a shopowner multiple parking tickets after she

complained about the failure to enforce an unrelated ordinance. The proof of

improper retaliation was clear; the issue in Garcia was whether $35 in parking tickets

was sufficient injury to deter a person of ordinary firmness from continuing to speak

out. Here, by contrast, defendants’ enforcement actions were consistent with their

policy of only investigating citizen complaints, and Osborne and Sammon presented

no evidence that defendants failed to investigate similar complaints or to take similar

enforcement actions against other Rice County landowners.

We review a grant of summary judgment de novo, taking the record in the light

most favorable to the non-moving parties. See Revels v. Vincenz, 382 F.3d 870, 874

(8th Cir. 2004), cert. denied 126 S. Ct. 371 (2005). In their motion for summary

judgment, defendants presented uncontradicted evidence that Rice County only

investigates zoning ordinance violations when a formal complaint is filed; that all

formal complaints are investigated; that formal complaints were filed against Osborne

and Sammon by private citizens acting on their own initiative; that P&Z staff and the

DNR investigated and found permit violations; and that the Commission after a

hearing approved after-the-fact permit applications subject to costly but nondiscriminatory conditions. In response, Osborne and Sammon failed to present

probative evidence that defendants have not enforced the zoning ordinance in the

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same manner against other similarly situated landowners. Therefore, summary

judgment was properly granted. The judgment of the district court is affirmed. 

______________________________

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