Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-89-06324/USCOURTS-ca10-89-06324-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 

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PUBLISH 

FILED 

Unircd Stares Counof Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

F£8 2 d 1991 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALf.i'\OBERT L. HOECKER 

TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk 

TED P. CAMPBELL, ) 

) 

Plaintiff-Appellee, ) 

) 

v. ) 

) 

ERNEST MERCER, as Mayor of Elmore ) 

City, and as an individual, ) 

) 

Defendant-Appellant. ) 

No. 89-6324 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA 

(D.C. No. CIV-87-2452-T) 

David W. Kirk of McKinney, Stringer & Webster, P.C., (Jim T. 

Priest, with him on the briefs) Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 

attorneys for defendant-appellant. 

Richard L. Denney of Denney & Barrett, P.C., (Lydia Joann 

Barrett, with him on the briefs) Norman, Oklahoma, attorneys for 

plaintiff-appellee. 

Before Holloway, Chief Judge, Baldock, Circuit Judge, and Greene, 

District Judge.* 

Greene, District Judge. 

Ernest Mercer, Mayor of Elmore city, Oklahoma, brings 

this interlocutory appeal from the district court's order 

rejecting Mercer's defense of qualified immunity to plaintiff's 

* The Honorable J. Thomas Greene, Judge, United States District 

Court for the District of Utah, sitting by designation. 

Appellate Case: 89-6324 Document: 01019727126 Date Filed: 02/26/1991 Page: 1 
property interest claim. For reasons set forth herein, we 

reverse. 

BACKGROUND 

Plaintiff-appellee, Ted Campbell, brought suit under 42 

U.S.C. § 1983 in connection with the termination of his 

employment as Chief of Police of Elmore City, Oklahoma. 

Defendant-appellant, Ernest Mercer, was elected Mayor of Elmore 

City in March 1987. Mayor Mercer terminated Campbell's 

employment in July , 1987, for the stated reason " for the good of 

the service." Shortly thereafter, Campbell requested a posttermination hearing before Elmore city's Personnel Review Board. 

On the day of Campbell's request, one of the three Board members 

resigned. Campbell commenced this lawsuit in December, 1987, 

alleging, in part, that Mayor Mercer deprived him of his 

constitutionally protected property interest in his employment 

without due process of law by terminating his employment without 

cause and by failing to provide for a post-termination hearing 

before the Personnel Review Board. 1 In January, 1988, a 

replacement Board member was named. 

The lower court granted Summary Judgment on plaintiff's 

claim for deprivation of property interests without due process 

of law, in an Order dated May 19, 1989. Thereafter the court 

The City of Elmore is also a named defendant but the qualified immunity issue in this 

appeal only concerns defendant Mercer. 

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denied defendant's Motion to Reconsider in which he urged 

entitlement to the defense of qualified immunity. Accordingly, 

the matter is before the court on the issue of qualified 

immunity. 

DISCUSSION 

I. 

The legal issues in Mercer's claim of qualified 

immunity are appealable "final decisions" within the meaning of 

28 u.s.c. § 1291. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 u.s. 511, 530 (1985): 

Maxey v. Fulton, 890 F.2d 279 (lOth Cir. 1989). Such legal 

issues on appeal are decided on a de novo standard of review. 

Eastwood v. Department of Corrections of Okla., 846 F.2d 627, 629 

(lOth Cir. 1988). 

The affirmative defense of qualified immunity is 

available to government officials in actions brought pursuant to 

42 u.s.c. § 1983. Gomez v. Toledo, 446 U.S. 635, 639 (1980). A 

government official is entitled to immunity from liability if the 

official's conduct as alleged in the complaint did not violate 

"clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which 

a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 

u.s. 800, 818, 102 s.ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed . 2d 396 (1982). The 

unlawfulness must be apparent "in light of preexisting law." 

Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3039, 

97 L.Ed.2d 523 {1987). The questions of what the current 

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applicable law is, whether that law was clearly established at 

the time the official's action occurred, and whether the 

official's acts were objectively reasonable, are questions of law 

for the court to determine. England v. Hendricks, 880 F.2d 281, 

283-84 (lOth Cir. 1989), cert. denied, 110 s.ct. 1130 (1990). If 

material factual disputes exist with regard to the actions of the 

official, summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity is 

not possible. DeVargas v. Mason & Hanger-Silas Mason Co., 844 

F.2d 714, 718-20 {lOth Cir. 1988). 

II. 

The central issue in connection with defendant Mercer's 

claim of qualified immunity is whether it was clearly established 

law in 1987 that plaintiff Campbell had a constitutional right to 

a post-termination hearing. Plaintiff's constitutional claim in 

this case depends on whether he has a property right in continued 

employment. Sipes v. United States, 744 F.2d 1418, 1420 (lOth 

Cir. 1984). See also Carnes v. Parker, Slip Op. (lOth Cir. Jan. 

14, 1991). The property interest claimed by plaintiff is the 

right to continued employment as Chief of Police of Elmore City 

until he committed an act which would justify his discharge for 

cause. Vinyard v. King, 728 F.2d 428, 432 {lOth Cir. 1984) 

(property interest exists if state or local law creates 11 a 

sufficient expectancy of continued employment") . Determining 

whether plaintiff has such a property interest is a question of 

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state law. The Supreme court explained in Board of Regents v. 

Roth, 408 u.s. 564 (1972): 

Property interests, of course, are not 

created by the Constitution. Rather, the are 

created and their dimensions are defined by 

existing rules or understandings that stem 

from an independent source such as state 

law -- rules or understandings that secure 

certain benefits and that support claims of 

entitlement to those benefits. 

Id. at 577; see also Bishop v. Wood, 426 U. S. 341, 344 (1976}. 

In the instant case, the Elmore City Code provides that 

the police chief could be discharged by the mayor when it was 

"for the good of the service." The Elmore City Code states that 

the mayor shall "Appoint, and when deemed necessary for the good 

of the service, lay off, suspend, demote, or remove all heads, or 

directors, of administrative departments and all other 

admini strative officers and and [sic] employees of the city." 

Elmore City Code, Ch. 1, Art. 2, § 1-2(a) (emphasis added}. The 

Elmore City Code is silent on any rights to appeal employment 

decisions to a personnel board, but Oklahoma statutes affording 

such rights to certain classes of city employees, such as 

plaintiff, are attached in the appendix to the city Code. The 

city Personnel Board is empowered to reverse an employment 

termination decision of the mayor "if the personnel board finds 

to its satisfaction that the . . • removal was made for a 

political reason or for any other reason other than the good of 

the service." 11 Okla. Stat. § 11-125. Plaintiff argues that he 

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had a right to appeal the mayor's decision to terminate his 

employment to the City Personal Board because this state law 

procedure was effectively part of the Elmore City Code by its 

inclusion in the appendix to the City Code and because a City 

Personnel Board had been established to hear such appeals. 

Further, it is submitted that the mayor had actual knowledge of 

the right to appeal. 

This court need not decide whether plaintiff had a 

right to an appeal before the City Personnel Board under Oklahoma 

law or under the Elmore city Code because such procedural 

protections do not pertain to substantive restrictions on the 

mayor's discretion regarding plaintiff's employment. In Asbill 

v. Housing Authority of Choctaw Nation, 726 F.2d 1499 (lOth Cir. 

1984), this court explained that only state law regarding 

substantive restrictions on the employer's discretion is relevant 

to the property interest determination: 

By themselves, however, these procedural 

protections do not support a "legitimate 

claim of entitlement'' to future employment. 

At best, they merely support a claim of 

entitlement to the procedural protections 

themselves. At least five circuits have 

adopted the view that procedural protections 

alone do not create a protected property 

right in future employment; such a right 

attaches only when there are substantive 

restrictions on the employer's discretion. 

For example, if a statute, regulation, or 

policy specifies the grounds on which an 

employee may be discharged, or restricts the 

reasons for discharge to "just cause shown," 

then the employee has a right to continued 

employment until such grounds or causes are 

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shown. 

Id. at 1502 (citations omitted); see also Cleveland Bd. of Educ. 

v. Loudermill, 470 u.s. 532, 541 (1985) ("'Property' cannot be 

defined by the procedures provided for its deprivation"). 

The sole remaining basis for plaintiff's property 

interest claim is the Elmore city Code provision that plaintiff 

could be discharged "for the good of the service." In Hall v. 

O'Keefe, 617 P.2d 196, 200 {Okla. 1980), the Oklahoma supreme 

Court considered a similar statutory provision, and held that the 

language "for the good of the service" does not confer upon a 

city employee a property interest requiring due process 

protections within the meaning of the Oklahoma Constitution. 2 In 

Graham v. Oklahoma City, 859 F.2d 142 (lOth Cir. 1988), this 

court applied the Hall decision to a federal constitutional 

property interest claim, and similarly held that the language 

"for the good of the service" was insufficient to create a due 

process claim under the Fourteenth Amendment. Id. at 146. 

III. 

Based on the foregoing, this court concludes that the 

Elmore City Code provision permitting the mayor to discharge 

plaintiff "for the good of the service" is not sufficient to 

2 Article 2. Section 7 of the Oklahoma Constitution provides: "No person shall be 

deprived of life, hoerty or property, without due process of law." 

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create a property interest that is subject to federal 

constitutional guarantees. Plaintiff might have a procedural 

right under state or local law to appeal the mayor's termination 

decision to the City Personnel Board, but plaintiff does not have 

such a right pursuant to the due process clause of the Fourteenth 

Amendment. It follows that the district court's decision 

granting summary judgment on plaintiff's property interest claim 

should be reconsidered. Our analysis of the defense of qualified 

immunity in this case demonstrates that plaintiff had no 

constitutional property right to which that defense could apply. 

Also, the law was not clearly established that plaintiff had a 

constitutional right to a post-termination hearing. Accordingly, 

the district court's decision denying defendant Mercer's Motion 

to Reconsider is reversed and remanded for disposition in 

accordance herewith; on remand the district court should consider 

the pendent non-constitutional claim of entitlement to the 

procedural right of a post-termination hearing under state law. 3 

3 See Carnes v. Parker,_ F.2d _ (lOth Cir. No. 89-7075, Slip Op. at 12); Vinyard 

v.King, 728 F.2d 428,432 n. 15 (lOth Cir.1984); Asbill v. Housing Authority. 726 F.2d 1499, 1501-

02 (lOth Cir. 1984). 

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