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

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 05-1231

___________

Hazel L. Wilson, *

*

Plaintiff - Appellee, *

*

v. *

*

Steve Northcutt, Individually and in * Appeal from the United States

his official capacity as Mayor of the * District Court for the

City of Malvern, Arkansas, et al., * Western District of Arkansas.

*

Defendants - Appellants. *

*

City of Malvern, Arkansas, *

*

Defendant, *

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Submitted: October 12, 2005

Filed: March 21, 2006

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Before LOKEN, Chief Judge, GRUENDER and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

___________

LOKEN, Chief Judge.

Hazel Wilson, a resident of Little Rock, is the owner of two vacant lots in

Malvern, Arkansas. Wilson filed this § 1983 action asserting that defendants violated

her constitutional rights by constructing a drainage ditch along the street side of her

property that causes storm waters to pool on her property, greatly reducing its value,

and by retaliating against her for complaining. Named as defendants in the Second

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Defendants’ brief argues that the district court also erred in denying the City

of Malvern’s motion for summary judgment. However, the Notice of Appeal did not

identify the City as a party to the appeal. Therefore, we do not consider this issue.

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Amended Complaint are Malvern Mayor Steve Northcutt, former and current Street

Department Superintendents Ronnie Lytle and Boyd Johnson, Chief Inspector Len

Dawson, and the City of Malvern. The individual defendants appeal the district

court’s denial of their motions for summary judgment on grounds of qualified

immunity.1

 We reverse in part.

I.

In early 1999, responding to complaints of periodic flooding from residents of

a predominantly African-American residential area, the City of Malvern Street

Department began constructing a drainage ditch along the south side of Veneer Street

eastward from Babcock Street toward what the parties refer to as the Veneer Street

Creek. Superintendent Lytle testified that, when construction reached the City’s right

of way on the north side of Wilson’s vacant lots at 123 Veneer Street, the crew

stopped work to do another project and routed the ditch onto Wilson’s lots, “letting

the water go somewhere at the time.” Lytle said he did not notify Wilson because he

did not know who owned the vacant lots. 

When drainage water started pooling on her property, Wilson’s attorney wrote

Mayor Northcutt on May 3, 1999, complaining that the City had entered her property

and dug a ditch that reduced the value of the land to zero because it is “water-logged.”

The letter demanded that the City remove the ditch or pay the prior full value of the

property. City Attorney Mark Roberts replied, stating that construction of the ditch

was incomplete and the plan included culverts to prevent harm to Wilson’s property.

In July, the Street Department completed the project, extending the drainage ditch

along Veneer Street from Wilson’s lots to the Veneer Street Creek. 

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On July 19, 2000, Wilson’s attorney wrote City Attorney Roberts, stating he

had observed the property after several rains and concluded “that the corrective work

done in the summer of 1999 has exacerbated the problem.” Because the land in front

of Wilson’s lots was “the lowest point of the ditch,” he explained, water was entering

the lots from three directions instead of draining into the Veneer Street Creek. Again,

Wilson’s attorney demanded that the City correct the work or buy the lots. The record

on appeal contains no response on behalf of the City.

In addition to ditch construction, the Street Department was responsible for

maintaining drainage ditches, which included mowing weeds and bushes that grow

naturally, and removing debris. Since its completion in July 1999, Wilson contends,

the City has mowed the Veneer Street ditch only once, in June 2004. The overgrowth

of weeds and bushes has impeded proper drainage, exacerbating the problem of water

pooling on her property. Wilson cites the fact that the City mowed and cleaned a ditch

along the north side of Veneer Street in April 2002 as evidence that the neglect of the

ditch along her property has been intentional.

Wilson initially filed suit in March 2002. Three months later, the City’s Chief

Inspector, Len Dawson, ordered the towing of the “Café Fish,” a mobile home

functioning as a restaurant owned by Wilson’s sister. The City later released the

vehicle. Some months later, Wilson voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit. 

Wilson filed this lawsuit in November 2003 and her Second Amended

Complaint in November 2004. Her principal federal claim was that construction of

the faulty drainage ditch constituted an unlawful taking of property and a denial of due

process in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court

dismissed those claims as premature because Wilson did not exhaust adequate state

remedies for obtaining compensation. That ruling is not before us. 

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Wilson further claimed that defendants (i) violated the Equal Protection Clause

by constructing the ditch because she is African-American; (ii) violated the First

Amendment by extending the ditch in July 1999 in retaliation for her first complaint;

(iii) violated the Equal Protection Clause and her First Amendment rights by allowing

weeds and bushes to grow in the ditch in retaliation for her complaints; and (iv)

violated the Equal Protection Clause and her First Amendment rights by towing the

Café Fish in retaliation for Wilson exercising her right to sue. The district court

dismissed the equal protection claim regarding the Café Fish towing because Wilson’s

sister is the person injured by the alleged selective enforcement. The court denied

summary judgment on the remaining claims on the ground that genuine fact disputes

exist regarding defendants’ alleged discriminatory and retaliatory motives. 

II.

Qualified immunity protects government officials from the costs of trial and the

burdens of broad discovery unless their discretionary acts violated clearly established

statutory or constitutional rights. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 817-18 (1982).

A defendant’s claim of qualified immunity is determined by an objective standard

under Harlow. This prompts the difficult question of whether an official is entitled

to qualified immunity if improper motive -- such as purposeful race discrimination or

retaliation -- is an element of the plaintiff’s federal claim. In Crawford-El v. Britton,

523 U.S. 574, 593 (1998), the Court declined to place a higher burden of proof on

plaintiffs in these situations, observing that “the improper intent element of various

causes of action should not ordinarily preclude summary disposition of insubstantial

claims.” Justice Stevens’s majority opinion then gave substance to this observation

by instructing:

[I]f the defendant-official has made a properly supported motion [for

summary judgment on the ground of qualified immunity], the plaintiff

may not respond simply with general attacks upon the defendant’s

credibility, but rather must identify affirmative evidence from which a

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jury could find that the plaintiff has carried his or her burden of proving

the pertinent motive.

523 U.S. at 600 (footnote omitted). To decide this appeal, we must apply this

Crawford-El instruction in reviewing a lengthy district court opinion that neither

discussed qualified immunity nor cited Crawford-El as controlling authority.

A. The Decision To Construct the Veneer Street Ditch. Reviewing Wilson’s

surviving claims in chronological order, she first alleges that all defendants except

Chief Inspector Dawson (who was not a City employee at the time) violated her

Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection when they constructed a drainage

ditch to flood her lots because she is an African-American. To prevail on an equal

protection claim, plaintiff must allege and prove unlawful, purposeful discrimination;

“random government incompetence” will not suffice. Batra v. Board of Regents of

Univ. of Neb., 79 F.3d 717, 722 (8th Cir. 1996). 

In support of their motion for summary judgment, defendants submitted

unrefuted evidence that the ditch was constructed in response to complaints by

neighboring Malvern residents, including at least one African-American, that their

properties to the west of Wilson’s vacant lots were experiencing periodic flooding.

The ditch was intended to divert water from these properties past Wilson’s property

to the Veneer Street Creek. In response, Wilson submitted no evidence of purposeful

race discrimination other than her own unsupported opinion. Therefore, each

individual defendant is entitled to qualified immunity from this claim because the

record is devoid of “affirmative evidence from which a jury could find . . . the

pertinent motive.” Crawford-El , 523 U.S. at 600.

B. The Failures To Correct and Properly Maintain the Ditch. Wilson’s Second

Amended Complaint next alleged that the defendants’ failures to correct flow

problems with the ditch and to mow large weeds and bushes growing in the ditch were

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the product of racial animus toward Wilson and retaliation for her initial complaint.

Wilson presented evidence that she complained in a July 2000 letter that water was

continuing to pool on her lots even though the ditch had been extended to the Veneer

Street Creek in July 1999, but the City took no corrective action. She submitted an

affidavit by a registered professional engineer who studied the ditch and concluded

that its low point is alongside Wilson’s lots and therefore storm water was draining

from the west and the east onto Wilson’s property. Wilson further submitted evidence

that weeds and bushes in the ditch remained unmowed until June 2004, when they had

reached a height of some six feet. She asserted, quite logically, that this uncontrolled

growth impeded drainage of water through the ditch, increasing the quantity of water

that overflowed the ditch at its low point and pooled on her land.

In their motions for summary judgment, defendants made no effort to explain

or justify these failures. The record on appeal contains no response to the July 19,

2000 letter from Wilson’s attorney and no evidence that any effort was made to

correct an incompetently constructed ditch that was damaging a citizen’s property.

Street Superintendent Lytle admitted in his November 2002 deposition that drainage

ditches collect weeds and debris and need cleaning out every one to three years, and

that weeds in the Veneer Street ditch needed mowing but were not mowed when a

neighbor’s ditch on the north side of Veneer Street was mowed in April 2002. Yet the

ditch along Wilson’s property was not mowed until June 2004, long after Lytle retired

in 2003. The failures to respond to Wilson’s facially legitimate complaints, to correct

a harmful condition seemingly caused by Street Department incompetence, and to

explain these failures to act create a reasonable inference of unconstitutional motive.

Thus, the responsible individual defendants did not properly support their motions for

qualified immunity from these claims within the meaning of Crawford-El.

The question remains, which individual defendants were responsible? Liability

for damages for a federal constitutional tort is personal, so each defendant’s conduct

must be independently assessed. See Doran v. Eckhold, 409 F.3d 958, 965 (8th Cir.)

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(en banc), cert. denied, 126 S. Ct. 736 (2005). Former Street Superintendent Lytle

was in charge of constructing and maintaining the ditch until he retired in 2003. We

must assume he was aware of Wilson’s July 2000 letter and should have investigated

the complaint of water continuing to pool on her lots. He knew the ditch needed

mowing in November 2002 but did nothing. Likewise, current Street Superintendent

Johnson helped construct the ditch and knew that its natural low point was along

Wilson’s lots. He testified that, after the ditch was completed in July 1999, he

observed water being properly carried to the Veneer Street Creek after a hard rain.

But he then did nothing to keep the ditch properly mowed until June 2004. On this

record, both Lytle and Johnson are responsible persons who did not properly support

their motions for qualified immunity from these claims.

On the other hand, Chief Inspector Dawson did not become a City of Malvern

employee until March 2000, long after the ditch was completed, and was never a

member of the Street Department. Wilson presented no evidence that Dawson was

involved with any aspect of the ditch or was even aware of her complaints about the

ditch problems. Dawson is entitled to qualified immunity from these claims. 

Mayor Northcutt participated in the decision to construct the ditch. He also was

the addressee on Wilson’s May 1999 letter complaint, but that initial complaint was

adequately answered by the City Attorney. Wilson’s July 2000 complaint was

addressed to the City Attorney. Wilson submitted no evidence that Northcutt was

aware of this later complaint, the pooling problems that continued after the ditch was

completed, or the Street Department’s failure to maintain the ditch by periodic

mowing. A mayor may not be held personally liable for Street Department failures

of which he had no knowledge. See Marchant v. City of Little Rock, 741 F.2d 201,

204-05 (8th Cir. 1984). Northcutt is entitled to qualified immunity.

C. Towing the Café Fish. Finally, Wilson claims that defendants towed her

sister’s mobile restaurant in 2002 to retaliate against Wilson for filing her initial

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Wilson presented evidence that the City has not towed dilapidated vehicles in

the downtown area. But a motor home functioning as a restaurant is subject to

considerably more public safety regulation than an unsightly motor vehicle, so this

evidence raises no inference of selective law enforcement or retaliatory motive.

Wilson also claims that the videotape of an interview of City Attorney Roberts by a

local news team is evidence that the towing was improper. The videotape was not

made part of the record on appeal and is therefore irrelevant. 

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lawsuit, an action protected by the First Amendment. The Café Fish was towed at the

direction of Chief Inspector Dawson. Wilson submitted no evidence that Mayor

Northcutt or Street Department employees Lytle and Johnson had anything to do with

this regulatory action. Thus, the district court erred in not granting Northcutt, Lytle,

and Johnson qualified immunity from this claim. Compare Powell v. Johnson, 405

F.3d 652, 656 (8th Cir. 2005).

Turning to the retaliation claim against Dawson, it is clearly established that a

government official may not “punish [a citizen] for having exercised [her]

constitutional right to seek judicial relief.” Harrison v. Springdale Water & Sewer

Comm’n, 780 F.2d 1422, 1428 (8th Cir. 1986). Thus, the question is whether Wilson

submitted “affirmative evidence from which a jury could find” a retaliatory motive.

Wilson argues she has demonstrated temporal proximity -- she filed suit in March and

the Café Fish was towed the following August. Temporal proximity is relevant but

not dispositive. See Kiel v. Select Artificials, Inc., 169 F.3d 1131, 1136 (8th Cir.) (en

banc), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 818 (1999). Wilson submitted no evidence that Dawson

knew she had filed a lawsuit concerning the Veneer Street drainage ditch, or knew that

the Café Fish was owned by Wilson’s sister, Montiana Johnson, when the vehicle was

towed from Ms. Johnson’s property. Thus, the record on appeal contains no evidence

providing a basis for inferring retaliatory intent.2

 Wilson’s belief that Dawson acted

from a retaliatory motive is insufficient. Technical Ordnance, Inc. v. United States,

244 F.3d 641, 652 (8th Cir. 2001), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 1084 (2002). Dawson, too,

is entitled to qualified immunity from this claim.

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The district court’s order dated January 4, 2005 is reversed in part. The case

is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

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