United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

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No. 22-2388

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Katie Gatewood

lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellant

v.

City of O’Fallon, Missouri, a municipality and political subdivision of the State of

Missouri; O’Fallon Board of Impeachment; Bill Hennessy, in his official capacity

as Mayor of O’Fallon, Missouri; Dale Kling, in his individual capacity; Dave

Hinman, in his individual capacity; Jeff Keuhn, in his individual capacity

lllllllllllllllllllllDefendants - Appellees

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Missouri - St. Louis

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 Submitted: January 10, 2023

Filed: June 14, 2023

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Before SMITH, Chief Judge, WOLLMAN and LOKEN, Circuit Judges. 

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SMITH, Chief Judge.

Katie Gatewood, an O’Fallon City, Missouri council member, sued the City of

O’Fallon (City), its mayor, Bill Hennessy, and the O’Fallon City Council (City
Council) based on their alleged violation of her civil rights. The district court1

initially stayed Gatewood’s suit because impeachment proceedings initiated by the

defendants were underway, citing Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971). Gatewood

was eventually impeached by the City Council but declined to pursue any available

state remedies. The district court subsequently lifted the stay. The defendants moved

for dismissal on abstention grounds as well as claim preclusion. The district court

dismissed Gatewood’s case under claim preclusion principles based on her failure to

pursue judicial review in the state courts. For the reasons stated below, we affirm.

I. Background

Katie Gatewood was elected to the City Council in 2020 for a three-year term.

She previously served the City as a law enforcement officer and as a corrections

officer. On January 7, 2021, the City Council voted to approve the Mayor Hennessy’s 

appointment of Philip Dupuis as its chief of police. As a City Council member,

Gatewood had concerns about Dupuis’s appointment based on information that she

claimed to have received suggesting that Dupuis had allegations of misconduct as a

private investigator in Texas in 2019.

On January 14, 2021, Gatewood made a public statement asserting that certain

“concerns brought to me by fellow police officers” should have been examined before

Dupuis’s hiring. R. Doc. 2, at 7. Despite the City Council’s final decision, Gatewood

continued to inquire in Texas, where Dupuis had previously been a police chief. She

also continued to publicly question his appointment. Meanwhile, Dupuis and others,

including Curtis Sullivan of the St. Charles County Police Department, asked her to

reveal the identity of the police officers who had purportedly told Gatewood about

Dupuis’s history. According to Sullivan, Gatewood had said that a citizen, not a

1The Honorable Audrey G. Fleissig, United States District Court for the Eastern

District of Missouri.

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police officer, had raised these concerns to Gatewood. Sullivan took the statement to

be false. 

In early March 2021, another City Council member, Dale Kling, moved the

City Council to hire a law firm to investigate Gatewood’s conduct. Mayor Hennessy

and Kling told Gatewood in a private conversation that if she revealed the identity of

the persons who had shared their concerns, the bill would be set aside. Gatewood

recorded the conversation and later played it at a City Council meeting and publicly

stated her belief that both Kling and Mayor Hennessy had committed a felony and

should be criminally investigated. The firm investigated Gatewood’s actions as

requested. It determined that Gatewood had not breached any legal duty by raising

potential untrue information to the City Council in connection with her objections to

Dupuis’s appointment. However, the firm did conclude that her investigation

conducted independent of the City Council and without its authorization violated

O’Fallon City Code § 115.090 for interfering with a matter that came under the

direction of the City Administrator.

The City Council convened a meeting to consider impeaching Gatewood. Three

City Council members, Dale Kling, Dave Hinman, and Jeff Keuhn, made statements

during the meeting, which implied that they had likely made their mind up that

Gatewood should be removed from the City Council. Gatewood moved to disqualify

those three City Council members as biased. Mayor Hennessy denied the motion

concluding that any bias from the City Council members’ statements could be

remedied by their swearing under oath that they could and would be impartial. In the

summer of 2021, the City Council approved a resolution to convene a Board of

Impeachment and proposed Articles of Impeachment. The proceedings continued

through the fall of 2021.

On January 24, 2022, while Gatewood’s impeachment remained pending, she

filed this action in the district court and sought injunctive relief. On January 27, 2022,

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the district court entered an order abstaining under Younger. The court directed the

parties to file additional briefing before deciding whether to stay the case pending

resolution of the state proceedings or to dismiss the case without prejudice.

On February 7, 2022, Gatewood was impeached and removed from office by

the vote of six City Council members, including Kling, Hinman, and Keuhn. Two

others refused to participate, and one voted against impeachment. Mayor Hennessy

exercised his discretion and removed Gatewood from office. On February 9, 2022,

Gatewood amended her initial complaint noting her removal from office. Gatewood,

however, did not seek judicial review of the City Council decision in Missouri state

courts. The time for appeal expired on March 9, 2022.

On March 16, 2022, the district court stayed the federal case pending the final

resolution of state proceedings. Those state proceedings included Gatewood’s

impeachment proceedings and any available judicial review thereof. The district court

lifted its stay order on March 21, 2022. 

Afterwards, the defendants moved to dismiss based on the Younger abstention

doctrine or, alternatively, based on claim preclusion for Gatewood’s failure to purse

available state appellate relief in state court. The court directed Gatewood to show

cause why her case should not be dismissed for the grounds requested in the dismissal

motion. Following Gatewood’s belated response, which the district court deemed

unpersuasive, it granted the motion to dismiss. The court determined that Gatewood’s

failure to pursue her claims in state court precluded her from seeking relief in federal

district court citing, Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U.S. 592 (1975), and Alleghany

Corp.v. McCartney, 896 F.2d 1138 (8th Cir. 1990). Gatewood now appeals the

district court’s initial order of abstention and its eventual order to dismiss. 

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II. Discussion

“We review the grant of a motion to dismiss de novo, taking the facts alleged

in the complaint2 as true.” Bradley Timberland Res. v. Bradley Lumber Co., 712 F.3d

401, 406 (8th Cir. 2013).

On appeal, Gatewood argues that the district court’s abstention under Younger

was improper because an exception to Younger abstention should have been applied

to enable the court to act before her impeachment proceedings concluded. The

propriety of Younger abstention rests on a three-part inquiry. First, the proceeding

must fall into one of the three “exceptional circumstances” enumerated in New

Orleands Public Service, Inc. v. Council of the City of New Orleans, 491 U.S. 350,

368 (1989). Second, the proceeding must meet the requirements of Younger and

satisfy the factors of Middlesex Cnty. Ethics Comm. v. Garden State Bar Ass’n, 457

U.S. 423, 432 (1982)). Third and lastly, we must determine whether “abstention [is]

nevertheless inappropriate because an exception to abstention applies.” 375 Slane

Chapel Road, LLC v. Stone Cty., Mo., 53 F.4th 1122, 1127 (8th Cir. 2022). 

Gatewood’s abstention argument misses the mark. We need not address the

propriety of the district court’s abstention analysis because whether the district court

correctly abstained is immaterial to the outcome of this case. The district court lifted

its stay, and even if it could be shown that the stay was initially improper, it has no

bearing on the ultimate result. Rather, the dispositive issue in this case is whether the

district court erred in dismissing the case on claim preclusion and exhaustion

grounds.

2The operative complaint in this case is Gatewood’s Amended Verified

Complaint, as the district court granted leave to amend the complaint and required a

response from the Appellees on that pleading.

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Put bluntly, Gatewood failed to challenge the dismissal below and failed to

challenge it on appeal until her reply brief. Appellate courts “do not generally review

arguments first raised in a reply brief.” United States v. Lugo-Barcenas, 57 F.4th 633,

638 (8th Cir. 2023) (citing United States v. Darden, 915 F.3d 579, 586 n.9 (8th Cir.

2019)). Her contention that she did in fact raise the issue in her initial brief is belied

by the brief itself. She only mentions that the district court dismissed the case on

claim preclusion grounds for her failure to seek judicial review in state court in her

recounting of the procedural history of her case. This is insufficient for us to consider

the challenge to be “meaningfully argued.” See United States v. Shelledy, 961 F.3d

1014, 1024 (8th Cir. 2020) (holding that claims not meaningfully argued in the

opening brief are not generally considered).

Gatewood nonetheless contends that this court is not prohibited from hearing

her arguments on the dismissal even if they are raised for the first time in her reply

brief. See Carpenter’s Pension Fund of Ill. v. Neidorff, 30 F.4th 777, 787 (8th Cir.

2022). She is technically correct. “As a general rule, we will not consider arguments

raised for the first time in a reply brief. We are not precluded from doing so, however,

particularly where, as here, the argument raised in the reply brief supplements an

argument raised in a party’s initial brief.” Id. That is not the case here. Gatewood’s

initial brief essentially ignored the district court’s dismissal on the basis of claim

preclusion. 

Further, “[w]hen courts have exercised their authority to decline consideration

of issues raised in reply briefs, they have typically done so out of concern that the

opposing party would be prejudiced by an advocate arguing an issue without an

opportunity for the opponent to respond.” United States v. Head, 340 F.3d 628, 630

n.4 (8th Cir. 2003). Head applies to the facts of this case. The defendants had no

opportunity outside of oral argument to address Gatewood’s arguments against the

underlying motion to dismiss. As such, we decline to exercise our discretion to

consider these arguments initially raised in the reply brief. 

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III. Conclusion

For these reasons, we affirm the district court’s order of dismissal.

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