United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 22-3552

___________________________

Samantha LaCoe

lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellant

v.

City of Sisseton, et al.

lllllllllllllllllllllDefendants - Appellees

 ____________

Appeal from United States District Court 

for the District of South Dakota - Northern

 ____________

Submitted: June 14, 2023

Filed: September 19, 2023

____________

Before LOKEN, COLLOTON, and ERICKSON, Circuit Judges. 

____________

LOKEN, Circuit Judge.

An employee must have a protected life, liberty, or property interest in

continued employment to maintain a procedural due process claim under 42 U.S.C.

§ 1983. Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 538 & n.3 (1985),

citing Bd. of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 576-78 (1972). Protected property

interests arise not under the Constitution, but rather through an independent source
such as state law. Id. “State law can create a property interest in a number of

different ways.” Movers Warehouse, Inc. v. City of Little Canada, 71 F.3d 716, 719

(8th Cir. 1995). 

“South Dakota is an employment at will state.” Hollander v. Douglas County,

620 N.W.2d 181, 185 (S.D. 2000); see S.D.C.L. § 60-4-4. In an employment at-will

state, “the employer owes no duty of continued employment, and therefore may

dismiss the employee at any time, for any reason,” unless an employment contract or

public policy says otherwise. Reynolds v. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc., 454 F.3d 868,

874 (8th Cir. 2006). Thus, an at-will public employee in South Dakota does not have

a constitutionally protected property interest. Hollander, 620 N.W.2d at 185. 

In this case, Samantha LaCoe was hired as a Law Enforcement Officer by the

Sisseton, South Dakota, Police Department in January 2021. LaCoe and the City

signed a Sisseton Police Department Employment Contract (the “Contract”) requiring

LaCoe to reimburse the City for the cost of her training if she left the Department

before completing 36 months of employment. In January 2022, Defendant James

Croymans, the City’s Chief of Police, informed LaCoe that the Police Commission

had lost confidence in her because she had included false or inaccurate information

on four stopped-vehicle reports. Croymans asked LaCoe to resign, which she did. 

In July 2022, LaCoe filed this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action, asserting, along with other

claims, that the City and numerous individual defendants violated her Fourteenth

Amendment procedural and substantive due process rights by disciplining and

constructively discharging her. 

The district court1 granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss all federal claims and

declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over LaCoe’s state law claims. LaCoe

1The Honorable Charles B. Kornmann, United States District Judge for the

District of South Dakota.

-2-
v. City of Sisseton, No. 1:22-CV-01010, 2022 WL 17485843, at *2 (D.S.D. Dec. 7,

2022). LaCoe appeals only the dismissal of her due process claims, arguing that the

terms of the Contract established a property interest and therefore she was not an

at-will employee under South Dakota law. Reviewing the dismissal de novo and

accepting the allegations contained in the complaint as true, we agree with the district

court the Supreme Court of South Dakota would rule that the Contract did not change

an at-will employment relationship. See Cockram v. Genesco, Inc., 680 F.3d 1046,

1056 (8th Cir. 2012) (standard of review). Accordingly, we affirm. 

I. Background.

LaCoe’s employment as a Law Enforcement Officer for the Sisseton P.D. was

her first job after earning a bachelor’s degree in law enforcement. Sergeant Jereme

Stauss was assigned to be the Field Training Officer during four months of training. 

Over the course of her employment in 2021, LaCoe alleges she was not provided

needed training she requested and was subjected to sexually discriminatory comments

and conduct, unfairly criticized, and “labeled a snitch” by her co-workers. 

On January 17, 2022, Chief Croymans informed LaCoe that Defendant Dylan

Kirchmeier, the Roberts County State’s Attorney, placed her on one year’s probation

and on a Brady/Giglio list made available to local defense attorneys2 because of the

false stopped-vehicle report incidents. On January 19, the Complaint alleges, Chief

Croymans informed LaCoe the Police Commission had lost confidence in her and she

would have to “resign and sign a Brady/Giglio acknowledgment letter.” This lawsuit

followed. Attached to the Complaint as Exhibit B is an undated Affidavit of

2Under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87 (1963), criminal defendants are

constitutionally entitled to exculpatory evidence, defined in Giglio v. United States,

405 U.S. 150, 154-55 (1972), to include impeachment evidence. A so-called

Brady/Giglio list compiles names of officers known to have failed these constitutional

disclosure duties. Cf. Sandefur v. Dart, 979 F.3d 1145, 1155-56 (7th Cir. 2020).

-3-
Retraction by LaCoe, not otherwise identified in the Complaint, averring that “[t]he

resignation letter and the Brady/Giglio memo were signed under duress and absent

any ability to rebut the accusations.”

LaCoe’s Complaint alleges that Defendants violated her right to procedural due

process because she “was given no meaningful opportunity to rebut or defend[]

herself against being placed on a Brady/Giglio list,” and that her “placement . . . on

such a list has hurt her property interests absent due process of law.” Defendants

moved to dismiss all claims, arguing as to the due process claims that LaCoe failed

to allege a constitutional property interest because “there is no language in the

[Contract] indicating a clear intention on the Sisseton PD’s part to surrender its

statutory power to terminate [LaCoe] at will,” and LaCoe “has completely failed to

plead that the City had any official policy, custom, or practice of unconstitutional

conduct that caused a City employee to violate [LaCoe’s] constitutional rights.” 

The district court granted the motion to dismiss all federal claims, concluding

as to the due process claims that LaCoe failed to establish a sufficient property

interest because the Contract “does not bind the city to employ her for any period of

time.” LaCoe, 2022 WL 17485843, at *3. Instead, the Contract agrees to reimburse

LaCoe if she remains employed for at least three years and specifically states,

“‘Nothing contained herein shall be construed as a promise or agreement . . . to retain

Samantha LaCoe’ . . . for a certain period of time.” Id., quoting Section 6. The court

dismissed the procedural due process claim against the City because LaCoe “fail[ed]

to allege facts sufficient to support municipal liability,” and the substantive due

process claims because LaCoe “identifie[d] no fundamental right violation or

contemporary conscience-shocking conduct.” Id. at *7.

LaCoe appeals only the dismissal of her due process property interest claims. 

Her Statement of Issues presented for review presents two issues for our review. See

Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(5). First, “The District Court erred in determining that the

-4-
contract at issue was not a contract nor an ambiguous one.” Second, “The District

Court did Error in Granting Immunity to the City of Sisseton and to Chief Croymans.” 

These are the only issues we need consider.

II. The First Issue.

LaCoe claims a property interest in continued employment with the Sisseton

P.D., an issue governed by South Dakota law. Referring to the Contract, LaCoe

argues “that by acting in reliance upon what was called and referred to as a contract

a 14th Amendment Due Process right as to property should be maintained.” But under

South Dakota law, as the district court recognized, it is not the existence of a contract

that establishes a due process property interest. After all, every employment

relationship is contractual in nature. Rather, the Supreme Court of South Dakota has

repeatedly held that a contract of employment, whether express or implied, overcomes

the statutory at-will relationship only when it “affirmatively indicates” the employer’s

intent to surrender its at-will power to terminate an employee at any time and for any

reason, for example, when it “adopts a discharge policy that provides termination will

occur only for cause.” Aberle v. City of Aberdeen, 718 N.W.2d 615, 621-22 (S.D.

2006), citing Hollander, 620 N.W.2d at 185. 

As LaCoe is relying on an express contract of employment, the terms of the

Contract are determinative. The district court acknowledged the Contract and

correctly focused on whether it manifested a clear intent on the part of the Sisseton

P.D. to surrender its at-will power to terminate LaCoe at any time and for any reason,

which would give LaCoe a due process property interest in her continued

employment. The mere “fact that an employment contract is memorialized in writing

does not in and of itself constitute a surrender of an employer’s statutory at-will

power.” Aberle, 718 N.W.2d at 622. The employer’s intent to reserve its statutory

at-will power “does not require the use of any specific language.” Id. 

-5-
LaCoe argues that Section 3 “expressly stated that this is a contract for a term

of years not an ‘at-will’ employment.” We disagree. Section 3 provided:

Samantha LaCoe agrees that should she be hired as a police office for

the Sisseton Police Department, she will remain in employment of the

CITY as a police officer for a minimum of thirty-six (36) months from

the date of hire. If she does not remain in employment of the CITY as

a police officer for a minimum of thirty-six months from the date of hire,

she will reimburse the CITY for any and all costs incurred as

enumerated in SECTION 4 below . . . . 

By its plain language, Section 3 does not provide for a three-year term of

employment. (It does commit LaCoe to remain for three years, but whether that

commitment was enforceable is not at issue.) Rather, Section 3 provides that if

LaCoe does not remain in employment for at least three years, she is obligated to

reimburse the City for various expenses enumerated in Section 4 that the City incurs

in hiring and training a new police officer, such as uniforms, equipment, Basic Law

Enforcement Training, and salary paid during training. Then, Section 6 expressly

addresses whether Section 3 establishes a three-year term of employment:

Samantha LaCoe understands that employment with the Sisseton

Police Department is contingent upon her completion of a probationary

period of twelve (12) months and continued performance to the

satisfaction of the Sisseton Police Department. Nothing contained

herein shall be construed as a promise or agreement by either the

Sisseton Police Department or the CITY to retain Samantha LaCoe

as a police officer for the Sisseton Police Department for thirty-six

(36) months or any portion thereof.

(Second emphasis added.) Nowhere does the Contract explicitly state that LaCoe is

terminable for-cause only or otherwise limit the permissible reasons for termination. 

-6-
Given the clear reservation of the City’s statutory at-will termination right in

Section 6, we agree with the district court that the three-year term referred to in

Section 3 “refer[s] to the amount of time that LaCoe had to work for the Department

to avoid repayment of training costs -- not to a period of time that the Department had

to employ LaCoe.” LaCoe, 2022 WL 17485843, at *3. 

LaCoe argues that the language in the contract is ambiguous and therefore the

district court erred in granting Defendants’ motion to dismiss based on the

constitutional property interest issue. “[W]hether ambiguity exists in a contract is a

question of law for the court.” Butterfield v. Citibank of S.D., N.A., 437 N.W.2d 857,

858 (S.D. 1989). Whatever other ambiguities may be present, the Contract does not

“affirmatively indicate” the City’s intent to surrender its at-will power to terminate

LaCoe at any time and for any reason. Under South Dakota law, the employer’s

intent to contractually surrender its at-will power must be clear. 

For these reasons, we agree with the district court that LaCoe was an at-will

employee under South Dakota law and therefore had no due-process-protected

property interest in continued employment. Her allegations that she was wrongfully

placed on the Brady/Giglio list without an opportunity to respond may support a

cause of action under state law -- a question that is not before us and we do not

consider -- but absent a protected property interest they do not state a plausible due

process claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Thus, the district court did not err in

dismissing LaCoe’s Fourteenth Amendment due process claims. 

III. The Second Issue.

LaCoe argues the district court erred in dismissing her due process claims

against the City because “there is a Pattern and Practice as to the contract and public

policy would have the contract upheld.” This contention is without merit. LaCoe

-7-
does not explain the reference to public policy and cites no South Dakota case

invalidating an at-will employment contract as contrary to public policy. 

Section 1983 imposes liability on persons who, acting under color of law,

deprive a person “of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution

and laws” of the United States. The City may not be held liable under § 1983 if its

employees deprived LaCoe of her rights under federal law unless the employees’

execution of a City policy or custom caused the injury. See Monell v. Dep’t of Soc.

Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 694 (1978); Los Angeles County v. Humphries, 562 U.S. 29,

31 (2010). Unless a municipal custom or practice itself violates federal law, “[t]here

can be no § 1983 or Monell liability absent a constitutional violation by a City or

County employee.” Leftwich Tr. of Leftwich v. County of Dakota, 9 F.4th 966, 972

(8th Cir. 2021). Moreover, municipal liability is not established simply by showing

that a plaintiff has suffered a deprivation of federal rights at the hands of a municipal

employee: 

[A] plaintiff seeking to establish municipal liability on the theory that a

facially lawful municipal action [such as inadequate training] has led an

employee to violate a plaintiff’s rights must demonstrate that the

municipal action was taken with deliberate indifference as to its known

or obvious consequences.

Bd. of Cty. Comm’rs of Bryan Cty. v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 407 (1997) (cleaned up);

see City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 388-89, 388 n.8 (1989). 

For LaCoe’s claim against the City to survive a motion to dismiss, her

complaint must contain “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its

face.” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). Her Complaint

does not come close to meeting this standard. First, the alleged federal deprivation

was not supported by facts plausibly establishing a due process property interest. 

Second, while the Complaint names the City as a defendant and seeks relief from the

-8-
City (an order requiring “expungement” of LaCoe from the Brady/Giglio list), it

states no separate municipal liability claim against the City. 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we agree with the district court that the

Complaint “failed to allege any unconstitutional policy or custom that enabled”

Defendants to deprive LaCoe of her alleged federal due process rights. LaCoe, 2022

WL 17485843, at * 6; see Dick v. Watonwan County, 738 F.2d 939, 942-43 (8th Cir.

1984). Pressed on this point at oral argument, counsel for LaCoe could only respond

that the Complaint plausibly alleged the practice of violating the three-year term in

the City’s employee reimbursement contracts. That practice was not alleged in the

Complaint and in any event is nothing more than a “facially lawful municipal action.” 

For these reasons, the second issue presented for review, if preserved for appeal at all,

is without merit. 

The judgment of the district court is affirmed. 

______________________________

-9-