United States Court of Appeals

for the Fifth Circuit

No. 20-40599

A-Pro Towing and Recovery, L.L.C., 

Plaintiff—Appellant,

versus

Martin Cantu, Sr., 

Defendant—Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Texas

USDC No. 1:19-CV-16

Before King, Dennis, and Ho, Circuit Judges.

Per Curiam:*

Defendant Martin Cantu, Sr., is a city commissioner in Port Isabel, 

Texas who owns (along with other family members) several towing 

companies. This 42 U.S.C. § 1983 suit arises out of certain actions Cantu is 

alleged to have taken with respect to the Port Isabel Police Department’s 

management of its “wrecker rotation list”—the list that dictates which 

* Pursuant to 5th Circuit Rule 47.5, the court has determined that this 

opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited 

circumstances set forth in 5th Circuit Rule 47.5.4.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

July 28, 2021

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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towing company will be called to perform nonconsensual towing services for 

the department on a given day.

I.

Plaintiff A-Pro Towing and Recovery, L.L.C. (A-Pro) alleges that 

Cantu violated its rights to equal protection and due process by using his 

position as city commissioner to divert government referrals away from 

A-Pro and to Cantu family towing companies. Relying, inter alia, on the 

affidavit of a former police department supervisor, A-Pro asserts that on 

three unspecified occasions, Cantu called the police department’s rotationlist manager on A-Pro’s assigned day, identified himself as “Commissioner 

Cantu,” and told the manager to skip over A-Pro and direct all towing 

requests to one of Cantu’s companies. On one of these occasions, the police 

chief allegedly told the list manager to carry out Cantu’s instructions because 

Cantu “[was] a city commissioner.” When the list manager expressed 

concerns that Cantu was “improperly using the [l]ist and creating a 

monopoly,” the police chief allegedly instructed the manager to drop the 

issue because Cantu was a commissioner and therefore could “do what he 

want[ed].” A-Pro also claims that the police chief would sometimes reassign 

A-Pro’s days to a Cantu family company himself.

The district court granted Cantu summary judgment. A-Pro appeals.

II.

“This court reviews a grant of summary judgment de novo, applying 

the same standard as the district court.” Renfroe v. Parker, 974 F.3d 594, 599 

(5th Cir. 2020). “Summary judgment is appropriate ‘if the movant shows 

that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is 

entitled to judgment as a matter of law.’” Id. (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P.

56(a)). “A genuine issue of material fact exists when the evidence is such 

that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the non-moving party.” Id. 

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“All facts and reasonable inferences are construed in favor of the nonmovant, 

and the court should not weigh evidence or make credibility findings.” Id.

III.

A.

A-Pro does not assert that Cantu discriminated against it on account 

of its membership in a traditional protected class. Rather, it claims that 

“Cantu made sure that Port Isabel police intentionally treated A-Pro 

differently than how his family’s companies were treated.”

“A class-of-one equal-protection claim lies ‘where the plaintiff alleges 

that [it] has been intentionally treated differently from others similarly 

situated and that there is no rational basis for the difference in 

treatment.’” Integrity Collision Ctr. v. City of Fulshear, 837 F.3d 581, 586 (5th 

Cir. 2016) (quoting Vill. of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562, 564 (2000)). 

“Typically, a class of one involves a discrete group of people, who do not 

themselves qualify as a suspect class, alleging the government has singled 

them out for differential treatment absent a rational basis.” Id. (quoting 

Wood v. Collier, 836 F.3d 534, 541 (5th Cir. 2016)).

Assuming arguendo that a class-of-one equal-protection claim is 

cognizable here, A-Pro’s claim fails.1

 “Because there is no suspect class, the 

1 The Supreme Court has held that “a ‘class-of-one’ theory of equal protection has 

no place in the public employment context.” Engquist v. Oregon Dep’t of Agr., 553 U.S. 591, 

594 (2008). See also id. at 605 (“[W]e have never found the Equal Protection Clause 

implicated in the specific circumstance where, as here, government employers are alleged 

to have made an individualized, subjective personnel decision in a seemingly arbitrary or 

irrational manner.”). And this court has since held that Engquist’s bar “applies . . . to a 

local government’s discretionary decision to include or not include a company on a nonconsent tow list,” Integrity, 837 F.3d at 586, as well as its decision to remove a company 

from a non-consent tow list, see Rountree v. Dyson, 892 F.3d 681, 684–85 (5th Cir. 2018)

(“If a city has the discretion to choose from whom it contracts private services, then it must 

equally retain the discretion to choose when to terminate such relationship.”). It is 

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[government action] ‘must be upheld against equal protection challenge if 

there is any reasonably conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational 

basis for the classification.’” Id. at 589 (quoting Heller v. Doe, 509 U.S. 312, 

320 (1993)).

Here, A-Pro’s evidence against Cantu (rather than against the police 

chief or other actors) is an affidavit averring that, on a few occasions, Cantu 

instructed the police to skip A-Pro because it had “an outstanding bond,” 

expired insurance, or an “out of commission” status. These stated reasons 

are obviously rational. And despite multiple opportunities to do so, A-Pro 

has pointed to no evidence that A-Pro was qualified and able to provide 

services on the specific days that Cantu allegedly redirected business away 

from A-Pro. Accordingly, A-Pro’s equal protection claim fails.

A-Pro protests that it was Cantu’s burden to identify which dates 

A-Pro was unqualified to tow, and that there is a “factual issue . . . as to 

whether the preferential treatment Cantu arranged was due to A-Pro’s 

qualifications, or Cantu’s rent-seeking.” But “the burden is on the 

challenging party to negative ‘any reasonably conceivable state of facts that 

could provide a rational basis.’” Id. (quoting Bd. of Trs. of Univ. of Ala. v. 

Garrett, 531 U.S. 356, 367 (2001)). A-Pro has simply failed to carry that 

burden.2

arguable, then, that a decision about which towing company to call for a given job on a given 

day is the kind of inherently discretionary decision that has been shielded from class-of-one 

equal-protection challenges. But we need not decide that issue here because A-Pro’s claim 

fails on the merits.

2 Because A-Pro has failed to show it was qualified to operate on the days in 

question, it has also failed to show disparate treatment. For example, A-Pro provides no 

evidence that Cantu companies were called to tow with outstanding bonds or expired 

insurance. In other words, while A-Pro “generally alleges that other similarly situated 

[companies] were treated differently, . . . [it] points to no specific [company or companies]

and provides no specifics as to their violations.” Rountree, 892 F.3d 681 at 685. “An 

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B.

A-Pro also claims that “Cantu’s successful campaign to deprive 

[A-Pro] of towing jobs violated its Fourteenth Amendment right to 

occupational liberty.” See, e.g., San Jacinto Sav. & Loan v. Kacal, 928 F.2d 

697, 702 (5th Cir. 1991) (“[T]he fifth and fourteenth amendments include 

. . . the liberty to operate a legitimate business, free from arbitrary deprivation 

by local police acting under the color of state law.”).

A-Pro’s due process claim suffers from some of the same defects as its 

equal protection claim. For example, there is still no evidence to refute 

Cantu’s stated reasons for diverting work away from A-Pro.

Moreover, an unpublished opinion suggests that A-Pro’s alleged 

liberty deprivation is insufficient to be actionable. In Doss v. Morris, 642 F. 

App’x 443 (5th Cir. 2016), this court observed that “government actions that 

cause ‘a brief interruption’ of a person’s occupational calling do not amount 

to a deprivation of [a] liberty interest in the same way as ‘a complete 

prohibition of the right to engage in a calling.’” Id. at 447 (quoting Conn v. 

Gabbert, 526 U.S. 286, 292 (1999)). The panel then interpreted our 

precedent as recognizing that “a plaintiff’s liberty interest in operating a 

business [is] not violated where ‘the government [has] not significantly 

altered or deprived [a plaintiff] of his liberty interest in practicing [his 

profession] or his property interests in the profits therefrom.” Id. (quoting 

San Jacinto Sav. & Loan, 928 F.2d at 703) (last two alterations in original). 

“Defendants’ conduct did not deprive Plaintiffs of their liberty interest in 

operating their legal business” because “the evidence . . . failed to show that 

allegation that others are treated differently, without more, is merely a legal conclusion that 

we are not required to credit. [A-Pro]’s equal protection claim fails.” Id. (footnote 

omitted).

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Plaintiffs’ ability to operate their business was significantly altered or 

impaired.” Id.

A-Pro concedes that the relevant standard is whether its business was 

“significantly altered or impaired.” Because the evidence suggests that 

A-Pro was inconvenienced by only a “brief interruption” in its access to 

government employment (more precisely, government referrals), this case is 

unlike the cases in which the Supreme Court has recognized a “generalized 

due process right to choose one’s field of private employment”—cases that

“all deal[t] with a complete prohibition of the right to engage in a calling.” 

Conn, 526 U.S. at 291–92. In short, because A-Pro has not produced 

evidence of a significant alteration or impairment of its business, A-Pro’s due

process claim fails as a matter of law.

We affirm.

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