Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/213/267/532604/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 09:49:43
Document Index: 4192274

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 548', '§ 1985', '§ 1985', '§ 1985', '§ 1986', '§ 11']

Steve Bryan, Plaintiff-appellant, v. the City of Madison, Mississippi; Mary Hawkins, Individually and in Her Official Capacity As Mayor of Madison, Mississippi; Timothy L. Johnson, Individually and in His Official Capacity As Alderman and Elected Public Official of the City of Madison, Mississippi; Lisa Clingan-smith, Individually and in Her Official Capacity As Alderman and Elected Public Official of the City of Madison, Mississippi, Defendants-appellees, 213 F.3d 267 (5th Cir. 2000) :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › Fifth Circuit › 2000 › Steve Bryan, Plaintiff-appellant, v. the City of Madison, Mississippi; Mary Hawkins, Individually an...
Steve Bryan, Plaintiff-appellant, v. the City of Madison, Mississippi; Mary Hawkins, Individually and in Her Official Capacity As Mayor of Madison, Mississippi; Timothy L. Johnson, Individually and in His Official Capacity As Alderman and Elected Public Official of the City of Madison, Mississippi; Lisa Clingan-smith, Individually and in Her Official Capacity As Alderman and Elected Public Official of the City of Madison, Mississippi, Defendants-appellees, 213 F.3d 267 (5th Cir. 2000)
US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit - 213 F.3d 267 (5th Cir. 2000)
Because the district court ruled for the defendants on summary judgment, we review the judgment de novo, applying the same standard as the district court. Duffy v. Leading Edge Prods. Inc., 44 F.3d 308, 312 (5th Cir. 1995); Fed. R. Civ. P. 56. We therefore draw all factual inferences in Bryan's favor in order to determine whether the defendants are entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Degan v. Ford Motor Co., 869 F.2d 889, 892 (5th Cir. 1989).
* Absolute immunity applies to activities, not offices. See Marrero v. City of Hialeah, 625 F.2d 499, 508 (5th Cir. 1980) (" [I]t is the official function that determines the degree of immunity required, not the status of the acting officer."). Legislative immunity protects officials fulfilling legislative functions even if they are not "legislators." Hughes v. Tarrant County Texas, 948 F.2d 918, 920 (5th Cir. 1991). And absolute immunity only protects those duties that are functionally legislative, not all activities engaged in by a legislator. Id.
In Hughes v. Tarrant County Texas, 948 F.2d 918 (5th Cir. 1991), we discussed various legal standards for evaluating whether a particular activity is "legislative" rather than "administrative" and therefore protected by absolute immunity.10 We first looked to Cinevision Corp. v. City of Burbank, 745 F.2d 560, 580 (9th Cir. 1984), which held that " [a]dministration of a contract does not involve the formulation of a policy. . . . Rather, it is more the type of ad hoc decisionmaking engaged in by an executive." We also considered a zoning case, Scott v. Greenville County, 716 F.2d 1409, 1423 (4th Cir. 1983), where the Fourth Circuit held that " [w]hen local zoning officials do more than adopt prospective, legislative-type rules and take the next step into the area of enforcement, they can claim only the executive qualified immunity appropriate to that activity." We next turned to Cutting v. Muzzey, 724 F.2d 259, 261 (1st Cir. 1984), where the First Circuit denied legislative immunity protection to a zoning board that had placed conditions on the approval of a development: "It is not the enactment of an overall plan or the establishment of general policy, both of which could be said to be legislative in nature. . . . In our case the Planning Board merely decided to insist on completion of a particular road before granting approval of a specified proposed subdivision." We explained that the Cutting court had adopted two different tests in reaching its conclusion:
Id. (citing Developments In the Law, 91 Harv. L. Rev. 1427, 1510-11 (1978). In Hughes, we did not choose any one of these particular standards, but instead used them as general guidelines.
* In order to establish either a substantive or a procedural due process violation by claiming denial of a property right, Bryan must first establish a denial of a constitutionally protected property right.14 See Spuler v. Pickar, 958 F.2d 103, 107 (5th Cir. 1992) (stating that a prerequisite to a substantive due process claim is theestablishment of a constitutionally protected property right); Jackson Court Condominiums, Inc. v. City of New Orleans, 874 F.2d 1070, 1074 (5th Cir. 1989) (requiring a showing of a property right as a basis for a procedural due process violation). Such a showing, as we noted in Schaper v. City of Huntsville, 813 F.2d 709 (5th Cir. 1987), must be made by reference to state law. "The Constitution does not create property interests; 'they are created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law.'" Schaper, 813 F.2d at 713 (quoting Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577, 92 S. Ct. 2701, 33 L. Ed. 2d 548 (1972)); see also Bishop v. Wood, 426 U.S. 341, 344, 96 S. Ct. 2074, 48 L. Ed. 2d 684 (1976) (stating that "a property interest in employment can, of course, be created by ordinance or by an implied contract . . . in either case, however, the sufficiency of the claim of entitlement must be decided by reference to state law").
The one and only Mississippi case that he relies on as support for the existence of such a right is Cole v. Haynes, 62 So. 2d 779 (Miss. 1953). A careful analysis of that holding is therefore warranted.
Id. at 781 (emphasis added) (quoting 55 Am.Jur., Vendor and Purchaser, § 548).
On appeal, Bryan asserts that he is a member of an identifiable class--multi-family developers. But in United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Local 610, AFL-CIO v. Scott, 463 U.S. 825, 837-39, 103 S. Ct. 3352, 3360-61, 77 L. Ed. 2d 1049 (1983), the Supreme Court held that § 1985(3) does not reach conspiracies motivated by economic or commercial animus. In this circuit, we require an allegation of a race-based conspiracy. Newberry v. East Texas State University, 161 F.3d 276, 281 n.2 (5th Cir. 1998). For that reason, Bryan's § 1985(3) claim fails. And because a valid § 1985 claim is a prerequisite to a § 1986 claim, that claim is also invalid. See id. at 281 n.3.
The second type of conduct on the part of defendants does not fit into this "as applied" analytical framework as easily, but instead looks like an example of "selective enforcement." In Esmail v. Macrane, 53 F.3d 176, 178-79 (7th Cir. 1995), the Seventh Circuit considered a case in which city officials had used their powers to delay and frustrate an applicant's efforts to obtain a liquor license. That court treated the case as one of "selective prosecution," which is a type of equal protection claim recognized in this circuit as well. See Allred's Produce v. United States Department of Agriculture, 178 F.3d 743, 748 (5th Cir. 1999) (including all but personal vindictiveness); Stern v. Tarrant County Hospital District, 778 F.2d 1052, 1058 (5th Cir. 1985) (including all but personal vindictiveness). In the present case, when the mayor independently sought to rezone the property and called the November 1993 unscheduled meeting, she was not applying standards in an unreasonable manner. Instead, she was selectively using her powers against a single party,17 Bryan. This therefore looks like an case of selective enforcement.
Bryan also contends that the city's demand that he cede a forty-foot buffer of the property in exchange for approval of his plan constituted a taking of property without just compensation. The district court, however, correctly held that this claim was not ripe because Bryan had failed to seek compensation from the state. In Williamson County Regional Planning Comm'n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172, 194, 105 S. Ct. 3108, 3120-21, 87 L. Ed. 2d 126 (1985), the Supreme Court held that "if a State provides an adequate procedure for seeking just compensation, the property owner cannot claim a violation of the Just Compensation Clause until it has used the procedure and been denied just compensation." Mississippi has a procedure for obtaining compensation based on eminent domain takings, and Bryan failed to resort to it. See Miss. Code Ann. §§ 11-27-1 et seq. (providing for a "court of eminent domain").
In Willowbrook v. Olech, ___ U.S. ___, 120 S. Ct. 1073, 1074, 145 L. Ed. 2d 1060 (2000), the Supreme Court explained that " [o]ur cases have recognized successful equal protection claims brought by a "class of one." As we read this part of the holding, it merely stands for the proposition that single plaintiffs may bring equal protection claims. They need not proceed on behalf of an entire group. But this statement has nothing to do with whether they must assert membership in a larger protected class. The decision does not, therefore, alter our requirement of an improper motive, such as racial animus, for selective enforcement claims.