Source: https://m.openjurist.org/195/f3d/1208/lila-johnson-v-james-martin-and-john-williamson-garry-garvin-city-of-muskogee
Timestamp: 2019-11-17 20:23:41
Document Index: 385953684

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 5', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983']

195 F. 3d 1208 - Lila Johnson v. James Martin & John Williamson Garry Garvin City of Muskogee
195 F3d 1208 Lila Johnson v. James Martin & John Williamson Garry Garvin City of Muskogee
In applying Johnson, several circuits have noted that even though a district court concludes that there are controverted factual issues, a summary judgment ruling may still be immediately appealable in certain circumstances. In particular, if a defendant's appeal of the denial of a motion for summary judgment is based on the argument that, even under the plaintiff's version of the facts, the defendant did not violate clearly established law, then the district court's summary judgment ruling is immediately appealable. See, e.g, Brewster v. Board of Educ. of Lynwood Unified Sch. Dist., 149 F.3d 971, 976 (9th Cir. 1998) ("In resolving the appeal, we simply assume the disputed facts in the light most favorable to [the plaintiff], and then decide, under those facts, whether the [defendants] violated any of [the plaintiff's] clearly established constitutional rights."); Moniz v. City of Ft. Lauderdale, 145 F.3d 1278, 1281 (11th Cir. 1998) ("[W]here, as here, the appeal is based on an assertion that, even on the plaintiff's version of the facts, the defendants are entitled to qualified immunity as a matter of law, we have jurisdiction to review the denial of summary judgment interlocutorily."); Tierney v. Davidson, 133 F.3d 189, 194 (2d Cir. 1998) ("Even where the lower court rules that material disputes of fact preclude summary judgment on qualified immunity, we may still exercise interlocutory jurisdiction if the defendant contests the existence of a dispute or the materiality thereof, or (what may be the same thing) contends that he is entitled to qualified immunity even under plaintiff's version of the facts."); Anderson v. Romero, 72 F.3d 518, 520 (7th Cir. 1995) (" It does not follow from either the rule or its rationale that the presence of factual disagreement automatically vitiates an immunity appeal. If there is no possible resolution of the disagreement that would save the plaintiff's case from the defense of immunity, the appellate court will not have to resolve any factual disagreements, or even decide whether there are material factual disagreements, in order to determine whether the defense is good.").
Nevertheless, in this appeal, Mr. Garvin and Williamson do not dispute the district court's determination that there are controverted factual issues relevant to resolving the question of their liability as supervisors. Instead, these two defendants argue that even accepting the plaintiffs' allegations as true (i.e., that they were informed of Mr. Martin's acts of sexual harassment at various times in the period from 1993 to 1995), they still may not be held liable as supervisors. Accordingly, their argument regarding supervisory liability is best characterized as one of the types of arguments identified in Foote (and the other circuit decisions discussed above)-- a challenge to the district court's "determination that under [the plaintiffs'] version of the facts the defendant[s] violated clearly established law." Foote, 118 F.3d at 1422. We therefore conclude that we have jurisdiction to consider Mr. Garvin's and Mr. Williamson's argument that their alleged acts and omissions as supervisors are insufficient to render them liable for Mr. Martin's alleged acts of sexual harassment and that, as a result, they are entitled to qualified immunity.
B. Sexual Harassment of Nonemployees
In challenging the district court's denial of their motions for summary judgment, Mr. Martin, Mr. Garvin, and Mr. Williamson argue that, when Mr. Martin allegedly engaged in sexual harassment at issue, it was not clearly established that a public official who used his position to sexually harass a nonemployee violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. As a result, they maintain, the district court erred in concluding that the law was clearly established and in rejecting their arguments that they are entitled to qualified immunity. We engage in de novo review of the district court's ruling that the law was clearly established. See Radecki, 146 F.3d at 1229 ("whether . . . prior law clearly prohibited the defendant's conduct [is] [a] question[] of law that we review de novo"), cert. denied, 119 S. Ct. 869 (1999).
The doctrine of qualified immunity protects public officials performing discretionary functions unless their conduct violates "'clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.'" Jantz v. Muci, 976 F.2d 623, 627 (10th Cir.1992) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)). In order for a law to be clearly established "'there must be a Supreme Court or other Tenth Circuit decision on point, or the clearly established weight of authority from other circuits must have found the law to be as the plaintiff maintains.'" Murrell v. School District No. 1, Denver, Colo., 186 (10th Cir. 1999) (quoting Medina v. City & County of Denver, 960 F.2d 1493, 1498 (10th Cir. 1992)). However, we have recently recognized that the concept of clearly established law should not be applied too literally. See id. (rejecting the argument that qualified immunity protected school employees from sexual harassment claims under § 1983 simply "because there has previously been no case holding an individual school employee liable for sexual harassment under the Fourteenth Amendment"). Thus, "[w]e have never said that there must be a case presenting the exact fact situation at hand in order to give parties notice of what constitutes actionable conduct." Id. Instead, we merely require the parties to make a reasonable application of existing law to their own circumstances. Id.
Here, the defendants argue that it was not until this circuit decided Whitney v. State of New Mexico, 113 F.3d 1170 (10th Cir. 1997), that it became clearly established that a public official could be held liable for violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by sexually harassing a nonemployee. In Whitney, the court reversed a grant of summary judgment to a public official who sexually harassed the plaintiff while deciding whether to grant her a daycare license. The court applied West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42 (1988), in which the Supreme Court observed that a person acts under color of state law if he "exercise[s] power 'possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state law.'" Id. at 1174 (quoting West, 487 U.S. at 49). The Whitney opinion also cited a Ninth Circuit case, Dang Vang v. Vang Xiong X. Toyed, 944 F.2d 476 (9th Cir. 1991), in which the court concluded that a state official could be liable for sexual harassment under § 1983 for assaulting two refugees who sought an appointment with him in his official capacity. The Whitney opinion summarized its conclusion as follows:
In Whitney, we relied primarily on a Supreme Court decision issued in 1988, West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42 (1988). There, in holding that a physician providing medical services to a prisoner acts under color of law, the Supreme Court relied on general principles regarding state officials' liability under § 1983. The Court observed that "[i]t is firmly established that a defendant acts under color of law when he abuses the position given to him by the State." Id. at. 49-50 (emphasis added). That general statement about public officials' abuse of their authority was itself based on well-established authority. Indeed, one treatise on § 1983 notes that there is only one case in which the Court has held to the contrary, i.e., "'that a person who is employed by the State and who is sued under § 1983 for abusing his position in the performance of his assigned tasks was not acting under color of law.'" 1 Martin A. Schwartz & John E. Kirklin, Section 1983 Litigation: Claims, Defenses, and Fees, § 5.5, at 253 (1991) (quoting West, 487 U.S. at 50 and referring to Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U.S. 312 (1981), a case involving a public defender sued by his client). Thus, in allowing a nonemployee to assert a § 1983 sexual harassment claim against a public official, Whitney applies established principles regarding the liability of public officials for abusing governmental authority.
In assessing this argument, we review the district court's grant of summary judgment to Mr. Garvin and Mr. Williamson de novo, applying the same standards as the district court under Fed. R. Civ. P. 56. See Applied Genetics Int'l, Inc. v. First Affiliated Secs., Inc., 912 F.2d 1238, 1241 (10th Cir.1990). Factual disputes must be resolved and inferences drawn in favor of the nonmoving parties. See id.
As the district court noted, the Tenth Circuit standard for supervisory liability under § 1983 is stated in Woodward v. City of Worland, 977 F.2d 1392 (10th Cir. 1992). There, we concluded, "[T]he proper articulation of the test for supervisory liability under section 1983 is that set forth in the Third Circuit in Andrews v. City of Philadelphia, 895 F.2d 1469 (3d Cir. 1990), where it was stated that supervisor liability requires "'allegations of personal direction or of actual knowledge and acquiescence.'" Woodward, 977 F.2d at 1400 (quoting Andrews, 895 F.2d at 1478). Under this standard, mere negligence is insufficient to establish supervisory liability. Id. at 1399. Moreover, "[m]erely characterizing the negligence as 'gross' does not change its essential character." Id. at 1399 n. 11. "Neither simple nor gross negligence implies an intentional and deliberative violation of constitutional rights, and consequently neither form of negligence satisfies the scienter requirement of § 1983." Id. On the other hand, "recklessness does include an element of deliberateness a conscious acceptance of a known serious risk. As such, recklessness is generally regarded as satisfying the scienter requirement of section 1983 because it requires proof that the defendant focused upon the risk of unconstitutional conduct and deliberately assumed or acquiesced in such risk." Id. (internal citations and quotations omitted).
The standard for supervisory liability set forth in Woodward has been applied to sexual harassment claims by many courts. In instances in which a plaintiff demonstrates that a supervisor had actual knowledge of the harassment but failed to take any remedial action (e.g., by investigating the allegations and taking disciplinary action against the harassing subordinate employee), courts have concluded that the supervisor may be held liable. For example, in Andrews, the Third Circuit decision cited in Woodward, the court concluded that two supervisors were properly held liable because they were aware of sexual harassment by subordinates and did "very little" and "nothing" to remedy it. Andrews, 895 F.2d at 1479; see also Robinson v. City of Pittsburgh, 120 F.3d 1286, 1294 (3d Cir. 1997) (citing Andrews and observing that "[w]here a supervisor with authority over a subordinate knows that the subordinate is violating someone's rights but fails to act to stop the subordinate from doing so, the factfinder may usually infer that the supervisor 'acquiesced' in (i.e., tacitly assented to or accepted) the subordinate's conduct.").
Similarly in Bator v. Hawaii, 39 F.3d 1021, 1029 (9th Cir. 1994), the court rejected a supervisor's argument that she was entitled to qualified immunity because she was not responsible for the alleged harassment. The Ninth Circuit observed that "[a] supervisor who has been apprised of unlawful harassment . . . should know that her failure to investigate and stop the harassment is itself unlawful." Id. The court acknowledged that in certain circumstances the contours of a supervisor's liability were uncertain. However, "[e]ven if the contours of a supervisor's responsibility are uncertain, complete inaction in the face of claimed harassment cannot be objectively reasonable conduct entitling a supervisor to qualified immunity." Id.. Recently, this court has expressed agreement with that principle. See Murrell, 186 F.3d at 1249-50 (concluding that the plaintiff stated a claim for supervisory liability for sexual harassment under § 1983 by alleging that the supervisors "knew about [the harassment] and acquiesced in that conduct by refusing to reasonably respond to it.").
Nevertheless, the uncontroverted facts in the record do not establish that this response was sufficient to defeat the claims for supervisory liability against Mr. Williamson. Although Mr. Williamson stated that he was not Mr. Martin's supervisor and argued that, as a result, his referral of the allegations against Martin to another employee was an appropriate response, the district court found that the "[p]laintiffs have created an issue of fact concerning the supervisory role that [Mr.] Williamson may have assumed in the discipline of employees through the testimony of others." App. of Garvin and Williamson, vol. III, at 1234. Mr. Williamson has not challenged this finding in this appeal.2 Moreover, Mr. Williamson has not explained how the responsibility for investigating sexual harassment allegations was allocated within the City government. Thus, we are unable to determine whether, on the one hand, Mr. Williamson's referral of the allegations to the head of Mr. Martin's department constituted an appropriate assignment to the official who was ultimately responsible for conducting an investigation and taking corrective action or whether, on the other hand, Mr. Williamson's referral and subsequent failure to take any additional action himself constituted an abdication of his responsibilities as the City's Personnel Director. Accordingly, viewing the record in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, there is evidence from which a trier of fact could conclude that Mr Williamson "knew about [the harassment] and acquiesced in that conduct by refusing to reasonably respond to it." See Murrell, 186. Mr. Williamson is therefore not entitled to qualified immunity on the plaintiffs' claims against him.