Opinion ID: 3065949
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Martorello

Text: The allegations portray Martorello as the University official responsible for enforcing the unwritten newsbin policy. Thus, the question on which plaintiffs’ due process claim against Martorello turns is not whether knowledge and acquiescence, deliberate indifference, or some lesser mental state meets the state of mind requirement for the claim, but rather whether an official’s administration and oversight of an unconstitutional policy meets the required threshold. The Tenth Circuit confronted this question in Dodds, where the issue was whether the complaint stated a § 1983 claim against a Sheriff for a due process violation that occurred when jail officials denied the plaintiff the opportunity to post bail for several days after his arrest. 614 F.3d at 1189-90. The violation occurred pursuant Unlike equal protection claims for racial or religious discrimination, speech-based equal protection claims do not require a showing that the plaintiff was singled out because of a particular characteristic. Rather, speech-based equal protection claims require only a showing that the plaintiff was subjected to differential treatment that trenched upon a fundamental right. See ACLU of Nev., 466 F.3d at 797-98. Therefore, plaintiffs’ equal protection claims do not require specific intent. OSU STUDENT ALLIANCE v. RAY 12795 to a county policy that prevented detainees charged with felonies from posting bail before arraignment, even if bail had been pre-set in the arrest warrant. Id. at 1190. The Sheriff was in charge of the jail and therefore oversaw enforcement of the policy, although there was no allegation that he was involved in or aware of the policy’s application against the plaintiff in particular. Id. at 1202-03. The court held that the complaint stated a claim: Whatever else can be said about Iqbal, and certainly much can be said, we conclude the following basis of § 1983 liability survived it and ultimately resolves this case: § 1983 allows a plaintiff to impose liability upon a defendant-supervisor who creates, promulgates, implements, or in some other way possesses responsibility for the continued operation of a policy the enforcement (by the defendant-supervisor or her subordinates) of which “subjects, or causes to be subjected” that plaintiff “to the deprivation of any rights . . . secured by the Constitution . . . .” Id. at 1199 (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 1983). Because the Sheriff maintained the policy at the jail, and because the unconstitutional denial of the opportunity for the plaintiff to post bail followed directly from the policy, the Sheriff was held liable. Id. at 1203-04. [21] We agree with Dodds. When a supervisory official advances or manages a policy that instructs its adherents to violate constitutional rights, then the official specifically intends for such violations to occur. Claims against such supervisory officials, therefore, do not fail on the state of mind requirement, be it intent, knowledge, or deliberate indifference. Iqbal itself supports this holding. There, the Court rejected the invidious discrimination claims against Ashcroft and Mueller because the complaint failed to show that those defendants advanced a policy of purposeful discrimination (as opposed to a policy geared simply toward detaining individu12796 OSU STUDENT ALLIANCE v. RAY als with a “suspected link to the [terrorist] attacks”), not because it found that the complaint had to allege that the supervisors intended to discriminate against Iqbal in particular. 129 S. Ct. at 1952 (concluding that Javaid Iqbal failed to allege that the supervisory defendants created a policy that directed subordinates to discriminate by race or religion). Advancing a policy that requires subordinates to commit constitutional violations is always enough for § 1983 liability, no matter what the required mental state, so long as the policy proximately causes the harm — that is, so long as the plaintiff’s constitutional injury in fact occurs pursuant to the policy. Under these principles, the complaint states a due process claim against Martorello if it plausibly alleges that: (1) “he promulgate[d], implement[ed], or in some other way possesse[d] responsibility for the continued operation of” the newsbin policy; and (2) the due process violation (i.e., the confiscation of the newsbins without notice) occurred pursuant to that policy. [22] The complaint does not allege that Martorello devised the newsbin policy; plaintiffs have no way of knowing, without discovery, who at OSU devised the unwritten policy. But the complaint does create a plausible inference that Martorello was “responsib[le] for the continued operation of” the newsbin policy. Dodds, 614 F.3d at 1199. It describes his job responsibilities as “overseeing campus administration related to Facilities and creating, implementing, and/or administering university policies, including the policies and procedures challenged herein.” Of course, the complaint also alleges that the other three defendants were responsible for the “policies and procedures” challenged in this action — viz., the newsbin policy. But the allegation that Martorello bore responsibility for the operation of the policy is plausible — not conclusory — in light of other allegations in the complaint. Martorello was head of the Facilities Department. The unwritten newsbin policy governed use of OSU facilities and fell to the Facilities OSU STUDENT ALLIANCE v. RAY 12797 Department for enforcement. The inference that Martorello oversaw enforcement of the policy flows naturally from these facts. Moreover, the allegations about the aftermath of the confiscation make plain that Martorello was the policy’s steward. When plaintiffs complained about the unequal treatment the Liberty received vis-a-vis the Barometer, University officials tapped Martorello to handle the issue. It was Martorello who analyzed plaintiffs’ petition for recognition as an “oncampus” publication under the policy, and it was Martorello who ultimately denied that petition. The complaint need not allege more plausibly to allege that Martorello bore responsibility for administration of the newsbin policy. [23] As for proximate causation, the complaint pleads forthrightly that the unknown Facilities Department employees confiscated the newsbins pursuant to the policy that Martorello administered. According to the allegations, the Department’s customer service manager told plaintiffs that the confiscation occurred because the Department “was finally ‘catching up’ with the policy.” Similarly, when Martorello contacted plaintiffs after the confiscation, he “related the existence of the policy” and explained that “the University was trying to keep the campus clean and was therefore regulating ‘off-campus’ newspaper bins.” Thus, because it alleges that Martorello was in charge of the newsbin policy and that the confiscation without notice was conducted pursuant to that policy, the complaint pleads a due process claim against Martorello. We note two distinctions from the invidious discrimination claims that Iqbal rejected. First, Javaid Iqbal’s complaint did not “contain facts plausibly showing that [Ashcroft and Mueller] purposefully adopted a policy of classifying postSeptember-11 detainees as ‘of high interest’ because of their race, religion, or national origin.” 129 S. Ct. at 1952. Simply put, the complaint did not tie the alleged unconstitutional conduct — purposeful discrimination by race or religion — to any policy that the supervisory defendants advanced. This 12798 OSU STUDENT ALLIANCE v. RAY case is different. Through concrete allegations, the complaint ties the unconstitutional confiscation of the newsbins to the policy that Martorello administered. Second, the small scope of Martorello’s operation matters. It is one thing to allege that, because some low-level government officers engaged in purposeful discrimination, a cabinetlevel official must also have engaged in purposeful discrimination. But it is another thing to say that the director of a university facilities department had a hand in the unconstitutional manner in which his employees enforced a department-wide policy. The second claim is plausible. Like all claims at the pleading stage, of course, it requires development. For example, the complaint does not really clarify whether the policy (or Martorello’s administration of the policy) directed employees to confiscate the newsbins without notice, or whether the employees improvised the failure to notify. To ask plaintiffs to clarify this point at the pleading stage, however, asks too much. They have not yet had discovery on what the unwritten policy required or on how Martorello told his employees to enforce it. To be sure, when a plaintiff presses an implausible claim, lack of access to evidence does not save the complaint. See Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1950 (“Rule 8 . . . does not unlock the doors of discovery for a plaintiff armed with nothing more than conclusions.”). But where the claim is plausible — meaning something more than “a sheer possibility,” but less than a probability — the plaintiff’s failure to prove the case on the pleadings does not warrant dismissal. Id. at 1949 (“The plausibility standard is not akin to a probability requirement, but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.”) (internal quotation marks omitted). Discovery will reveal whether Martorello’s stewardship of the policy in fact called for confiscation without notice. All that matters at this stage is that the allegations nudge this inference “across the line from conceivable to plausible.” Id. at 1951 (internal quotations omitted). Martorello was responsible for OSU STUDENT ALLIANCE v. RAY 12799 the policy, Martorello’s subordinates confiscated the bins without notice, and two people — including Martorello himself — said the subordinates had acted pursuant to the policy. That is enough to get discovery. See Starr, 652 F.3d at 1216 (holding that allegations must be sufficiently plausible “such that it is not unfair to require the opposing party to be subjected to the expense of discovery and continued litigation”); Pinnacle Armor, 648 F.3d at 721 (“[A plaintiff] is not required to ‘demonstrate’ anything in order to survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. Rather, it only needs to allege sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a [plausible] claim to relief . . . .”) (some internal quotation marks omitted).