Opinion ID: 170616
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Heading: Adjudicating Policymaking Authority

Text: The judge, not the jury, should determine who exercises final policymaking authority in a municipality. This issue was settled by the Supreme Court's decision in Jett v. Dallas Indep. Sch. Dist., 491 U.S. 701, 736-38, 109 S.Ct. 2702, 105 L.Ed.2d 598 (1989). In Jett, the Supreme Court held that allowing a jury to decide whether a school's principal and superintendent could have been delegated final policymaking authority was manifest error. Id. at 736, 109 S.Ct. 2702. The Court explained that it was incorrect to give this issue to a jury because the identity of those final policymakers whose conduct can create municipal liability is `a question of state law. ' Id. at 737, 109 S.Ct. 2702 (quoting City of St. Louis v. Praprotnik, 485 U.S. 112, 123, 108 S.Ct. 915, 99 L.Ed.2d 107 (1988) (plurality opinion)). It thus concluded that the identification of those officials whose decisions represent the official policy of the local governmental unit is itself a legal question to be resolved by the trial judge before the case is submitted to the jury. Id. at 737, 109 S.Ct. 2702. Therefore, jury instructions regarding policymaking authority are inappropriate because the judge, not the jury, identifi[es] those officials whose wrongs can create municipal liability. Id. In adopting this standard, Jett expressly rejected as unworkable the view the plaintiffs now advance. During the previous term in City of St. Louis v. Praprotnik , the Court failed to produce a majority opinion explaining how final policymaking authority should be determined. Justice Brennan had argued in a concurring opinion that determinations of municipal liability should be based on the realities of municipal decisionmaking, which would entail a factual and practical inquiry into a municipality's actual power structure. 485 U.S. at 145, 108 S.Ct. 915 (Brennan, J., concurring in the judgment). The plurality, however, rejected Justice Brennan's view, explaining that it would be capricious. . . to hold a municipality responsible for every decision that is perceived as `final' through the lens of a particular factfinder's evaluation of the city's `actual power structure.' Id. at 124 n. 1, 108 S.Ct. 915. The plurality went on to say that a federal court would not be justified in assuming that municipal policymaking authority lies somewhere other than where the applicable law purports to put it. Id. at 126, 108 S.Ct. 915. In Jett, the Court explained that it had taken the case to clarify the application of our decisions in St. Louis v. Praprotnik and Pembaur v. Cincinnati to the school district's potential liability for the discriminatory actions of [a principal]. 491 U.S. at 710-11, 109 S.Ct. 2702 (internal citations omitted). A majority then adopted the plurality opinion in Praprotnik and squarely rejected the alternative of letting factfinders decide where final policymaking authority lies. Id. at 737-38, 109 S.Ct. 2702. This rule is true to the logic of Monell. Because municipalities are responsible only for their own misdeeds, municipal taxpayers are liable only for those official actions that represent the municipality in a legal sense. Monell, 436 U.S. at 694, 98 S.Ct. 2018. By ensuring that liability follows legal authority, Jett provides incentives for cities to give final authority only to responsible officials. Moreover, if municipal liability depended on the unpredictable results of a case-by-case analysis of the actual power structure of each municipality sued, cities might be forced to insure broadly against potential misconduct by every significant official. The Jett rule is more predictable and depends on a factor largely controlled by the citylaw. See Praprotnik, 485 U.S. at 124 n. 1, 108 S.Ct. 915 (Municipalities cannot be expected to predict how courts or juries will assess their `actual power structures,' and this uncertainty could easily lead to results that would be hard in practice to distinguish from the results of a regime governed by the doctrine of respondeat superior. ). Thus Jett ensures that cities are held liable only for their own choices about where to vest authority, as Monell requires, not forced to provide `mutual insurance' against unforeseeable usurpations of power, as Monell forbids. Monell, 436 U.S. at 694, 98 S.Ct. 2018 (quoting Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess. 792 (1871) (statement of Rep. Butler)). To be sure, as both Jett and Praprotnik acknowledged, this rule could in some cases allow a municipality to use legal forms to hide the function of its true policies. But the Supreme Court concluded that there is a different mechanism for guarding against this risk: allowing plaintiffs to hold a municipality liable not only for the actions of its legal policymakers but also for its unwritten customs and policies. As Praprotnik put it: whatever analysis is used to identify municipal policymakers, egregious attempts by local government to insulate themselves from liability for unconstitutional policies are precluded by a separate doctrine. . . . [T]he Court has long recognized that a plaintiff may be able to prove the existence of a widespread practice that, although not authorized by written law or express municipal policy, is `so permanent and well settled as to constitute a custom or usage with the force of law.' 485 U.S. at 127, 108 S.Ct. 915 (emphasis added) (quoting Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 68, 90 S.Ct. 1598, 26 L.Ed.2d 142 (1970)) (further internal quotation marks omitted). This doctrine is not at issue here. Our Circuit has repeatedly adhered to Jett 's holding. In Ware v. Unified School District No. 492, 902 F.2d 815 (10th Cir. 1990), decided the year after Jett, we held that, as a matter of law, a Kansas superintendent was not the final policymaker of the school district. Because of the Supreme Court's admonition that the identification of final decisionmakers must be done as a matter of law, we refused to consider evidence in the record that could be construed to support an inference that the board delegated its final authority. Id. at 819 n. 1. Similarly, in Jantz v. Muci, 976 F.2d 623 (10th Cir. 1992), we rejected a claim that a Kansas school principal, rather than the school board, had final policymaking authority over hiring decisions. We noted that while the district court found the principal to have virtual de facto hiring authority, the court did not discuss Kansas law, and we reversed its decision. Id. at 631. Despite the weight of this authority, the plaintiffs argue that this Circuit's decision in Randle v. City of Aurora, 69 F.3d 441 (10th Cir.1995), establishes that juries can sometimes determine who has final policymaking authority. In Randle, we held that a liquor licensing assistant fired by the City of Aurora might be able to hold the city liable for the allegedly discriminatory actions of the city's manager, finance director, and human resources director, because it was unclear whether those officials were the city's final policymakers. Id. at 444. In analyzing the issue, Randle confirmed that final policymaking authority is a legal issue to be determined by the court. Id. at 448 (internal quotation marks omitted). However, we refused to decide whether the city officials sued in that case had been delegated policymaking authority, because disputes of material fact . . . preclude[d] a grant of summary judgment for the City. Id. at 449. This disposition might seem to imply that issues of fact could be relevant to identifying officials with final policymaking authority. Thus, the plaintiffs argue, the identification of those officials whose decisions represent the official policy of the local governmental unit, Jett, 491 U.S. at 737, 109 S.Ct. 2702, may sometimes be resolved by the jury as a factual issue. In light of the governing precedent and the details of the case, we do not think that the reference to material fact in Randle should be read so expansively. Another reading is equally plausible and would be more consistent with Supreme Court precedent. After the Randle opinion referred to a dispute[ ] of material fact, 69 F.3d at 449, it went on to describe a dispute that was legal, not factual. The decision explained that Ms. Randle's claim survived summary judgment because provisions in the City of Aurora's charter and a city personnel policy appeared to grant the City Manager full authority over personnel policies . . . and . . . prevent the City Council from any involvement in employment decisions. Id. at 449. The Court then acknowledged that the manager's authority could in theory be restrained by city council regulations, but noted that no such regulations had been mentioned in the record or in the city's brief. Id. at 449-50. On the basis of these three documents alonethe charter, personnel policy, and the absence of any regulations the Court remanded the issue for further proceedings of an unspecified form. [3] The charter, policy, and regulations are all essentially legal documents. Our prior cases analyzing municipal liability under Jett and Praprotnik have treated city ordinances as law. See, e.g., Melton v. Oklahoma City, 879 F.2d 706, 724 (10th Cir. 1989). Indeed, we regularly read and apply city ordinances, not in the record, just as we do federal and state statutes. Id. (city ordinance); United States v. One (1) 1975 Thunderbird, 576 F.2d 834, 836 (10th Cir.1978) (state statutes); United States v. Van Buren, 513 F.2d 1327, 1328 (10th Cir. 1975) (federal statute); Jackson v. Denver Producing & Ref. Co., 96 F.2d 457, 460 (10th Cir.1938) (city ordinance). [4] Similarly, the Randle Court noted that the personnel policy had apparently been incorporated by the city charter. Randle, 69 F.3d at 449 (quoting Charter of City of Aurora, § 7-4(b)). Jett made clear that for purposes of municipal liability, municipal ordinances and regulations are not facts to be scrutinized by lay juries but rather legal documents whose contents should be applied by judges. Thus, when the Court in Randle turned to an analysis of the city charter, regulations, and official personnel policy, we do not think it intended to contradict its earlier statement that final policymaking authority is a legal issue to be determined by the court. 69 F.3d at 447 (internal quotation marks omitted). Instead, Randle recognized what the Supreme Court heldthat final policymaking authority must be determined by a judicial examination of state and local law, not turned over to the jury.