Opinion ID: 2810564
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Harris County Commissioners Court

Text: The decision-maker on non-renewal of the Contract was the Harris County Commissioners Court. That “court” is actually the principal governing body for a Texas county. TEX. CONST. ART. V, § 18(b). It is comprised of four commissioners elected from districts and a county judge elected countywide. Id. § 15, 18(b). The Commissioners Court may contract for law enforcement services. TEX. LOC. GOV’T. CODE § 351.061. It also approves the budget for the county and may make changes in a proposed budget as it finds warranted by the facts and law. Id. § 111.068. Neither party disputes that the 15 Case: 13-20569 Document: 00513087139 Page: 16 Date Filed: 06/22/2015 No. 13-20569 c/w 13-20751 Commissioners Court is a final policymaker for Harris County in the area of contracting and budgeting. If a final policymaker approves a subordinate’s recommendation and also the subordinate’s reasoning, that approval is considered a ratification chargeable to the municipality. World Wide St. Preachers Fellowship v. Town of Columbia, 591 F.3d 747, 755 (5th Cir. 2009) (citing City of St. Louis v. Praprotnik, 485 U.S. 112, 127 (1988)). This theory of ratification has been limited to “extreme factual situations.” Id. (citation and quotation marks omitted). On appeal, plaintiffs argue that their complaint supports that the Commissioners Court was responsible for retaliation based on its ratification of Lykos’s and Palmer’s recommendations or because it “rubber-stamped” the recommendations knowing of the motives behind them. Lykos and Palmer allegedly met privately with representatives from the Commissioners Court to discredit the plaintiffs, and recommended to the Commissioners Court that the Contract be awarded to DPS. In a public meeting of the Commissioners Court, one of the Commissioners stated he did not believe Harris County should work with someone who is adversarial to the DA’s Office. Three weeks after this meeting, the Commissioners Court approved a budget which provided for the Contract to be awarded to DPS. Under the theory of ratification, it is not enough that the Commissioners Court approved Palmer’s and Lykos’s recommendation. A plaintiff “must impute [the defendant’s] allegedly improper motives to the board by demonstrating that the board approved both [the defendant’s] decision and the basis for it.” Beattie v. Madison Cnty. Sch. Dist., 254 F.3d 595, 603 (5th Cir. 2001) (citing Praprotnik, 485 U.S. at 127). Beattie was a secretary whose annual contract was not renewed by the school board. Id. at 599. She alleged 16 Case: 13-20569 Document: 00513087139 Page: 17 Date Filed: 06/22/2015 No. 13-20569 c/w 13-20751 that the superintendent wanted her fired because Beattie had supported the superintendent’s opponent in the most recent election. Id. On summary judgment, the board members provided affidavits stating they were unaware of Beattie’s political activities and had made their decision based on complaints she was rude to teachers, parents, and students. Id. at 600. We held that Beattie had not shown causation. Id. at 605. There was no evidence the board was even aware of the superintendent’s retaliatory purposes. Id. We are at an earlier stage of the proceedings than were the parties in Beattie. This case was dismissed on the pleadings. The complaint alleges that there were meetings between Lykos, Palmer, and “representatives” of the Commissioners Court. The complaint refers to newspaper articles setting out the controversies about the BAT vans. The Commissioners, at a public meeting a few weeks before approving the new budget, heard from criminal defense counsel about the controversies, including that the proposal to drop the Lone Star Contract was in retaliation for Culbertson’s and Wong’s criticisms of HPD’s failure to address problems with the BAT vans. There is also an allegation that one Commissioner, at the meeting where defense counsel spoke, stated that he did not think the County should contract with those who took an adversarial position with the DA’s Office. A plausible claim has been stated that the Commissioners knew about the reasons for Lykos’s and Palmer’s recommendations, and it then ratified them, i.e., it approved the recommendation and the reasoning. Whether evidence developed through discovery or otherwise would support the allegations against the County is unknown. Unlike in Beattie, there are no affidavits from the decision-makers. Even if the Commissioners Court approved the individual defendants’ reasoning when it failed to renew the Lone Star Contract, which would support 17 Case: 13-20569 Document: 00513087139 Page: 18 Date Filed: 06/22/2015 No. 13-20569 c/w 13-20751 a finding of ratification, the injury to the plaintiffs was only an indirect result of that decision. Harris County argues that because it was Lone Star that terminated the plaintiffs’ employment, the necessary element of causation is not satisfied. The plaintiffs allege causation by claiming they had been hired by Lone Star to work on the Contract with the County, with the transfer of the Contract to DPS “resulting in the end of the[ir] employment” In Kinney, we rejected an argument that a boycott conducted by police officials of a college’s police-training program did not cause the termination of the plaintiffs because their employment was controlled by the college. 367 F.3d at 357-58. It was enough, we held, that “governmental power [was used] to exert economic pressure on the instructors' employer in order to achieve” the termination of the disfavored instructors; that pressure produced the favored result through indirect means. Id. at 358. We did state that relative attenuation between the governmental action and the adverse consequences suffered by plaintiffs bears on causation, in that it “may be easier for a government official to fire his own employee than to persuade a contractor to fire one of its employees[.]” Id. We conclude here that the separation between cause and effect is sufficiently narrow to satisfy the pleading standard for this suit. The plaintiffs have alleged enough to survive the motion to dismiss their claims against the County based on the termination of the Lone Star Contract. 4. Claims against Palmer and Lykos, official and individual capacities The plaintiffs have pending claims against former District Attorney Lykos in her official capacity and against former Assistant DA Palmer in her official and individual capacities. We start with the claim against former District Attorney Lykos in her official capacity. The plaintiffs argue that Harris County is liable under Section 18 Case: 13-20569 Document: 00513087139 Page: 19 Date Filed: 06/22/2015 No. 13-20569 c/w 13-20751 1983 due to the alleged retaliatory campaign Lykos waged against them. The district court in its opinion dismissing the case remarked that the district attorney was a state official. If the court meant she was not an official for which the County could be held responsible, it never explicitly so held. The County does explicitly argue that Lykos acted on behalf of the state, not the County, but cites no authority other than the district court. It matters whether the DA is an official of the County or the state. A lawsuit “against a state official in his or her official capacity is not a suit against the official but rather is a suit against the official's office.” Will v. Mich. Dep’t. of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 71 (1989) (citation omitted). An official-capacity lawsuit is “only another way of pleading an action against an entity of which an officer is an agent.” Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159, 165-66 (1985) (citation and quotation marks omitted). When sued in their official capacities, officials “are therefore representing their respective state agencies . . . .” McCarthy ex rel. Travis v. Hawkins, 381 F.3d 407, 414 (5th Cir. 2004). The division of government in which the official works is responsible for a judgment in an official-capacity lawsuit. The Supreme Court observed that in three of its prior Section 1983 opinions, “we have plainly implied that a judgment against a public servant ‘in his official capacity’ imposes liability on the entity that he represents provided, of course, the public entity received notice and an opportunity to respond. We now make that point explicit.” Brandon v. Holt, 469 U.S. 464, 471-72 (1985) (footnote omitted). As noted, we are directed to no authority to support that the DA should be considered a state official and not one for the County. The plaintiffs have cited an opinion of this court that held a county potentially responsible for the conduct of the district attorney for the county. See Turner v. Upton Cnty., 915 F.2d 133, 138 (5th Cir. 1990). The district covered by that prosecutor included 19 Case: 13-20569 Document: 00513087139 Page: 20 Date Filed: 06/22/2015 No. 13-20569 c/w 13-20751 more than one county, but we still held the defendant county potentially liable. Id. at 137-38. The issue of whether the district attorney was a county or state official was not discussed and may not have been raised. Still, Turner is authority for the proposition that a county can be responsible under Section 1983 for the actions of its district attorney. We will follow Turner. The County can be responsible for actions of a final policymaker who has “the responsibility for making law or setting policy in any given area of a local government’s business.” Praprotnik, 485 U.S. at 125. Exercising discretion in an area of governmental action is not enough. The official must be the one responsible for setting controlling policy: The fact that a particular official – even a policymaking official – has discretion in the exercise of particular functions does not, without more, give rise to municipal liability based on an exercise of that discretion. The official must also be responsible for establishing final government policy respecting such activity before the municipality can be held liable. Pembaur v. City of Cincinnati, 475 U.S. 469, 481-83 (1986) (citation and footnote omitted). The Court went on to say that “municipal liability under § 1983 attaches where – and only where – a deliberate choice to follow a course of action is made from among various alternatives by the official or officials responsible for establishing final policy with respect to the subject matter in question.” Id. at 483-84 (citation omitted). Thus, a single decision by a policymaker to follow a course of action can be considered municipal policy. The question of “‘[w]hether a particular official has final policymaking authority is a question of state law.’” Rivera v. Houston Indep. Sch. Dist., 349 F.3d 244, 247 (5th Cir. 2003) (emphasis in original) (quoting Jett v. Dallas Indep. Sch. Dist., 491 U.S. 701, 737 (1989)). The plaintiffs argue that Lykos’s retaliatory actions “relate to her administrative and managerial duties” and 20 Case: 13-20569 Document: 00513087139 Page: 21 Date Filed: 06/22/2015 No. 13-20569 c/w 13-20751 thus “implicate her role as a final policymaker.” In the complaint, the policy is described as one “of retaliation for the exercise of lawful rights.” It should go without saying that no state statute or County directive in any form has given district attorneys authority to retaliate against individuals for exercising their First Amendment rights. Still, we have held that improper conduct by a policymaker can be a policy. In a Section 1983 action, the plaintiff sued a county for the alleged conspiracy of the sheriff and district attorney to subject her to a “sham” trial. Turner, 915 F.2d at 134. We held that the “[t]he sheriff’s and the district attorney’s alleged participation in the conspiracy, if proven, will suffice to impose liability on the county.” Id. at 137. In doing so, we held that the sheriff was a final policymaker for the county in the area of “preserving the peace in his jurisdiction and arresting all offenders.” Id. at 136. We did not hold that the district attorney was a final policymaker for any relevant function but held he was a possible co-conspirator for which the county might be liable. Id. In this case, a possible area of policy-making responsibility for a district attorney is to determine what witnesses to use in prosecutions. Arguably, then, Lykos was a final policymaker for purposes of a retaliation campaign to keep public employee or contractor witnesses who testified in an unsatisfactory way from being used in the future. The complaint alleges that the DA’s Office decided no longer to use either plaintiff as witnesses. That possible injury – no longer being able to testify – is not the injury we have held is relevant here. Instead, it was the County’s failure to renew the Lone Star Contract and the plaintiffs’ consequent loss of their employment. Lykos quite clearly was not the final policymaker on that decision. If she were, no campaign would have been necessary to convince the Commissioners Court of anything. 21 Case: 13-20569 Document: 00513087139 Page: 22 Date Filed: 06/22/2015 No. 13-20569 c/w 13-20751 The plaintiffs have not stated a claim against Harris County based on Lykos’s actions in her official capacity, as they have not alleged sufficient facts to show Lykos is a final policymaker as to the policy at issue. The other individual defendant, Palmer, is subject to claims in her official and individual capacities. The plaintiffs allege Harris County is liable for Palmer’s actions because Lykos “delegated her policymaking authority to Palmer . . . .” Because we have held that Lykos was not a final policymaker, there was no final authority to delegate to Palmer. To the extent the plaintiffs allege that Palmer herself had undelegated final policymaking authority, we find no legal support for that contention. The plaintiffs also allege that Harris County is liable pursuant to the “DA’s failure to adequately train and supervise assistant district attorneys so as to prevent . . . unlawful retaliatory conduct . . . .” In order to succeed on a failure to train and supervise claim, the plaintiff must plead facts sufficient to show the municipality was “deliberately indifferent” to the obvious need for training and supervision. Peterson v. City of Fort Worth, 588 F.3d 838, 849-50 (5th Cir. 2009). It must be “obvious” to the municipality that the alleged unconstitutional conduct was the “highly predictable consequence” of not training or supervising its municipal actors. Id. The plaintiffs have alleged no facts as to the lack of a training program, nor are there sufficient allegations to support a contention that it was obvious to Harris County that the lack of training or supervision would result in the retaliation by prosecutors or others against other public employees or governmental contractors. There would also need to be allegations that the alleged retaliatory conduct occurred with such frequency that Harris County was put on notice that training or supervision was needed. See id. at 849-50. No such allegations have been made. 22 Case: 13-20569 Document: 00513087139 Page: 23 Date Filed: 06/22/2015 No. 13-20569 c/w 13-20751 Finally, we address the claims against Palmer in her individual capacity. In Beattie, a similar issue was discussed. After this court held that the school board was not liable, we then considered as a separate issue the individual liability of principal Acton and school superintendent Jones who allegedly retaliated against Beattie by recommending her termination. 254 F.3d at 60405. We noted that the principal and superintendent could not directly cause the adverse decision but only recommend it to the school board. Id. at 605. We then stated: “If Acton and Jones did not cause the adverse employment action, they cannot be liable under § 1983, no matter how unconstitutional their motives.” Id. In context, the court might have been stating that Acton and Jones could be liable if their retaliation for Beattie’s exercising her First Amendment rights led to her termination. That is not what happened. The individual defendants’ potentially retaliatory motives had been displaced by other motives: “Because the board fired Beattie for permissible, constitutional motives independently of Acton's and Jones's recommendation, that superseding cause shields them from liability.” Id. We then continued our analysis after finding Acton and Jones had not “caused” the adverse action. Id. Beattie argued the connection between the recommendation and the board’s action was proven by temporal proximity, but we held that was not enough. Id. Our conclusion as to the individual liability of the two officials was that because the ultimate decision was made by the board “independently of these unproven unconstitutional aims, summary judgment was proper.” Id. We did not necessarily hold that there was no individual liability simply because the board made the decision. A decision that predates Beattie required only that a plaintiff show “an affirmative causal link” between a school principal’s recommendation to reassign an athletic director and the school district’s decision to do so. Jett v. 23 Case: 13-20569 Document: 00513087139 Page: 24 Date Filed: 06/22/2015 No. 13-20569 c/w 13-20751 Dallas Indep. Sch. Dist., 798 F.2d 748, 758 (5th Cir. 1986), aff’d in part, remanded in part on other grounds, 491 U.S. 701 (1989). In Jett, it did not matter that the individual defendant had no authority to make the actual transfer decision. Some later decisions, though, have interpreted Beattie to hold that “only final decision-makers may be held liable for First Amendment retaliation under § 1983.” Johnson v. Louisiana, 369 F.3d 826, 831 (5th Cir. 2004) (citation omitted); see also Whiting v. Univ. of S. Miss., 451 F.3d 339, 350-51 (5th Cir. 2006) (analyzing Beattie and holding defendant not liable for First Amendment violation where he was not the final decision-maker). There is some tension in these precedents. It can at least be said that before Palmer could be individually liable despite not being the final decisionmaker, it must be shown that her recommendation was made in retaliation for constitutionally protected speech and was the reason the adverse employment decision was made by the final decision-maker. A “superseding cause” would shield Palmer from liability. Beattie, 254 F.3d at 605. Discovery may provide evidence of the Commissioner’s motivations. If so, then how, if at all, Palmer’s actions impacted the decision might be better understood. The plaintiffs also rely on Palmer’s other retaliatory actions, such as discrediting them as technical supervisors, harming their reputations, threatening their licensing as technical supervisors and investigating Culbertson for perjury. Harm to reputations sounds in defamation. The plaintiffs have presented little in their briefing to assist us in understanding these claims as brought under the First Amendment. The claims here are similar to those in one of our precedents where we held that false accusations and investigations that do not lead to arrest or indictment are not actionable under the First Amendment. Colson v. Grohman, 174 F.3d 498, 511-12 (5th Cir. 1999). Statements by a public official that place a stigma on an 24 Case: 13-20569 Document: 00513087139 Page: 25 Date Filed: 06/22/2015 No. 13-20569 c/w 13-20751 individual’s reputation are not actionable without more. Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693, 710-11 (1976). This court has interpreted Paul to require a showing – an allegation at this stage – of the stigmatizing public statements and “an infringement of some other interest.” Breaux v. City of Garland, 205 F.3d 150, 158 n.14 (5th Cir. 2000) (citations and quotation marks omitted). The plaintiffs’ briefs on appeal do not explore the constitutional dimensions of this claim with any degree of clarity, and do not cite Paul, Breaux, or related caselaw. Instead, their arguments on these other events are primarily discussed as state-law tortious interference claims. That is where we will place our analysis of them later in the opinion. The First Amendment claims based on asserted injuries other than the decision by the Commissioners Court not to renew the Contract with Lone Star were properly dismissed. As of this point in our analysis, then, the plaintiffs’ claims against Palmer based on some of the statements they made after they had left employment at HPD and Wong’s statement just before leaving, have satisfied the test for retaliation by the government based on public-employee speech. An open question on remand is whether Culbertson’s testimony made as a former employee is relevant in the analysis. We next turn to immunity. C. Palmer’s prosecutorial or qualified immunity In the district court, Palmer raised the defenses of absolute prosecutorial immunity and qualified immunity. Though these arguments were briefed in the district court, the court did not rule on them in light of the dismissal of the claims on other grounds. On appeal, the arguments have again been briefed. We may consider arguments not ruled upon by the district court so long as they were raised below. See Gilbert v. Donahoe, 751 F.3d 303, 311 (5th Cir. 2014). Prosecutors enjoy absolute immunity from suit for performing actions associated with the judicial process. Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 427, 25 Case: 13-20569 Document: 00513087139 Page: 26 Date Filed: 06/22/2015 No. 13-20569 c/w 13-20751 430 (1976). This immunity arises from the public interest in shielding prosecutors from liability so they may exercise independent judgment when deciding which suits to bring and how to present them in court. See Kalina v. Fletcher, 522 U.S. 118, 125 (1997). Actions that are performed by the prosecutor merely in an investigatory capacity, however, similar to the actions of other law enforcement officers, are only entitled to qualified immunity. Id. Palmer’s actions here are not the most obvious fit for absolute prosecutorial immunity. We see no reason to resolve the issue, though, because we agree with Palmer’s alternative arguments about qualified immunity. Qualified-immunity analysis requires that we “determine whether the plaintiff has suffered a violation of his constitutional rights and, if so, whether a reasonable official should have known that he was violating the plaintiff's constitutional rights.” Murray v. Earle, 405 F.3d 278, 285 (5th Cir. 2005) (citation omitted). We have held there is enough in the complaint to support the claim that Palmer’s actions violated the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights to survive a motion to dismiss. Even if that is so, Palmer argues she is entitled to qualified immunity because, in light of Beattie, the law was not clearly established that a mere recommendation of termination to a higher authority who makes the final decision causes an adverse employment action. We have already noted ambiguity as to the liability of a person for recommending an adverse employment decision. “The doctrine of qualified immunity protects government officials from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Stanton v. Sims, 134 S. Ct. 3, 4-5 (2013) (citation and quotation marks omitted). It was unsettled at the time of Palmer’s actions, and remains so now, whether someone who is not a final decision-maker and makes a recommendation that leads to the plaintiff 26 Case: 13-20569 Document: 00513087139 Page: 27 Date Filed: 06/22/2015 No. 13-20569 c/w 13-20751 being harmed can be liable for retaliation under Section 1983. Cf. Beattie, 254 F.3d at 595, 604-05; Jett, 798 F.2d at 758; Johnson, 369 F.3d at 831. In fact, some clear statements in the caselaw have held there can be no liability. E.g., Whiting, 451 F.3d at 351. We conclude the claims against Palmer should be dismissed based on qualified immunity. D. Pleading of municipal liability In addition to the claim against Harris County based on the decision by the Commissioners Court to cancel the Lone Star Contract, Culbertson and Wong also argue that the County is liable for retaliation because of a de facto policy or custom of retaliation for the exercise of First Amendment rights. For municipal liability to arise under Section 1983 from actions by officials that caused a deprivation of the constitutional rights of others, there must be shown “a policymaker; an official policy; and a violation of constitutional rights whose ‘moving force’ is the policy or custom.” Piotrowski v. City of Houston, 237 F.3d 567, 578 (5th Cir. 2001) (quoting Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 694 (1978)). A municipality’s liability is “based on causation rather than respondeat superior.” Bolton v. City of Dallas, Tex., 541 F.3d 545, 548 (5th Cir. 2008) (citing Monell, 436 U.S. at 692). “Consequently, the unconstitutional conduct must be directly attributable to the municipality through some sort of official action or imprimatur; isolated unconstitutional actions by municipal employees will almost never trigger liability.” Piotrowski, 237 F.3d at 578 (citations and footnotes omitted). We have already held that the district attorney was not a final policymaker for the claimed policy here. A policy, though, may be officially promulgated by the governing body, by an official to which policy-making 27 Case: 13-20569 Document: 00513087139 Page: 28 Date Filed: 06/22/2015 No. 13-20569 c/w 13-20751 authority has been properly delegated, or by officials or employees of the municipality through a “persistent, widespread practice” that is “so common and well settled as to constitute a custom that fairly represents municipal policy.” Webster v. City of Houston, 735 F.2d 838, 841 (5th Cir. 1984). The claimed de facto policy of retaliation, plaintiffs allege, can be inferred from the number of individuals in the DA’s Office who participated in the campaign against them and the “very public nature” of the campaign. The plaintiffs also alleged in the complaint that during the grand jury investigation into the BAT vans, Lykos investigated members of the grand jury and of the prosecutors who conducted the grand jury investigation. Such an act is said also to reflect a policy of retribution. The plaintiffs’ complaint falls short of alleging that Harris County had a “persistent, widespread practice” of retaliation for the exercise of First Amendment rights. In one of our precedents, the plaintiff brought a Section 1983 action against a city alleging officers used excessive force when arresting him. Peterson, 588 F.3d at 842. Because there was no written policy in place, the plaintiff argued there was a widespread practice of excessive force that established a de facto policy of the city. Id. at 850. The plaintiff claimed there were 27 prior incidents of excessive force over the course of three years. Id. We noted that the legal question presented was “whether the 27 complaints on which Peterson relies are sufficient to establish a pattern of excessive force that can be said to represent official policy.” Id. We held the prior incidents insufficient. Id. at 851. In doing so, we noted that a pattern requires “sufficiently numerous prior incidents as opposed to isolated instances.” Id. (citation and quotation marks omitted). Here, the plaintiffs allege there was a retaliatory campaign against them and a retaliatory investigation against the grand jury and its prosecutors, all 28 Case: 13-20569 Document: 00513087139 Page: 29 Date Filed: 06/22/2015 No. 13-20569 c/w 13-20751 arising from the same predicate events. The retaliatory campaign against them was publicly known, but they offered no evidence that similar retaliation had victimized others. There was, in other words, no allegation of a “widespread practice” of retaliation that is “so common and well settled” as to constitute the policy of Harris County. See Webster, 735 F.2d at 853. The allegations in this case are limited to the events surrounding the plaintiffs. That is not an allegation of a de facto policy of retaliation by the County. Harris County’s potential liability rests solely on the actions of the Commissioners Court in cancelling the Lone Star Contract.