Opinion ID: 74310
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Intracorporate Conspiracy Doctrine

Text: Because we find that Dickerson’s § 1985(3) claim is not preempted, we turn next to the question of whether the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine applies and precludes Dickerson’s § 1985(3) conspiracy claim in this case. Under the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine, a corporation’s employees, acting as agents of the corporation, are deemed incapable of conspiring among themselves or with the corporation. This doctrine stems from basic agency principles that “attribute the acts of agents of a corporation to the corporation, so that all of their acts are considered to be those of a single legal actor.” Dussouy v. Gulf Coast Inv. Corp., 660 F.2d 594, 603 (5th Cir. Nov. 1981); see also United States v. Hartley, 678 F.2d 11 961, 970 (11th Cir. 1982).5 The reasoning behind the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine is that it is not possible for a single legal entity consisting of the corporation and its agents to conspire with itself, just as it is not possible for an individual person to conspire with himself. See Dussouy, 660 F.2d at 603 (explaining that “the multiplicity of actors necessary to conspiracy” is negated when the agents’ acts are attributed to the corporation and the corporation and its agents are viewed as a single legal actor); Nelson Radio & Supply Co., Inc. v. Motorola, Inc., 200 F.2d 911, 914 (5th Cir. 1952) (stating that “[a] corporation cannot conspire with itself any more than a private individual can”).6 This doctrine has been applied not only to private corporations but also to public, government entities. See Chambliss v. Foote, 562 F.2d 1015 (5th Cir. 1977), aff’g, 421 F. Supp. 12, 15 (E.D. La. 1976) (applying the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine to bar a § 1985(3) claim against a public university and its officials); see also Wright v. Illinois Dept. of Children & Family Servs., 40 F.3d 1492, 1508 (7th Cir. 1994) (holding that intracorporate conspiracy doctrine applies not just to private entities but also to government agencies such as the Department of Children and Family 5 These principles serve the policies both of allowing the corporation to act through its agents and of holding the corporation financially responsible for such actions. See Hartley, 678 F.2d at 970; Dussouy, 660 F.2d at 603. 6 This Court adopted as binding precedent all Fifth Circuit decisions prior to October 1, 1981. See Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc). 12 Services); Runs After v. United States, 766 F.2d 347, 354 (8th Cir. 1985) (“The Tribal Council as an entity or governmental body cannot conspire with itself.”). Against this background, we now examine Dickerson’s claim. In order to establish a § 1985(3) conspiracy claim, Dickerson must show an agreement between “two or more persons” to deprive him of his civil rights. 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3). On appeal, Dickerson’s brief claims that he has alleged and proven a conspiracy between County employees, including King and Krider, and DOC employees, including Schenck. In his third amended complaint, however, Dickerson did not allege that any DOC employee was involved in the conspiracy, and that complaint has not been either expressly or impliedly amended to include such an allegation.7 As a result, we view the alleged civil conspiracy as involving solely County and not DOC employees. If, under the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine, the County and its employees are considered a single legal entity, then that single legal entity would not be capable of conspiring with itself. In that 7 Although Dickerson’s fourth amended complaint did allege a conspiracy involving both County and DOC employees, we find that the district court did not abuse its discretion in not allowing Dickerson to file that complaint. Dickerson’s original complaint was filed June 6, 1996, but he did not seek leave to file his fourth amended complaint until February 24, 1998, which was one week before the pre-trial conference. The court did not err in finding that Dickerson had offered no satisfactory reason for his failure to request these amendments earlier. Indeed, we agree with the district court’s determination that allowing these amendments would have resulted in undue delay and prejudice to the County. Thus, our opinion does not address the allegations in Dickerson’s fourth amended complaint. 13 event, Dickerson would not be able to establish that a civil conspiracy existed. We find that Dickerson’s § 1985(3) claim is controlled by Chambliss v. Foote, 562 F.2d 1015 (5th Cir. 1977), aff’g, 421 F. Supp. 12, 15 (E.D. La. 1976).8 In Chambliss, the plaintiff, a non-tenured teacher, brought a number of claims after the non-renewal of her employment contract, including a § 1985(3) claim alleging that the University of New Orleans and its officials conspired to interfere with her civil rights. Regarding the § 1985(3) claim, the district court held that “the university and its officials are considered as constituting a single legal entity which cannot conspire with itself.” Chambliss, 421 F. Supp. at 15. In other words, the court applied the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine to shield the public university from § 1985(3) liability in a civil conspiracy claim. This circuit’s predecessor affirmed on the basis of the district court’s opinion. Chambliss, 562 F.2d at 1015. 8 This Court is bound by earlier panel holdings, such as that in Chambliss, unless and until those holdings are overruled en banc or by the Supreme Court. See United States v. Smith, 122 F.3d 1355, 1359 (11th Cir. 1997); Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc) (adopting all Fifth Circuit decisions prior to October 1, 1981, as binding precedent). We recognize that this Court addressed the issue of whether the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine applies in civil rights actions in McAndrew v. Lockheed Martin Corp., 177 F.3d 1310 (11th Cir. 1999), but that decision has been vacated, 183 F.3d 1290 (11th Cir. 1999), and the appeal reheard en banc. The plaintiff in McAndrew makes solely a § 1985(2) claim that officers of a private corporation conspired to violate his civil rights by attempting to influence and intimidate him from testifying before a federal grand jury and then completing the object of the conspiracy by retaliating against him after he testified. Thus, McAndrew involves an obstruction of justice claim under § 1985(2) based on interference with federal grand jury proceedings in a criminal investigation and does not involve a § 1985(3) claim for deprivation of an individual’s civil rights. Consequently, McAndrew will not answer the precise issue in this case. 14 This case, like Chambliss, involves a § 1985(3) claim against actors who are part of a single, public entity and who allegedly conspired to interfere with civil rights. Also like Chambliss, this case does not involve even a single conspirator from outside that public entity and does not involve any criminal conduct. Thus, under Chambliss, the County jail and its employees are considered to constitute a single legal entity that cannot conspire with itself. See Chambliss, 421 F. Supp. at 15. Eight other circuits also have applied the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine to bar § 1985(3) claims against defendants for interference with civil rights and held that agents acting on behalf of a single legal entity normally cannot conspire with themselves or with the entity. See Benningfield v. City of Houston, 157 F.3d 369, 378 (5th Cir. 1998), cert. denied, 119 S. Ct. 1457 (1999); Hartman v. Board of Trustees, 4 F.3d 465, 469-71 (7th Cir. 1993); Hull v. Cuyahoga Valley Joint Vocational Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ., 926 F.2d 505, 509-10 (6th Cir. 1991); Robison v. Canterbury Village, Inc., 848 F.2d 424, 430-31 (3d Cir. 1988); Buschi v. Kirven, 775 F.2d 1240, 1252 (4th Cir. 1985); Cross v. General Motors Corp., 721 F.2d 1152, 1156 (8th Cir. 1983); Rice v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, 663 F.2d 336, 338 (1st Cir. 1981); Girard v. 94th Street & Fifth Avenue Corp., 530 15 F.2d 66, 70-72 (2d Cir. 1976).9 9 Although the argument is made that the First, Third, and Tenth Circuits have rejected the doctrine in civil rights cases, there is a significant counter-argument about the state of the law in those circuits. The First and Third Circuits have applied the doctrine to foreclose § 1985(3) claims. See Robison v. Canterbury Village, Inc., 848 F.2d 424, 430-31 (3d Cir. 1988); Rice v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, 663 F.2d 336, 338 (1st Cir. 1981). Although the First and Third Circuits have questioned or have limited the application of the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine in the § 1985(3) context to a greater extent than other circuits have, these circuits have not overruled the Robison and Rice decisions directly applying the doctrine but have continued to acknowledge the doctrine. See Stathos v. Bowden, 728 F.2d 15, 20-21 (1st Cir. 1984), and Novotny v. Great Am. Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass’n, 584 F.2d 1235, 1256-59 (3d Cir. 1978), vacated on other grounds, 442 U.S. 366 (1979). For example, in Stathos, the First Circuit stated generally that in the context of § 1985(3) claims, “we do not see why [the boundaries of the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine] should extend—if at all—beyond the ministerial acts of several executives needed to carry out a single discretionary decision.” 728 F.2d at 21. The plaintiff female employees alleged that the defendants had violated § 1985(3) by conspiring to pay the plaintiffs less than their male counterparts. See id. at 17-18. The alleged conspiracy spanned more than three years. See id. The First Circuit ultimately concluded that the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine did not apply to preclude the plaintiffs’ § 1985(3) conspiracy claims because the defendants’ conduct “involved a series of acts over time going well beyond simple ratification of a managerial decision by directors. It consisted of joint discretionary activity—with many words and deeds—engaged in by each of the Commissioners.” Id. at 21. In other words, the defendants’ activities “went beyond ‘a single act’ of discrimination.” Id. at 20 (quoting from the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine in Dombrowski v. Dowling, 459 F.2d 190, 196 (7th Cir. 1972) (“[I]f the challenged conduct is essentially a single act of discrimination by a single business entity, the fact that two or more agents participated in the decision or in the act itself will normally not constitute the conspiracy contemplated by [§ 1985(3)].”)). Similarly, in Novotny, the Third Circuit noted that the case before it involved more than “a single act of discrimination by a single business entity.” 584 F.2d at 1259 n.125. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant corporate officers and directors had conspired over the course of eight years to deprive female employees of equal employment opportunity. See id. at 1237-38, 1259 n.125. The Third Circuit held that the concerted action among corporate officers and directors of a corporation could constitute a conspiracy under § 1985(3). Id. at 1259. However, because the plaintiff did not allege that the corporation had participated in the conspiracy with the officers and directors, see id. at 1257, the Third Circuit observed that the case did not present an “occasion to evaluate the force of the proposition that a corporation cannot conspire with itself.” Id. at 1258. Our holding here addresses a discrete act of discrimination in an investigation relating to one escape and is thus quite different from the eight year conspiracy in Novotny and the three year conspiracy in Stathos. The Tenth Circuit has declined to apply the doctrine to preclude a § 1985(2) conspiracy claim, although observing that “even those circuits that extend the doctrine to civil rights cases 16 Although a majority of the circuits have applied the doctrine in this way, the circuits have recognized exceptions to the doctrine’s applicability. For example, this circuit and others have recognized an exception to the doctrine for convictions involving criminal charges of conspiracy. See United States v. American Grain & Related Ind., 763 F.2d 312, 320 (8th Cir. 1985); United States v. Peters, 732 F.2d 1004, 1008 (1st Cir. 1984); United States v. S & Vee Cartage Co., 704 F.2d 914, 920 (6th Cir. 1983); United States v. Hartley, 678 F.2d 961, 972 (11th Cir. 1982) (citing Dussouy v. Gulf Coast Inv. Corp., 660 F.2d 594, 603 (5th Cir. 1981) as recognizing that “a corporation can be convicted of criminal charges of conspiracy based solely on conspiracy with its own employees”). However, we do not have to decide whether this exception in criminal conspiracy cases should also apply in a civil conspiracy action because would not apply it here” because of a generally recognized exception to the doctrine for cases in which a corporate agent has “‘an independent personal stake in achieving the corporation’s illegal objective.’” Brever v. Rockwell Int’l Corp., 40 F.3d 1119, 1127 (10th Cir. 1994) (quoting Buschi, 775 F.2d at 1252 (quoting Greenville Publishing Co. v. Daily Reflector, Inc., 496 F.2d 391, 399 (4th Cir. 1974))). In Brever, the Tenth Circuit also expressed agreement with circuits that have “severely limited or questioned” the doctrine’s applicability in civil rights cases by recognizing specific exceptions to its application. 40 F.3d at 1127 (citing Stathos v. Bowden, 728 F.2d 15, 20-21 (1st Cir. 1984); United States v. Hartley, 678 F.2d 961, 970-72 (11th Cir. 1982); Dussouy v. Gulf Coast Inv. Corp., 660 F.2d 594, 603 (5th Cir. 1981); Novotny v. Great Am. Fed. Sav. & Loan, 584 F.2d 1235, 1256-59 (3d Cir. 1978)). Thus, the Tenth Circuit has not yet ruled on the issue in a § 1985(3) case or in a case that did not involve one of the exceptions recognized by most circuits. Lastly, the Ninth Circuit has reserved the issue regarding applicability of the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine to civil rights conspiracies under § 1985 for later decision. See Mustafa v. Clark County Sch. Dist., 157 F.3d 1169, 1181 (9th Cir. 1998); Portman v. County of Santa Clara, 995 F.2d 898, 910 (9th Cir. 1993). 17 Dickerson does not allege any criminal conduct or that the conduct here could give rise to criminal charges of conspiracy against the County employees. Similarly, other circuits also have either held or considered holding corporate agents capable of conspiring in civil rights cases when those agents act outside the scope of their employment, have an “independent personal stake” in the corporate action, or engage in a series of discriminatory acts as opposed to a single action. See Hartman v. Board of Trustees, 4 F.3d 465, 469-71 (7th Cir. 1993) (in the context of a § 1985(3) claim, discussing but rejecting an exception to the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine for corporate agents whose acts are motivated in part by “personal racial animus”); Buschi v. Kirven, 775 F.2d 1240, 1252 (4th Cir. 1985) (in the context of a § 1985(3) claim, explaining that the Fourth Circuit has recognized and adopted exceptions to the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine where corporate agents’ actions are motivated by “an independent personal stake in achieving the corporation’s illegal objective” or are unauthorized); Stathos v. Bowden, 728 F.2d 15, 20-21 (1st Cir. 1984) (declining to apply the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine to a § 1985(3) claim in which defendants’ conduct “involved a series of acts over time going well beyond simple ratification of a managerial decision by directors”). Because none of these exceptions would apply based on the facts of this case, we do not reach the issue of whether to adopt them in this 18 circuit. Instead, we are bound to follow Chambliss and apply the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine here. As noted earlier, Chambliss and our holding in this § 1985(3) case are also consistent with eight other circuits’ application of the doctrine. Accordingly, we conclude that Dickerson did not establish the existence of the alleged conspiracy. Therefore, the district court should have granted the County’s motion for judgment as a matter of law on Dickerson’s § 1985(3) claim.