Opinion ID: 795898
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Board

Text: 46 Plaintiffs' allegations of Equal Protection violations by the Board are similar: that the Board instituted disciplinary proceedings and suspended the plaintiffs' while it had not taken such severe steps with regard to other similarly-situated officers. The Board contends that this count is inadequately pled because none of plaintiffs' allegations of disparate treatment involve the Board. While the plaintiffs were brought before the Board by Chief Flynn, all of the other incidents of misconduct were handled within the department, without Board involvement. 47 We agree with the Board. A plaintiff cannot establish an equal protection violation unless [he] shows that the [defendant] consciously applied a different standard of enforcement to similarly[-]situated [individuals]. LaTrieste Rest. & Cabaret, Inc. v. Vill. of Port Chester, 188 F.3d 65, 70 (2d Cir.1999). The plaintiffs have not alleged that the Board had an independent duty to enforce departmental disciplinary policy or that the Board expressly or impliedly acquiesced in Chief Flynn's lenient treatment of other officers before acting more harshly with regard to the plaintiffs. Their sole contention, as far as we can tell, is that the Board overreacted in disciplining them. That may be true, but unless the Board also consciously applied a different standard to other similarly-situated officers, the Board has not violated plaintiffs' Equal Protection rights. See Diesel, 232 F.3d at 104-05. Plaintiffs would need to show that the Board consciously applied two different standards to its disciplinary decisions with respect to similarly-situated officers. We see no basis for Board liability simply because Chief Flynn, without the Board's acquiescence, treated other officers more leniently than he or the Board treated the plaintiffs. Put another way, we do not think that the Equal Protection Clause required the Board, which was not involved in the compared disciplinary decisions, to treat the plaintiffs as leniently as Flynn treated other officers. Violations of Equal Protection are based on comparative treatment — if the Board itself never dealt with the previous officers' conduct, it could not treat the plaintiffs here disparately. 48 We therefore reverse the judgment of the district court on this count and order that it be dismissed.