Opinion ID: 537068
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Due Process/Property Interest

Text: 12 Plaintiff's first Section 1983 claim is that he was deprived of a property interest without due process of law. Specifically, he claims that pursuant to Oklahoma's wrecker statute he has a property interest in continued wrecker referrals that Dirck denied him without due process. After careful examination of Oklahoma's wrecker statute, we agree. 13 In order for someone to have a property interest in a benefit, he must have more than an abstract need or desire for it. He must have more than a unilateral expectation of it. He must, instead, have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it. Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2709, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972). See also Richardson v. City of Albuquerque, 857 F.2d 727, 731 (10th Cir.1988); Conaway v. Smith, 853 F.2d 789, 793 (10th Cir.1988). Property interests arise from sources such as state statutes, local ordinances, established rules, or mutually explicit understandings. Dickeson v. Quarberg, 844 F.2d 1435, 1437 (10th Cir.1988). In this case, the existence of a property right is an issue of state law. See Conaway, 853 F.2d at 793; Dickeson, 844 F.2d at 1438 n. 5. Thus, we must examine Oklahoma's wrecker statute and decide whether it creates a property right. 14 The starting point of our analysis is Okla.Stat. tit. 47, Sec. 955, which provides in pertinent part: 15 Each officer of the Department [of Public Safety] shall carry a list of the holders of current Class A wrecker operator licenses in the district of the officer, and shall use the services of the Class A licensed wrecker operator whose location is nearest to the vehicle to be removed in all instances specified under subsections (1), (2), (3) and (4) of this section. The requests for services may be alternated among all such licensed wrecker operators who are located within a reasonable radius of each other.... In cities of less than fifty thousand (50,000) population, all such licensed wrecker operators located near or in the city limits of such cities shall be considered as being equal distance and shall be called on an equal basis as nearly as possible. (Emphasis added.) 16 It is not disputed that the population of Catoosa was less than 50,000 at the times relevant to this case and that plaintiff was a Class A licensed wrecker operator. 17 Plaintiff contends that the City of Catoosa was bound by the requirements in Section 955. He relies chiefly on Okla.Stat. tit. 47, Sec. 952(D), which at the relevant time provided: 18 Wrecker or towing services provided by an operator at the request of a political subdivision of this state shall be provided in accordance with the provisions and regulations adopted pursuant thereto applied to wrecker or towing services contained in Section 955 of this title, unless otherwise regulated by the governing body of the political subdivision. 19 Plaintiff argues, and we agree, that because the City of Catoosa, which indisputably is a political subdivision, did not otherwise regulate[ ] wrecker referrals, it was bound to follow Section 955 when making such referrals. 20 Defendant responds, and the district court held, that Section 952(D) merely requires the Department of Public Safety to follow the requirements in Section 955 when a political subdivision makes a request to the Department of Public Safety for wrecking services. We disagree with this statutory interpretation for a number of reasons. 3 First, the clear language of Section 952(D) appears to apply to any wrecker services provided at the request of a political subdivision. There is nothing in the language of Section 952(D) that would limit it only to requests made by a political subdivision to the Department of Public Safety and exclude requests made by a political subdivision directly to the operator of the wrecker services. We should not write into a statute a limiting clause that was not put there by the legislature. Second, we have not seen any evidence or citations to the record indicating that political subdivisions ever request wrecker referrals from the Department of Public Safety. Third, the district court's interpretation of Section 952(D) appears to make that section superfluous because Section 955 by its language would bind the Department of Public Safety when it made wrecker referrals regardless of whether or not it was made at the request of a political subdivision. Fourth, the last clause in Section 952(D) states that the requirements in Section 955 apply unless otherwise regulated by the governing body of the political subdivision. If the district court was correct that Section 952(D) applies only to the Department of Public Safety, that clause would produce the strange result that political subdivisions could dictate the procedures that the state Department of Public Safety is bound to follow. For these reasons, we conclude that Section 952(D) did require the City of Catoosa to make wrecker referrals on an equal basis as nearly as possible and thus created a property interest in wrecker referrals in favor of the plaintiff.B. First Amendment 21 Plaintiff's next Section 1983 claim is that Dirck retaliated against him for the exercise of his first amendment rights. Specifically, he alleges that he no longer was given referrals because of his support for a mayoral candidate. We find that the district court's grant of judgment notwithstanding the verdict on this claim was improper. 22 The district court dismissed the entire Section 1983 claim because it found that plaintiff did not have a property right in continued wrecker referrals. But, as noted above, plaintiff did have a property right in equal referrals. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has held a property right is not required for a first amendment retaliation claim. See Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972). See also Dickeson, 844 F.2d at 1440. In Perry, the Supreme Court stated that even though a person has no 'right' to a valuable governmental benefit and even though the government may deny him the benefit for any number of reasons, there are some reasons upon which the government may not rely. It may not deny a benefit to a person on a basis that infringes his constitutionally protected interests--especially, his interest in freedom of speech. 408 U.S. at 597, 92 S.Ct. at 2697. See also Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976); L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law, Sec. 11-5 at 781 (2d ed. 1988). 23 Accordingly, we AFFIRM the district court's grant of summary judgment against all defendants on plaintiff's first count and against defendants Mayor Conley and the City of Catoosa on plaintiff's second count. We REVERSE the district court's grant of judgment notwithstanding the verdict on plaintiff's Section 1983 claim against defendant Dirck and we REMAND for reinstatement of the jury verdict.