Opinion ID: 516971
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: mathis's qualified immunity (race discrimination)

Text: 70 Mathis finally contends that he is immune from damages under the doctrine of qualified good faith immunity set forth in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). 16 This issue is especially important here because only Mathis, not the City, is liable for punitive damages under Sec. 1983, see City of Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 U.S. 247, 271, 101 S.Ct. 2748, 2762, 69 L.Ed.2d 616 (1981), so if Mathis is legally immune from liability, the bulk of the plaintiffs' damages award is unrecoverable. 71 Under the doctrine of qualified immunity, government officials performing discretionary functions are shielded from liability for civil damages in an action brought under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 unless their conduct violated clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. at 2738. See also Benson v. Allphin, 786 F.2d 268, 275 (7th Cir.1986). In Davis v. Scherer, 468 U.S. 183, 104 S.Ct. 3012, 82 L.Ed.2d 139 (1984), the United States Supreme Court stated that whether an official may prevail in his qualified immunity defense depends upon the 'objective reasonableness of his conduct as measured by reference to clearly established law.'  Id. 104 S.Ct. at 3018 (quoting Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. at 2738). The principle behind the doctrine is that [i]f the law at that time was not clearly established, an official could not reasonably be expected to anticipate subsequent legal developments, nor could he fairly be said to know that the law forbade conduct not previously identified as unlawful. Greenberg, 840 F.2d at 472 (quoting Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. at 2738). See also Rakovich, 850 F.2d at 1205-14. 72 Applying these guidelines we must initially agree with the trial court that [n]o area of constitutional law has been more unsettled than that gathered under the rubric of 'affirmative action.'  As our earlier discussion of the defendants' affirmative action defense demonstrates, fully two years after the events in this case the Supreme Court in Wygant remained badly splintered on a number of important issues in this area, including the standard applicable to test the validity of the means chosen by [public officials] to accomplish ... race-conscious purposes. 106 S.Ct. at 1849. 73 Notwithstanding the continued development (and unclarity of) the law in this area, the plaintiffs urge in broad terms that Mathis should have known the principle that distinctions between citizens based on race or ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality. Regents of University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. at 290-91, 98 S.Ct. at 2748. But the Supreme Court has emphasized that the test of clearly established law is not to be applied at such a broad level of generality. Otherwise 74 plaintiffs would be able to convert the rule of qualified immunity that our cases plainly establish into a rule of virtually unqualified liability simply by alleging violation of extremely abstract rights. Harlow would be transformed from a guarantee of immunity into a rule of pleading. Such an approach, in sum, would destroy 'the balance that our cases strike between the interests in vindication of citizens as constitutional rights and in public officials' effective performance of their duties,' by making it impossible for officials 'reasonably [to] anticipate when their conduct may give rise to liability for damages.' Davis, 468 U.S. at 195, 104 S.Ct. at 3019. It should not be surprising, therefore, that our cases establish that the right the official is alleged to have violated must have been 'clearly established' in a more particularized, and hence more relevant, sense: The contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. This is not to say that an official action is protected by qualified immunity unless the very action in question has been held unlawful, see Mitchell, 472 U.S. at 535, n. 12, 105 S.Ct. at 2820, n. 12; but it is to say that in the light of preexisting law the unlawfulness must be apparent. 75 Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3039, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987). At a more specific level of generality, case law in existence in 1984 held that in order to implement a valid affirmative action plan, there must exist: (1) some type of statistical disparity between the local labor force and the minority composition of the employer's work force and (2) a time limit on the plan. Lehman v. Yellow Freight System, Inc., 651 F.2d 520 (7th Cir.1981). In these terms, it cannot be said that at the time Mathis instituted his transfer program, it had been clearly established that Mathis could not rely on the statistical disparity between minority personnel at OMI and the percentage of minorities in the Chicago area labor force. Further, Mathis's implementation of his transfer policy was a one-time restructuring of OMI occurring over a three-month time period, thus meeting Lehman 's time limit requirement. Thus, although Mathis's conduct may well violate today's established constitutional law standards, nothing in Lehman (or other case law in existence at the time) clearly prevented Mathis from transferring the plaintiffs based upon their race to correct what he perceived to be statistical under-representation of minorities at OMI. As such, we believe Mathis is entitled to qualified immunity on the racial discrimination claims. POLITICAL DISCRIMINATION 76 The Supreme Court has discussed the extent to which politically motivated discharges from employment infringe upon the first amendment rights of public employees in Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976), and Branti v. Finkel, 445 U.S. 507, 100 S.Ct. 1287, 63 L.Ed.2d 574 (1980). Whether and under what circumstances the decision to transfer amounts to an unconstitutional impairment of a public employee's right to freedom of speech and association under the first amendment based on the record is open to debate. 17 As explained herein, we conclude that the court improperly entered JNOV against the plaintiffs with respect to the issue of the defendants' motive on the political discrimination claims, and that a new trial is warranted on this issue. Thus, on remand, the court should also address the issue of whether a politically motivated transfer program states a cause of action under the circumstances presented here. 77 Turning to the evidence of political motivation adduced at trial, the trial judge ruled that 78 [o]nly one bit of evidence could even arguably support the notion that any plaintiff's transfer was 'substantially motivated' by his political affiliation: the fact that some plaintiffs had been purchasers of tickets to one or more former Mayor Byrne fundraiser dinners, plus some limited testimony that there was a manila folder among the OMI files that contained some kind of list of purchasers (whether related to one or more Byrne functions is not clear). 79 Despite conceding the existence of this folder for the purposes of ruling on the post-trial motions, the court found that [t]here was however no evidence (other than a highly attenuated inference) that the folder was ever known to--let alone seen by--Mathis [and] ... substantial doubt must attach to a finding based on such a weak foundation. 80 Whether Mathis knew of the contents of this folder (and thus those plaintiffs who supported Byrne in the general mayoral election) was disputed at trial. But contrary to the judge's implicit conclusion that no reasonable jury could have found that Mathis knew of the folder's existence, a review of the record reveals a chain of evidence from which the jury could very reasonably have so found. (This again points up the problems inherent in a trial judge's second-guessing a jury's factual determination without even ordering much less closely scrutinizing the entire transcript, even by the judge who heard all the evidence.) Initially, we note that Murray, OMI's financial officer, testified that a list of contributors was maintained in a manila folder labeled Jane Byrne Dinner and that one of his co-workers (Ms. Danzig) brought the folder into his office with other financial records for his perusal. While the trial judge noted that not all the plaintiffs even bought such tickets, Officer Cappitelli testified that he saw the list and that all the plaintiffs except Sergeant Di Maggio were named therein. Finally, Mathis himself testified that he in fact reviewed OMI's financial records shortly after taking over. This chain of evidence, although not conclusive, obviously permits the inference that Mathis in fact reviewed the contents of the folder. While this evidence standing alone is hardly overwhelming on the ultimate question of Mathis's intent, the trial court, in overturning the jury's verdict, further failed to weigh the probative value of this evidence in the context of the rest of the record. In addition to evidence that Mathis knew of the plaintiffs' political affiliation by means of the Jane Byrne Dinner folder, the record contains the following circumstantial indicia of discrimination based on party affiliation: (1) the pattern of transfers followed soon after a change in administration, cf. Meeks v. Grimes, 779 F.2d 417, 418 (7th Cir.1985) (upholding a district court's finding of political motivation under the clearly erroneous standard of Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(e) based in part upon the strong circumstantial inference arising from the close temporal proximity of the defendant's assumption of office and the dismissals); (2) the competence of the transferred employees (each plaintiff's record contained high performance ratings; defendant Rice admitted that they all had impeccable credentials, see supra n. 1); and (3) statements which the plaintiffs' supervisor made to the plaintiffs (e.g., plaintiff Cygnar testified that his new supervisor, Sergeant Nate Gibson, told him that even though we didn't vote for the same people, we can work together). Considered in its entirety, the combination of direct and circumstantial evidence provides a sufficient probative basis upon which a jury could reasonably reach a verdict in the plaintiffs' favor on their political discrimination claim. Thus, the trial judge's contrary ruling (granting the defendants' motion for JNOV) cannot stand. 81 One issue still remains. The judge conditionally granted the defendants' alternative motion for a new trial in the event we reversed his order granting the defendants' JNOV motion. As noted earlier, [t]he authority to grant a new trial ... is confided almost entirely to the exercise of discretion on the part of the trial court ... [and thus] the grant or denial of a motion for a new trial is not subject to review by this court except upon exceptional circumstances showing a clear abuse of discretion. General Foam, 695 F.2d at 288 (citations omitted). The judge's grant of JNOV was error; still, we are not convinced that the court abused its discretion in ordering a new trial on this issue. While the evidence is sufficient to uphold the jury's verdict, the verdict nevertheless is arguably against the weight of the evidence (the less stringent standard for the grant of a new trial); thus, we refuse to hold that the record articulates a clear abuse of discretion on the part of the trial court in granting the defendants' alternative motion for a new trial. 82 MATHIS'S QUALIFIED IMMUNITY (POLITICAL DISCRIMINATION) 83 After Elrod and Branti (decided in 1980, four years before the transfers in issue here), it was well settled that political considerations could not properly motivate the firing of public employees unless party affiliation is an appropriate requirement for effective performance of the public office involved [i.e., those employees in policy making or confidential positions]. Branti, 445 U.S. at 518, 100 S.Ct. at 1294. See also Danenberger v. Johnson, 821 F.2d 361, 364 (7th Cir.1987); Tomczak v. City of Chicago, 765 F.2d 633, 635 (7th Cir.1985). 18 Nevertheless, Branti noted that the court was considering only the constitutionality of politically motivated discharges, 445 U.S. at 513 n. 7, 100 S.Ct. at 1292 n. 7, a limitation to which we later adhered in holding that the first amendment does not prohibit the use of political criteria in awarding public contracts. See LaFalce v. Houston, 712 F.2d 292 (7th Cir.1983). By 1984 only the Fourth Circuit had addressed the constitutionality of transferring a public employee from one position to another on the basis of his or her support for a particular political party. See Delong v. United States, 621 F.2d 618 (4th Cir.1980). And in Delong the court held that only in very limited circumstances amounting to constructive discharge does a politically motivated job transfer (such as is alleged here) create first amendment problems. 621 F.2d at 624. 84 Thus, it was certainly not clearly established in the spring or summer of 1984 that transfers of the sort involved in this case--lateral transfers within a large organization that has frequent reassignments, involving no loss in rank or pay, and affording the transferees the opportunity to designate their preferences for new assignments--could not constitutionally take politics into consideration. 19 Although other cases decided after the transfers in this case have taken positions contrary to Delong, see, e.g., Bennis v. Gable, 823 F.2d 723 (3d Cir.1987) (holding that any disciplinary action--in that case demotions --based upon political considerations violate the first amendment), Harlow holds that [i]f the law at that time [of the official's actions] was not clearly established, an official could not reasonably be expected to anticipate subsequent legal developments, nor could he fairly be said to 'know' that the law forbade conduct not previously identified as unlawful. 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. at 2738. In light of the case law that existed during the summer of 1984, we hold that there was no clearly established constitutional right that prohibited the defendants from transferring the plaintiffs based on political considerations. Mathis is therefore entitled to immunity on this issue. 20 DIRECTED VERDICT AS TO MAYOR WASHINGTON 85 The plaintiffs maintain that the district court erred in granting the defendants' motion for a directed verdict as to former Mayor Washington. Although the mayor may have indirectly (through Ware) approved Mathis's transfer program, there is no doctrine of superior's liability in Sec. 1983 actions; instead, the official must actually have participated in the constitutional wrongdoing. See, e.g., Ustrak v. Fairman, 781 F.2d 573, 575 (7th Cir.1986); Crowder v. Lash, 687 F.2d 996, 1005 (7th Cir.1982). Here there is no evidence that Mayor Washington did. He may have failed to stop the transfers; but as we explained in Soderbeck v. Burnett County, 752 F.2d at 293: 86 Failure to take corrective action cannot in and of itself violate Sec. 1983. Otherwise the action of an inferior officer would automatically be attributed up the line to his highest superior and thence to the local government, since the misconduct of policy making officials ... is attributed to the government. This ladder of liability would be inconsistent with the distinction created by Monell [v. New York City Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978) ] between the direct and derivative liability of local government, and with the many lower-court cases that reject the notion that supervisors are strictly liable for their subordinates' violations of Sec. 1983. See, e.g., Schultz v. Baumgart, 738 F.2d 231, 238-39 (7th Cir.1984); Wolf-Lillie v. Sonquist, 699 F.2d 864, 869 (7th Cir.1983). 87 We hold that the trial court properly granted the defendants' motion for directed verdict with respect to former Mayor Washington.