Opinion ID: 595519
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: McGregor Volunteer Fire Department

Text: 8 The district court assumed without deciding that the volunteer fire department was a state actor and proceeded to the merits of the First Amendment claims. If not corrected, this assumption might be costly to the thousands of volunteer fire departments around the country that may be needlessly exposed to section 1983 lawsuits. While the district court's reluctance to wade into an area as rife with conceptualism as the state action doctrine is understandable, that alternative is less appropriate for an appellate court. On examining the question, we demur from establishing a broad rule concerning volunteer fire departments in general; but conclude that under present Supreme Court authority, cases from this circuit and Texas law, MVFD was not a state actor. 9 The ultimate issue in a § 1983 case is whether the alleged infringement of federal rights stemmed from conduct fairly attributable to the state. Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U.S. 922, 938, 102 S.Ct. 2744, 2754, 73 L.Ed.2d 482 (1982). While this goal is, as Judge Goldberg has observed, relatively well-marked, Frazier v. Board of Trustees of Northwest Mississippi, 765 F.2d 1278, 1283 (5th Cir.1985), the state action inquiry is inherently difficult. Judge Goldberg also wrote, Imbued with an identity all its own, every state action inquiry partakes only slightly of the factual stuff of other cases. Frazier, 765 F.2d at 1284. 10 The Supreme Court has adopted a variety of guidelines for determining whether an individual or entity acted on behalf of the state for purposes of affixing section 1983 liability. Among the most prominent talismans of state actor status are the exclusive government function concept, the state's encouragement or coercion of private activities, the symbiotic relationship and the entanglements formula. 2 R. Rotunda, J. Nowak and J. Young, Treatise on Constitutional Law: Substance and Procedure 16.2-16.4 (1986) (Supp.1991). Among these guidelines, appellants have relied solely on the exclusive government function standard, asserting that a city in Texas has the responsibility for protecting its inhabitants' property against destruction by fire. Before analyzing the appellants' authorities, it is necessary to recur to the Supreme Court's explanation of the exclusive public function concept--and its limitations. 11 The Supreme Court rejects the notion that any entity that performs a public function is a state actor. The question is not whether a private group is serving a 'public function,' [but instead] whether the function performed has been 'traditionally the exclusive prerogative of the state,'  Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U.S. 830, 841, 102 S.Ct. 2764, 2772-73, 73 L.Ed.2d 418 (1982) (quoting Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 352, 95 S.Ct. 449, 454, 42 L.Ed.2d 477 (1974)). Thus, the Court held that Massachusetts' legislative decision to educate special needs high school students at public expense in no way makes the services the exclusive province of the State. Id. The private school that contracted with the state to perform this function was not transformed into a state actor. With similar reasoning, the Court foreclosed a claim that nursing homes were state actors because they operated with state subsidies under requirements that the Medicaid program imposed on the state. Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U.S. 991, 1012, 102 S.Ct. 2777, 2789, 73 L.Ed.2d 534 (1982). The Court has also held that neither an extensively regulated electric utility nor a warehouseman that enforced its lien by invoking a U.C.C. self-help sale provision was engaged in an exclusive public function amounting to state action. Jackson, 419 U.S. at 352, 95 S.Ct. at 454; Flagg Brothers, Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U.S. 149, 160, 98 S.Ct. 1729, 1735, 56 L.Ed.2d 185 (1978). 12 In dicta, the Court once mentioned fire protection among a list of traditionally exclusive public functions including education, police protection and tax collection. Flagg Brothers, 436 U.S. at 163-64, 98 S.Ct. at 1737. The Court then added: 13 We express no view as to the extent, if any, to which a city or state might be free to delegate to private parties the performance of such functions and thereby avoid the strictures of the Fourteenth Amendment ... [R]esolution [of such factual situations] should abide the necessity of deciding them. 14 Id. This self-qualifying reference does not decide the present case. First, the Court itself later determined in Rendell-Baker that a state educational function could be assigned to a private party under certain conditions without rendering the private school subject to § 1983. Second, to the extent that the reference in Flagg Brothers suggests that it would be impermissible to delegate an exclusive public function for the purpose of avoiding § 1983 liability, that underlying premise is absent from this case. 1 Finally, as Flagg Brothers states, the state action question remains fact specific even where the exclusivity of the public function is at issue. Lower courts must therefore consider the history, tradition and local law surrounding volunteer fire departments before concluding whether they are state actors. 15 Under a fact-specific review, the MVFD does not appear to perform a power traditionally exclusively reserved to the state. Jackson, 419 U.S. at 352, 95 S.Ct. at 454. Texas law states that a home rule municipality, the form in which the City of McGregor is organized, may provide for a fire department. Texas Local Government Code § 342.011 (Supp.1991) (emphasis added). This language hardly sets up fire fighting as an exclusive public function, and no Texas cases hold otherwise. 16 Appellants rely on two cases to support the contention that fire fighting is an exclusive public function in Texas, but neither case stands for that proposition. In one of them, the state court found that members of the Mission Volunteer Fire Department served in a governmental capacity under a now-repealed state law, Tex.Rev.Civ.Ann. art. 9205, to the extent that they worked under the supervision of paid employees of the local fire department. Genzer v. City of Mission, 666 S.W.2d 116, 120 (Tex.Civ.App.--Corpus Christi 1983, writ ref'd n.r.e.). The question in Genzer was not whether the Mission Volunteer Fire Department was acting in any kind of public function on its own, but was confined to considering whether its members participated in performing a public function for purposes of the Texas Tort Claims Act, when they served at a fireworks display under the direct supervision of the city's full-time employees. Id. There was no discussion of an exclusive public function. In the other cited case, the court decided simply not to limit a city's police power to re-zone in order to enhance fire protection. City of McAllen v. Morris, 217 S.W.2d 875 (Tex.Civ.App.--San Antonio, 1948, err. ref'd). Morris does state in dicta that a city is one of the most ancient and familiar forms of municipal organization and it has vested in it the responsibility for protecting its inhabitants against violence and their property against destruction by fire. 217 S.W.2d at 877. The case before us deals not with an ancient and familiar form of municipal organization but with a home rule municipality governed by specific Texas law. 17 This court also takes judicial notice of the fact that there are a variety of private sector fire fighting alternatives; 2 and fire fighting is not generally an exclusive government function. 3 What is more, only half the population of the United States is served by exclusive government fire protection. 4 According to Martin Tolchin of the New York Times, 18 Private Fire Departments, which thrived when the nation was young, are serving a growing number of communities.... About 75 communities in 15 states.... have hired private companies to provide protection against fires.... [One company] ... protects, 20% of Arizona's population and has private fire departments in New Mexico, Texas, Florida and Tennessee. 5 19 The one federal circuit court decision that held a volunteer fire department to be a state actor pre-dates Blum and Rendell-Baker and at one point suggests that it is ruling on the symbiotic relationship test as well as the exclusive public function concept of state action. Janusaitis v. Middlebury Volunteer Fire Department, 607 F.2d 17, 23 (2d Cir.1979). 6 Omitting the problems of archaism and ambiguity, however, Janusaitis is predicated on a state law different from that of Texas: 20 The Connecticut statute authorizing agreements with volunteer fire departments implicitly recognizes that fire fighting is essentially the exclusive function of government. 21 607 F.2d at 24. Moreover, in Connecticut, volunteer fire fighters are considered employees of a municipality for workers compensation purposes, and a municipality is required to indemnify them for specific liabilities. 607 F.2d at 21. These distinctions are sufficient to render Janusaitis less than compelling precedent for the instant case. 22 As we reject appellants' reliance on the exclusive public function concept of state action, it is important to point out that MVFD would not have been deemed a state actor under any of the Supreme Court's other formulae. These formulae all depend on the degree to which the state and the regulated entity exist in a symbiotic relationship 7 or under circumstances where the conduct of the private actor can be fairly imputed as that of the state. Jackson, 419 U.S. at 351, 95 S.Ct. at 453; San Francisco Arts & Athletics, Inc. v. U.S. Olympic Committee, 483 U.S. 522, 556, 107 S.Ct. 2971, 2991, 97 L.Ed.2d 427 (1987). 23 The Fifth Circuit has been asked to interpret this group of tests in a variety of circumstances, most pertinent of which are those involving government-funded hospitals. In the hospital cases, it has been found that even when a hospital accepts substantial governmental financial support, uses facilities constructed with government guaranteed funds, and is heavily regulated and reviewed, such a relationship is not sufficient to subject the act of that business to the restraints of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. McCroy v. Rapides Regional Medical Center, 635 F.Supp. 975, 980 (W.D.La.1986) aff'd 801 F.2d 396 (5th Cir.1986). 8 Further, the court has held that the government's acquiescence or approval [of a private entity's actions is] insufficient to create government action. Smith v. North Louisiana Medical Review Ass'n, 735 F.2d 168, 173 (5th Cir.1984). Even when state law granted civil immunity to a peer review committee, the court has declined to find state action. Goss v. Memorial Hospital System, 789 F.2d 353 (5th Cir.1986). 24 The only case in which this court has found state action in a hospital setting is A.M. Jatoi v. Hurst-Euless-Bedford Hospital Authority, 807 F.2d 1214 (5th Cir.1987). Three factors were considered to distinguish Jatoi from the previous hospital cases. First, a government authority initially operated the hospital. Jatoi, 807 F.2d at 1221. Further, the Authority derived a direct financial benefit from the private lessee. The Hospital Authority's repayment of bonds it issued and the mortgages it entered into were dependent on successful operation of the hospital. Id. The court also found, significantly, that the governmental authority retained the ability to prevent or control racial discrimination by its private manager. Id. 9 25 This case before us more closely resembles the hospital cases in which no state action was found than it does Jatoi. The city's operating expense subsidy and payment of token sums to fire fighters are insufficient to develop the close nexus between the city and MVFD that would convert the voluntary association's decision into state action. Unlike Jatoi, the city did not profit from the existence of MVFD, never operated its own fire department, and retained no ability to control MVFD. The city was not involved in MVFD's membership policies and did not coerce or encourage expulsion of appellants. Cf. Blum, 457 U.S. at 1004, 102 S.Ct. at 2786. Appellants have never suggested how the city's initial exercise of a right of approval over MVFD's constitution and bylaws (which did not permit the city to approve their amendments) results in continuing control of MVFD by the city. See Rendell-Baker, 457 U.S. at 842, 102 S.Ct. at 2772. We are confident that the connections between the city and MVFD are not so close as to establish the volunteer fire department's status as a state actor.