Court Opinion

ID: 9840599
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-19 17:01:10.181163+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:38:57.985389
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                            For the Eighth Circuit
                        ___________________________

                                No. 22-3552
                        ___________________________

                                  Samantha LaCoe

                        lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellant

                                           v.

                               City of Sisseton, et al.

                      lllllllllllllllllllllDefendants - Appellees
                                       ____________

                     Appeal from United States District Court
                    for the District of South Dakota - Northern
                                   ____________

                             Submitted: June 14, 2023
                             Filed: September 19, 2023
                                   ____________

Before LOKEN, COLLOTON, and ERICKSON, Circuit Judges.
                          ____________

LOKEN, Circuit Judge.

       An employee must have a protected life, liberty, or property interest in
continued employment to maintain a procedural due process claim under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983. Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 538 & n.3 (1985),
citing Bd. of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 576-78 (1972). Protected property
interests arise not under the Constitution, but rather through an independent source
such as state law. Id. “State law can create a property interest in a number of
different ways.” Movers Warehouse, Inc. v. City of Little Canada, 71 F.3d 716, 719
(8th Cir. 1995).

       “South Dakota is an employment at will state.” Hollander v. Douglas County,
620 N.W.2d 181, 185 (S.D. 2000); see S.D.C.L. § 60-4-4. In an employment at-will
state, “the employer owes no duty of continued employment, and therefore may
dismiss the employee at any time, for any reason,” unless an employment contract or
public policy says otherwise. Reynolds v. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc., 454 F.3d 868,
874 (8th Cir. 2006). Thus, an at-will public employee in South Dakota does not have
a constitutionally protected property interest. Hollander, 620 N.W.2d at 185.

       In this case, Samantha LaCoe was hired as a Law Enforcement Officer by the
Sisseton, South Dakota, Police Department in January 2021. LaCoe and the City
signed a Sisseton Police Department Employment Contract (the “Contract”) requiring
LaCoe to reimburse the City for the cost of her training if she left the Department
before completing 36 months of employment. In January 2022, Defendant James
Croymans, the City’s Chief of Police, informed LaCoe that the Police Commission
had lost confidence in her because she had included false or inaccurate information
on four stopped-vehicle reports. Croymans asked LaCoe to resign, which she did.
In July 2022, LaCoe filed this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action, asserting, along with other
claims, that the City and numerous individual defendants violated her Fourteenth
Amendment procedural and substantive due process rights by disciplining and
constructively discharging her.

      The district court1 granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss all federal claims and
declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over LaCoe’s state law claims. LaCoe

      1
       The Honorable Charles B. Kornmann, United States District Judge for the
District of South Dakota.

                                         -2-
v. City of Sisseton, No. 1:22-CV-01010, 2022 WL 17485843, at *2 (D.S.D. Dec. 7,
2022). LaCoe appeals only the dismissal of her due process claims, arguing that the
terms of the Contract established a property interest and therefore she was not an
at-will employee under South Dakota law. Reviewing the dismissal de novo and
accepting the allegations contained in the complaint as true, we agree with the district
court the Supreme Court of South Dakota would rule that the Contract did not change
an at-will employment relationship. See Cockram v. Genesco, Inc., 680 F.3d 1046,
1056 (8th Cir. 2012) (standard of review). Accordingly, we affirm.

                                   I. Background.

       LaCoe’s employment as a Law Enforcement Officer for the Sisseton P.D. was
her first job after earning a bachelor’s degree in law enforcement. Sergeant Jereme
Stauss was assigned to be the Field Training Officer during four months of training.
Over the course of her employment in 2021, LaCoe alleges she was not provided
needed training she requested and was subjected to sexually discriminatory comments
and conduct, unfairly criticized, and “labeled a snitch” by her co-workers.

       On January 17, 2022, Chief Croymans informed LaCoe that Defendant Dylan
Kirchmeier, the Roberts County State’s Attorney, placed her on one year’s probation
and on a Brady/Giglio list made available to local defense attorneys2 because of the
false stopped-vehicle report incidents. On January 19, the Complaint alleges, Chief
Croymans informed LaCoe the Police Commission had lost confidence in her and she
would have to “resign and sign a Brady/Giglio acknowledgment letter.” This lawsuit
followed. Attached to the Complaint as Exhibit B is an undated Affidavit of

      2
       Under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87 (1963), criminal defendants are
constitutionally entitled to exculpatory evidence, defined in Giglio v. United States,
405 U.S. 150, 154-55 (1972), to include impeachment evidence. A so-called
Brady/Giglio list compiles names of officers known to have failed these constitutional
disclosure duties. Cf. Sandefur v. Dart, 979 F.3d 1145, 1155-56 (7th Cir. 2020).

                                          -3-
Retraction by LaCoe, not otherwise identified in the Complaint, averring that “[t]he
resignation letter and the Brady/Giglio memo were signed under duress and absent
any ability to rebut the accusations.”

       LaCoe’s Complaint alleges that Defendants violated her right to procedural due
process because she “was given no meaningful opportunity to rebut or defend[]
herself against being placed on a Brady/Giglio list,” and that her “placement . . . on
such a list has hurt her property interests absent due process of law.” Defendants
moved to dismiss all claims, arguing as to the due process claims that LaCoe failed
to allege a constitutional property interest because “there is no language in the
[Contract] indicating a clear intention on the Sisseton PD’s part to surrender its
statutory power to terminate [LaCoe] at will,” and LaCoe “has completely failed to
plead that the City had any official policy, custom, or practice of unconstitutional
conduct that caused a City employee to violate [LaCoe’s] constitutional rights.”

       The district court granted the motion to dismiss all federal claims, concluding
as to the due process claims that LaCoe failed to establish a sufficient property
interest because the Contract “does not bind the city to employ her for any period of
time.” LaCoe, 2022 WL 17485843, at *3. Instead, the Contract agrees to reimburse
LaCoe if she remains employed for at least three years and specifically states,
“‘Nothing contained herein shall be construed as a promise or agreement . . . to retain
Samantha LaCoe’ . . . for a certain period of time.” Id., quoting Section 6. The court
dismissed the procedural due process claim against the City because LaCoe “fail[ed]
to allege facts sufficient to support municipal liability,” and the substantive due
process claims because LaCoe “identifie[d] no fundamental right violation or
contemporary conscience-shocking conduct.” Id. at *7.

      LaCoe appeals only the dismissal of her due process property interest claims.
Her Statement of Issues presented for review presents two issues for our review. See
Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(5). First, “The District Court erred in determining that the

                                         -4-
contract at issue was not a contract nor an ambiguous one.” Second, “The District
Court did Error in Granting Immunity to the City of Sisseton and to Chief Croymans.”
These are the only issues we need consider.

                                 II. The First Issue.

       LaCoe claims a property interest in continued employment with the Sisseton
P.D., an issue governed by South Dakota law. Referring to the Contract, LaCoe
argues “that by acting in reliance upon what was called and referred to as a contract
a 14th Amendment Due Process right as to property should be maintained.” But under
South Dakota law, as the district court recognized, it is not the existence of a contract
that establishes a due process property interest. After all, every employment
relationship is contractual in nature. Rather, the Supreme Court of South Dakota has
repeatedly held that a contract of employment, whether express or implied, overcomes
the statutory at-will relationship only when it “affirmatively indicates” the employer’s
intent to surrender its at-will power to terminate an employee at any time and for any
reason, for example, when it “adopts a discharge policy that provides termination will
occur only for cause.” Aberle v. City of Aberdeen, 718 N.W.2d 615, 621-22 (S.D.
2006), citing Hollander, 620 N.W.2d at 185.

       As LaCoe is relying on an express contract of employment, the terms of the
Contract are determinative. The district court acknowledged the Contract and
correctly focused on whether it manifested a clear intent on the part of the Sisseton
P.D. to surrender its at-will power to terminate LaCoe at any time and for any reason,
which would give LaCoe a due process property interest in her continued
employment. The mere “fact that an employment contract is memorialized in writing
does not in and of itself constitute a surrender of an employer’s statutory at-will
power.” Aberle, 718 N.W.2d at 622. The employer’s intent to reserve its statutory
at-will power “does not require the use of any specific language.” Id.

                                          -5-
      LaCoe argues that Section 3 “expressly stated that this is a contract for a term
of years not an ‘at-will’ employment.” We disagree. Section 3 provided:

      Samantha LaCoe agrees that should she be hired as a police office for
      the Sisseton Police Department, she will remain in employment of the
      CITY as a police officer for a minimum of thirty-six (36) months from
      the date of hire. If she does not remain in employment of the CITY as
      a police officer for a minimum of thirty-six months from the date of hire,
      she will reimburse the CITY for any and all costs incurred as
      enumerated in SECTION 4 below . . . .

By its plain language, Section 3 does not provide for a three-year term of
employment. (It does commit LaCoe to remain for three years, but whether that
commitment was enforceable is not at issue.) Rather, Section 3 provides that if
LaCoe does not remain in employment for at least three years, she is obligated to
reimburse the City for various expenses enumerated in Section 4 that the City incurs
in hiring and training a new police officer, such as uniforms, equipment, Basic Law
Enforcement Training, and salary paid during training. Then, Section 6 expressly
addresses whether Section 3 establishes a three-year term of employment:

      Samantha LaCoe understands that employment with the Sisseton
      Police Department is contingent upon her completion of a probationary
      period of twelve (12) months and continued performance to the
      satisfaction of the Sisseton Police Department. Nothing contained
      herein shall be construed as a promise or agreement by either the
      Sisseton Police Department or the CITY to retain Samantha LaCoe
      as a police officer for the Sisseton Police Department for thirty-six
      (36) months or any portion thereof.

(Second emphasis added.) Nowhere does the Contract explicitly state that LaCoe is
terminable for-cause only or otherwise limit the permissible reasons for termination.

                                         -6-
       Given the clear reservation of the City’s statutory at-will termination right in
Section 6, we agree with the district court that the three-year term referred to in
Section 3 “refer[s] to the amount of time that LaCoe had to work for the Department
to avoid repayment of training costs -- not to a period of time that the Department had
to employ LaCoe.” LaCoe, 2022 WL 17485843, at *3.

       LaCoe argues that the language in the contract is ambiguous and therefore the
district court erred in granting Defendants’ motion to dismiss based on the
constitutional property interest issue. “[W]hether ambiguity exists in a contract is a
question of law for the court.” Butterfield v. Citibank of S.D., N.A., 437 N.W.2d 857,
858 (S.D. 1989). Whatever other ambiguities may be present, the Contract does not
“affirmatively indicate” the City’s intent to surrender its at-will power to terminate
LaCoe at any time and for any reason. Under South Dakota law, the employer’s
intent to contractually surrender its at-will power must be clear.

      For these reasons, we agree with the district court that LaCoe was an at-will
employee under South Dakota law and therefore had no due-process-protected
property interest in continued employment. Her allegations that she was wrongfully
placed on the Brady/Giglio list without an opportunity to respond may support a
cause of action under state law -- a question that is not before us and we do not
consider -- but absent a protected property interest they do not state a plausible due
process claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Thus, the district court did not err in
dismissing LaCoe’s Fourteenth Amendment due process claims.

                               III. The Second Issue.

      LaCoe argues the district court erred in dismissing her due process claims
against the City because “there is a Pattern and Practice as to the contract and public
policy would have the contract upheld.” This contention is without merit. LaCoe

                                         -7-
does not explain the reference to public policy and cites no South Dakota case
invalidating an at-will employment contract as contrary to public policy.

       Section 1983 imposes liability on persons who, acting under color of law,
deprive a person “of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution
and laws” of the United States. The City may not be held liable under § 1983 if its
employees deprived LaCoe of her rights under federal law unless the employees’
execution of a City policy or custom caused the injury. See Monell v. Dep’t of Soc.
Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 694 (1978); Los Angeles County v. Humphries, 562 U.S. 29,
31 (2010). Unless a municipal custom or practice itself violates federal law, “[t]here
can be no § 1983 or Monell liability absent a constitutional violation by a City or
County employee.” Leftwich Tr. of Leftwich v. County of Dakota, 9 F.4th 966, 972
(8th Cir. 2021). Moreover, municipal liability is not established simply by showing
that a plaintiff has suffered a deprivation of federal rights at the hands of a municipal
employee:

      [A] plaintiff seeking to establish municipal liability on the theory that a
      facially lawful municipal action [such as inadequate training] has led an
      employee to violate a plaintiff’s rights must demonstrate that the
      municipal action was taken with deliberate indifference as to its known
      or obvious consequences.

Bd. of Cty. Comm’rs of Bryan Cty. v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 407 (1997) (cleaned up);
see City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 388-89, 388 n.8 (1989).

      For LaCoe’s claim against the City to survive a motion to dismiss, her
complaint must contain “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its
face.” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). Her Complaint
does not come close to meeting this standard. First, the alleged federal deprivation
was not supported by facts plausibly establishing a due process property interest.
Second, while the Complaint names the City as a defendant and seeks relief from the

                                          -8-
City (an order requiring “expungement” of LaCoe from the Brady/Giglio list), it
states no separate municipal liability claim against the City.

       Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we agree with the district court that the
Complaint “failed to allege any unconstitutional policy or custom that enabled”
Defendants to deprive LaCoe of her alleged federal due process rights. LaCoe, 2022
WL 17485843, at * 6; see Dick v. Watonwan County, 738 F.2d 939, 942-43 (8th Cir.
1984). Pressed on this point at oral argument, counsel for LaCoe could only respond
that the Complaint plausibly alleged the practice of violating the three-year term in
the City’s employee reimbursement contracts. That practice was not alleged in the
Complaint and in any event is nothing more than a “facially lawful municipal action.”
For these reasons, the second issue presented for review, if preserved for appeal at all,
is without merit.

      The judgment of the district court is affirmed.
                     ______________________________

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