Court Opinion

ID: 9496969
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:40:08.857561+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:55.115819
License: Public Domain

POSNER, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join the majority opinion, but write separately in an effort to clarify the standard (on which the majority opinion is prudently noncommittal) applicable to “class of one” equal protection cases. The lack of clarity has been remarked by commentators. Robert C. Farrell, “Classes, Persons, Equal Protection, and Village of Willowbrook v. Olech,” 78 Wash. L.Rev. 367, 400-25 (2003); J. Michael McGuinness, “The Impact of Village of Willow-brook v. Olech on Disparate Treatment Claims,” 17 Touro L.Rev. 595, 603-06 (2001); Timothy Zick, “Angry White Males: The Equal Protection Clause and ‘Classes of One,’ ” 89 Ky. L.J. 69, 133-34 (2000); Shaun M. Gehan, Comment, “With Malice Toward One: Malice and the Substantive Law in ‘Class of One’ Equal Protection Claims in the Wake of Village of Willowbrook v. Olech,” 54 Me. L.Rev. 329, 379-80 (2002); Nicole Richter, Note, “A Standard for ‘Class of One’ Claims Under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment: Protecting Victims of Non-Class Based Discrimination from Vindictive State Action,” 35 Val. U.L.Rev. 197, 199-203 (2000). It has been a cause of justifiable concern to the judges who have to decide these cases. See, e.g., Northwestern University v. City of Evanston, 2002 WL 31027981, at *3-4 (N.D.Ill. Sept.11, 2002).
In the usual equal protection case, including cases of selective prosecution, which are the converse of denial-of-permit cases such as the present one, the plaintiff is complaining about discrimination against a group to which he belongs, such as a racial, religious, or ethnic minority (though it needn’t be a minority: witness sex-discrimination cases). See, e.g., United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 465-68, 116 S.Ct. 1480, 134 L.Ed.2d 687 (1996); Desi’s Pizza, Inc. v. City of Wilkes-Barre, 321 F.3d 411, 424-26 (3d Cir.2003). It has long been apparent, however, that there could be a denial of equal protection even though the victim did not belong to a class larger than himself. E.g., City of New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U.S. 297, 298, 303-*71004, 96 S.Ct. 2513, 49 L.Ed.2d 511 (1976) (per curiam); Indiana State Teachers Ass’n v. Board of School Comm’rs, 101 F.3d 1179, 1180-81 (7th Cir.1996); Esmail v. Macrane, 53 F.3d 176, 180 (7th Cir.1995); Ciechon v. City of Chicago, 686 F.2d 511, 524 (7th Cir.1982); Rubinovitz v. Rogato, 60 F.3d 906, 910-12 (1st Cir.1995); Yerardi’s Moody Street Restaurant & Lounge, Inc. v. Board of Selectmen, 878 F.2d 16, 20-21 (1st Cir.1989). The troubling question is what exactly the plaintiff in such a case must prove in order to make out a prima facie case. In Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562, 120 S.Ct. 1073, 145 L.Ed.2d 1060 (2000) (per curiam), the Supreme Court held that it is enough to allege “irrational and wholly arbitrary” treatment. Id. at 565, 120 S.Ct. 1073. Did the Court mean to suggest by its choice of words that the “rational purpose” test used standardly in equal protection jurisprudence for cases not involving “fundamental rights” also rules class-of-one cases? That is a frightening thought, because, as we noted in Milner v. Apfel, 148 F.3d 812, 816-17 (7th Cir.1998), the “rational purpose” test is no longer as toothless as it once seemed, see, e.g., Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 634-35, 116 S.Ct. 1620, 134 L.Ed.2d 855 (1996); City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc., 473 U.S. 432, 446-50, 105 S.Ct. 3249, 87 L.Ed.2d 313 (1985); United States Dept. of Agriculture v. Moreno, 413 U.S. 528, 533-38, 93 S.Ct. 2821, 37 L.Ed.2d 782 (1973); Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 123 S.Ct. 2472, 2484-85, 156 L.Ed.2d 508 (2003) (O’Connor, J., concurring), and anyone can be a class-of-one plaintiff. Or should “irrational and wholly arbitrary” be understood as a more stringent test? But if so, what is its precise meaning? And what significance should be attached to the fact that the ease had been decided on the pleadings?
The Court in Olech was affirming a decision of this court in which we had said that a plaintiff in a class-of-one case has to prove “that the cause of the differential treatment of which [he] complains was a totally illegitimate animus toward the plaintiff by the defendant.” 160 F.3d 386, 388 (7th Cir.1998). Justice Breyer’s concurring opinion in the Supreme Court endorsed our formulation, 528 U.S. at 565-66, 120 S.Ct. 1073, but drew no direct response from his colleagues. Their silence requires interpretation.
In Hilton v. City of Wheeling, 209 F.3d 1005, 1008 (7th Cir.2000), decided after and, we thought, consistently with the Supreme Court’s decision in Olech, we restated the standard in class-of-one cases as follows: “to make out a prima facie case the plaintiff must present evidence that the defendant deliberately sought to deprive him of the equal protection of the laws for reasons of a personal nature unrelated to the duties of the defendant’s position.” It should be noted that “reasons of a personal nature unrelated to the duties of the defendant’s position” go beyond personal hostility to the plaintiff (i.e., animus), the motive emphasized in our Olech opinion and in Justice Breyer’s concurrence. Personal reasons can include larceny, as in Forseth v. Village of Sussex, 199 F.3d 363, 371 (7th Cir.2000), or a desire to find a scapegoat in order to avoid adverse publicity and the threat of a lawsuit, as in Ciechon v. City of Chicago, supra, 686 F.2d at 524 — improper motives for a public official (scapegoating is not a legitimate tactic of public officials any more than stealing is), but different from personal hostility.
We have hewed to the Hilton line in other post -Olech cases as well. Purze v. Village of Winthrop Harbor, 286 F.3d 452, 455 (7th Cir.2002); Cruz v. Town of Cicero, 275 F.3d 579, 587 (7th Cir.2001); cf. Discovery House, Inc. v. Consolidated City of *711Indianapolis, 319 F.3d 277, 283 (7th Cir.2003). But in still others we have described animus as an alternative to the Supreme Court’s standard, Nevel v. Village of Schaumburg, 297 F.3d 673, 681 (7th Cir.2002); Albiero v. City of Kankakee, 246 F.3d 927, 932 (7th Cir.2001), though if a class-of-one plaintiff can prevail by demonstrating “irrational and wholly arbitrary” action, it is unclear why he would ever bother with proof of animus, since unequal treatment due solely to animus is a subset of irrational and arbitrary conduct.
Some cases from other circuits merely repeat the formula recited by the Supreme Court majority in Olech. Cobb v. Pozzi, 363 F.3d 89, 2004 WL 736799, at *18 (2d Cir. Apr.2, 2004); Tri-County Paving, Inc. v. Ashe County, 281 F.3d 430, 439-40 (4th Cir.2002); Costello v. Mitchell Public School Dist. 79, 266 F.3d 916, 921-22 (8th Cir.2001). Others, however, pin their flag to “reasons of a personal nature,” or some variant, and are thus like Hilton. Williams v. Pryor, 240 F.3d 944, 951 (11th Cir.2001); Shipp v. McMahon, 234 F.3d 907, 916-17 (5th Cir.2000), overruled on other grounds in McClendon v. City of Columbia, 305 F.3d 314, 329 (5th Cir.2002); Bryan v. City of Madison, 213 F.3d 267, 276-77 and n. 17 (5th Cir.2000). Still others consider the question whether after Olech a personal motive is required an open one. Hayut v. State University of New York, 352 F.3d 733, 754 n. 15 (2d Cir.2003); DeMuria v. Hawkes, 328 F.3d 704, 707 n. 2 (2d Cir.2003); Giordano v. City of New York, 274 F.3d 740, 743 (2d Cir.2001); cf. Bartell v. Aurora Public Schools, 263 F.3d 1143, 1149 (10th Cir.2001). Only one decision is explicit that proof of a personal motive is not required, Jackson v. Burke, 256 F.3d 93, 96-97 (2d Cir.2001) (per curiam) — and the court that decided it later described the assertion as “dicta” and, consistent with other Second Circuit decisions that we have cited, described the question whether a personal motive is required as open. Harlen Associates v. Incorporated Village of Mineola, 273 F.3d 494, 499-500 (2d Cir.2001).
The decisions that treat the standard as open after Olech gain support from DeMuria v. Hawkes, supra, 328 F.3d at 706-07, which points out that Olech’s suit had been dismissed on the pleadings and that all the Supreme Court held was that to withstand a motion to dismiss, the plaintiff need allege only “irrational and wholly arbitrary” treatment. The Court did not explain what precisely the plaintiff must prove to satisfy this standard. It is not as if the term “irrational and wholly arbitrary” were self-defining. The fact that the Court declined Justice Breyer’s invitation to put flesh on its skeletal test does not conclude analysis of what that flesh might look like. If the issue is open, the resolution of it proposed in Hilton and like cases is not foreclosed.
I think those cases are on the right track and are not inconsistent with Olech. The Court said it had granted certiorari “to determine whether the Equal Protection Clause gives rise to a cause of action on behalf of a ‘class of one’ where the plaintiff did not allege membership in a class or group,” 528 U.S. at 564, 120 S.Ct. 1073, not to establish the standard governing proof in such cases. The Court did say, it is true, that “these allegations [that the defendant was acting in an ‘irrational and wholly arbitrary’ manner], quite apart from the [defendant’s] subjective motivation, are sufficient to state a claim for relief under traditional equal protection analysis.” 528 U.S. at 565, 120 S.Ct. 1073 (emphasis added). And so the cases on which I am relying may be fighting a doomed rearguard action. May the Court enlighten us; the fact that the post-Olech cases are all over the map suggests a need *712for the Court to step in and clarify its “cryptic” (Zick, supra, at 133) per curiam decision.
The problem for which requiring proof of improper motive is a possible solution is that irrational differences in treatment having nothing to do with discrimination against a vulnerable class abound at the bottom rung of law enforcement. A police car is lurking on the shoulder of a highway in a 45 m.p.h. zone, a car streaks by at 65 m.p.h., and the police do nothing. Two minutes later a car streaks by at 60 m.p.h. and the police give that driver a ticket. Is it a denial of equal protection if the police cannot come up with a rational explanation for why they ticketed the slower speeder? If so, the federal courts will be swamped with “class of one” cases remote from the purpose, and beyond the feasible scope, of the equal protection clause. Or suppose that an asylum officer, after interviewing a foreign visitor to the United States who has applied for asylum, recommends that he be turned down, yet another asylum officer, in (as he knows) a rationally indistinguishable case, recommends that “his” applicant be granted asylum. The difference is irrational because, by hypothesis, like situations are being treated differently; that is what unequal treatment means.
Since differences of treatment of this sort at the lowest operating level of government cannot be avoided, they should not — unless invidiously motivated — give rise to a constitutional claim. They should not be deemed “irrational and wholly arbitrary,” any more than a random audit by the Internal Revenue Service should be thought wholly arbitrary, though it is arbitrary in the sense that other, identically situated taxpayers who are not audited are being treated differently. Notice how, in the asylum example and also in the present case, involving the denial at the initial application level of a permit to enlarge a pier, taking the equal protection route bypasses the administrative and judicial review procedures established to remedy arbitrary official action. In such cases the equal protection remedy is superfluous, or at least premature. It is highly unlikely that the Supreme Court intended in Olech to open the door to such cases.
The reason that a number of court of appeals cases, and Justice Breyer in his concurrence in Olech, brought motive into the picture is that requiring proof of a bad motive brings the class-of-one cases into harmony with the standard equal protection cases and the purpose behind the equal protection clause. That purpose is to protect the vulnerable, whether it is a racial or religious minority, a sexual majority (women) that had nonetheless been subjected to invidious discrimination, a racial majority that as in McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co., 427 U.S. 273, 96 S.Ct. 2574, 49 L.Ed.2d 493 (1976), finds itself oppressed by a national minority that has a local majority, or even a coal company that because its major assets (its mines) cannot be shifted to another state finds itself targeted for discriminatory taxation, as in Allegheny Pittsburgh Coal Co. v. County Comm’n, 488 U.S. 336, 342-46, 109 S.Ct. 633, 102 L.Ed.2d 688 (1989). These are all cases in which the unequal treatment complained of is either vicious or exploitative (or frequently both), and the fundamental insight of the class-of-one cases is that vicious or exploitative discrimination can sometimes be found even when the victim does not belong to a group that is a familiar target of such treatment. Indeed, a lone victim picked out for social or economic oppression or extinction can be especially vulnerable. Esmail v. Macrane, supra, 53 F.3d at 180. Unlike the member of even a minority group, he has no allies at all.
*713I add “exploitative” to “vicious” to make clear that, as in the formulation in Hilton, personal ill will is not the essential criterion of a meritorious class-of-one suit. It is enough if the plaintiff can prove that the defendant is treating similarly situated people differently for improper (normally personal) reasons, whether his motive is hatred or greed or, as in Ciechon, fending off pests. Those reasons, however, must be the only reasons for the adverse action of which the plaintiff is complaining. If there are legitimate as well as illegitimate reasons, the presence of the latter will not taint the former. E.g., Albiero v. City of Kankakee, supra, 246 F.3d at 932. It would be absurd to give a convicted murderer a remedy under the equal protection clause merely because the prosecutor, in addition to thinking it his duty to prosecute, hoped that the publicity from a successful prosecution would enable him to launch a political career.
“Motive” tests are not very satisfactory and are therefore sparingly employed in the law. Motives are difficult to discern and often they are irrelevant to the social interests in a case, as where someone is prosecuted for murder in causing a fatal plane crash though his motive was not to kill but merely to reap a profit from selling airline stock short. United States v. McAnally, 666 F.2d 1116, 1119 (7th Cir.1981). “[Mjotive does not equal intent; fraud, larceny, embezzlement, and the other financial crimes and their tort equivalents are actionable even when the motive for the wrongful conduct is benign.” Eastern Trading Co. v. Refco, Inc., 229 F.3d 617, 623 (7th Cir.2000); see also United States v. Davis, 183 F.3d 231, 244 (3d Cir.1999); Johnson v. Phelan, 69 F.3d 144, 155-56 (7th Cir.1995) (separate opinion). Yet motive is sometimes given legal significance, most famously perhaps in the old spite-fence cases (see references in Original Great American Chocolate Chip Cookie Co. v. River Valley Cookies, Ltd., 970 F.2d 273, 280-81 (7th Cir.1992)) but also in assessing punitive damages, e.g., Kolstad v. American Dental Ass’n, 527 U.S. 526, 538-39, 119 S.Ct. 2118, 144 L.Ed.2d 494 (1999), and, of course, in criminal sentencing. E.g., Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 U.S. 476, 485, 113 S.Ct. 2194, 124 L.Ed.2d 436 (1993). I haven’t been able to think of a better way of reining in the class-of-one cases, which have an ominous potential to burst the proper bounds of equal protection law, than to insist that an improper motive by a government official have been the sole cause of the inequality of treatment of which the plaintiff is complaining.
Treatment that is arbitrary only because of human or institutional fallibility rather than because unlawful motives are in play is not an apt occasion for constitutional litigation. Although it is thought in some quarters ignoble to allow considerations of caseload to influence the scope of substantive rights, the federal courts have limited capacity and an attempt to cope with a relentlessly and steeply rising caseload by enlarging the number of judges and courts would create serious problems of control and coherence. As the Supreme Court once observed in a related context, “The federal court is not the appropriate forum in which to review the multitude of personnel decisions that are made daily by public agencies. We must accept the harsh fact that numerous individual mistakes are inevitable in the day-to-day administration of our affairs.” Bishop v. Wood, 426 U.S. 341, 349-50, 96 S.Ct. 2074, 48 L.Ed.2d 684 (1976).