Court Opinion

ID: 9575571
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:14:55.625953+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:48:31.207564
License: Public Domain

KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I part ways with the majority’s analysis regarding two of the appellants’ claims. I believe that the three fire fighters’ as-applied equal-protection challenge and the plaintiffs’ void-for-vagueness challenge to the City of Cleveland residency requirement for city employees should be permitted to proceed in court.
A. Equal Protection
As the majority recognizes, in Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562, 120 S.Ct. 1073, 145 L.Ed.2d 1060 (2000), the Supreme Court reiterated that plaintiffs may pursue “class of one” equal-protection *554claims if they “allege[] that [they] have been intentionally treated differently from others similarly situated and that there is no rational basis for the difference in treatment.” Id. at 564, 120 S.Ct. 1073. In my view, however, the Olech decision should carry far more weight in our decision today than the majority acknowledges. Grace Olech, the plaintiff in that case, claimed that the village required only a fifteen-foot easement from most property owners seeking access to the municipal water supply, and the Court described Olech’s complaint as follows:
Olech asserted that the 33-foot easement demand was “irrational and wholly arbitrary”; that the Village’s demand was actually motivated by ill will resulting from the Olechs’ previous filing of an unrelated, successful lawsuit against the Village; and that the Village acted either with the intent to deprive Olech of her rights or in reckless disregard of her rights.
Id. at 563, 120 S.Ct. 1073. The Court concluded that Olech’s complaint was sufficient to withstand a motion to dismiss, stating:
Olech’s complaint can fairly be construed as alleging that the Village intentionally demanded a 33-foot easement as a condition of connecting her property to the municipal water supply where the Village required only a 15-foot easement from other similarly situated property owners. The complaint also alleged that the Village’s demand was “irrational and wholly arbitrary” and that the Village ultimately connected her property after receiving a clearly adequate 15-foot easement. These allegations ... are sufficient to state a claim for relief under traditional equal protection analysis.
Id. at 565, 120 S.Ct. 1073.
The complaint of the three fire fighters is similar in all relevant respects. Like Olech’s complaint, the complaint here can “fairly be construed” as alleging that the City of Cleveland intentionally denied residency exemptions to DeVito, Posante, and Sliter though the City granted exemptions to other similarly situated employees. The fire fighters’ complaint also alleged that the City of Cleveland had granted residency exemptions “arbitrarily.” J.A. at 11, 14-15 (Compl. at ¶¶ 7, 20-22). These allegations are sufficient to state a claim for relief under Olech.
Nevertheless, the majority concludes that, “[Reviewing the entirety of their complaint and their additional briefing papers in the court below, it is impossible to conclude that Appellants have ever proceeded as anything other than a class.” Maj. Op. at 550. Apparently, the majority has not read the same complaint and briefing papers that I have. The complaint included particular factual allegations regarding DeVito, Posante, and Sliter, J.A. at 12-14 (Compl. at ¶¶ 8-18), included at least two allegations that the City granted exemptions “arbitrarily,” J.A. at 11, 14 (Compl. at ¶¶ 7, 20), and included a specific request for relief relief “as-applied,” J.A. at 16 (Compl. at 9). The majority notes that “[t]he defined term Fire Fighters includes the Association of Cleveland Fire Fighters and all individual members of Local 93, IAFF,” Maj. Op. at 550 n. 4, but apparently the majority did not consider the very next paragraph, in which the individual plaintiffs DeVito, Posante, and Sliter are also included in the defined term Fire Fighters, see J.A. at 10 (Compl. at ¶ 2). Moreover, in addition to addressing all fire fighters as a class at points in their response brief below, J.A. at 60-61, the appellants also argued that the City’s applications of the exemption provision, including the denial of exemptions to DeVito, Posante, and Sliter, have been arbitrary and irrational, J.A. at 61-62.1 Despite the *555majority’s assertion to the contrary, the complaint and additional briefing papers in the court below give fair notice that the three fire fighters made individual claims for relief.
The majority cites Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, — U.S. -, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007), but if there was any doubt whether Twombly altered the pleading requirements, the Supreme Court put that doubt to rest in Erickson v. Pardus, — U.S. -, 127 S.Ct. 2197, 167 L.Ed.2d 1081 (2007):
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) requires only “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Specific facts are not necessary; the statement need only “ ‘give the defendant fair notice of what the ... claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.’ ”
Erickson, 127 S.Ct. at 2200 (quoting Twombly, 127 S.Ct. at 1964) (alteration in Twombly) (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957)). The complaint gave the defendants fair notice of the three fire fighters’ claims and the grounds upon which they rest. See id. If proven, those claims would entitle the three fire fighters to relief. See Olech, 528 U.S. at 564, 120 S.Ct. 1073. The majority departs from the Supreme Court’s consistent and clear directions when it denies the three individual fire fighters the opportunity to proceed in court on their equal-protection claims.
B. Void for Vagueness
The vagueness doctrine rests on two primary interests — notice to persons affected and standards for enforcement— both of which are implicated here. In one sense, a city employee is on notice of what he or she must do to be granted a residency exemption: convince the City Council that it should grant an exemption. This, however, is the very danger that the vagueness doctrine seeks to prevent: “the exaction of obedience to a rule or standard which was so vague and indefinite as really to be no rule or standard at all.” A.B. Small Co. v. Am. Sugar Ref. Co., 267 U.S. 233, 239, 45 S.Ct. 295, 69 L.Ed. 589 (1925). A city employee may very well perform some act or fail to perform some act which, in the judgment of the City Council, disqualifies that employee from consideration for an exemption from the residency requirement, but the employee has no way of knowing. In this way, the residency-exemption provision may “trap the innocent by not providing fair warning.” Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 33 L.Ed.2d 222 (1972) (footnote omitted). The majority appears to recognize this problem, but brushes it aside with *556unquestioning reliance on Brockert v. Skornicka, 711 F.2d 1376, 1382 (7th Cir.1983), a nonbinding decision of another circuit. The Brockert court reasoned that “a provision setting forth a few general situations deserving a waiver” would lack the “flexibility necessary to deal with unforeseen, but meritorious requests,” but a “broad standard, such as an exemption ‘for cause,’ would provide little more in the way of guidance or notice than no standard at all.” Id. (footnotes omitted). It would be eminently feasible, though, for the City of Cleveland to set forth general standards for allowing exemptions from the residency requirement that would provide notice and guidance as well as flexibility. For example, the City could set forth a general standard, an exhaustive or nonexhaustive list of factors to be considered, an exhaustive or nonexhaustive list of general situations warranting or not warranting an exemption from the residency requirement, or some combination thereof. The majority does not even consider these options.
Similarly, section 74(a)’s residency-exemption provision provides no standards whatsoever for its application and enforcement. Although the residency-exemption provision does not delegate policy decisions to police, judges, or juries, it does require the City Council to make individualized determinations in a quasi-judicial capacity. Unlike the county charter provision at issue in Soules v. Kauaians for Nukolii Campaign Comm., 849 F.2d 1176 (9th Cir.1988), cited by the majority, which permitted the county council to call a special election in its discretion, the residency-exemption provision is not a fundamental delegation of legislative authority. See id. at 1184 & n. 13 (noting that the county charter provision did not expose anyone to “risk of being punished for engaging in ill-defined proscribed conduct” in concluding that the provision was not void for vagueness). The dangers of “arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement,” Grayned, 408 U.S. at 108, 92 S.Ct. 2294, are just as prevalent when the City Council makes individualized determinations as they are when the police, judges, or juries make such determinations.2 I agree with the majority that the vagueness doctrine does not render unconstitutional every provision of law that grants a lawmaking body discretion to pass legislation, but it has been established for at least a century that due process demands heightened protections when a governmental body acts in a quasi-judicial capacity rather than in a legislative capacity. See Londoner v. City and County of Denver, 210 U.S. 373, 385-86, 28 S.Ct. 708, 52 L.Ed. 1103 (1908). Accepting the allegations in the complaint as true, as we must at this stage of the proceedings, the plaintiffs should be allowed to go forward on their claim that the residency-exemption provision’s lack of standards for application and enforcement fails to provide the protections that due process requires.
For all of these reasons, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s decision to terminate prematurely the fire fighters’ lawsuit. The plaintiffs should be permitted to proceed in court on their claims that the residency provision as applied to the three individual fire fighters violates their equal-protection rights and that the residency-exemption provision is void for vagueness.

. Rather than engage with my analysis, the majority chides me for not taking into account the fact that DeVito, Posante, and Sliter have never formally requested a waiver from the full City Council — a fact, of course, that the majority also does not include in its analysis, and a fact on which even the defendants do not rely in their arguments on appeal. The majority also states that the appellants did not argue on appeal the position that I take here, but the appellants' brief states, for example:
In addressing the claims of the individually named Fire Fighters, DeVito, Posante and Sliter, the District Court held as follows: At best (and if proved), these allegations can only establish a pattern of denying exemptions to all firefighters, while (potentially) allowing City officials in less emergency-related positions to reside outside City limits.
[J.A. at 26 (Dist. Ct. Order at 6) ]. However, the Claims of DeVito, Posante and Sliter as enumerated in the Complaint allow for much broader logical inferences than the District Court seemed to infer itself.
Appellants' Br. at 15.

. It is telling that the one case that the majority cites for the proposition that "discretion is often afforded" to municipal governments to make individualized determinations concerned an ordinance that did specify criteria that guided that discretion, and state law supplied further limitations. See Outdoor Commc’ns, Inc. v. City of Murfreesboro, 59 F.3d 171, 1995 WL 390303, at *4 (6th Cir.1995) (unpublished opinion).