Court Opinion

ID: 9391714
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-03 00:01:03.692752+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:44.136694
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-30110        Document: 00516734643             Page: 1      Date Filed: 05/02/2023

             United States Court of Appeals
                  for the Fifth Circuit                                   United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                   Fifth Circuit

                                     ____________                                FILED
                                                                              May 2, 2023
                                       No. 22-30110                         Lyle W. Cayce
                                     ____________                                Clerk

   Daniel Plustache,

                                                                    Plaintiff—Appellant,

                                            versus

   Michael Harrison, New Orleans Police Department Superintendent;
   Elizabeth Robins; Kirk Bouyales; Arlinda Westbrook;
   Simon B. Hargrove; Arlen S. Barnes; Darryl Watson;
   New Orleans City; Gwendolyn L. Nolan, New Orleans Police
   Department Commander; Jean W. Jordan,

                                              Defendants—Appellees.
                     ______________________________

                     Appeal from the United States District Court
                        for the Eastern District of Louisiana
                              USDC No. 2:18-CV-4844
                     ______________________________

   Before Jolly, Oldham, and Wilson, Circuit Judges.
   E. Grady Jolly, Circuit Judge:*
         Plaintiff-appellant Daniel Plustache appeals from the district court’s
   judgment dismissing his claims under Title VII and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for

         _____________________
         *
             This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 22-30110      Document: 00516734643           Page: 2   Date Filed: 05/02/2023

                                     No. 22-30110

   failure to state a claim. His state law claims were dismissed for lack of
   jurisdiction. Finding no error, we AFFIRM.
                                          I
          Although the complaint and the brief tend to be verbose and at times
   aimless, the core assertions appear to be: Plustache was employed as a police
   officer with the New Orleans Police Department (“NOPD”). Between 2013
   and 2018, several of his coworkers and superiors filed complaints regarding
   Plustache’s alleged misconduct on the job. Those complaints initiated
   disciplinary hearings with the NOPD’s Public Integrity Bureau but no
   disciplinary action against Plustache. Plustache contends, however, that
   damaging misrepresentations regarding his job performance were made at
   those hearings. Plustache requested records regarding the hearings, believing
   that those records would “likely ground his exoneration and dismissal” of all
   charges from the disciplinary hearings. Nevertheless, his requests were
   denied. Plustache further claims that he learned through an anonymous
   source that his NOPD superiors had sought authority to arrest him. He
   acknowledges, however, that they never arrested him, nor made any further
   effort to effect an arrest. In short, his superiors’ efforts to arrest him never
   materialized. August 28, 2018, Plustache resigned from his job at the NOPD.
          Plustache further alleges that the aforementioned events were part of
   an ongoing pattern of harassment by his superiors at the NOPD in retaliation
   for his “whistleblowing” regarding problems in his unit. He also argues that
   the alleged harassment ultimately led to his constructive termination when
   he resigned from his job.
          Additionally, Plustache alleges several violations of his constitutional
   rights. He first claims that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated by
   what he perceived to be the attempt to arrest him. He next contends that his
   Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment was

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                                         No. 22-30110

   violated when defendants allegedly abused their police powers in their
   attempt to arrest him. Finally, he makes several Fourteenth Amendment
   claims but does not specify what Fourteenth Amendment rights the
   defendants violated. He instead makes generalized claims that the defendants
   violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights in attempting to arrest him, in
   denying his requests for records from his disciplinary hearings, and in
   violating his rights under Title VII.
                                               II
           Here, we review the district court’s grant of a Rule 12(c) motion for
   judgment on the pleadings under the same de novo standard as is used for a
   ruling on a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. See
   Gentilello v. Rege, 627 F.3d 540, 543–44 (5th Cir. 2010) (citation omitted).
           We first turn to Plustache’s Title VII claims. He claims workplace
   retaliation, racial discrimination, hostile work environment and constructive
   discharge. In states like Louisiana, a plaintiff must file a charge of
   discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission within
   300 days of the alleged unlawful conduct. See Conner v. La. Dep’t of Health &
   Hosps., 247 F. App’x 480, 481 (5th Cir. 2007) (per curiam).1 Thus, Plustache
   only has viable claims for acts that occurred after August 18, 2018. The single
   claim that Plustache alleges within this timeframe concerns his resignation
   from the NOPD. Accordingly, we agree with the district court’s

           _____________________
           1
             In states like Louisiana that have “an entity with the authority to grant or seek
   relief with respect to the alleged unlawful practice, an employee who initially files a
   grievance with that agency must file the charge with the EEOC within 300 days of the
   employment practice;” in states without such an entity, an employee must file within 180
   days. Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 109 (2002) (applying 42 U.S.C. §
   2000e-5(e)(1)).

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   determination that his claims relating to workplace retaliation, racial
   discrimination, and hostile work environment are time-barred.
          Thus, his only remaining Title VII claim is for constructive
   termination, which arises from his act of resignation. The district court
   determined that Plustache had failed to show that his “working conditions
   were so intolerable that a reasonable employee in [his] position would [have
   felt] compelled to resign.” Hockman v. Westward Commc’ns, LLC, 407 F.3d
   317, 331 (5th Cir. 2004) (citation omitted). The district court did not err. His
   claim is based on various circumstances occurring over four years:
   complaints from superiors and coworkers regarding his job performance that
   resulted in disciplinary hearings (but no disciplinary action), alleged
   misrepresentations regarding his job performance at those hearings, and two
   denials of his public records requests regarding the disciplinary hearings. We
   accept those allegations as true. But there is no authority, nor does he cite
   any, that suggests that these allegations are of harassment so extreme that a
   reasonable employee would have felt compelled to resign. We therefore hold
   that his constructive termination claim is meritless.
          We move on to consider Plustache’s § 1983 claims that are based on
   alleged constitutional violations of his Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth
   Amendment rights. “To state a valid claim under § 1983, a plaintiff[] must
   (1) allege a violation of rights secured by the Constitution or laws of the
   United States and (2) demonstrate that the alleged deprivation was
   committed by a person acting under color of state law.” Resident Council of
   Allen Parkway Vill. v. HUD, 980 F.2d 1043, 1053 (5th Cir. 1993) (citation
   omitted). Plustache fails to allege a violation of any federal rights. He does
   not allege that he was seized or arrested, effectively undermining any Fourth
   Amendment claim he may have. See Rhodes v. Prince, 360 F. App’x 555, 558
   (5th Cir. 2010) (per curiam). Similarly, his Eighth Amendment claim fails
   because he does not allege that he had been convicted of a crime and thus

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                                     No. 22-30110

   subject to the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual
   punishment. Palermo v. Rorex, 806 F.2d 1266, 1271 (5th Cir. 1987) (citations
   omitted).
          Finally, we turn to Plustache’s Fourteenth Amendment claims. These
   claims fail because he does not allege that he was deprived of a protected life,
   liberty, or property interest. Blackburn v. City of Marshall, 42 F.3d 925, 935
   (5th Cir. 1995). Plustache first appears to argue that the defendants
   attempted to deprive him of his substantive due process rights by an effort to
   seek his arrest. That claim falters because an attempted deprivation, without
   more, simply does not state the denial of substantive due process.
          Plustache further suggests that defendants violated his procedural due
   process rights by denying his requests for records of his disciplinary hearings
   because those records would “exonerate” him from all charges filed against
   him with the NOPD’s Public Integrity Bureau. That claim fails because there
   is no generalized constitutional or federal right to access documents under
   the control of state agencies or their political subdivisions. See Wells v. State
   Att’y Gens. of La., 469 F. App’x 308, 309 (5th Cir. 2012) (per curiam); see
   also Bonnet v. Ward Cnty., 539 F. App’x 481, 483 (5th Cir. 2013) (per curiam)
   (citation omitted). In any event, the denial of his records requests cannot
   support a § 1983 claim because Louisiana Public Records Law provides an
   adequate remedy for the denial of a public records request. See Williams v.
   Kreider, 996 F.2d 306 (5th Cir. 1993) (per curiam) (unpublished) (holding
   that the remedy provided by La. Stat. Ann. § 44:35(a) precludes a procedural
   due process claim).
          Finally, Plustache’s claim that Title VII itself confers a constitutional
   or substantive right that can be enforced through § 1983 also fails because
   enforcement of a right under § 1983 is not available when, as here, the statute
   itself provides an exclusive remedy for violations of its own terms. Johnston

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   v. Harris Cnty. Flood Control Dist., 869 F.2d 1565, 1574 (5th Cir. 1989)
   (citation omitted).
          Accordingly, for the reasons set forth herein, the judgment of the
   district court dismissing the complaint is
                                                                  AFFIRMED.

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