Payton v. Presbyterian-St. Luke's Med. Ctr.
| Citation | 184 F.3d 623 |
| Decision Date | 01 July 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. 98-2931,98-2931 |
| Parties | (7th Cir. 1999) William Payton, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, Rick Freeman, Anthony Murray and William Blair, Defendants-Appellees |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit) |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 97 C 5558--Ann Claire Williams, Judge.
Before Flaum, Ripple and Diane P. Wood, Circuit Judges.
William Payton appeals the district court's dismissal of his 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983 claims upon the defendants' 12(b)(6) motion, and its concurrent dismissal of his state law claims because it opted not to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over them. For the reasons set out below, we vacate the district court's decision, and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Payton's sec. 1983 claims arise from a March 14, 1995 encounter with the individual defendants at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center ("Rush") in Chicago, Illinois. Payton alleges that on that date, he entered Rush in a peaceful, law-abiding manner. He claims that William Blair,1 acting as Rush's agent, ordered his subordinates Rick Freeman and Anthony Murray, two Rush security personnel who were also "special Chicago police officers," ("special police officers") to stop him from entering Blair's office area.
The duties and powers of a special police officer are laid out in the Special Policeman and Security Guards Ordinance of the City of Chicago. ("SPSGO") sec. 4-340 Chicago City Code (1993). This ordinance requires that a special police officer must be appointed and licensed by the city, sec. 4-340-020, and that the superintendent of police "shall cause an investigation to be made of the character of the applicant." sec. 4- 340-040. The superintendent must keep a list of all persons appointed special officers. sec. 4- 340-060. The SPSGO also requires that all officers wear a sec. 4-340-080. Finally, the regulation requires special officers to:
conform to and be subject to all rules and regulations governing police officers of the city, and to such additional rules and regulations as the superintendent of police may make . . . [they] shall possess the powers of the regular police patrol at the places for which they are respectively appointed or in the line of duty for which they are engaged. Special policemen shall report in person to the superintendent of police at such times and places as may be required by him.
The plaintiff's complaint alleged that on March 14, 1995 Freeman and Murray detained and arrested him, and beat, struck and kicked him without provocation. According to the complaint, these two knocked him to the ground, pushed his face to the floor, and, while they lay on top of him, handcuffed him. The alleged beatings caused the plaintiff to suffer severe injuries to his eyes, face, head, body, arms, legs and nervous system. The defendants pressed charges against Payton, although he was acquitted by a Cook County judge. The plaintiff claims that this was a malicious prosecution which led him to suffer emotional distress and other injuries.
Payton sued all of the defendants in Illinois court on a variety of state law claims. He later amended his complaint, alleging that the defendants violated his federal civil rights, because they were acting under the color of state law. This amended complaint contained three alleged federal law violations: a due process claim ("Count V"), an equal protection claim ("Count VI") and a claim alleging a conspiracy to violate Payton's constitutional rights ("Count VII"). These claims hinge on whether Freeman and Murray's status as special Chicago police officers made them state actors.
After Payton filed his sec. 1983 claims, the defendants removed the suit to federal district court.2 Acting upon defendants' 12(b)(6) motion, the district court dismissed the plaintiff's federal claims. It held that Payton failed to meet a heightened pleading standard it felt was required when a plaintiff sues a private actor under sec. 1983. After throwing out the plaintiff's federal law claims, the district court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over his state claims, and dismissed them without prejudice. The plaintiff now appeals.
We review the district court's decision to grant a defendant's 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss de novo. Pickrel v. City of Springfield, 45 F.3d 1115, 1118 (7th Cir. 1995). We affirm a dismissal only if we find that the plaintiff has failed to allege any set of facts upon which relief can be granted. Id.
Payton's second amended complaint alleged that when Freeman and Murray beat, detained, and arrested him, they did so under their authority as "duly appointed and anointed . . . peace officers of the City of Chicago." The complaint also claimed that these defendants' actions were committed in their official capacities as special police officers, and thus under color of state law. Count V of the complaint states that through the use of these police powers, the defendants violated Payton's rights to be free from illegal arrest, unlawful restraint, use of excessive force and false imprisonment. Count VI claims that these powers were used to violate Payton's right to equal protection under the 14th Amendment, and Count VII alleges that the defendants conspired to violate the plaintiff's civil rights.
In rejecting Payton's argument that his pleadings were sufficient, the district court held that the plaintiff had to show some "additional plus factor" beyond the mere allegation that the defendants were special police officers. The district court believed that such a heightened pleading standard was "clearly established as a matter of law" by the Supreme Court's decision in Williams v. United States, 341 U.S. 97, 98-99 (1951); see also Davis v. Carson Pirie Scott & Co., 530 F. Supp. 799, 803 (N.D. Ill. 1982). The defendants urge this interpretation of Williams on us as well.
We start by noting that Williams itself announced no heightened pleading requirement. That case dealt with whether a special police officer could be criminally prosecuted under 18 U.S.C. sec. 242, a statute similar, but plainly not identical, to sec. 1983. Williams' central holding was that a private security guard granted special powers under a Florida statute could be prosecuted under federal civil rights law for beating a confession out of criminal suspects. 341 U.S. at 349. While the case mentions, among a litany of other facts, that the defendant flashed his city-issued badge while he beat his victim, the Supreme Court placed no special emphasis on this. However, the district court here elevated this single fact in Williams into a requirement that the plaintiff plead similar "plus factors" in order to survive a motion to dismiss.
We do not read such a mandate into Williams. Indeed, the defendants point to only one other case to support the district court's standard. See Davis, 530 F. Supp. 799, 802 (N.D. Ill. 1982). Before Davis, no court ever found that Williams required plaintiffs to plead "plus factors." Davis relied solely on its own interpretation of Williams, and cited no additional precedent for its interpretation. Since Davis, no reported case has cited it--or Williams--for a similar proposition in the context of a motion to dismiss. Indeed, very recently, another court in the Northern District of Illinois analyzed a motion to dismiss a nearly identical claim to this one without reference to a heightened pleading standard. Scott v. Northwestern University School of Law, 1999 WL 134059 (N.D. Ill. March 8, 1999).3
This is not surprising given that Davis and the district court's opinion here are in tension with the federal notice pleading standard. Rule 8(a)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires only that a plaintiff plead a "short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." In the seminal case Conley v. Gibson, the Supreme Court held that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure "do not require a claimant to set out in detail the facts upon which he bases his claim." 355 U.S. 41, 47 (1957). Plaintiffs need not Bennett v. Schmidt, 153 F.3d 516, 518 (7th Cir. 1998) (emphasis in original) (quoting American Nurses' Assn. v. Illinois, 783 F.2d 716, 727 (7th Cir. 1986)).
FRCP Rule 9(b) embodies the exception to this otherwise lenient rule. Rule 9(b) requires that claims of fraud or mistake be pleaded with particularity. The higher standard in those cases is warranted by the "great harm to the reputation of a business firm or other enterprise" a fraud claim can do. Ackerman v. Northwestern Mutual Life Ins. Co., 172 F.3d 467, 469 (7th Cir. 1999). A plaintiff claiming fraud or mistake must do more pre-complaint investigation to assure that the claim is responsible and supported, "rather than defamatory and extortionate." Id.
Heightened pleading standards have fared poorly outside of the Rule 9(b) context. In a case relied on by the plaintiff, the Supreme Court unanimously held that federal courts may not apply a pleading standard "more stringent than the usual pleading requirements of Rule 8(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in civil rights cases alleging municipal liability" under sec. 1983. Leatherman v. Tarrant County Narcotics Intelligence & Coordination Unit, 507 U.S. 163, 164 (1993). Leatherman noted...
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