Morrison v. City of Baton Rouge

• Decision Date: 28 May 1985
• Docket Number: No. 84-3565,84-3565
• Parties: Mrs. Susie Lite MORRISON, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CITY OF BATON ROUGE, et al., Defendants-Appellees. Summary Calendar.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 242

761 F.2d 242

Mrs. Susie Lite MORRISON, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CITY OF BATON ROUGE, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 84-3565

Summary Calendar.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

May 28, 1985.

White & Pitre, Marion Overton White, Opelousas, La., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Mary H. Thompson, Baton Rouge, La., for Ossie Brown.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana.

Before GEE, RUBIN and RANDALL, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

This case presents the question whether a state prosecutor may be liable for damages under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 for maliciously presenting evidence to a grand jury in a manner calculated to clear a suspect of wrongdoing. We conclude that in such circumstances a prosecutor is absolutely immune from liability for damages.

I.

On March 11, 1978, a resident of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, reported to the police department that his home had been burglarized. When officers arrived at the residence to investigate, they discovered Clarence Morrison, Jr., the fourteen-year-old son of the plaintiffs, hiding in a closet. Moments later, there occurred a tragic incident, the details of which are not relevant On November 29, 1978, the plaintiffs commenced this action to recover damages for their son's death from the City of Baton Rouge, the mayor, the police chief, the police officer who fired the fatal shot, and Ossie B. Brown, the District Attorney of East Baton Rouge Parish. The plaintiffs allege a cause of action for the deprivation of civil rights under 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1983, 1985, and 1988 and a pendent-jurisdiction claim for wrongful death under Louisiana law. The complaint alleges that Morrison, a black, was summarily executed "pursuant to the City of Baton Rouge's long, historic and often protested policy of summary punishment of blacks by white policemen when the former [are] found in incriminating situations." According to the complaint, the individual defendants, each of whom is white, maliciously participated either in the formulation or the execution of this policy through which, in this case, they deprived Morrison of life without due process. With respect to Brown, the district attorney, the complaint makes only two conclusory allegations: (1) "the defendants have had the active cooperation of the East Baton Rouge District Attorney's office ... to execute its policies of summary infliction of punishment or death on young blacks" and (2) the policy pursuant to which Morrison was shot is implemented "with the legal back-up of the District Attorneys of East Baton Rouge which ..., in effect, immunize[s] policemen from punishment or reprimand." The complaint does not specifically allege any act or omission undertaken by Brown or any other district attorney in connection with Morrison's death.

to this appeal: a Baton Rouge police officer shot and killed the boy.

Brown moved to dismiss the action against him for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. He argued that the allegations of the complaint are too vague and conclusory to state a claim and that, at any rate, he is absolutely immune from liability under Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 96 S.Ct. 984, 47 L.Ed.2d 128 (1976), because any action he took with respect to Morrison's death was "performed in his official role" as prosecutor. The district court agreed and on May 17, 1979, granted the motion to dismiss.

The plaintiffs attempted to perfect an appeal to this court from the order dismissing their claims against Brown. Because that order was not a final judgment, we dismissed the appeal for want of jurisdiction. See Morrison v. City of Baton Rouge, 614 F.2d 77 (5th Cir.1980). Thereafter, the district court denied plaintiffs' request for a Rule 54(b), Fed.R.Civ.P., certification of the dismissal order. Following protracted discovery proceedings, the plaintiffs obtained leave to amend their complaint. On March 25, 1982, the plaintiffs filed an "Amended and Supplemental Complaint" which, like the previous complaint, names Brown as a defendant. The amended complaint, which was served upon Brown, again alleges that Brown "actively cooperated" in the implementation of an illegal policy of summary punishment of black youths. This time, however, the plaintiffs' allegations were somewhat more specific: (1) the complaint lists the names of twelve black youths other than Morrison who since 1969 have been killed by Baton Rouge police officers; (2) the complaint further alleges that, in each of these previous cases, "the killers were [not] punished or reprimanded either by administrative procedures, District Attorney information procedures or by Grand Jury procedures"; and (3) the complaint also states that, following Morrison's death, "the City police together with the active cooperation of ... Brown ... embarked upon a course of action designed to further the ... [summary execution] plan ... and to cover up the true facts [of Morrison's death] by causing selective, non-relevant 'evidence' to be presented to a grand jury and 'down-grading' the testimony of an eye-witness to the actual killing." Finally, the amended complaint adds an additional conclusory allegation not contained in the initial pleading: "[the shootings of black youths] were committed pursuant to a plan or conspiracy tacitly confected between the Mayor-President, the Chief of Police and the District Attorney to intimidate and deprive black On June 7, 1982, Brown again moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim. Construing the allegations of the amended complaint as "nothing more than claims of prosecutorial misconduct in the presentation of the state's case and initiation of prosecution," the district court, on August 2, 1982, again granted the motion to dismiss. The district court found that, assuming the truth of the specific allegations of the amended complaint, Brown's conduct falls within Imbler 's umbrella of immunity. On May 31, 1984, Brown moved, under Rule 54(b), for entry of final judgment in his favor. Before the motion was considered, the plaintiffs, on June 8, 1984, moved to enroll their current attorney as new trial counsel. The latter motion was granted on July 9, 1984. Two days later, on July 11, the district court granted the motion for the entry of final judgment in favor of Brown on the ground that, by failing to respond to the motion, the plaintiffs effectively consented to the entry of final judgment. A motion to reconsider was denied. The plaintiffs appeal from the final judgment dismissing their allegations against Brown for failure to state a claim.

citizens of the equal protection of the law and to deny to them specific constitutional guarantees."

II.

On appeal, the plaintiffs urge three reasons for reversing the judgment in favor of Brown: (1) the complaint is not vague or conclusory; rather, it is sufficiently specific to satisfy the notice-pleading requirements of Rule 8(a), Fed.R.Civ.P. ¹ ; (2) the complaint alleges activity by Brown outside of the scope of the quasi-judicial immunity recognized in Imbler; and (3) the district court erred by granting the motion for a Rule 54(b) final judgment only two days after the court allowed the plaintiffs to enroll new trial counsel. The latter ground is stated but is not briefed; we shall not consider it. See, e.g., Bray v. Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Prgrams, 664 F.2d 1045, 1048-49 (5th Cir.1981); Kemlon Products & Development Co. v. United States, 646 F.2d 223, 224 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 863, 102 S.Ct. 320, 70 L.Ed.2d 162 (1981).

In reviewing the propriety of a dismissal on the pleadings, we of course accept the truth of the plaintiff's well-pleaded allegations. See, e.g., Dickens v. Lewis, 750 F.2d 1251, 1254 (5th Cir.1984). We are also mindful that the pleading requirements of the federal rules are liberal; often the litigants may plead generally and discover the precise factual basis for their claim through equally liberal pretrial discovery procedures. See Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 102, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957) ("complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief"). There are of course limits: "In the now familiar cases invoking 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 we consistently require the claimant to state specific facts, not merely conclusory allegations." Elliott v. Perez, 751 F.2d 1472, 1479 (5th Cir.1985). See also Hobson v. Wilson, 737 F.2d 1, 30 (D.C.Cir.1984) ("every ... circuit has articulated a requirement of particularity on pleading for civil rights complaints"), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 105 S.Ct. 1843, 85 L.Ed.2d 142 (1985). Moreover, we have recently recognized a special tension in cases involving civil rights complaints against public officials for actions undertaken in their official capacities. In this context, liberal notions of notice pleading must ultimately give way to immunity doctrines that protect us from having the work of our public officials chilled or disrupted by participation in the trial or the pretrial development of civil lawsuits. Thus, in Elliot, we held that, to commence a lawsuit against a public official for acts for which he is potentially immune, the complaint must allege "with particularity all material facts on which In Elliot, the plaintiff sued two district attorneys, a state judge, and a witness who appeared before a grand jury convened by one of the defendant-district attorneys in the defendant-judge's court. The complaint alleged generally that the defendants conspired to injure the plaintiff, who was the grand jury foreman, by discharging the grand jury and commencing a criminal prosecution against the plaintiff for jury tampering. The district court granted the motions to dismiss of the judge and one of the prosecutors. On appeal, we were unwilling "on the...