Terry Properties, Inc. v. Standard Oil Co. (Ind.), 85-7014
| Citation | 799 F.2d 1523 |
| Decision Date | 24 September 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 85-7014,85-7014 |
| Parties | TERRY PROPERTIES, INC., a Corp.; Hillcrest Corp., a Corp.; Roy Terry, an Ind.; & Rudolph Terry, an Ind., Plaintiffs-Appellants, Cross-Appellees, v. STANDARD OIL CO. (IND); Amoco Chemicals Corp.; the City of Roanoke, Al.; the City Council of the City of Roanoke, Al.; Henry V. Bonner, Mayor of the City of Roanoke, Al., as Mayor and Ind.; Tommy Hill, former Mayor of Roanoke, Al., as Mayor and Ind.; William E. Montgomery, as Chairman of the Utility Board and Ind.; James Lane, as Chairman of the Industrial Development Board of Roanoke, Al. and Ind.; Roy Reeves, Ind.; Earl Mannings, Ind.; Joe B. Turner, Ind.; Olin Sheppard, Ind. and as Clerk of the City of Roanoke, Al.; & Stell Benefield, Ind., Defendants-Appellees, Amoco Fabrics Co. and the Industrial Development Board of the City of Roanoke, Al., Defendants-Appellees, Cross-Appellants. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit) |
Chester D. Davenport, Davenport & Seay, Makila James, Harold E. Jordan, Tomas R. Lopez, Washington, D.C. for plaintiffs-appellants, cross-appellees.
Grover Hankins, Nat. Ass'n for the Advancement of Colored People, Brooklyn, N.Y., Timothy Brown, Brown & Vance, Frederick A. Douglas, Leftwich, Moore & Douglas, Washington, D.C., for amici curiae MBELDEF & NAACP.
Julius LeVonne Chambers, Charles Stephen Ralston, New York City, for NAACP Legal Defense & Educ. Fund.
Edward S. Allen, Balch, Bingham, Baker, Ward, Smith, Bowman & Thagard, John P. Scott, Jr., Birmingham, Ala., Theresa J. Arnold, Chicago, Ill., for Standard Oil, Amoco Chemicals & Amoco Fabrics.
John Denson, Samford, Denson, Horsley, Pettey, Martin & Barrett, Opelika, Ala., for City of Roanoke, et al.
William O. Miller, G. Stephen Parker, Robert B. Baker, Jr., Atlanta, Ga., for Southeastern Legal Foundation.
Robin S. Conrad, Paula J. Connelly, Lynn M. Smelkinson, Washington, D.C., for the Chamber of Commerce of the U.S.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.
Before RONEY, Chief Judge, CLARK, Circuit Judge, and DOYLE *, Senior District Judge.
Appellants appeal from the district court's determination that they failed to prove their claims of race discrimination arising from the location of an industrial plant adjacent to their property and consequent rerouting of a road. They also appeal from the assessment of certain attorney's fees and costs against them. Cross-appellants appeal from the district court's determination that they failed to prove the counterclaim of intentional interference with their business relationships. We affirm the district court's findings with respect to liability on both the appeal and cross-appeal and affirm the assessment of costs against appellants. We also affirm the decision to award attorney's fees in favor of appellee Tommy Hill, but reverse the award of attorney's fees in favor of the other appellees.
The appellants in this case are Rudolph and Roy Terry and two of their businesses, Terry Properties, Inc., and Hillcrest Corporation. Rudolph and Roy Terry, brothers, are prominent black businesspeople engaged in manufacturing and real estate development in Roanoke, Alabama. Terry Properties, Inc. and Hillcrest Corporation were formed in 1973 to develop certain real property into a residential community known as Hillcrest Community. Rudolph and Roy Terry also own and operate Terry Manufacturing Company, an apparel plant located in Roanoke, which is a cross-appellee in this action. We will refer to Rudolph and Roy Terry and their businesses as "the Terrys" throughout this opinion.
Roanoke is a city of approximately 6,000 people located in Randolph County in eastern Alabama. The individual appellees associated with Roanoke are Henry Bonner, Mayor of Roanoke since June, 1979 and previously Mayor Pro Tem and City Council member, Olin Sheppard, City Clerk and Secretary-Treasurer for the Industrial Development Board ("IDB") and for the Utilities Board ("UB"), Tommy Hill, former Mayor of Roanoke, William E. Montgomery, Chairman of the UB, James Lane, chairman of the IDB, Stell Benefield, Randolph County Probate Court judge, and Roy Reeves, Earl Manning and Joe Turner, all members of the Randolph County Development Association ("RCDA"), a voluntary association organized to encourage industry to locate in the Roanoke area. The Roanoke appellees also include the City of Roanoke, the Industrial Development Board and the Utilities Board. We will refer to the appellees associated with the City of Roanoke as "the City appellees" throughout this opinion.
The corporate appellees are Amoco Fabrics Company ("Amoco Fabrics"), which operates a carpet backing manufacturing plant in Roanoke known as Roanoke Mills, Amoco Chemicals Corporation ("Amoco Chemicals"), parent corporation of Amoco Fabrics, and Standard Oil Company of Indiana ("Standard Oil"), parent corporation of Amoco Chemicals. We will refer to these appellees as "the corporate appellees" throughout this opinion.
In 1973, Rudolph and Roy Terry purchased some land adjacent to property owned by Roanoke Guano Company for residential development. The property was located south of a pulpwood factory and a railroad, northwest of the Candlewick Yarns plant, east of a cattle sales barn and a slaughterhouse and north of the airport. To the east lay the Roanoke Guano Company property and the center of Roanoke. A dirt road running east-west provided access from the property purchased by the Terrys past the Roanoke Guano Company property to the city center.
In 1974, the Terrys began construction of their residential development. The City, at the Terrys' request, paved the dirt road running past the Roanoke Guano Company property and named it Industrial Boulevard. As of 1979, the Terrys had constructed thirty single-family homes and six apartment buildings designed to meet the need of the black community for modestly priced housing. This development came to be known as Hillcrest Community.
During the 1970's, the unemployment rate in Roanoke climbed steadily. Early in the decade, the closing of a textile plant resulted in the loss of 850 jobs. Alarmed by the worsening state of the local economy, Roanoke citizens began to organize to encourage industry to locate in Roanoke and in Randolph County. In 1978, the Randolph County Development Association ("RCDA") was formed in a volunteer effort to attract industry. Rudolph Terry was a member of the board of directors of RCDA. In early 1979, the Roanoke Chamber of Commerce sought to secure certification of Roanoke as a "Preferred City" through an Alabama Development Office ("ADO") program designed to prepare communities to compete for industry. Appellees Reeves, Manning, Turner and Lane participated in the RCDA and in the Preferred Cities Program. They, along with Bonner and Sheppard, were volunteers trained by the Preferred Cities Program, the ADO, Alabama Power Company and Seaboard Railroad in the strategies of successfully recruiting new industry. According to the City, this training was available to any interested member of the public. The Terrys, although Rudolph was a RCDA board member and Roy was on the Industrial Development Committee of the Chamber of Commerce, chose not to participate in the training. Roanoke eventually became the third Alabama city to be accorded Preferred City status.
In 1978, the City purchased 80 acres of land adjacent to the Hillcrest Community from the Roanoke Guano Company. With this addition, the City owned an 148 acre parcel of land to the east of Hillcrest Community, 80 acres of which lay north of Industrial Boulevard. Title opinions obtained at the time certified that the property was zoned for industrial use, and the tract was named Industrial Park. Industrial Park was one of several sites identified by the City as suited for use by potential new industry. It was advertised as such in a brochure published and circulated by the RCDA. Other sites identified for possible industrial use included the Phillips property (30-35 acres), the Robinson property (55 acres) and the Cummings property (80-100 acres).
As community members took steps to alleviate Roanoke's economic troubles, the City was experiencing other problems. During the summer of 1979, tension between blacks and whites heightened when charges of police brutality against blacks were made. Compounding the problem, Mayor Tommy Hill appointed a white man who had been convicted of assaulting a black minister as police chief and retroactively pardoned the new chief's prior conviction to avoid his disqualification. The Terrys took on active leadership roles during the period of racial unrest by organizing demonstrations and boycotts to protest the police brutality, appearing before the City Council and participating in efforts to increase black voter registration. It is in the light of the economic difficulties of the City and the racial tension during the latter half of 1979 that the particular facts leading to this lawsuit must be considered.
In June of 1979, Thomas F. Ryan of the Alabama Power Company met with T. Webster Williams of Amoco Fabrics to discuss the possible location of a synthetic carpet backing manufacturing plant in Alabama. Ryan suggested Roanoke and a number of other cities. Because the Roanoke labor force included workers with textile manufacturing skills, Williams indicated he would be interested in considering it if a site of approximately 80 to 125 acres could be located in the area. Williams asked that the name of the interested industry not be disclosed to the public under any circumstances.
Ryan contacted Reeves, with whom he had previously worked in connection with industry development, and told him about the interested industry and its requirements. A meeting was arranged to introduce Williams to Randolph County citizens who could provide information relevant to the...
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