Motes v. Myers, 86-8356

• Decision Date: 20 February 1987
• Docket Number: No. 86-8356,86-8356
• Citation: 810 F.2d 1055
• Parties: Belinda Joy MOTES, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. James Ronnie MYERS, Kenneth Jones, Rockdale County Board of Commissioners, Charles Smith, Chairman, City of Conyers, Barbara Bramblett, City Manager, Defendants-Appellees. Non-Argument Calendar.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1055

810 F.2d 1055

Belinda Joy MOTES, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. James Ronnie MYERS, Kenneth Jones, Rockdale County Board of Commissioners, Charles Smith, Chairman, City of Conyers, Barbara Bramblett, City Manager, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 86-8356

Non-Argument Calendar.

United States Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit.

Feb. 20, 1987.

Pamela G. Guest, Doraville, Ga., for plaintiff-appellant.

Arthur H. Glaser, Atlanta, Ga., John A. Nix, Conyers, Ga., for Myers.

Alan F. Herman, Atlanta, Ga., for C. Conyers & Bramblett.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Before HATCHETT and CLARK, Circuit Judges, and TUTTLE ^*, Senior Circuit Judge.

CLARK, Circuit Judge:

This case involves a dispute over title to an air conditioner. On its surface, the lawsuit seems trivial and lacking in federal jurisdiction. Underneath lurks the question of whether plaintiff Motes was deprived of her constitutional right of liberty without due process of law and whether 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 affords her relief and federal jurisdiction of her claim. Belinda Joy Motes sued Sergeant James Ronald Myers, an officer with the City of Conyers Police Department, and Deputy Sheriff Kenneth Jones, an officer of the Rockdale Sheriff's Department, for unconstitutionally arresting her, and the City of Conyers and the County of Rockdale for improperly hiring, training, supervising and retaining these two officers. Specifically, Motes alleges that she was wrongfully imprisoned without probable cause, that excessive force was used in her arrest, and that there was an unlawful search of her home. Furthermore, Motes claims that during the arrest she sustained physical injury in the form of bruises, and that after the arrest she suffered mental and emotional anguish, and aggravation of her epileptic condition. We construe the complaint to assert a Sec. 1983 claim of deprivation of a liberty interest, as well as the right to possess one's property free from an illegal search.

The district court granted defendant Myers' motion to dismiss, and in the alternative, for summary judgment, granted the City of Conyers' motion for summary judgment, granted the motion by the City of Conyers' Manager for judgment on the pleadings in her favor, and dismissed all pendent state claims without prejudice. We reverse the dismissal and grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants Myers and Jones on grounds that Motes has alleged facts sufficient to state a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. We affirm as to the City of Conyers and Bramblett. As the subsequent discussion will show, Myers' actions were those of a private citizen, not a City of Conyers policeman. Thus, the City is not involved. The judgment of the district court against the plaintiff included defendants Rockdale County and Chairman Charles Smith. The district court made no reference to these defendants in the dispositional part of its order, nor did it discuss them in its findings of fact and conclusions of law. We include these defendants in our remand without expressing an opinion as to whether they are entitled to pre-trial summary judgment.

FACTS

Motes' arrest grew out of a two-year dispute with Myers over ownership of an Beginning in May, 1984, the issue of ownership of the air conditioner arose in several conversations between different people. In May, Motes' mother requested Myers to return the unit, and he refused. Also in May, Myers asked the Chief of Police in Conyers, Roland Vaughn, whether he or Motes owned the air conditioner. Vaughn suggested that he consult an attorney on the question. Meanwhile, Myers' wife asked Frank Smith, a Justice of the Peace in Rockdale County, for advice on the same question, and he told her that the air conditioner was abandoned property that now belonged to the Myers. In May or June, 1984, Myers and Wendell also discussed ownership of the unit. Sometime between May and August, Motes told Wendell that she wanted the air conditioner back, and Wendell replied that it now belonged to Myers. Finally, Motes' mother had a conversation about the unit with the tenant occupying Myers' rental house at that time, Junior Ramey. Motes contends that Ramey knew that the air conditioner belonged to her and that she was planning to retrieve it.

air conditioner installed in a rental house on his property. Motes and Myers have been acquainted with each other since high school, and Motes began dating Myers' brother Wendell during the summer of 1982. At that time, Wendell moved into Myers' rental house and agreed to fix it up in exchange for free board. Subsequently, Wendell installed Motes' air conditioner in the house. Motes contends that she merely loaned the air conditioner to Wendell, and that she owns it. Myers claims that, to the best of his knowledge, the air conditioner was given to Wendell, probably by Motes.

On August 10, 1984, Motes, her husband Darrell, and Jim, a friend interested in purchasing the air conditioner, went to the rental house. Motes claims that she entered the house with the permission of Mrs. Ramey, who did not protest removal of the air conditioner. Shortly thereafter, Mrs. Ramey called Mrs. Myers, who alerted her husband that Motes had removed the air conditioner. At that time, Myers was working off-duty as a security guard at Burger King, and he immediately discussed the incident with the City of Conyers' Chief Investigator, who was also working at the Burger King. The Investigator, who is not a defendant in this case, advised Myers to take out an arrest warrant for Motes. Myers proceeded to the residence of Justice of the Peace Smith, where he swore out a warrant for Motes' arrest for theft by taking. Smith requested Myers to accompany Deputy Sheriff Kenneth Jones of the Rockdale County Sheriff's Office to Motes' home, and to try to settle the dispute without the necessity of serving the warrant. Deputy Sheriff Kenneth Jones was the officer who had responded to Mrs. Myers' call reporting the incident.

Although it was after midnight, the late hour did not deter Myers and Jones from going to Motes' home. Motes, alone in the house, initially opened the front door, but she shut it when she realized that the officers intended to arrest her. Although Justice of the Peace Smith asked Myers to attempt first to settle the dispute without an arrest, no evidence suggests that this happened. A scuffle ensued, and the officers gained entrance. Jones and Myers searched Motes' bedroom and bathroom before permitting her to change her clothes in the bathroom, and then took her to jail.

Motes spent approximately two hours in the jail, where she was booked and fingerprinted. Subsequently, she was released on bond to her husband and mother. Charges against her were dismissed by Judge Vaughn of Rockdale County after the district attorney placed the case on inactive status. The Sheriff's Department conducted an informal investigation of the matter after Motes complained, but no written report was filed.

DISCUSSION

We review the district court's grant of summary judgment by resolving credibility questions and drawing permissible inferences in favor of Motes, the non-moving party. Crockett v. UniRoyal, 722 F.2d 1524, 1528 (11th Cir.1985). Review of the Section 1983 plaintiffs must establish both deprivation of a right secured by the United States Constitution or federal laws and action by a defendant under color of state law. Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 90 S.Ct. 1598, 26 L.Ed.2d 142 (1970); Scott v. Dixon, 720 F.2d 1542, 1545 (11th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 832, 105 S.Ct. 122, 83 L.Ed.2d 64 (1984); Williams v. Kelley, 624 F.2d 695, 697 (5th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 451 U.S. 1019, 101 S.Ct. 3009, 69 L.Ed.2d 391 (1981). The district court concluded that there was "no evidence to indicate that Myers was acting under the color of state law when obtaining the warrant from Judge Smith" because it found that Myers had acted as a private citizen in taking out the arrest warrant and in accompanying Jones to Motes' home and to the jail. Thus, the state action requirement was not met. The court also found that Motes failed to introduce sufficient evidence to show that actions by Myers' or other defendants had deprived her of any rights secured by the Constitution or federal laws. Both of these conclusions are erroneous.

district court's disposition of legal issues is, of course, de novo. Id. at 1529. In this case, the district court failed both to apply the appropriate legal standard in analyzing the presence of state action, and to accord sufficient weight to the testimony of Motes and other persons deposed.

I. STATE ACTION

The state action requirement of Sec. 1983 may be satisfied if the constitutional deprivation results from a private person's use of a state procedural law to effectuate a purpose not intended by state law and not permitted by the Constitution. Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U.S. 922, 937, 102 S.Ct. 2744, 2753-54, 73 L.Ed.2d 482 (1982). Motes contends that she was deprived of her liberty interest when she was arrested and imprisoned on the basis of the warrant sworn out by Myers. The authority to deprive a person of a liberty interest by arrest and criminal prosecution through swearing out a warrant is one created by state law. Motes contends that Myers' purpose was to regain possession of the air conditioner.

Lugar established that the state action requirement is satisfied when the party "is a state official, ... has acted together with or has obtained significant aid from state officials, or because his conduct is otherwise chargeable to the State." Id. at 937, 102 S.Ct. at 2754. The holding in Lugar authorized a Sec. 1983 cause of action against a private party who made use of a state statute that permitted the private party to deprive plaintiff of his property in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Edmondson Oil Co., pursuant to a pre-judgment writ of attachment...