Rateree v. Rockett

• Decision Date: 18 July 1988
• Docket Number: No. 87-2114,87-2114
• Citation: 852 F.2d 946
• Parties: Bonnie RATEREE, Ken Vaughn, William Gardner, Leander Brown, Plaintiffs- Appellants, v. Damon ROCKETT, Frank Piekarski, Otis Gilmore, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 946

852 F.2d 946

3 Indiv.Empl.Rts.Cas. 1513

Bonnie RATEREE, Ken Vaughn, William Gardner, Leander Brown Plaintiffs- Appellants, v. Damon ROCKETT, Frank Piekarski, Otis Gilmore, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 87-2114.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued April 7, 1988.

Decided July 18, 1988.

Alan M. Freedman, Freedman & Bornstein, P.C., Chicago, Ill., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Nancy G. Lischer, Hinshaw, Culbertson, Moelmann, Hoban & Fuller, Chicago, Ill., for defendants-appellees.

Before BAUER, Chief Judge, and COFFEY, and MANION, Circuit Judges.

BAUER, Chief Judge.

Bonnie Rateree, Kenneth Vaughn, William Gardner, Leander Brown, and Renee Gholson sued the City of Harvey, Illinois (Harvey) and three City Commissioners--Damon Rockett, Frank Piekarski, and Otis Gilmore--under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, claiming violations of their first and fourteenth amendment rights. The plaintiffs, city employees, claim they were harassed because of their political views and that all plaintiffs except Gholson eventually were fired for purely political reasons. The district court dismissed the plaintiffs' complaint, holding that the defendants' actions were protected by absolute legislative immunity. Rateree v. Rockett, 630 F.Supp. 763 (N.D.Ill.1986). We affirm. ¹

I.

The district court's findings of fact tell the following story:

In May, 1983, the voters of Harvey elected David Johnson as the City's first black mayor. All the plaintiffs supported and campaigned for Johnson and his ticket-mate, Ernestine Berry-Beck, whose run for City Commissioner also was successful. Gilmore also ran for City Commissioner on Johnson's ticket and was elected. During the same election, all plaintiffs campaigned against Rockett and Piekarski and supported their opponents for City Commissioner slots. Rockett and Piekarski won.

Harvey operates under the commission form of government. Its legislative body is a city council consisting of four commissioners and a mayor, with each having one vote. The commissioners and the mayor are elected at large.

Soon after his election, Johnson appointed Rateree as his "Special Assistant." Rateree became Johnson's chief administrative aid and confidential employee. Rateree's duties included assisting the Mayor in managing the Department of Public Affairs and the Office of Mayor, assisting in the development of departmental goals, objectives, and supervising of staff, assisting the Mayor in his public relations activities, and coordinating human services for Harvey citizens in crises.

In September, 1983, Johnson appointed Vaughn as Coordinator of Economic Development. Vaughn's duties included initiating programs and services to encourage development of new businesses, the expansion of existing businesses, and coordinating efforts with other government and private agencies to insure maximum participation in state, county, and federal programs geared toward Harvey's economic development needs. Also in September, 1983, Johnson appointed Gardner as Coordinator of Housing. Gardner's duties included responsibility for management of departmental projects as assigned by the Director of Planning and Development, and the exercise of discretion in meeting project goals and schedules. Neither Vaughn nor Gardner reported directly to Johnson. Instead each reported to the City Planner.

In late December, 1983, Johnson hired Brown as Harvey's Employment and Training Coordinator. Nothing in the record describes Brown's duties or responsibilities. Gholson was hired in February, 1984 (though it is unclear from the record who hired her) as Vaughn's secretary. She was also the secretary to the Coordinator of Economic Development and was responsible for typing, filing, and answering phone calls.

All the plaintiffs' jobs (with the possible exception of Brown's) were positions created by Harvey's 1983-84 budget. These salaries were adjusted during fiscal 1983-84. Then, on July 23, 1984, the City Council passed Harvey's 1984-85 budget ordinance, which eliminated the appropriations for the jobs held by all plaintiffs. Rockett, Piekarski, and Gilmore voted for the 1984-85 ordinance, while Johnson and Berry-Beck voted against it.

Rateree, Vaughn, Gardner, and Brown were removed from Harvey's payroll in July, 1984, while Gholson was transferred to a secretarial position under Berry-Beck. In December, 1984, Rateree, Vaughn, and Gardner were rehired--Rateree as Administrative Manager to the Mayor, Vaughn as Project Manager of Economic Development, and Gardner as Project Manager of Housing. Funding for Rateree's job came from a line item in Johnson's budget; Vaughn's and Gardner's jobs were created by Berry-Beck and funded from her budget. Brown was never rehired.

Plaintiffs filed this lawsuit on May 15, 1985. At that time, they claimed that Rockett, Piekarski, and Gilmore "harrassed" them and that they were under imminent threat of discharge "because of their political affiliations." Nothing happened to them, however, until the City Council passed the 1985-86 budget ordinance on July 11, 1985. (Rockett, Piekarski, and Gilmore voting in favor, Johnson and Berry-Beck against.) That ordinance contained further cuts affecting plaintiffs. It deleted "Secretary and Other" as a line item from Johnson's budget (eliminating funding for Rateree's job) and withdrew funding for Vaughn's and Gardner's jobs. In other words, the 1985-86 budget once again eliminated the plaintiffs' job positions. As of July 22, 1985, Rateree, Vaughn, and Gardner thus joined Brown as former employees of Harvey.

Plaintiffs allege that they were harassed and ultimately "terminated" by defendants because of their political support for Johnson and Berry-Beck. They claim Rockett, Piekarski, and Gilmore--the so-called Council "majority bloc"--opposed Johnson and plaintiffs because the former group supported Walter Mondale in the 1984 presidential race, while Johnson, Berry-Beck, and the plaintiffs supported Jesse Jackson's candidacy. (Rateree was elected as a "Jesse Jackson/Harold Washington favorite son" delegate to the 1984 Democratic Convention, while Rockett, who ran as a Mondale delegate, was not elected.)

Plaintiffs contend that their ultimate separation from City employment had nothing to do with budgetary demands, for their aggregate salaries amounted to only $100,000 or so as against Harvey's deficit (even after the cuts) of over $1.2 million. Both Johnson and Rateree say they were told by Harvey's corporation counsel, Barry Moss and Steven Bloomberg, that the adverse budget action was "politically motivated" or "for political reasons rather than budget constraints." Thus, Rateree, Vaughn, and Gardner claim that they were harassed "solely" because of their support for Johnson and for Jesse Jackson. Gholson, who is still on the City payroll, claims she was harassed for her loyalty to Johnson.

II.

The district court held that the defendants' actions were protected under the doctrine of absolute legislative immunity. Rateree, 630 F.Supp. 763. In a thorough and well-reasoned opinion, the district court found that the actions of the defendants were legislative, not administrative, and were therefore protected, regardless of the defendants' motives. Id. at 771-72.

Absolute legislative immunity from section 1983 actions is a judicially created doctrine. Indeed, the plain language of section 1983 appears to preclude any notion of immunity. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983; Tower v. Glover, 467 U.S. 914, 920, 104 S.Ct. 2820, 2824, 81 L.Ed.2d 758 (1984). Section 1983 subjects to liability "every person" who under color of state law or custom deprives a citizen of her constitutional rights. ² As Justice Douglas has noted, "[t]o most, 'every person' would mean every person, not every person except judges," Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 559, 87 S.Ct. 1213, 1220, 18 L.Ed.2d 288 (1967) (Douglas, J., dissenting) (emphasis in original), or legislators. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court has long held that the language of section 1983 should not be read to suggest that Congress meant to abrogate well-established common law immunity doctrines. Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U.S. 367, 376, 71 S.Ct. 783, 788, 95 L.Ed. 1019 (1951); Pierson, 386 U.S. at 554, 87 S.Ct. at 1218. As a result, the Supreme Court has often resorted to painstaking analyses of common law immunity doctrines to determine the scope of section 1983 immunities; if certain public officials were immune from civil liability prior to the 1871 enactment of section 1983, their immunities survived. See e.g., Pulliam v. Allen, 466 U.S. 522, 528-36, 104 S.Ct. 1970, 1973-78, 80 L.Ed.2d 565 (1984).

Just recently, however, the Supreme Court, in a judicial immunity case, retreated slightly from this common law approach, resting its reliance on absolute immunity instead of on the policy considerations supporting the doctrine of immunity. Forrester v. White, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 538, 98 L.Ed.2d 555 (1988). In Forrester, the Court stated:

Suits for monetary damages are meant to compensate the victims of wrongful actions and to discourage conduct that may result in liability. Special problems arise, however, when government officials are exposed to liability for damages. To the extent that the threat of liability encourages these officials to carry out their duties in a lawful and appropriate manner, and to pay their victims when they do not, it accomplishes exactly what it should. By its nature, however, the threat of liability can create perverse incentives that operate to inhibit officials in the proper performance of their duties. In many contexts, government officials are expected to make decisions that are impartial or imaginative, and that above all are informed by considerations other than the personal interests of the decisionmaker. Because government officials are engaged by definition in governing, their decisions will often have adverse effects on other persons. When officials are threatened with personal...