Bailiff v. Adams County Conference Bd.

• Citation: 54 F.Supp.2d 923
• Decision Date: 04 March 1999
• Docket Number: No. Civ. 4-98-CV-10516.,Civ. 4-98-CV-10516.
• Parties: Richard BAILIFF, Plaintiff, v. ADAMS COUNTY CONFERENCE BOARD; Adams County Board of Supervisors; Earl Hardisty; Daniel Morgan; Kevin Wynn; James R. Amdor; Verlyn C. Rice; Richard Cantieri; Thomas Shipley; Kurt W. Scott; Cheryl Blazek; Marvin Steffen; Malcom M. Shipley; Jacque Ann Laird, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Iowa

Page 923

54 F.Supp.2d 923

Richard BAILIFF, Plaintiff, v. ADAMS COUNTY CONFERENCE BOARD; Adams County Board of Supervisors; Earl Hardisty; Daniel Morgan; Kevin Wynn; James R. Amdor; Verlyn C. Rice; Richard Cantieri; Thomas Shipley; Kurt W. Scott; Cheryl Blazek; Marvin Steffen; Malcom M. Shipley; Jacque Ann Laird, Defendants.

No. Civ. 4-98-CV-10516.

United States District Court, S.D. Iowa, Central Division.

March 4, 1999.

James E. Brick, Brick Gentry Bowers Swartz Stoltze Schuling & Levis PC, Des Moines, IA, for Richard Bailiff, plaintiff.

Hugh J. Cain, Hopkins & Huebner, Des Moines, IA, for Adams County Board of Supervisors, defendant.

Guy R. Cook, Grefe & Sidney PLC, Des Moines, IA, for Earl Hardisty, defendant.

ORDER

LONGSTAFF, Chief Judge.

Plaintiff Richard Bailiff ("Bailiff") filed the above-captioned suit after he was not reappointed as Adams County assessor. Before the Court is the motion of several defendants to dismiss, filed October 19, 1998. Plaintiff resisted the motion November 4, 1998, and defendants filed a reply November 23, 1998. The matter is now considered fully submitted.¹

I. BACKGROUND

For the purposes of this motion to dismiss, the following facts are viewed in a light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Plaintiff was the Adams County Assessor, and had held the position, by appointment, for over twenty years. On February 1, 1997, the Adams County Conference Board (the "Conference Board")² voted to reappoint Bailiff as Adams County Assessor for a six-year term. Judy Beckett, the Prescott City Clerk, made the initial motion for reappointment, which was seconded by Tom Shipley. The Conference Board then split into the three statutorily-required voting groups and individually caucused. Beckett participated in the internal vote of the mayors' group. When the Conference Board reconvened to vote on the motion to reappoint Bailiff, the Board returned the vote as follows: Supervisors — Nay; Mayors — Aye; School Boards — Aye. The vote was recorded in the February 13, 1997 Conference Board meeting minutes, which were approved at a March 6, 1997 Conference Board meeting.

On approximately January 20, 1998, Morgan, Wynn, Cantieri, and members of the Board of Supervisors met at the County Assessor's office and reviewed the minutes of the 1997 meetings of the Conference Board. Plaintiff alleges that Morgan, Amdor, and Wynn photocopied the minutes of the 1997 meetings. Shortly thereafter, the Conference Board held closed meetings, during which the members discussed Bailiff's reappointment, and an error that may have occurred in the reappointment process.

At a February 4, 1998 Conference Board meeting, the Conference Board unanimously approved a conclusion that the February 13, 1997 reappointment of Bailiff was procedurally flawed, rendering the reappointment invalid. A new vote to appoint a county assessor was necessary and the Conference Board voted not to reappoint Bailiff. All three Conference Board groups voted not to reappoint Bailiff.

Plaintiff filed the instant suit after the Conference Board voted to not reappoint him, alleging the following: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Count I); conspiracy to violate plaintiff's constitutional rights (Count II); "ERISA" (Count III): intentional interference with contract (Count IV); Iowa Constitution violation (Count V); wrongful termination (Count VI); violation of Iowa Code § 441.2 (Count VII); abuse of process (Count VIII); open meetings violation (Count IX); estoppel (Count X). Defendants Adams County Board of Supervisors and its members, and Earl Hardisty, filed the instant motion to dismiss, seeking dismissal of Counts I, II, and III, the counts upon which federal question jurisdiction is based.

II. APPLICABLE LAW

A. Standard of Review

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), a court may dismiss all or a portion of the claim "for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). When considering a motion to dismiss, the Court will accept as true all factual allegations in the complaint. McSherry v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 81 F.3d 739, 740 (8th Cir.1996) (citing Leatherman v. Tarrant Co. Narcotics Intelligence & Coordination Unit, 507 U.S. 163, 163-65, 113 S.Ct. 1160, 122 L.Ed.2d 517 (1993)). However, "conclusory allegations of law and unwarranted inferences are insufficient" to defeat a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. In re Syntex, 95 F.3d 922, 926 (9th Cir.1996) (citation omitted). A motion to dismiss will be granted "only if no set of facts would entitle the plaintiff to relief." Id. (citing Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-47, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957)).

B. Conspiracy Claim

Defendants seek dismissal of Count II, "Conspiracy to Violate Plaintiff's Constitutional Rights," arguing that the facts pled by plaintiff fail to establish the elements of the cause of action. Plaintiff's resistance clarifies that Count II alleges a violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3). Defendants argue that plaintiff has failed to show the type of animus necessary to prove a section 1985(3) conspiracy claim.³

To prove the existence of a civil rights conspiracy under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), a plaintiff must prove:

(1) that the defendants did "conspire," (2) "for the purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly, any person or class of persons of equal protection of the laws, or equal privileges and immunities under the laws," (3) that one or more of the conspirators did, or caused to be done, "any act in furtherance of the object of the conspiracy," and (4) that another person was "injured in his person or property or deprived of having and exercising any right or privilege of a citizen of the United States."

Larson ex rel Larson v. Miller, 76 F.3d 1446, 1454 (8th Cir.1996) (citations omitted). Stemming from the statute's term "equal" is a motivation requirement: "some sort of animus is necessary under section 1985(3)." Marquart v. Lodge 837, 26 F.3d 842, 854 (8th Cir.1994) (citations omitted); see also Griffin v. Breckenridge, 4083U.S. 88, 102, 91 S.Ct. 1790, 29 L.Ed.2d 338 (1971) (discussing the source of the animus requirement); Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic, 506 U.S. 263, 267-68, 113 S.Ct. 753, 122 L.Ed.2d 34 (1993) ("To prove a conspiracy in violation of the first clause of § 1985(3), a plaintiff must show `that some racial, or perhaps otherwise class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus [lay] behind the conspirators' action.'") (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Although Griffin reiterated that racial animus satisfied the motivation requirement, the Court declined to evaluate "whether a conspiracy motivated by invidiously discriminatory intent other than racial bias would be actionable under the portion of § 1985." Griffin, 403 U.S. at 102 n. 9, 91 S.Ct. 1790.

Over two decades later, Bray addressed whether other types of animus would be actionable under section 1985. See Bray, 506 U.S. at 269, 113 S.Ct. 753. Concluding that "women seeking abortion" was not the type of class subject to protection under section 1985(3), the Court noted:

whatever may be the precise meaning of a "class" for purposes of Griffin's speculative extension of § 1985(3) beyond race, the term unquestionably connotes something more than a group of individuals who share a desire to engage in conduct that the § 1985(3) defendant disfavors. Otherwise, innumerable tort plaintiffs would be able to assert causes of action under § 1985(3) by simply defining the aggrieved class as those seeking to engage in the activity the defendant has interfered with. This definitional ploy would convert the statute into the "general federal tort law" it was the very purpose of animus to avoid.... As Justice Blackmun has cogently put it, the class "cannot be defined simply as the group of victims of the tortious action."

Bray, 506 U.S. at 269, 113 S.Ct. 753 (internal citations omitted).⁴ Thus, the Supreme Court reiterated that section 1985 is a tort action available only to a limited class of aggrieved persons.

Additionally, the Supreme Court has unequivocally excluded some potential plaintiffs from section 1985(3)'s scope: "We ... cannot construe § 1985(3) to reach conspiracies motivated by economic or commercial animus.... Economic and commercial conflicts, we think, are best dealt with by statutes, federal or state, specifically addressed to such problems, as well as by the general law proscribing injuries to persons and property." United Bhd. of Carpenters v. Scott, 463 U.S. 825, 838-39, 103 S.Ct. 3352, 77 L.Ed.2d 1049 (1983).

Turning to the instant case, the Court must assess whether plaintiff alleges a class qualifying for protection under section 1985(3). In explaining the grounds for his conspiracy claim, plaintiff states: "Defendants conspired to hold a closed meeting in violation of the law, for the purpose of directly depriving Plaintiff of his rights to work as a county assessor in compliance with Iowa Code § 441.8 .... [which] guarantees a county assessor the substantive and procedural due process of written notice and opportunity to be heard at least ninety days before the Board decides not to review the assessor's appointment." Brief in Support of Plaintiff's Resistance to Motion to Dismiss, at 6. Plaintiff explains that these rights are guaranteed by statute, namely Iowa Code § 441.8; therefore, they fall within the rights protected by section 1985. See Brief in Support of Plaintiff's Resistance to Motion to Dismiss, at 9 ("those [people] specifically protected by explicit guarantees of substantive and procedural due process of state law, are protected as a class for § 1985 purposes."). From these statements and the initial complaint, the Court ascertains that plaintiff alleges the class affected is county assessors, who "[u]nder Iowa law ... enjoy the common characteristic of being protected by these procedural due process guarantees, distinguishing them from other county employees, as well as the rest of the...