Baldwin v. Daniels

• Citation: 250 F.3d 943
• Decision Date: 17 May 2001
• Docket Number: No. 00-60125,00-60125
• Parties: (5th Cir. 2001) TERESA BALDWIN, Plaintiff /Appellant, v. FRANKIE DANIELS, Individually and in his Official Capacity, Defendant / Appellee
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)

Page 943

250 F.3d 943 (5th Cir. 2001)

TERESA BALDWIN, Plaintiff /Appellant, v. FRANKIE DANIELS, Individually and in his Official Capacity, Defendant / Appellee.

No. 00-60125

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit

May 17, 2001

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi

Before FARRIS^*, JOLLY, and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Plaintiff, Teresa Baldwin, appeals from a take nothing judgment in her case against defendant Sheriff Frankie Daniels under Section 1983 alleging due process and First Amendment violations stemming from Daniels' refusal to accept bonds written by Baldwin without notice or hearing. Finding that Baldwin has no constitutionally protected liberty or property interest in having bonds written by her accepted at the Pontotoc County Jail, we affirm the judgment of the district court on Baldwin's due process claims. We vacate the district court's judgment on the First Amendment claim and remand for further proceedings.

I.

Prior to the events which gave rise to this litigation, Teresa Baldwin worked as a soliciting bond agent for Calvery Bail Bonding Service from Corinth, Mississippi, and its owner, a professional bail agent, Cleat Calvery. Baldwin was and still is licensed to write bonds by the Mississippi Department of Insurance as required by Mississippi state law. Baldwin maintained her office and conducted most of her business in Pontotoc County, although she did occasionally write bonds in other counties.

In December 1997, defendant Frankie Daniels became Sheriff of Pontotoc County. He questioned the propriety of Baldwin writing bail bonds while her husband Mark was a constable. After Daniels received an opinion from the Mississippi Attorney General that Baldwin could write bonds as long as her husband was not involved in her business, Daniels allowed Baldwin to continue writing bonds. On April 1, 1998, Daniels implemented a rotation system for bail bonding at the jail as a method to reduce fights among bondsmen and to spread the work out between the approved bondsmen. Under the new system, even if a prisoner requested a specific bondsman, the request was not honored and the next bond agent on the list was given the work. Baldwin was one of three approved agents on the rotation. Baldwin objected to the rotation policy to Sheriff Daniels.

On April 4, 1998, Baldwin was asked by a former client to write a bail bond so that one of his incarcerated employees could be released from jail. Baldwin explained the rotation system to the client and told him that she could only bond when her turn on the rotation came up regardless of the request for her. The client was not satisfied with this policy and called Sheriff Daniels to complain. Baldwin was told that she could write the bond for Litton, but later Daniels told Baldwin that if she wrote the bond for Litton it would be the last bond she wrote at the Pontotoc County Jail. Baldwin did not write the bond.

Shortly thereafter, the sheriff again revised his bail bonding policy and a new list of approved bail bondsmen was posted. Baldwin was no longer on the approved list as of mid-April 1998. From April 1998 to December 1999, Baldwin was prohibited from writing bonds at the Pontotoc County Jail. When a new sheriff entered office in December 1999, Baldwin began writing bonds again.

Baldwin filed suit in May 1998 against Sheriff Daniels in his official and individual capacities alleging violations of her constitutional rights arising from the above described actions. Specifically, Baldwin claimed violations of her right to procedural due process and First Amendment retaliation for her complaints against Sheriff Daniels' bonding policies. The case was tried before a jury in January 2000. At the close of Baldwin's case in chief, Daniels moved for judgment as a matter of law on the due process claims on the basis that there was no showing that Daniels had violated a clearly protected right. Holding that there was no clearly recognizable constitutional right to write bail bonds, the district court granted judgment as a matter of law in favor of Sheriff Daniels on the grounds that he was entitled to qualified immunity on Baldwin's due process claim against him in his individual capacity. Without motion by the defendant, the district court also granted judgment as a matter of law on the First Amendment claim on the basis that Baldwin's speech, objecting to the implementation of the rotation bonding system, was not protected because it was not uttered to a third person before Sheriff Daniels prohibited Baldwin from writing bonds in Pontotoc County. The district court also concluded that the due process claim against Daniels in his official capacity would be decided by the jury "and the issue for this jury to decide is whether the action of the sheriff in suspending Mrs. Baldwin's bond writing privileges was arbitrary and capricious."

The jury was instructed that Baldwin's interest in her bail bonding business and in the profits of that business and her license as a soliciting agent constituted liberty and property interests under the Fourteenth Amendment which could not be taken in an arbitrary and capricious manner without due process of law. The jury was further instructed that the sheriff had great discretion to approve or not approve bonds and that the sheriff should not act in an arbitrary and capricious fashion and should be able to articulate a legitimate reason for the action. The jury found for the defendant.

This appeal followed. Baldwin argues that the district court erred in granting judgment as a matter of law in favor of Daniels on her First Amendment retaliation claim and her due process claim against Daniels in his individual capacity. Baldwin also contends that the district court erred in requiring her to prove that Daniels acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner as an element of her procedural due process claim against Daniels in his official capacity.

II.

Baldwin's first argument on appeal is that the district court erred in granting judgment as a matter of law to Daniels on the ground that her speech, objecting to the implementation of the rotation bonding system, was not protected because it was not uttered to a third person before Sheriff Daniels prohibited her from writing bail bonds in Pontotoc County. Baldwin is correct. The First Amendment does not require that the statement be published to a third party, only that the statement be the basis for the deprivation of the government benefit. Blackburn v. City of Marshall, 42 F.3d 925, 934 (5th Cir. 1995). Baldwin's First Amendment retaliation claim should have been submitted to the jury for a decision on the merits, requiring us to remand this claim for further proceedings.

Daniels' argument that the jury could have found that Baldwin's complaint was not the motivating factor behind his decision to revoke her bond writing privileges is not insubstantial. We note that the jury found that Sheriff Daniels was not arbitrary and capricious in his actions in their verdict on Baldwin's due process claim. However, based on the record before us, we are not able to conclude that the issues necessary for a decision on the First Amendment issue were clearly presented to the jury for a decision.

III.

In her remaining points of error, Baldwin argues that the district court erred in granting judgment as a matter of law to the defendant on her due process claim against him in his individual capacity on the grounds of qualified immunity and in requiring her to prove that Daniels' actions were arbitrary and capricious in order to establish her procedural due process claim against him in his official capacity. We will address these claims together because our conclusion that Baldwin was not deprived of a constitutionally protected liberty or property interest resolves both arguments.

To bring a procedural due process claim under § 1983, a plaintiff must first identify a protected life, liberty or property interest and then prove that governmental action resulted in a deprivation of that interest. San Jacinto Sav. & Loan v. Kacal, 928 F.2d 697, 700 (5th Cir. 1991). Baldwin asserted that she possessed both liberty and property interests based on her (1) liberty interest in pursuing an occupation and her property interest in the profits of her business; and (2) property interest in her soliciting agent's license. Baldwin contends that she was deprived of these liberty and property interests without due process of law when Sheriff Daniels prohibited her from writing bonds at the Pontotoc County Jail without notice or an opportunity to be heard.

This court addressed a similar claim in Richards v. City of Columbus, 92-7359 (October 12, 1993)(Unpublished)(copy attached as Appendix 1).^** In that case, the plaintiff Richards was licensed to write bail bonds in Mississippi. The municipal chief of police posted a notice at the city jail that Richards would not be able to make bonds at the Columbus Police Department. This action was taken without notice or hearing to Richards. This court assumed that Richards had a property interest in his state-issued bondsman license and that his state license could not be revoked without due process protection. However, it contrasted the more limited action taken against Richards. As in this case, Richards' state license was not revoked. Rather, like Baldwin, his ability to write bonds under his state license was merely restricted in a single municipality or county. After being barred from writing bonds at the Pontotoc County Jail, Baldwin retained her license to write bonds in other areas of the state.

The Richards court also noted that under Mississippi law Richards had no property interest in his ability to write bonds within a limited political subdivision such as a city or in his ability to have bonds written by him accepted by authorities in that political subdivision. Mississippi law expressly...