Billy v. Curry Cnty. Bd. of Cnty. Comm'rs
| Decision Date | 30 September 2014 |
| Docket Number | No. 2:13-CV-0032 MCA/LAM,2:13-CV-0032 MCA/LAM |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Mexico |
| Parties | GERRY BILLY, Plaintiff, v. THE CURRY COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS, a political sub-division existing under the laws of the State of New Mexico, and LANCE PYLE, Individually and in his official capacity as County Manager for the Curry County Board of County Commissioners, ROBERT SANDOVAL, Individually, FRANK BLACKBURN, Individually, BEN MCDANIEL, Individually, and TIM ASHLEY, Individually, Defendants. |
THIS MATTER is before the Court on Defendants' Motion to Dismiss [Doc. 61], filed October 30, 2013. Having considered the parties' submissions, the relevant case law, and otherwise being fully advised in the premises, the Court will GRANT Defendants' Motion to Dismiss [Doc. 61] (Counts II, VI and VII).
Gerry Billy ("Plaintiff") was hired by the Curry County Board of County Commissioners to serve as the Detention Center Administrator for Curry County. [Doc. 10-1] After almost a year of serving as Detention Center Administrator, the Curry County Board of County Commissioners terminated Plaintiff's employment. [Doc. 10 at9; Doc. 61 at 3]
On January 11, 2013, Plaintiff initiated this action against the Curry County Board of County Commissioners, a political sub-division existing under the laws of the State of New Mexico, the County Manager, Lance Pyle, individually and in his official capacity, and the Curry County Board of County Commissioners board members: Robert Sandoval, individually, Frank Blackburn, individually, Ben McDaniel, individually, and Tim Ashley, individually, (collectively, "Defendants"), asserting numerous claims stemming from, what Plaintiff alleges to have been, his wrongful termination. [Doc. 1 "Civil Complaint-Recovery Under 42 U.S.C. § 1983-Due Process-Property Interest; Violation of Equal Protection; Violation of First Amendment; Breach of Contract; Retaliatory Discharge; Interference with Contractual Relations"]. On February 10, 2013, Plaintiff amended his complaint to include a claim under New Mexico's Whistleblower Protection Act, NMSA 1978, Section 10-16C-1 to -6 (2010). [Doc. 10, Plaintiff's First Amended Civil Complaint-Recovery Under 42 U.S.C. § 1983-Due Process-Property Interest; Violation of Equal Protection; Violation of First Amendment; Breach of Contract; Retaliatory Discharge; Interference with Contractual Relations; And Violation of the "Whistleblower Protection Act" (hereinafter, "First Amended Complaint")].
On October 30, 2013, Defendants filed Defendants' Motion to Dismiss requesting that the Court dismiss Plaintiff's equal protection claim, retaliatory discharge claim, and interference with contractual relations claim. [Doc. 61] For the reasons to follow, theCourt will grant Defendant's Motion.
Under Rule 12(b)(6), a court may dismiss a complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). The sufficiency of a complaint is a question of law, and when considering and addressing a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), a court accepts as true all well-pleaded factual allegations in the complaint, viewing those allegations in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, and drawing all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's favor. See Moore v. Guthrie, 438 F.3d 1036, 1039 (10th Cir. 2006). In order to withstand a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, a complaint must contain enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face. Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). In considering whether a claim has facial plausibility, a court looks to both "the complaint itself and to any documents attached as exhibits to the complaint." See Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(c) (); Gee v. Pacheco, 627 F.3d 1178, 1186 (10th Cir. 2010) (); Hall v. Bellmon, 935 F.2d 1106, 1112 (10th Cir.1991) ().
"A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (internal citation omitted). If after reviewing the factual allegations in the complaint, a plaintiff has failed to nudge the claims Aacross the line from conceivable to plausible,@ the complaint must be dismissed. Id. at 680.
As an initial matter Plaintiff asserts that Defendants failed to comply with D.N.M.LR-Civ. 7.1(a), and therefore Defendants' Motion should be summarily dismissed. [Doc. 66 at 1] D.N.M.LR-Civ. 7.1(a) provides that a "[m]ovant must determine whether a motion is opposed, and a motion that omits recitation of a good-faith request for concurrence may be summarily denied."
Defendants concede that they did not seek Plaintiff's concurrence before filing the Motion to Dismiss. [Doc. 67 at 1]. However, Defendants contend that this omission was due to a mistaken belief that D.N.M.LR-Civ. 7.1(a) did not require that concurrence be sought when filing a dispositive motion, such as a motion to dismiss. [Doc. 67 at 1] Defendants note that they attempted to cure this deficiency by requesting concurrence from Plaintiff prior to filing Defendants' Reply in Support of Motion to Dismiss, and thatPlaintiff's counsel did not concur. [Doc. 67].
The Court will not deny Defendants' Motion summarily. Defendants' counsel, albeit late, attempted to cure the deficiency by seeking concurrence from Plaintiff's counsel and Plaintiff's counsel indicated he did not concur. [Doc. 61] Therefore, the Court concludes that justice and judicial economy would best be served by addressing the merits of Defendants' Motion to Dismiss [Doc. 61], and will waive Defendants' violation of the local rules.
Plaintiff asserts that Defendants acted "arbitrarily, capriciously, in spite, ill will, and with a malignant animosity towards him" when they "intentionally and purposefully singled him out and targeted [him] and treated him differently than other similarly situated employees" and that such conduct "violated [his] right to equal protection of the laws vouchsafed under the Fourteenth Amendment" [Doc. 10 at 13] Because Plaintiff's equal protection claim does not allege that he is a member of a particular class, it appears that Plaintiff's equal protection claim seeks to proceed on the "class-of-one" theory set forth by the Supreme Court in Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562, 564 (2000) (per curiam).
In Olech, the respondent and her late husband asked the petitioner, the Village of Willowbrook, to connect their property to the municipal water line. 528 U.S. at 563. The petitioner initially agreed, but conditioned the connection on respondent granting petitioner a 33-foot easement on their property. Id. The respondent and her husbandobjected to the condition on the grounds that the other property owners were only required to provide a 15-foot easement when seeking access to the water supply. Id. After a three-month delay, the petitioner agreed to provide a connection to the water supply in exchange for a 15-foot easement. Id. The respondent sued petitioner claiming that the demand for the additional easement violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; was "irrational and wholly arbitrary"; was motivated by ill will resulting from a prior lawsuit between the respondent and petitioner, and; that petitioner "acted with the intent to deprive respondent of her rights or in reckless disregard of her rights." Id. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to "determine whether the Equal Protection Clause [provides] a cause of action on behalf of a 'class of one' where the plaintiff did not allege membership in a class or group." Id. The Court explained that in prior cases it has "recognized successful equal protection claims brought by a 'class of one,' where the plaintiff alleges that [he or] she has been intentionally treated differently from others similarly situated and that there is no rational basis for the difference in treatment." Id. at 564. The Court then looked to respondent's complaint noting that it alleged that the petitioner initially demanded a 33-foot easement as a condition of connecting the respondent's property to the municipal's water supply, where it had only required a 15-foot easement from other property owners. Id. at 564. The complaint further alleged that petitioner's demand was "irrational and wholly arbitrary" and that petitioner ultimately connected her property to the water supply in exchange for the 15-foot easement. Id. at 564-65. Therefore, the Court concluded that "where the plaintiffalleges that she has been intentionally treated differently from others similarly situated and that there is no rational basis for the difference in treatment," the plaintiff has pled a cognizable equal protection claim. Id.
In addressing the class-of-one theory, our Tenth Circuit has noted that in order "[t]o prevail on this theory, a plaintiff must first establish that others, 'similarly situated in every material respect' were treated differently." Kansas Penn Gaming, LLC v. Collins, 656 F.3d 1210, 1216 (10th Cir. 2011...
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