Blair v. Haynes
Decision Date | 15 May 1974 |
Docket Number | No. 74 CV 2-SW.,74 CV 2-SW. |
Citation | 374 F. Supp. 913 |
Parties | Raymond BLAIR et al., Plaintiffs, v. Clarence C. HAYNES et al., Defendants. |
Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Missouri |
James A. Dunn, Carthage, Mo., for plaintiffs.
George C. Baldridge, Joplin, Mo., for defendants.
The instant action, brought pursuant to 42 United States Code § 1983, involves a claim by two landowners against certain city officials for damages arising from their passage of an illegal annexation proposal encompassing plaintiffs' land. The case presently pends on defendants' motion to dismiss. For the reasons stated below, we conclude that this motion must be granted.
Plaintiffs' complaint makes the following allegations:
Plaintiffs are residents of Jasper County, Missouri. The defendants include persons who "were purporting to act as Councilmen for the City of Joplin, Missouri," and others who were "purported duly appointed" city officials.
It is further alleged that the "defendants named as City Councilmen" were:
not lawfully entitled to assume the roles and duties of the offices into which they entered for the reason that none . . . ever filed with the Recorder of Jasper County, Missouri, Affidavits of campaign expenditures as provided by the Corrupt Practices Act of the State of Missouri and by virtue of their failing to file said Affidavits as required by the Statutes of the State of Missouri were not entitled to assume the positions of Councilmen for the City of Joplin, Missouri, and any acts performed by virtue of their assumed positions were illegal and void. . . .
The remaining city officials allegedly:
were not . . . duly appointed . . . and their acts as such were illegal and void by virtue of the fact that their appointments were made by a council not duly qualified to act.
Plaintiffs' complaint goes on to allege that:
Based on these averments, plaintiffs seek actual and punitive damages in the amount of $1,874,172.33.
Federal courts have traditionally been reluctant to involve themselves in controversies arising from the annexation of territory by local governmental units. Indeed, it has been stated that controlling decisions preclude:
Constitutional challenge under the Fourteenth Amendment to annexations by municipal corporations of adjoining territories on the basis of the procedure employed or authorized by the state or because of the pecuniary repercussions in the form of the ordinary incidence of city taxation. Deane Hill Country Club v. City of Knoxville, 379 F.2d 321, 325 (6th Cir. 1967).
See Hunter v. City of Pittsburgh, 207 U.S. 161, 28 S.Ct. 40, 52 L.Ed. 151 (1907); Detroit Edison Co. v. East China Township School District, No. 3, 247 F.Supp. 296 (E.D.Mich.1965), affm'd 378 F.2d 225 (6th Cir. 1966) cert. den. 389 U.S. 932, 88 S.Ct. 296, 19 L.Ed.2d 284 (1967).
The instant case, however, does not involve a direct attack upon the municipal annexation ordinance, but instead seeks damages from the city officials who have promulgated and enforced it. Plaintiffs therefore argue that this case falls within the rule enunciated in Nelson v. Knox, 256 F.2d 312 (6th Cir. 1958), that:
members of a city council would be liable in damages for pecuniary harm to a plaintiff intentionally inflicted by action, under color of official authority, which the defendants subjectively realized would result in depriving the plaintiff of a right or privilege secured by the Constitution of the United States. 256 F.2d at 315, quoting from Cobb v. City of Malden, 202 F.2d 701, 707 (1st Cir. 1953) (Magruder, J., concurring)
See also Ka-Haar, Inc. v. Huck, 345 F. Supp. 54 (E.D.Wis.1972).
This argument is not...
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