Bresnahan v. City of Saint Peters
| Decision Date | 22 November 2021 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 4:21-CV-00058 JCH |
| Citation | 573 F.Supp.3d 1363 |
| Parties | Brian BRESNAHAN, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF SAINT PETERS, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri |
Peter O. Bruntrager, Bruntrager & Billings, P.C., St. Louis, MO, for Plaintiff.
V. Scott Williams, John H. Kilper, Hamilton Weber LLC, St. Charles, MO, Jillian Meek Mueller, Katrina Y. Morgan, Jackson Lewis PC, Clayton, MO, for Defendants.
This matter is before the Court on Defendants’ City of St. Peters ("City"), Chief of Police Rick Struttmann ("Struttmann"), and City Administrator Russ Batzel ("Batzel") (collectively "Defendants") motion to dismiss Plaintiff Brian Bresnahan's ("Bresnahan" or "Plaintiff") First Amended Complaint for failure to state a claim pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). Doc. [30]. Plaintiff responded to the motion, Defendants filed a reply, and the matter is fully briefed and ripe for disposition. For the reasons set forth below, Defendants’ motion will be granted.
Taken as true for the purpose of this motion, the facts alleged in the amended complaint are as follows. Plaintiff, a police officer formerly employed by the City, alleges that Defendants retaliated against him for exercising his First Amendment rights. The claim arises out of events that occurred in the wake of widespread protests related to the Black Lives Matter movement. During this time, Plaintiff and his fellow police officers established a "private and closed" text messaging group to provide officers with up-to-date information regarding the protests that were occurring in and around the City. Amd. Complaint, ¶ 9.
On June 9, 2020, Plaintiff shared with the text group a message that included a video clip from the television show "Paradise PD" which depicted "a black police officer [who] accidentally shoots himself and the media headlines the issue as ‘another innocent black man shot by a cop.’ " Id. ¶ 7. All members of the text group were fellow police officers with the City's Police Department. Id. ¶ 9. After Plaintiff sent the message, one of the other officers in the text group "voiced displeasure" about the message and video. Id. ¶ 11. The next morning, on June 10, 2020, Plaintiff was called in to meet with Chief Struttmann. Id. ¶ 14. During the meeting, Struttmann "berated" Plaintiff for circulating the video, and told Plaintiff that if he resigned there would be no internal investigation into the matter. Id. ¶ 15. Plaintiff alleges that Struttmann told him that if he did not resign, there would be an investigation, and that Struttmann would recommend that Plaintiff be terminated by Defendant Batzel. Id. Plaintiff resigned during this meeting with Struttmann. Id. ¶ 17.
On the basis of the foregoing allegations, Plaintiff asserts that Defendants retaliated against him for exercising his rights to free speech under the First Amendment in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
Plaintiff initially filed this action in the Circuit Court for St. Charles County, Missouri, on December 11, 2020. On January 14, 2021, Defendants removed the suit to this Court and filed a motion to dismiss Plaintiff's complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). The Court granted that motion (Doc. [27]) but allowed Plaintiff to file an amended complaint. Plaintiff did so on August 11, 2021, and the instant motion to dismiss soon followed, in which Defendants argue that Plaintiff still fails to allege facts sufficient to establish that Defendants’ conduct violated his First Amendment rights. Defendant Officers Struttmann and Batzel additionally argue that they are entitled to qualified immunity1 on Plaintiff's claim.
Defendants have moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). The purpose of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss is to test the legal sufficiency of a complaint so as to eliminate those actions "which are fatally flawed in their legal premises ... thereby sparing litigants the burden of unnecessary pretrial and trial activity."
Young v. City of St. Charles , 244 F.3d 623, 627 (8th Cir. 2001) (citing Neitzke v. Williams , 490 U.S. 319, 326-27, 109 S.Ct. 1827, 104 L.Ed.2d 338 (1989) ). A pleading is deficient and may be dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6) if a plaintiff fails "to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). Rule 12(b)(6) is read in conjunction with Rule 8(a), which requires "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). To survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, a plaintiff's allegations must contain "sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ " Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) ). Rule 8 "does not require ‘detailed factual allegations,’ but it demands more than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation." Id. (quoting Twombly , 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955 ).
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." Id. (citing Twombly , 550 U.S. at 556, 127 S.Ct. 1955 ). "The plausibility standard is not akin to a ‘probability requirement,’ but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully." Id. (quoting Twombly , 550 U.S. at 556, 127 S.Ct. 1955 ). The complaint "must contain either direct or inferential allegations respecting all the material elements necessary to sustain recovery under some viable legal theory," and "enough fact[s] to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence of [each element]." Twombly , 550 U.S. at 562, 127 S.Ct. 1955. The reviewing court must accept the plaintiff's factual allegations as true and construe them in the plaintiff's favor, but it is not required to accept the legal conclusions that plaintiff draws from the facts alleged. Iqbal , 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937 ; Retro Television Network, Inc. v. Luken Commc'ns, LLC , 696 F.3d 766, 768-69 (8th Cir. 2012). A court must "draw on its judicial experience and common sense," and consider the plausibility of the plaintiff's claim as a whole, not the plausibility of each individual allegation. Zoltek Corp. v. Structural Polymer Grp. , 592 F.3d 893, 896 n.4 (8th Cir. 2010) (quoting Iqbal , 556 U.S. at 679, 129 S.Ct. 1937 ).
Plaintiff asserts that Defendants, in retaliation for Plaintiff's exercise of his rights under the First Amendment, violated those rights by constructively terminating him. Defendants move to dismiss, asserting that Plaintiff's communication in the group text did not address a matter of public concern and is not therefore protected speech under the First Amendment. Defendants Struttmann and Batzel further assert that, because Plaintiff has failed to allege facts establishing Defendants’ conduct violated any constitutional right, they are entitled to qualified immunity. Finally, the City argues that Plaintiff's claims against it must dismissed, as there is no underlying constitutional violation by a municipal employee for which the City could be liable.
To establish a prima facie case of retaliation for the exercise of his First Amendment rights, a plaintiff must prove that (1) his speech was protected by the First Amendment; (2) the governmental employer discharged him from employment; and (3) that the protected speech was a "substantial or motivating" factor in the defendant's decision to discharge the plaintiff.
Rynders v. Williams, 650 F.3d 1188, 1194 (8th Cir. 2011) ; Davison v. City of Minneapolis, Minn., 490 F.3d 648, 654–55 (8th Cir. 2007).
The First Amendment guarantees every citizen a right to engage in free speech, without governmental restriction. See Wickersham v. City of Columbia, 481 F.3d 591, 597 (8th Cir. 2007). A public employer may not penalize an employee for the exercise of his constitutionally protected right to freedom of speech, because "public employees do not surrender all their First Amendment rights by reason of their employment." Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410, 417, 126 S.Ct. 1951, 164 L.Ed.2d 689, (2006) ; see also McGee v. Pub. Water Supply, Dist. No. 2 of Jefferson Cnty., Mo., 471 F.3d 918, 919 (8th Cir. 2006) (citation omitted). Rather, "[a] public employee retains a degree of First Amendment protection when he speaks as a citizen addressing matters of public concern." Bonn v. City of Omaha, 623 F.3d 587, 592 (8th Cir. 2010). Nonetheless, the Supreme Court has recognized that the government "has interests as an employer in regulating the speech of its employees that differ significantly from those it possesses in connection with regulation of the speech of the citizenry in general." See Pickering v. Bd. of Educ. , 391 U.S. 563, 568, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968) ; see also City of San Diego v. Roe , 543 U.S. 77, 80, 125 S.Ct. 521, 160 L.Ed.2d 410 (2004) (); Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 146, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983) (). Accordingly, the Supreme Court has formulated a unique test that seeks "to arrive at a balance between the interests of [a public employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the [government], as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its...
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