Brown v. City of Dunwoody
| Decision Date | 09 March 2015 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 1:11–CV–2448–AT. |
| Citation | 90 F.Supp.3d 1345 |
| Parties | Leonard B. BROWN, Jr. and Leonard B. Brown, III, Plaintiffs, v. The CITY OF DUNWOODY, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Georgia |
Leonard B. Brown, Jr., pro se.
Leonard B. Brown, III, Amanda R. Clark Palmer and Donald Franklin Samuel, Garland, Samuel & Loeb, P.C., for Plaintiffs.
Dawn N. Pettigrew and George Melton Mobley, Jr., Lokey, Mobley & Doyle, LLP, for Defendants.
Plaintiff Leonard B. Brown, Jr. and his son, Plaintiff Leonard B. Brown, III filed this civil rights action pro se, alleging that the City of Dunwoody (the “City”) and individual code enforcement or law enforcement officers violated Plaintiffs' constitutional rights in the manner they enforced the municipal land use code and in allegedly falsely arresting the two Browns. On summary judgment, the Court liberally construed Plaintiffs' Complaint to allege, among others, claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for procedural and substantive due process violations and conspiracy. So construed, the Court dismissed those claims as unsupported by the record. The Court also dismissed Plaintiffs' claims under two criminal code sections, explaining that these criminal statutes do not provide a private right of action. The Court allowed Leonard B. Brown, III's false arrest claim to proceed to trial and appointed counsel for him. Shortly before trial, Mr. Brown, III and the Defendants notified the Court that they had settled the remaining claims.
The City of Dunwoody, and city officials Tom LaPenna, Michael Nier, Michael Tuller, and Brian Anderson (collectively the “City Defendants”) have filed a Motion for Attorney's Fees [Doc. 74]. The City Defendants argue that Plaintiffs' substantive and procedural due process claims, conspiracy claim, and claims brought under the criminal code, were frivolous or groundless. They seek over $25,000 in fees.
Acknowledging that attorney's fees should rarely be awarded against pro se plaintiffs in civil rights actions, and weighing the equities in this case, the Court DENIES the City Defendants' Motion.
Plaintiffs Dr. Leonard B. Brown, Jr. (Dr. Brown, Jr.) and his son, Leonard B. Brown, III (“Brown, III”), proceeding pro se, filed this lawsuit in July 2011. Although not entirely clear, Plaintiffs' allegations fit loosely into two categories: (1) claims arising out of alleged arbitrary and capricious code enforcement and (2) claims arising out of an alleged false arrest. The code enforcement allegations, however, seem to be, in Plaintiffs' minds, the precursor to the false arrest charge and thus part of one pattern of misconduct.
According to the “Preliminary Statement” at the outset of their Complaint, in early 2009, Plaintiffs “began receiving threatening notes, and strange, privacy invading photographs from officials of the City of Dunwoody, Georgia.” (Compl. ¶ 2, Doc. 1.) Apparently, the City had cited Plaintiffs with code violations, and Plaintiffs found the citations “threatening and harassing.” (Id. ) Eventually, Dr. Brown, Jr. was ordered to appear at a hearing regarding the code enforcement violations. He failed to appear and thus a bench warrant was issued. Police officers then appeared at the Browns' home to serve the bench warrant for Dr. Brown, Jr. When officers arrived at the home, they instead encountered Brown, III. During the encounter, Mr. Brown, III was arrested on a charge of obstruction after the Defendant officers broke down the Browns' door and entered the home without a warrant. Although Plaintiffs intimated that the City wrongfully withdrew a DeKalb County building permit, (see id. at 12), the clearest wrongful act in Plaintiffs' Complaint centered on this alleged assault and false arrest of Mr. Brown, III.1 (See id. ¶¶ 4–5.) Plaintiffs seem to suggest that the City's pattern of harassment culminated in this false arrest.
A review of Plaintiffs' Complaint reveals that the pro se Plaintiffs did not understand the appropriate avenue for legal relief based on their allegations. Plaintiffs anchor their claims in several federal statutes including 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of constitutional rights, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1985, and 1986 for race or other class-based discrimination, and two criminal code sections, 18 U.S.C. §§ 241 and 242. (Id. ¶ 1, 6.) The only arguable applicable statute, however, is 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
Defendants did not file a motion to dismiss. Instead, Defendants filed an Answer to the Complaint on October 4, 2011. The discovery period commenced thirty days later. See LR 26.2, NDGa. After Plaintiffs failed to comply with their discovery obligations in a number of respects, Plaintiffs finally sat for their depositions on September 28, 2012 and responded to Defendants' written discovery requests. Plaintiffs apparently did not engage in any discovery of their own.
On October 30, 2012, Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment. (Doc. 40.) Defendants argued first that Plaintiffs' Complaint should be dismissed for failing to plead sufficient facts to state a claim for relief. (Doc. 40–1 at 7–9.) Defendants then quickly disposed of Plaintiffs' claims under the criminal code sections, articulating in two short sentences that such code sections do not authorize civil suits. (Id. at 17.) And Defendants likewise argued that Plaintiffs' claims under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1985, and 1986 are simply inapplicable to the facts in this case. (Id. at 17–19.) None of these arguments addressed the substance of Plaintiffs' allegations.
Defendants then challenged Plaintiffs' code enforcement claims. They first argued that the claims against the City should be dismissed because the record (1) lacked any “evidence of the existence of a policy that served as the driving force behind the plaintiffs' alleged constitutional violations” and (2) contained “no evidence that the City of Dunwoody had a custom or practice to ignore the commission of constitutional violations by its officials.” (Id. at 13, 16.) They then asserted that the individual City Defendants were entitled to qualified immunity because Plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate that the code enforcement conduct was “plainly unjustified.” (Id. at 20.) Defendants did not address any potential procedural due process challenge.
The rest of Defendants' memorandum of law asserted a qualified immunity defense to Plaintiffs' false arrest claims.
Plaintiffs' response to Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment did little to clarify their claims against Defendants. (See Doc. 51.) Plaintiffs repeated many of the same assertions they alleged in their Complaint—that they had been threatened and harassed by the City under the guise of code enforcement, for example. They wagered that the City's mistreatment of them arose out of their public opposition to a plan to establish Dunwoody as a “prepackaged city.” (Id. at 2.) And they took issue with the City's code enforcement citations which failed to explain precisely how their property violated municipal code. As they articulated it, however, the abuse and harassment culminated in the false arrest of Mr. Brown, III. (See id. at 4–5.) Although their response brief had a paranoid dimension to it, Plaintiffs clearly expressed their contention that the arrest of Mr. Brown, III violated his constitutional rights. (Id. at 8–10.)
Defendants filed a reply brief. They attacked first Plaintiffs' invocation of “substantive due process rights” in the context of the alleged “false prosecution.” (Doc. 59 at 3–4.) They argued that such claims should be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment instead. (Id. ) They then reiterated their position that the City cannot be held liable based on the record. (Id. at 4–10.) And they concluded by articulating why the City's code enforcement officials and police officers are entitled to qualified immunity. (Id. at 11–15.) Defendants again did not identify a procedural due process claim.
The Court granted in part and denied in part Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment. (Doc. 70.) Regarding Plaintiffs' code enforcement claims, the Court construed Plaintiffs' Complaint as asserting procedural due process, substantive due process, and conspiracy claims.2 The record did not support any of these claims. In particular, the Court held that Plaintiffs could not bring a procedural due process claim based on the record because of the availability of adequate state remedies. And because Plaintiffs had not invoked a deprivation of a fundamental right, their claim of “arbitrary and capricious” code enforcement appeared redundant of their procedural due process claim. In any case, the record contained no evidence that that the City cited Dr. Brown, Jr. for any nefarious reason, and instead, indicated that the City applied its building code against Plaintiffs' property in order to preserve the health, safety, and morals of the municipality. Finally, the record did not support a conspiracy to violate Plaintiffs' constitutional rights through arbitrary code enforcement. Although the Court liberally construed Plaintiffs' Complaint to assert these unsupported claims, it was never clear Plaintiffs in fact intended to bring such claims.
The Court then swiftly dismissed Plaintiffs' claims under the criminal code. And almost as swiftly, the Court dismissed Dr. Brown, Jr.'s false arrest claim, noting that it was not even clear Dr. Brown, Jr. intended to bring such a claim.
The Court then devoted most of its remaining analysis to Brown, III's false arrest claim. Most importantly, the Court concluded that the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to Brown, III, supported his contention that his arrest was unlawful. For example, a reasonable jury could conclude that Brown, III had committed no crime outside his house and that Brown, III did not fail to comply with any of the officers' orders. The Court also rejected the Defendants' argument that exigency justified the officers' entry into...
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