Bruce v. Riddle

• Decision Date: 10 September 1980
• Docket Number: No. 79-1213,79-1213
• Citation: 631 F.2d 272
• Parties: Tom S. BRUCE, Appellant, v. C. Daniel RIDDLE; I. H. Gibson; Mike Fair; Melvin Pace; John L. Bauer; W. Bentley Hines; Johnnie M. Smith; W. Shannon Linning; Larry H. McCalla; Marshall L. Cason; J. Harlon Riggins; W. B. Bennett; Charles F. Styles; and Clyde E. Morgan, Individually and as Members of the Greenville County Council and Greenville County; Robert T. Ashmore; E. A. Peddycord; John Burgess; W. S. Farmer, Jr., Individually and as Representatives of Northwest Property Owners Association, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 272

631 F.2d 272

Tom S. BRUCE, Appellant, v. C. Daniel RIDDLE; I. H. Gibson; Mike Fair; Melvin Pace; John

L. Bauer; W. Bentley Hines; Johnnie M. Smith; W. Shannon

Linning; Larry H. McCalla; Marshall L. Cason; J. Harlon

Riggins; W. B. Bennett; Charles F. Styles; and Clyde E.

Morgan, Individually and as Members of the Greenville County

Council and Greenville County; Robert T. Ashmore; E. A.

Peddycord; John Burgess; W. S. Farmer, Jr., Individually and

as Representatives of Northwest Property Owners Association,

Appellees.

No. 79-1213.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued Dec. 7, 1979.

Decided Sept. 10, 1980.

A. Camden Lewis, Columbia, S. C. (Barnes, Austin & Lightsey, Columbia, S. C., on brief), for appellant.

Mark R. Holmes, Greenville, S. C. (J. D. Todd, Jr., Leatherwood, Walker, Todd & Mann, Greenville, S. C., on brief), for appellee.

Before FIELD, Senior Circuit Judge, SPROUSE, Circuit Judge, and WILLIAMS, District Judge. ^*

SPROUSE, Circuit Judge:

This is an appeal by Tom S. Bruce, the plaintiff, in an action brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 from a decision of the District Court granting the motion of individual defendants for judgment on the pleadings pursuant to Rule 12(c), F.R.Civ.P. The action was brought by Bruce against Greenville County, South Carolina, the defendant below, and the members of County Council, both in their official and individual capacities. The complaint demanded compensatory and punitive damages. Bruce alleges diminution in value of his real property resulting from a zoning ordinance which he claims was unconstitutionally enacted. The District Court, 464 F.Supp. 745 (D.C.S.C.), in granting the Rule 12(c) motion to dismiss the individual twelve members of the Council, held the complaint did not state a cause of action as to the individual members because they were entitled to absolute legislative immunity. The Court certified that judgment as final under Rule 54(b), F.R.Civ.P., and allowed the case to continue against the county and against the defendants in their official capacity.

Since we are reviewing a Rule 12(c) dismissal, the allegations in the complaint are construed favorably to the plaintiff. To uphold the dismissal, we must find beyond a doubt that the plaintiff could prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief. Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 1686, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974).

The allegations are easy to summarize. ¹ The County Council of Greenville County, ignoring the recommendations of its staff, rezoned an area of land including that of the plaintiff. The zoning amendment prohibited multi-family dwellings, thus diminishing the value of plaintiff's land from $15,000 per acre to $2,000 per acre. This, according to the complaint, was done in bad faith after the individual defendants participated in private meetings with unnamed influential citizens of the area who owned nearby residential property. The purpose of the private meetings purportedly was to discuss protection of the private interests of these influential citizens who feared that public housing would be developed on the property. There was planned for the involved land a 150-unit apartment complex sponsored by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Some time after the private meetings, the defendants met officially in regular session and passed the controverted zoning amendment.

The issues on appeal are two: 1) did the defendants, as individuals, have absolute legislative immunity when they passed the zoning ordinances, and 2) even if they normally have absolute legislative immunity in passing such ordinances, were they outside the scope of legislative immunity due to the private meetings prior to their official vote.

We affirm, agreeing with the District Court that the Council members as individuals had absolute legislative immunity and the challenged actions were within the immunity.

Narrowly focusing on statutory interpretation, the Supreme Court has in recent years etched into Section 1983 suits rules of governmental immunity which vary considerably. The immunity of state political entities and their executives has been derived from the Eleventh Amendment of the United States Constitution and common law sovereign immunity. The exclusion of individuals acting in judicial and legislative capacities has been based on the common law as it existed when Congress passed the predecessor of Section 1983-Sections 1 and 2 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871.

Justice Brennan summarized the modern development of governmental immunity in Owen v. City of Independence, --- U.S. ----, ----, 100 S.Ct. 1398, 1408, 63 L.Ed.2d 673 (1980).

However, notwithstanding § 1983's expansive language and the absence of any express incorporation of common-law immunities, we have, on several occasions, found that a tradition of immunity was so firmly rooted in the common law and was supported by such strong policy reasons that "Congress would have specifically so provided had it wished to abolish the doctrine." Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 555 (87 S.Ct. 1213, 1218, 18 L.Ed.2d 288) (1967). Thus in Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U.S. 367 (71 S.Ct. 783, 95 L.Ed. 1019) (1951), after tracing the development of an absolute legislative privilege from its source in 16th-century England to its inclusion in the Federal and State Constitutions, we concluded that Congress "would (not) impinge on a tradition so well grounded in history and reason by covert inclusion in the general language" of § 1983. Id., at 376 (71 S.Ct., at 788).

Subsequent cases have required that we consider the personal liability of various other types of government officials. Noting that "(f)ew doctrines were more solidly established at common law than the immunity of judges from liability for damages for acts committed within their judicial jurisdiction," Pierson v. Ray, supra (386 U.S.) at 553-554 (87 S.Ct., at 1217), held that the absolute immunity traditionally accorded judges was preserved under § 1983. In that same case, local police officers were held to enjoy a "good faith and probable cause" defense to § 1983 suits similar to that which existed in false arrest actions at common law. Id., at 555-557 (87 S.Ct., at 1218-1219). Several more recent decisions have found immunities of varying scope appropriate for different state and local officials sued under § 1983. See Procunier v. Navarette, 434 U.S. 555 (98 S.Ct. 855, 55 L.Ed.2d 24) (1978) (qualified immunity for prison officials and officers); Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409 (96 S.Ct. 984, 47 L.Ed.2d 128) (1976) (absolute immunity for prosecutors in initiating and presenting the State's case); O'Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563 (95 S.Ct. 2486, 45 L.Ed.2d 396) (1975) (qualified immunity for superintendent of state hospital); Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 308 (95 S.Ct. 992, 43 L.Ed.2d 214) (1975) (qualified immunity for local school board members); Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232 (94 S.Ct. 1683, 40 L.Ed.2d 90) (1974) (qualified "good-faith" immunity for state Governor and other executive officers for discretionary acts performed in the course of official conduct).

In each of these cases, our finding of § 1983 immunity "was predicated upon a considered inquiry into the immunity historically accorded the relevant official at common law and the interests behind it." Imbler v. Pachtman, supra (424 U.S.,) at 421 (96 S.Ct., at 990). Where the immunity claimed by the defendant was well-established at common law at the time § 1983 was enacted, and where its rationale was compatible with the purposes of the Civil Rights Act, we have construed the statute to incorporate that immunity.

The Court, in Tenney v. Brandhove, supra, considered a § 1983 action against a chairman of a state legislative committee and others for action taken against the plaintiff in committee meetings. The Court held state legislators to have absolute immunity from § 1983 actions for any incidents in which they were involved in their legislative capacity. The Court said:

The privilege of legislators to be free from arrest or civil process for what they do or say in legislative proceedings has taproots in the Parliamentary struggles of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries ....

Freedom of speech and action in the legislature was taken as a matter of course by those who severed the Colonies from the Crown and founded our Nation. It was deemed so essential for representatives of the people that it was written into the Articles of Confederation and later into the Constitution ...

The reason for the privilege is clear. It was well summarized by James Wilson, an influential member of the Committee of Detail which was responsible for the provision in the Federal Constitution. "In order to enable and encourage a representative of the public to discharge his public trust with firmness and success, it is indispensably necessary, that he should enjoy the fullest liberty of speech, and that he should be protected from the resentment of every one, however powerful, to whom the exercise of that liberty may occasion offence."

... We cannot believe that Congress-itself a staunch advocate of legislative freedom-would impinge on a tradition so well grounded in history and reason by covert inclusion in the general language before us.

Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U.S. at 372, 373, 376, 71 S.Ct. at 786, 788.

Tenney grounded the freedom of state legislators from § 1983 suits on ancient early American and ancient English common law. Neither of these branches of our common law heritage, however, contain the answer of whether this absolute immunity extends to local legislators. There is little, if any, early American precedent indicating that such early immunity extended to individuals exercising legislative functions in political subdivisions of the lower echelon. The early American cases sometimes cited as supporting this doctrine were not clearly grounded on absolute legislative...