Brucker v. City of Doraville

• Decision Date: 09 July 2019
• Docket Number: CIVIL ACTION NO. 1:18-CV-02375-RWS
• Citation: 391 F.Supp.3d 1207
• Parties: Hilda BRUCKER, et al., Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF DORAVILLE, a Georgia municipal corporation, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Georgia

391 F.Supp.3d 1207

Hilda BRUCKER, et al., Plaintiffs,

v.CITY OF DORAVILLE, a Georgia municipal corporation, Defendant.

CIVIL ACTION NO. 1:18-CV-02375-RWS

United States District Court, N.D. Georgia, Atlanta Division.

Signed July 9, 2019

Anthony Sanders, Minneapolis, MN, Frank B. Strickland, Taylor English Duma LLP, Atlanta, GA, Joshua House, Arlington, VA, William R. Maurer, Seattle, WA, for Plaintiffs.

Dianna J. Lee, Gray Rust St. Amand Moffett & Brieske, LLP, Harvey Scott Gray, Gray Rust St. Amand Moffett & Brieske Atlanta, GA, for Defendant.

ORDER

RICHARD W. STORY, United States District Judge

This case comes before the Court for reconsideration of the City of Doraville's Motion to Dismiss [15]. After reviewing the record and with the benefit of oral argument, the Court enters the following Order.

Background¹

This case involves the system through which Doraville raises revenue from fines, fees, and forfeitures. Doraville, like other Georgia "home rule" municipalities, passes its own criminal ordinances and tries violations of those ordinances in a municipal court. Doraville's police department primarily enforces the City's ordinances, except for property violations, which are handled by a private firm. Those municipal servants issue thousands of tickets and citations every year. And the individuals cited or ticketed are ordered to appear at Doraville's municipal court.

At municipal court hearings, the City Attorney acts as prosecutor. The judge presiding over those proceedings is appointed by the City Council and "hold[s] office at the pleasure of the City Council." Doraville Municipal Code § 9-1. The municipal court judge is authorized to impose criminal penalties for violations of the City's code. The standard penalty is a fine of up to $1,000 or six months imprisonment.

Overall, the City generates $3 million or more annually from fines, fees, and forfeitures that are prosecuted through the municipal court. Those funds constitute anywhere from 17 to 30 percent of the City's total yearly revenue. Hence, the City is highly dependent on revenue it derives from its municipal court. And so the City Council includes projected revenue from fines, fees, and forfeitures in its municipal budget.

According to Plaintiffs—four individuals who have each been convicted or threatened with conviction in Doraville's municipal court—"the City's institutional reliance on revenue from fines and fees" incentivizes "the City to ticket, convict, and fine defendants, regardless of the nature of an individual's offense" in violation of Plaintiffs' due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. Plaintiffs filed this lawsuit challenging the City's conduct under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Count I challenges the City's adjudication of municipal violations, while Count II focuses on the incentives for law enforcement officers and prosecutors to obtain convictions.

Doraville timely moved to dismiss both counts, (Dkt. [15] ). The City argued this case should be dismissed because the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction and because Plaintiffs' Complaint fails to state a claim as a matter of law. On April 1, 2019, the Court denied Doraville's motion, finding that it did indeed have jurisdiction. The Court went on, however, to grant reconsideration (sua sponte ) on the Rule 12(b)(6) portion of the motion and invited supplemental briefing from the parties "to address which standard of review should guide the Court's analysis ... and define the parameters of this case, should it move forward." Both parties submitted briefs and appeared for oral argument to discuss their positions on June 4, 2019. The Court now reconsiders its previous denial of Doraville's motion.

Discussion

I. Motion to Dismiss Standard

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) requires that a pleading contain a "short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." While this pleading standard does not require "detailed factual allegations," "labels and conclusions" or "a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do." 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, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) ). In order to withstand a motion to dismiss, "a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ " Id. (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955 ). A complaint is plausible on its face when the plaintiff pleads factual content necessary for the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the conduct alleged. Id.

At the motion to dismiss stage, "all well-pleaded facts are accepted as true, and the reasonable inferences therefrom are construed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff." Bryant v. Avado Brands, Inc., 187 F.3d 1271, 1273 n.1 (11th Cir. 1999). However, the same does not apply to legal conclusions set forth in the complaint. Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola Co., 578 F.3d 1252, 1260 (11th Cir. 2009) (citing Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937 ). "Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice." Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937. Furthermore, the court does not "accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation." Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955.

II. Analysis

At the heart of Plaintiffs' case is the City's reliance on fines, fees, and forfeitures and the influence that reliance might have on those issuing tickets and resolving offenses in the City's municipal court. According to Plaintiffs, the City's institutional practices generate two impermissible conflicts of interest. First, municipal court personnel, including Doraville's municipal court judges, are financially incentivized to convict defendants appearing before them. And second, the City's law enforcement personnel, including its prosecutors and police officers, have a financial incentive to ticket and prosecute citizens and passers-through. Plaintiffs argue these conflicts of interest deprived them and others of their rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

A. Doraville's Municipal Court

The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees that states will not deprive "any person of life liberty, or property, without due process of law." U.S. CONST. amend. XIV, § 1. Inherent in this guarantee is the concept of neutrality: that people are entitled to "impartial and disinterested" tribunals in civil and criminal proceedings. Marshall v. Jerrico, Inc., 446 U.S. 238, 242, 100 S.Ct. 1610, 64 L.Ed.2d 182 (1980). The neutrality requirement ensures that litigants and criminal defendants will be able to present their cases before arbiters who are "not predisposed to find against [them]." Id. Due process is violated, then, when judges have financial interests in the cases over which they preside.

So, in Tumey v. Ohio the Supreme Court overturned a conviction from a "liquor court" where the town's mayor served as judge because a portion of the mayor's salary came from costs and fees he imposed while acting in a judicial capacity. 273 U.S. 510, 521–22, 535, 47 S.Ct. 437, 71 L.Ed. 749 (1927). The mayor was therefore disqualified from deciding the plaintiff's case because he had a "direct pecuniary interest in the outcome." Id. at 535, 47 S.Ct. 437.

Not every case is so clear, however. And justice, it has been said, must also "satisfy the appearance of justice." Offutt v. United States, 348 U.S. 11, 14, 75 S.Ct. 11, 99 L.Ed. 11 (1954) (emphasis added). As a result, due process might be violated even if the judge has no "direct, personal, substantial pecuniary interest" in the proceedings, Tumey, 273 U.S. at 523, 47 S.Ct. 437, but there nevertheless exists a "probability of unfairness." In re Murchison, 349 U.S. 133, 136, 75 S.Ct. 623, 99 L.Ed. 942 (1955) ; Marshall, 446 U.S. at 243, 100 S.Ct. 1610.

For example, in Ward v. Village of Monroeville , the Supreme Court found that another mayor/judge's interest in city finances was impermissible under the Fourteenth Amendment, even though he did not directly receive any portion of the fees he collected, but a "major part" of the village's total operating funds came from the mayor's court. 409 U.S. 57, 58, 61–62, 93 S.Ct. 80, 34 L.Ed.2d 267 (1972). The Court described the applicable test as:

whether the [judge's] situation is one "which would offer a possible temptation to the average man as a judge to forget the burden of proof required to convict the defendant, or which might lead him not to hold the balance nice, clear, and true between the state and the accused."

Id. at 60, 93 S.Ct. 80 (quoting Tumey, 273 U.S. at 532, 47 S.Ct. 437 ). The mayor's court in Ward failed under this test because "[p]lainly [such a] ‘possible temptation’ may also exist when the mayor's executive responsibilities for village finances may make him partisan to maintain the high level of contribution from the mayor's court." Id.; see also Tumey, 273 U.S. at 535, 47 S.Ct. 437 (finding, too, that the mayor had an "official motive to convict and to graduate the fine [in the plaintiff's case] to help the financial needs of the village").

The principles from Tumey and Ward still echo today, and the Supreme Court has applied them in various contexts. See, e.g., Connally v. Georgia, 429 U.S. 245, 97 S.Ct. 546, 50 L.Ed.2d 444 (1977) (per curiam) (striking down a statute that compensated justices of the peace based on the issuance of search warrants); Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U.S. 564, 93 S.Ct. 1689, 36 L.Ed.2d 488 (1973) (invalidating a system in which a board of optometrists adjudicated charges of professional misconduct filed against other optometrists who would be in competition with the board members); Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 485–86, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 33 L.Ed.2d 484 (1972) (finding parole officers cannot make a determination that reasonable grounds exist...