Byrd v. City of Atlanta

• Decision Date: 02 March 1988
• Docket Number: No. 1:87-CV-2307-RHH.,1:87-CV-2307-RHH.
• Parties: William BYRD, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF ATLANTA, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Georgia

683 F. Supp. 804

William BYRD, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF ATLANTA, et al., Defendants.

No. 1:87-CV-2307-RHH.

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

March 2, 1988.

Ralph S. Goldberg, Atlanta, for plaintiff.

Marva Jones Brooks, Overtis L. Hicks, W. Roy Mays, Office of Atlanta City Atty., Atlanta, Ga., for defendants.

ORDER

ROBERT H. HALL, District Judge.

This section 1983 action arises from plaintiff's alleged suspension without pay and subsequent termination from his position as a detective in the Atlanta Bureau of Police Services. Plaintiff contends that defendants' actions have violated his rights under the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, violated his rights under the Georgia Constitution and violated a local ordinance. The case is currently before this court on defendants' motion to dismiss.

FACTS

Plaintiff brings this lawsuit against the City of Atlanta and city officials who allegedly served in a supervisory capacity over plaintiff. In the posture of a motion to dismiss the court deems the following factual allegations in the complaint as true: Defendant Napper is Commissioner of the Department of Public Safety. Defendant Redding is Chief of Police for the City of Atlanta. Defendant Julius Derico was Chief Inspector of the Office of Professional Standards. Plaintiff alleges that the relevant actions complained of were performed by defendants "under the color" of state law. Plaintiff alleges that all relevant actions taken by defendants Napper and Redding and by the Civil Service Board of the City of Atlanta represented the official policy and practice of defendant City of Atlanta in that defendants Napper and Redding were the policymakers for the city.

Plaintiff alleges that on March 3, 1985, he was suspended from his employment without pay and without a suspension hearing. Plaintiff alleges that he was thereafter charged with violating Employee Work Rules 2.65, 2.33 and 1.01.¹

Plaintiff alleges that on July 18, 1985 he received a pretermination hearing and on July 30, 1985 was discharged for violating the above-enumerated rules. Plaintiff alleges that after a hearing before the Civil Service Board, the Board affirmed plaintiff's discharge on or about October 1, 1985.

Plaintiff alleges that, beyond a "boilerplate" statement, defendants failed to provide him a statement of the reasons for his discharge and any evidence supporting such action.

Plaintiff alleges that he had a federally recognizable state property interest in his continued employment guaranteed by state law and local ordinance which provided that he could not be terminated or suspended without cause.

Plaintiff further alleges that he was discharged contrary to City Ordinance 5-34.1, section 7(b), which provides in pertinent part:

... as to offenses for which progressive discipline is applicable, an employee shall not be dismissed until progressive steps of discipline have been taken, without positive results therefrom, and until the employee to be discharged has been presented in writing with specifically stated reasons for such discharge.

A case involving the same parties and arising from the same employment action was filed in this court July 6, 1986. Byrd v. City of Atlanta, C.A. No. 86-1467A. In that case, Judge Vining of this court dismissed plaintiff's complaint with prejudice for failure to state a claim based on the conclusory nature of the complaint. November 20, 1986 Order. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal but remanded the case to the district court for dismissal without prejudice. 826 F.2d 13. The instant action is the refiling of that earlier dismissal with a more thoroughly drafted complaint.

DISCUSSION

Plaintiff contends that defendants violated his federal Fourteenth Amendment rights of Due Process and Equal Protection as well as Due Process protected by the Constitution of the State of Georgia. Specifically, plaintiff contends that defendants violated his rights of procedural due process by suspending him without pay without first granting him a presuspension hearing. Plaintiff also contends that he was denied procedural due process because defendants failed to give him proper notice of the reasons for his discharge and because he contends that the relevant work rules are vague and overbroad. Plaintiff further contends that defendants denied him substantive due process throughout the termination proceedings because defendants failed to base plaintiff's discharge on "substantial evidence." Plaintiff contends that the sanction of discharge was excessive given that the Board found that plaintiff's "worst offense was a mistake in judgment and that the penalty received was too harsh" and likewise that defendants failed to follow their own ordinance-mandated tenets of "progressive discipline" by not first resorting to a lesser sanction than discharge.

Additionally, plaintiff contends that defendant violated his right to Equal Protection under the laws because defendants, in taking the complained of employment action, failed to treat him the same as other similarly situated police officers.

Defendants in their motion to dismiss challenge plaintiff's complaint on essentially six grounds: (1) the complaint fails to state a claim against the City of Atlanta; (2) the facts of this action are not properly the subject of a § 1983 action; (3) the res judicata effect of the decision of the Civil Service Board and subsequent dismissal of certiorari of the state court review of that decision bars the instant action; (4) the action is time-barred under Ga.Off'l Code Ann. § 9-3-33; (5) the individually named defendants are entitled to qualified immunity; (6) plaintiff's claims regarding administrative action taken by defendants leading to his discharge are not cognizable by this court because they allege only negligent acts by defendants and because defendants contend that Bishop v. Wood, 426 U.S. 341, 96 S.Ct. 2074, 48 L.Ed.2d 684 (1976) indicates the inappropriateness of this type of claim in federal court.

1. Claims against the City of Atlanta

Defendants contend that this action arises only from the particular employment actions taken against plaintiff. No other similar actions are alleged. Defendants argue that in stating a claim under § 1983 against a municipality, a plaintiff must allege that the constitutional deprivation was caused by official municipal policy, custom, or usage. Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978). Defendants argue that plaintiff has alleged only one action by the city, and therefore cannot state a claim for municipal liability because he has insufficiently alleged a "custom or usage." Id.

Defendants fail to recognize that there are two branches of the Monell analysis known colloquially as the "policymaker" branch and the "custom or usage" branch.² The Supreme Court recently refined the "policymaker" branch of § 1983 supervisory liability doctrine in Pembaur v. City of Cincinnati, 475 U.S. 469, 106 S.Ct. 1292, 89 L.Ed.2d 452 (1986). The court there stated:

Municipal liability attaches only where the decisionmaker possesses final authority to establish municipal policy with respect to the action ordered.... However, like other governmental entities, municipalities often spread policymaking authority among various officers and official bodies. As a result, particular officers may have authority to establish binding county policy respecting particular matters.... To hold a municipality liable for actions ordered by such officers exercising their policymaking authority is no more an application of the theory of respondeat superior than was holding the municipalities liable for the decisions of the City councils in Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U.S. 622, 100 S.Ct. 1398, 63 L.Ed.2d 673 (1980) and Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 U.S. 247, 101 S.Ct. 2748, 69 L.Ed.2d 616 (1981) (citations omitted). In each case municipal liability attached to a single decision to take unlawful action made by municipal policymakers. We hold that municipal liability under § 1983 attaches where and only where a deliberate choice to follow a course of action is made from among various alternatives by the official or officials responsible for establishing final policy with respect to the subject matter in question.

Id. 106 S.Ct. at 1299-1300. See also City of Oklahoma v. Tuttle, 471 U.S. 808, 105 S.Ct. 2427, 85 L.Ed.2d 791 (1985).

Plaintiff here has adequately alleged that actions by defendants Napper and Redding and by the Civil Service Board of the City of Atlanta represented the official policy of the City of Atlanta at the various phases of the allegedly unlawful employment decisions. Plaintiff's allegations therefore form the basis for municipal liability on the part of the City of Atlanta to the extent of actions committed by defendants Napper and Redding and by the Civil Service Board respectively. Plaintiff however has failed to allege a policymaking role for Chief Inspector Derico on a particular decision, rule, or policy through which the city might be held liable. The City may only be held liable for the alleged actions of Napper, Redding and the Board.

2. Liability under Parratt

Defendants contend that the facts of this action are an improper subject of a § 1983 action under Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981). In Parratt, the Court attempted to delimit the boundaries of causes of action under § 1983 for deprivations of property without procedural due process of law. The question before the Court there was whether § 1983 contemplated a claim for the value of certain hobby materials lost by an inmate where state tort remedies were available. The Court held that these remedies satisfied the requirements of procedural due process. Id. at 537, 101 S.Ct. at 1914. The court in its discussion indicated, however, that...