City of Safety Harbor v. Birchfield

• Decision Date: 12 April 1976
• Docket Number: No. 74--3845,74--3845
• Citation: 529 F.2d 1251
• Parties: The CITY OF SAFETY HARBOR, a Municipal Corp., and Claude Rigsby, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. William BIRCHFIELD, Herbert Brown, S. Curtis Kiser, Douglas Roach and Edmund Whitson, Jr., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 1251

529 F.2d 1251

The CITY OF SAFETY HARBOR, a Municipal Corp., and Claude

Rigsby, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. William BIRCHFIELD, Herbert Brown, S. Curtis Kiser, Douglas

Roach and Edmund Whitson, Jr., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 74--3845.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

April 12, 1976.

William P. O'Malley, Jack F. White, Jr., Clearwater, Fla., for plaintiffs-appellants.

John Germany, John R. Lawson, Jr., Tampa, Fla., Robert R. Feagin, III, Tallahassee, Fla., for Birchfield, Kiser and Whitson.

N. S. Gould, Thomas A. Bustin, City Atty., Clearwater, Fla., for Brown.

John F. Rudy, II, Ted R. Manry, III, Tampa, Fla., for Roach.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Before GEWIN and AINSWORTH, Circuit Judges, and MARKEY, ^* Chief judge.

AINSWORTH, Circuit Judge:

This unusual case arises out of the dismissal of a complaint in which the City of Safety Harbor, Florida, and the mayor of that city suing in his capacity as a resident taxpayer, seek damages and appropriate injunctive relief against four Florida legislators ¹ and two private individuals for purported violations of provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1985 and 1986. In substance, the complaint alleges that the defendants illegally conspired to secure the passage of legislation which operated to impair the obligations of an agreement between Safety Harbor and two other Florida cities, Clearwater and Dunedin. Under this 'Service Area Agreement,' dated February 2, 1970, the municipalities involved agreed to tentative boundaries in surrounding unincorporated areas within which each would plan for the provision of various municipal services. The parties also agreed to avoid and discourage annexation plans not in harmony with the tentative boundaries.

The legislation which was the result of the alleged conspiracy annexed a portion of Safety Harbor's agreed upon service area to the City of Clearwater. ² The District Court dismissed the complaint, holding that the City of Safety Harbor was not a proper party under the provisions of the Civil Rights Act and that defendant legislators were immune from suit. ³ Appellants challenge both of these rulings on appeal, but we agree with the District Court and affirm.

The Municipality as a 'Person' under the Civil Rights Act

The District Court's holding that the City of Safety Harbor is not a proper party under the Civil Rights Act constitutes a proper extension of the reasoning of recent Supreme Court cases which have established that a municipality is not a 'person' within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 when the municipality is sued as a defendant. City of Kenosha v. Bruno, 412 U.S. 507, 513, 93 S.Ct. 2222, 2226, 37 L.Ed.2d 109, 116 (1973); Moor v. County of Alameda, 411 U.S. 693, 699--700, 93 S.Ct. 1785, 1790, 36 L.Ed.2d 596, 603--604 (1973); Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 187--92, 81 S.Ct. 473, 484--86, 5 L.Ed.2d 492, 505--507 (1960). Appellants contend that it makes little sense to deny municipal corporations relief under the Civil Rights Act in cases where private individuals could recover. This argument overlooks the significance of the distinction between private persons and public entities in American jurisprudence. Ever since the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 518, 4 L.Ed. 629 (1819), it has been apparent that public entities which are political subdivisions of states do not possess constitutional rights, such as the right to be free from state impairment of contractual obligations, in the same sense as private corporations or individuals. 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) at 660--61, 4 L.Ed. at 664. Such entities are creatures of the state, and possess no rights, privileges or immunities independent of those expressly conferred upon them by the state. ⁴ Id.; Williams v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 289 U.S. 36, 40, 53 S.Ct. 431, 432, 77 L.Ed. 1015, 1020 (1933); see Railroad Commission v. Los Angeles RR., 280 U.S. 145, 156, 50 S.Ct. 71, 73--74, 74 L.Ed. 234, 329 (1929); Risty v. Chicago, R.I. & P.R.R., 270 U.S. 378, 390, 46 S.Ct. 236, 241, 70 L.Ed. 641, 651 (1926); City of New York v. Richardson, 2 Cir., 1973, 473 F.2d 923, 929, cert. denied sub nom. Lavine v. Lindsay, 412 U.S. 950, 93 S.Ct. 3012, 37 L.Ed.2d 1002 (1973). Thus, in Trenton v. New Jersey, 262 U.S. 182, 43 S.Ct. 534, 67 L.Ed. 937 (1923), the Supreme Court held that a city which had obtained its water resources by acquiring a private water company through proper exercise of its proprietary authority could not assert the right to freedom from impairment of contractual obligations because of the difference in the relation of private and public entities to the state. ⁵ In contrast to private individuals and entities, municipal corporations have repeatedly been denied the right to challenge state legislation allegedly violative of the Federal Constitution. Williams v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, supra; Pawhuska v. Pawhuska Oil & Gas Co., 250 U.S. 394, 398, 39 S.Ct. 526, 528, 63 L.Ed. 1054, 1057 (1919) ('as respects grants of political or governmental authority to cities, towns, counties, and the like the legislative power of states is not restrained by the contract clause of the Constitution'); City of New Orleans v. New Orleans Water-Works Co., 142 U.S. 79, 12 S.Ct. 142, 35 L.Ed. 943 (1891).

The fact that public entities are not right-holders in the same sense as private parties has particular relevance in determining whether a municipality is a 'person' entitled to bring suit under the 1871 Civil Rights Act. After conducting an exhaustive review of the legislative history of that Act, the Supreme Court in Monroe v. Pape, supra, concluded,

. . . the legislation was passed to afford a federal right in federal courts because, by reason of prejudice, passion, neglect, intolerance or otherwise, state laws might not be enforced and the claims of citizens to the enjoyment of rights, privileges, and immunities guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment might be denied by the state agencies.

365 U.S. at 180, 81 S.Ct. at 480, 5 L.Ed.2d at 501 (emphasis added). The legislative history as detailed in Monroe makes it clear that congressional concern in passing the Civil Rights Act was to create a federal remedy for private persons seeking redress of violations of their civil rights. This conclusion was reiterated by Justice Marshall in Moor v. County of Alameda, supra:

. . . 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which was derived from § 1 of the Ku Klux Klan Act of April 20, 1871, 17 Stat. 13, was intended to provide private parties a cause of action for abuses of official authority which resulted in the deprivation of constitutional rights, privileges, and immunities.

411 U.S. at 699, 93 S.Ct. at 1790, 36 L.Ed.2d at 604 (emphasis added). Accordingly, there is no reason why the Supreme Court's clear holdings in the context of suits against municipal defendants that municipalities are not persons within the meaning of the 1871 Civil Rights Act do not also apply where the municipality seeks to bring suit as plaintiff.

This conclusion is particularly appropriate in the present case. Under the Florida Constitution, the power to annex unincorporated territory to established municipalities is vested in the state legislature. ⁶ If municipalities were held to possess the power to enter into annexation agreements which the state legislature could not 'impair,' municipalities could dictate annexation patterns merely by signing such agreements and the legislature's prerogative in such matters would become meaningless. The Contracts Clause of the United States Constitution, art. 1, § 10, contemplates no such result, and the City of Safety Harbor's effort to predicate a civil rights action on a purported right derived from that clause is without merit.

We recognize, with appellants, that there are circumstances in which a state's power over its municipalities and other political subdivisions is limited by federal constitutional constraints. See, e.g., Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339, 81 S.Ct. 125, 5 L.Ed.2d 110 (1960) (redefinition of city boundaries to exclude black voters held violative of the Fourteenth Amendment); Broughton v. Pensacola, 93 U.S. (23 Wall.) 266, 23 L.Ed. 896 (1876) (modification of municipal boundaries could not impair city's preexisting liabilities on municipal bonds). In such cases, state action has operated to deprive private persons of their constitutional rights. The fact that state action is limited in such contexts provides no support for the proposition that municipalities are endowed with analogous rights that may be asserted against the state in federal civil rights actions. ⁷

Legislative Immunity

The legislative immunity issue is controlled by Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U.S. 367, 71 S.Ct. 783, 95 L.Ed. 1019 (1951). In that case, the Supreme Court held that a state legislator acting within the traditional sphere of legislative activity was immune from suit under the Civil Rights Act of 1871, and that the privilege is not destroyed even where the motivation for the challenged conduct is questionable or unworthy. 341 U.S. at 376--78, 71 S.Ct. at 788--89, 95 L.Ed. at 1027. It is difficult to discern anything nefarious in the conduct alleged in the complaint to have been committed in furtherance of the legislator's purported conspiracy (e.g., voting 'to report House Bill No. 2125 (the annexation bill) out of the . . . House Committee on Community Affairs' and 'vocally urging approval of House Bill No. 2125 by said committee.') Even if the motivation of the legislators in supporting the bill was suspect, however, their conduct was clearly within the traditional sphere of legislative activity and thus immune from a civil rights action in accordance with Tenney. See Imbler v. Pachtman, --- U.S. ---, 96 S.Ct. 984, 47 L.Ed.2d 128, 44 U.S.L.W. 4250, 4253 (1976); Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 243--44, 94 S.Ct....