Crowe v. Lucas, 76-4232

Citation595 F.2d 985
Decision Date22 May 1979
Docket NumberNo. 76-4232,76-4232
PartiesMilburn J. CROWE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Earl S. LUCAS et al., Defendants-Appellees.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)

Robert Lawson Holladay, P. J. Townsend, Jr., Drew, Miss., for plaintiff-appellant.

Robert G. Johnston, Cleveland, Miss., Johnnie Earl Walls, Jr., Greenville, Miss., for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi.

Before THORNBERRY, CLARK and RONEY, Circuit Judges.

CHARLES CLARK, Circuit Judge:

In June of 1973, Milburn J. Crowe was defeated in his bid for reelection to the Board of Aldermen of the City of Mound Bayou, Mississippi. Accepting Crowe's assertions of election fraud, the Circuit Court of Bolivar County, Mississippi, subsequently declared the election null and void. Contending that the effect of the Circuit Court order was to reinstate him as an alderman for lack of a duly elected successor, Crowe attended the Mound Bayou Aldermen's meetings of November 6, 1973, December 4, 1973, and August 6, 1974, and attempted to vote and take part in the debate. At each of those meetings, the Mayor and the other members of the Board ordered Crowe's arrest on a charge of disturbing the peace. On December 21, 1974, at 2:00 a. m., the assistant police chief of Mound Bayou, Oliver Knox Anderson, arrested Crowe for violating a city ordinance that required persons operating public facilities to use water provided by the City. The arrest was made under a warrant issued by Harold Ward, who had defeated Crowe in the aldermanic election which was declared void and who was acting in the capacity of Municipal Judge. The record here shows that Crowe's water service had been terminated because of his failure to pay his water bills and that, on the day of his arrest, he had been pumping water to his restaurant from a nearby well. Although he was taken to the Mound Bayou jail and required to post a bond at the time the arrests were made, Crowe was never brought to trial on any of the charges. Crowe filed a suit in federal district court alleging that various city officials had conspired to deprive him of his civil rights. The jury rendered a verdict against defendants Earl S. Lucas, the Mayor of Mound Bayou; Harold Ward, the alderman who also served as a Municipal Judge; Alfred Thompson, the Chief of Police; and the Assistant Chief of Police Anderson, awarding $5,000 in compensatory damages and $5,000 in punitive damages.

The district judge granted defendants' motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, finding that the defendants could not be held liable under the civil rights statutes since the actions Crowe complained of were committed in good faith and in reliance on advice of counsel. Crowe urges that the judgment n. o. v. should be reversed because the district court misapprehended the scope of the good faith defense. Defendants take the contrary position and also assert that, even if the district court erred in finding good faith, the judgment n. o. v. should be affirmed since Crowe did not show that a conspiracy existed or that he had been deprived of any right secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States. We reverse the district court's disposition on the motion for judgment n. o. v. and reinstate the jury verdict.

In Boeing Company v. Shipman, 411 F.2d 365 (5th Cir. 1969) (en banc), we established the standard governing judgments n. o. v.:

On motions for directed verdict and for judgment notwithstanding the verdict the Court should consider all of the evidence not just that evidence which supports the non-mover's case but in the light and with all reasonable inferences most favorable to the party opposed to the motion. If the facts and inferences point so strongly and overwhelmingly in favor of one party that the Court believes that reasonable men could not arrive at a contrary verdict, granting of the motions is proper. On the other hand, if there is substantial evidence opposed to the motions, that is, evidence of such quality and weight that reasonable and fair-minded men in the exercise of impartial judgment might reach different conclusions, the motions should be denied, and the case submitted to the jury.

Thus in reviewing a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, a court's task is not to re-evaluate the evidence to form its own conclusions regarding the correctness of the jury verdict. Rather, Boeing requires us to determine whether reasonable men could, on any theory submitted to the jury, have resolved the dispute as the jury did. We now turn to an examination of the evidence presented in this case in light of the proper legal principles applied under the Boeing standard.

I. Official Immunity

Defendants assert that a cloak of official immunity protects them from liability for the acts of which Crowe complains. The Supreme Court has recently held that a judge cannot be held liable under the civil rights statutes for his judicial acts unless those acts are committed in the "clear absence of all jurisdiction." Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349, 356, 357, 98 S.Ct. 1099, 1105, 55 L.Ed.2d 331, 339 (1978); See Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 87 S.Ct. 1213, 18 L.Ed.2d 288 (1967). Thus, if any of the acts of Municipal Judge Harold Ward at issue here can properly be characterized as judicial acts, and if those acts were not committed in the "clear absence of all jurisdiction," then the acts cannot be the basis of a § 1983 suit. The immunity of the police officers in this case is likewise clearly established; they are entitled to a "qualified" or limited degree of immunity under the standards established in Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 87 S.Ct. 1213, 18 L.Ed. 288 (1967), and Bogard v. Cook, 586 F.2d 399 (5th Cir. 1978).

The Supreme Court has never decided whether the immunity accorded to persons in the position of Mayor and Alderman here is an absolute immunity or a "qualified" immunity. Defendants urge that we should rule in favor of absolute immunity, citing Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U.S. 367, 71 S.Ct. 783, 95 L.Ed. 1019 (1951), which accorded absolute immunity to state legislators. We reject this argument. In Monell v. Department of Social Service of the City of New York, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978), the Supreme Court held that a municipality is a suable entity under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In the course of that opinion the Court stated:

Since the question whether local government bodies should be afforded some form of official immunity was not presented as a question to be decided on this petition and was not briefed by the parties nor addressed by the Courts below, we express no views on the scope of any municipal immunity beyond holding that municipal bodies sued under § 1983 cannot be entitled to an absolute immunity, lest our decision that such bodies are subject to suit under § 1983 "be drained of meaning." Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 248, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974).

It would be anomalous to establish a greater degree of immunity for municipal officials than is given to the city itself. Moreover, in Scheuer v. Rhodes, supra, 416 U.S. at 248, 94 S.Ct. at 1692, 40 L.Ed.2d at 103, the Court rejected the notion that the governor of a state was entitled to absolute immunity:

Under the criteria developed by precedents of this Court, § 1983 would be drained of meaning were we to hold that the acts of a governor or other high executive officer have "the quality of a supreme and unchangeable edict, overriding all conflicting rights of property and unreviewable through the judicial power of the federal government."

We conclude that the Mayor and Aldermen of Mound Bayou are entitled to the same qualified or limited immunity accorded to other state executive officials. See Jones v Diamond, 519 F.2d 1090, 1100-01 (5th Cir. 1975); Curry v. Gillette, 461 F.2d 1003 (6th Cir. 1972), Cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1042, 93 S.Ct. 529, 34 L.Ed.2d 492 (1972); Nelson v. Knox, 256 F.2d 312 (6th Cir. 1958).

Having established the degree of immunity accorded to defendants here, we must next determine whether sufficient evidence existed for the jury to find that defendants' shield of immunity was pierced. As we noted above, Municipal Judge Harold Ward is absolutely immune from liability under the civil rights acts for his conduct unless the jury could have found that certain of his acts were not judicial acts or were committed in the clear absence of all jurisdiction. Crowe's complaint against Ward is based on Ward's participation in the conspiracy to deprive Crowe of his civil rights, on Ward's act in ordering his arrest at the Aldermen's meeting, and on Ward's signing the warrant for Crowe's arrest for violating the water pump ordinance. Of these acts, the jury could properly have found that the first and second were not judicial acts.

Whether an act can be characterized as a judicial act depends upon "the nature of the act itself, I. e., Whether it is a function normally performed by a judge, and . . . the expectations of the parties, I. e., Whether they dealt with the judge in his judicial capacity." Sparkman, supra, 435 U.S. at 362, 98 S.Ct. at 1107, 55 L.Ed.2d at 342. Harold Ward wore two hats, he was both Municipal Judge and Alderman. The jury could reasonably have concluded that Ward's actions in conspiring against Crowe and in ordering his arrest at the Board meetings were taken as an Alderman rather than as a Judge. Maintaining order at a Board of Aldermen's meeting is normally a function performed by an Alderman rather than a Municipal Judge. Moreover, it is not contended that the parties here believed that Ward was acting as Municipal Judge at those meetings, nor were the asserted conspiratorial acts related in any way to Ward's judicial duties. Thus, for purposes of testing the judgment n. o. v., the conduct of all defendants here is to be measured against the standards of the...

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