Gammel v. Kuna Rural Fire Prot. Dist.

• Decision Date: 05 November 2021
• Docket Number: 1:19-cv-00390-REP
• Parties: TERRY D. GAMMEL, Plaintiff, v. KUNA RURAL FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICT, d/b/a/ KUNA RURAL FIRE DISTRICT, a municipality; and in their individual and official capacities PERRY PALMER, Former Fire Chief, M.G. BUD BEATTY, JR., Chairman, TIM CRAWFORD, Commissioner, MIKE SMITH, Commissioner, HAL HARRIS, Commissioner, DEBI ENGLEHARDT-VOGEL, Commissioner, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Idaho

TERRY D. GAMMEL, Plaintiff,
v.
KUNA RURAL FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICT, d/b/a/ KUNA RURAL FIRE DISTRICT, a municipality; and in their individual and official capacities PERRY PALMER, Former Fire Chief, M.G. BUD BEATTY, JR., Chairman, TIM CRAWFORD, Commissioner, MIKE SMITH, Commissioner, HAL HARRIS, Commissioner, DEBI ENGLEHARDT-VOGEL, Commissioner, Defendants.

No. 1:19-cv-00390-REP

United States District Court, D. Idaho

November 5, 2021

MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER ON DEFENDANTS' MOTION FOR ATTORNEYS' FEES AND COSTS (DKT. 34)

Raymond E. Patricco, U.S. Magistrate Judge.

Pending is Defendants' Motion for Attorneys' Fees and Costs (Dkt. 34). Because the Plaintiff's claims are not frivolous, the Court denies Defendants' request for fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b) and I.C. § 12-121. The Court will wait to rule on Defendants' request for mandatory fees under I.C. § 12-120(3) until Plaintiff's state whistleblower claim is resolved and the request is properly renewed.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Plaintiff Terry D. Gammel was the Assistant Fire Chief of the Kuna Rural Fire District (“KRFD”) from June of 2015 until he was fired in April of 2019. Compl. ¶¶ 5, 8 (Dkt. 1). On October 7, 2019, he filed this suit to challenge the lawfulness of his termination.

Plaintiff raised four claims in his original complaint. First, he claimed a deprivation of a property interest without due process, in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Compl. ¶¶ 49-60 (Dkt.

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1). This claim alleged that he had a reasonable expectation and a legitimate claim of entitlement to continued employment and therefore a property interest in his employment. Second, he claimed that he was deprived of a liberty interest, also in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Compl. ¶¶ 61-72 (Dkt. 1). This claim alleged that Defendants “impugn[ed] his good name, honor, and integrity” by terminating his employment during a public meeting immediately following a closed executive session which had been called to “hear complaints or charges brought against a public ... employee...” Compl. ¶ 63 (Dkt. 1). Third, he claimed that his firing constituted unlawful retaliation against him, in violation of the Idaho Protection of Public Employees Act (“IPPEA”). Compl. ¶¶ 73-77 (Dkt. 1). Fourth and finally, he claimed KRFD breached the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing by denying him benefits outlined in the District's Policy Code, including fair and equitable discipline, a grievance/appeals process, and written notice and an opportunity to respond prior to termination. Compl. ¶¶ 78-82 (Dkt. 1).

In lieu of an answer, Defendants filed a motion seeking dismissal of all four claims under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Def.'s MTD (Dkt. 3). On May 26, 2021, the Court granted this motion. 5/26/21 MDO (Dkt. 28). The Court delayed issuing a final judgment, however, to permit Plaintiff an opportunity to move to amend his complaint. Id. at 19.

Plaintiff took that opportunity. On June 16, 2021, Plaintiff sought permission to file an amended complaint reinstating three of his four claims: his due process property claim (Count One), his IPPEA claim (Count Three), and his breach of good faith and fair dealing claim (Count Four). See Pl.'s MTA (Dkt. 30). In the alternative, Plaintiff asked that the Court reconsider the dismissal of these claims. Id.

On August 16, 2021, the Court denied this motion. 8/16/21 MDO (Dkt. 32). Having concluded that Plaintiff's amended complaint did not plausibly rebut the presumption of at will

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employment under Idaho law, the Court dismissed Plaintiff's due process property and breach of contract claims with prejudice and declined jurisdiction over Plaintiff's IPPEA claim. Id. The Court dismissed the whistleblower claim without prejudice to refiling in state court. Id.

As permitted by this ruling, Plaintiff represents that he has subsequently refiled his IPPEA claim in state court. Pl.'s Rsp. at 2 (Dkt. 37).

On August 30, 2021, Defendants filed a motion seeking $41, 500 in attorneys' fees as the prevailing party in the federal case. Defendants request that the Court award fees for the federal claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b) and for the state contract claim under I.C. § 12-121 and I.C. § 12-120(3).

DISCUSSION

I. Fees and Costs under Federal Law

A district court may award attorneys' fees to a prevailing civil rights defendant under 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b) only where the action is “unreasonable, frivolous, meritless or vexatious.” Edgerly v. City & County of San Francisco, 599 F.3d 946, 962 (9th Cir. 2010). This is a strict standard. Just because a claim is weak does not mean it is frivolous. United States EEOC v. Robert L. Reeves & Assocs., 262 Fed.Appx. 42, 44 (9th Cir. 2007) (unpublished). A claim will only be deemed frivolous “when the result is obvious or the arguments of error are wholly without merit.” Karam v. City of Burbank, 352 F.3d 1188, 1195 (9th Cir. 2003) (internal citations omitted). In determining whether a particular claim warrants this level of condemnation, the Supreme Court has admonished district courts to “resist the understandable temptation to engage in post hoc reasoning” by focusing too heavily on the unsuccessful resolution of the claim. Christiansburg Garment Co. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Comm'n, 434 U.S. 412, 421-422 (1978).

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Courts must remember that “[e]ven when the law or the facts appear questionable or unfavorable at the outset, a party may have an entirely reasonable ground for bringing suit.” Id. at 422; see also Legal Servs. v. Arnett, 114 F.3d 135, 141 (9th Cir. 1997) (refusing to find the plaintiff's claims frivolous where the plaintiff “must have known that [its] position was unsupported by existing precedent, ” but was making “a good faith effort to advance a novel theory” under existing jurisprudence). In summary, “[a]ttorneys' fees in civil rights cases should only be awarded to a defendant in exceptional circumstances.” Barry v. Fowler, 902 F.2d 770, 773 (9th Cir. 1990). The Court determines whether fees are justified under these standards on a claim-by-claim basis. Fox v. Vice, 563 U.S. 826, 829 (2011).

A. Plaintiff's Due Process Property Claim

While the Court dismissed Plaintiff's due process property claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), the Court cannot say that the claim was so wholly without merit as to be frivolous. It is undisputed that the Board of Commissioners for the Kuna Rural Fire Protection District promulgated a Policy Code detailing how employee disciplinary inquiries were to be conducted and affording employees certain grievance and appeals rights. Policy Code §§ 8.2.8, 8.2.5, and 8.3 (Dkt. 1-1). It is also undisputed that Defendants terminated Plaintiff's employment without following these procedures. Def.'s MTD at 3-4 (Dkt. 3-1).

The constitutionality of this decision hinged on whether the protections set forth in the Code functioned as discretionary employee guidance, as Defendants claim, or instead created a legitimate claim of entitlement to the benefit of continued employment, as Plaintiff alleged. See Bd. of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577 (1972). In other words, Plaintiff's due process property claim rested on a showing that Plaintiff was not an at-will employee under Idaho law. Lawson v. Umatilla County, 139 F.3d 690, 691-692 (9th Cir. 1998).

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This is a fact-intensive determination. For example, in their reply in support of the motion dismiss, Defendants accurately observed that the case law regarding when an employee is or is not at-will “turns on minute differences between cases, policies, and language.” Def.'s Reply to MTD at 8 (Dkt. 20); see also Transcript of May 14, 2020 Motion Hearing at 55:7-8 (Dkt. 38) (defense counsel arguing that the law in this area was too fact dependent to be clearly established). The parties' briefing bears this out. Both parties identified Idaho cases they saw as analogous and supportive of their position and distinguished other cases as factually dissimilar. After reviewing this substantial body of law, the Court noted that the federal district court cases in this area were “not always easy to reconcile.” 5/26/21 MDO at 7 (Dkt 28). This included non-binding federal district court case law utilizing a “three-legged stool” metaphor that arguably favored Plaintiff. Id. at 7 n.1.

The Court ultimately rejected Plaintiff's request to elevate and extend this case law over Idaho Supreme Court precedent. Id. at 7-8. This does not mean, however, that Plaintiff's claim was entirely groundless. Plaintiff made good faith, if unsuccessful, arguments that cannot be deemed frivolous. Defendants, consequently, are not entitled to attorneys' fees for defending against this claim.

B. Plaintiff's Due Process Liberty Claim

Similar reasoning applies to Plaintiff's due process liberty claim. Although the Court agrees that this was a weak claim, the Court does not find that the claim was unreasonable, frivolous, meritless, or vexatious. To date, the Supreme Court has only defined the right to a name-clearing hearing at a high level of generality. See Roth, 408 U.S. at 573 (agreeing that a person's liberty interests are implicated where a public employer fires him and also lodges charges against him “that might seriously damage his standing and associations in his

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community, ” for example, by undermining his “good name, reputation, honor, or integrity”). The heart of such a claim is “severe and genuinely debilitating” stigma. Hyland v. Wonder, 972 F.2d 1129, 1141 (9th Cir. 1992).

The Ninth Circuit has developed rules and guidance for determining when stigma rises to this level and when it is not of constitutional concern.^[1] See id. at 1142; see also Matthews v. Harney County, Or., School Dist. No. 4, 819 F.2d 889, 891 (9th Cir.1987); Bollow v. Fed. Reserve Bank of San Francisco, 650 F.2d 1093, 1101 (9th Cir.1981); Wheaton v. Webb-Petett, 931 F.3d 613...