Hannah v. City of Detroit
| Decision Date | 21 March 2022 |
| Docket Number | 19-CV-12600-TGB-SDD |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan |
| Parties | TRACIE HANNAH, CHERYL ROBINSON and RYAN WILLIAMS, Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF DETROIT, Defendant. |
TRACIE HANNAH, CHERYL ROBINSON and RYAN WILLIAMS, Plaintiffs,
v.
CITY OF DETROIT, Defendant.
No. 19-CV-12600-TGB-SDD
United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, Southern Division
March 21, 2022
ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT
TERRENCE G. BERG UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE.
In 2008, before the construction of Little Caesar's Arena (“LCA”), home to the Detroit Pistons NBA basketball team and the Detroit Red Wings NHL hockey team, Plaintiffs Tracie Hannah, Cheryl Robinson, and Ryan Williams were operating as licensed street vendors along Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan. When construction of the LCA began in 2015, Plaintiffs were told by the City of Detroit that their licenses would not be renewed during construction and once LCA was fully operational. Plaintiffs brought the instant lawsuit against the City of Detroit, the Business and Licensing Department for the City of Detroit, the Building Safety Engineering and Environmental Department for the City of Detroit, and Olympia Entertainment, Inc. (“Olympia”)-the alleged operator of LCA. Olympia has since been dismissed from the case. ECF No.
17. The City's departments are not legally separate from the City itself, so the remaining Defendant is the City of Detroit.[1] Before the Court is Defendant's Motion to Dismiss, or alternatively for Summary Judgment. ECF No. 28.
I. Background
Plaintiffs are licensed street vendors who operated on the corners running from Henry and Woodward to Sibley and Woodward in Detroit, Michigan from early 2008 to 2017. ECF No. 5, PageID.17. Plaintiffs allege that in 2016-2017 they were informed that their vendor licenses would not be renewed due to the construction of LCA. Id; ECF No. 15-1. Plaintiffs claim they were told the licenses would not be renewed because they were operating within 300 feet of the arena, because it was an unsafe area, and because the relevant sidewalks where they worked would be closed to the public. Id. at PageID.17-18. Plaintiffs claim that once LCA opened on September 5, 2017, these reasons were revealed to be false and misleading and that in fact the sidewalk was accessible, open, and used by the public. Id. A few days after the arena opened, Plaintiffs allege that Williams attended a weekly Detroit City Council meeting and expressed the Plaintiffs' concerns about the City's decision not to renew
the vendor licenses. Id. He explained that the sidewalk was still open and that the Building Safety and Engineering Department should not have denied the licenses. Id. Plaintiffs allege that shortly after Williams voiced these concerns, Olympia “closed the public sidewalk and installed barriers that prevented the Vendors from servicing the Woodward street area in effect[, ] retroactively giving cover to the false claim made by the Building Safety and Engineering Department regarding the closure of the sidewalk.” Id. at PageID.18. Plaintiffs then brought the instant lawsuit against Defendants, the City of Detroit, the Business and Licensing Department for the City of Detroit, and the Building Safety Engineering and Environmental Department for the City of Detroit alleging that the City's denial of their vendor licenses violated their rights to equal protection and due process under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. ECF No. 1. One month later, Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint, adding Olympia, and alleging the same constitutional claims. ECF No. 5. Olympia moved to dismiss the complaint (ECF No. 12), and this Court entered an Order for dismissal with prejudice (ECF No. 17), finding that Plaintiffs failed to allege sufficient facts to show that Olympia acted under the color of state law. The City of Detroit now moves to dismiss the complaint (ECF No. 28), arguing that Plaintiffs' claims fail to state a claim a upon which relief can be granted pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), or alternatively, requesting summary judgment dismissing all of Plaintiffs' claims pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 56.
II. Legal Standards
A. Motion to Dismiss
When deciding a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), the Court must “construe the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and accept all allegations as true.” Keys v. Humana Inc., 684 F.3d 605, 608 (6th Cir. 2012). “To survive 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.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). A plausible claim need not contain “detailed factual allegations, ” but it must contain more than “labels and conclusions” or “a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action[.]” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). A court “may consider the Complaint and any exhibits attached thereto, public records, items appearing in the record of the case and exhibits attached to defendant's motion to dismiss so long as they are referred to in the Complaint and are central to the claims contained therein.” Bassett v. Nat'l Collegiate Athletic Ass'n., 528 F.3d 426, 430 (6th Cir. 2008).
B. Motion for Summary Judgment
Alternatively, summary judgment is appropriate if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with any affidavits, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact such that the movant is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” Villegas v. Metro. Gov't of Nashville, 709 F.3d 563, 568 (6th Cir. 2013);
see also Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a). A fact is material only if it might affect the outcome of the case under the governing law. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249 (1986).
On a motion for summary judgment, the Court must view the evidence, and any reasonable inferences drawn from the evidence, in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. See Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587 (1986) (citations omitted); Redding v. St. Eward, 241 F.3d 530, 531 (6th Cir. 2001). The moving party has the initial burden of demonstrating an absence of a genuine issue of material fact. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 325 (1986). If the moving party carries this burden, the party opposing the motion “must come forward with specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.” Matsushita, 475 U.S. at 587.
III. Analysis
Plaintiffs' complaint seeks to bring claims against the City for revoking their vendor licenses to sell products near Little Caesar's Arena in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifth Amendments. The City correctly notes that Plaintiffs have failed to cite to § 1983, which is the exclusive remedy for an individual's right to sue the state for civil rights violations. See Foster v. Michigan, 573 Fed.Appx. 377, 391 (6th Cir. 2014). However, in the interest of justice, the Court reads Plaintiff's complaint as amended to state an actionable claim. For the reasons explained below, the Court finds that Plaintiffs' constitutional claims would fail on their
merits even if Plaintiffs had properly raised them under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Therefore, Plaintiffs' request to amend will be denied as moot and the complaint dismissed as a matter of law because it fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted and because there is no genuine issue of material fact.
A. Violation of the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause (Count I)
In their complaint, Plaintiffs allege that the City's “arbitrary and capricious application” of City Ordinance Section 34-1-9(b) violates their “rights to renew their yearly stationary vendors license while other vendors situated in similar circumstances were allowed continued renewal, thereby in violation of the 14th Amendment Equal Protection clause.” ECF No. 5, PageID.19. In their response to Defendant's motion, Plaintiffs have attempted to fashion a new claim that the Ordinance is unconstitutional, or alternatively should be analyzed under strict scrutiny, due to a clause in Section 34-1-9(b) that gives stadium owners the authority to approve vendor licenses within 300 feet of their facility. ECF No. 32, PageID.319.
The Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution provides that “[n]o State shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” U.S. CONST. amend. XIV, § 1. The clause is “essentially a direction that all persons similarly situated should be treated alike.” City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Ctr., 473 U.S. 432, 439 (1985).
Because in this situation there are “no suspect classifications or fundamental rights” at issue, the application of the Ordinance must be viewed under a rational basis analysis. See Silver v. Franklin Twp. Bd. of Zoning Appeals, 966 F.2d 1031, 1036 (6th Cir. 1992). A “class of one” may bring an equal protection claim, “where the plaintiff alleges that the state treated the plaintiff differently from others similarly situated and that there is no rational basis for such difference in treatment.” Warren v. City of Athens, 411 F.3d 697, 710 (6th Cir.2005) (citing Vill. of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562, 564 (2000)).
Therefore, to prevail on their equal protection claim, Plaintiffs must show that (1) the City treated Plaintiffs differently from a similarly situated party, and (2) the City had no rational basis to do so. See EJS Properties, LLC v. City of Toledo, 698 F.3d 845, 864 (6th Cir. 2012).
“When evaluating whether parties are similarly situated, ‘courts should not demand exact correlation but should instead seek relevant similarity.'” Id. at 864-65 (quoting Perry v. McGinnis, 209 F.3d 597, 601 (6th Cir.2000)). “Regarding rational basis, a plaintiff can establish the lack of a rational basis if it either (1) negat[es] every conceivable basis which might support the government action or [(2)] demonstrat[es] that the challenged government action was motivated by animus...
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