Hanten v. School District of Riverview Gardens
Decision Date | 20 April 1999 |
Docket Number | No. 98-2884,CROSS-APPELLEES,CROSS-APPELLANTS,No. 98-2963,98-2884,98-2963 |
Citation | 183 F.3d 799 |
Parties | (8th Cir. 1999) DAVID HANTEN, DAVID HUNTER, KEVIN LINCOLN, GREGORY ZIMONT, K.C. HEATING, COOLING AND SHEET METAL, INC., APPELLANTS/, v. THE SCHOOL DISTRICT OF RIVERVIEW GARDENS, EDWARD EVERS, MICHELLE GOTTHARDT, DAVID HOLTGREFE, RICHARD HUNT, KATHY KITCHEN, MICHAEL QUINLAN, RUDY SMITH, CHRIS WRIGHT, APPELLEES/ Submitted: |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri
Before Beam and Hansen, Circuit Judges, and KOPF,1 District Judge.
Does a school district's preference for union labor, expressed in construction bid specifications, violate the constitutional right of non-union employees to freely associate when the school district, in conformity with the preference, requires the successful contractor to engage a union-only subcontractor? We decide that such a preference and the conduct in conformity with that preference do not violate the right of non-union employees to freely associate.
K.C. Sheet Metal, a non-union heating and air conditioning shop, three of its employees and a taxpayer appeal. The plaintiffs sued the defendant school district, its superintendent and individual board members alleging that they unlawfully prohibited the company and the employees from working on a school building project.
Specifically, the plaintiffs appeal from the district court's2 decision granting defendants' motion to dismiss Counts I through IV of the first amended complaint, and granting summary judgment on Count V. See Hanten v. School District of Riverview Gardens, 13 F. Supp. 2d 971 (E.D. Mo. 1998). The defendants cross-appealed the denial of an earlier motion for summary judgment based only on damages. They concede that the cross-appeal will be moot if this court affirms the district court's dismissal and summary judgment decisions.
We affirm the district court's decision granting dismissal of the complaint regarding Counts I through IV. We also affirm the district court's decision granting summary judgment on Count V. The cross-appeal is therefore moot.
We first examine the complaint and then review the facts. We proceed to those tasks next.
K.C. Sheet Metal's first amended complaint sought legal and equitable relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Missouri's "Open-Bidding" statute, Mo. Rev. Stat. § 177.086 (West 1999) and Missouri's "Sunshine" law, Mo. Rev. Stat. § 610.010 et seq. (West 1999). The plaintiffs alleged the defendants violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights and the state statutes when the defendants removed K.C. from the general contractor's bid and replaced it with a union subcontractor.
They asserted these claims in five counts. In Count I, the K.C. employees, but not the other plaintiffs, claimed a violation of their right to free association. In Count II, K.C. Sheet Metal, but not the other plaintiffs, claimed that it had been deprived of a property interest without due process of law. In Count III, K.C. Sheet Metal and its employees alleged a conspiracy to deprive K.C. of a property interest and to violate the employees' right to free association. Regarding Count IV, the taxpayer alleged a violation of the Missouri "Open-Bidding" statute. In Count V, all of the plaintiffs alleged a violation of the Missouri "Sunshine" law.
The specific allegations pertinent to our Discussion are found in paragraphs 9 through 32 of the First Amended Complaint. In those paragraphs they allege the following:
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