Hobbs v. Roberts

• Decision Date: 03 September 1993
• Docket Number: No. 92-8139,92-8139
• Parties: Rosa HOBBS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. E.E. ROBERTS, Harry Roberts, Shirley Roberts, City of Oglethorpe, Georgia, Defendants, Georgia Department of Transportation, Jerry Gossett, Tony Chambers, Archie C. Burnham, Defendants-Appellees, Ronald K. Colbin, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1526

999 F.2d 1526

Rosa HOBBS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. E.E. ROBERTS, Harry Roberts, Shirley Roberts, City of Oglethorpe, Georgia, Defendants Georgia Department of Transportation, Jerry Gossett, Tony Chambers, Archie C. Burnham, Defendants-Appellees Ronald K. Colbin, Defendant.

No. 92-8139.

United States Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit.

Sept. 3, 1993.

Warren N. Coppedge, Jr., Mitchell, Coppedge, Webster, Bisson and Miller, P.C., Dalton, GA, for plaintiff-appellant.

Henry C. Tharpe, Jr., Joy H. Sawyer, Kinney, Kemp, Pickell, Sponcler & Joiner, for defendants-appellees.

Ronald C. Goulart, Fort Oglethorpe, GA, for City of Oglethorpe.

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

Before HATCHETT, EDMONDSON and BIRCH, Circuit Judges.

EDMONDSON, Circuit Judge:

In this engineering malpractice case, Rosa Hobbs appeals from a judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) in favor of defendants. Because the course of proceedings shows Hobbs sued defendants in both their individual and official capacities, and because the Eleventh Amendment bars only official capacity suits, we affirm in part and vacate in part.

I. Background

Rosa Hobbs, a Tennessean, was hit by a truck when she crossed a seven lane street in Ft. Oglethorpe, Ga. Hobbs crossed when the traffic signals indicated she should have, but the signal was timed too quickly to allow pedestrians to cross safely. The oncoming vehicle struck and severely injured Hobbs.

Hobbs brought this diversity action against the "Georgia Department of Transportation and its Agents, Jerry Gossett, Tony Chambers, Archie C. Burnham and Ronald K. Colbin." The named people are state and district traffic engineers employed by Georgia Department of Transportation ("GADOT" or "GDOT") and are responsible for the timing of traffic signals. Hobbs claimed that defendants had caused her injuries by negligently engineering the traffic signals.

The jury returned a verdict for Hobbs and awarded her $100,000; the district court entered judgment against defendants in the amount of $80,000. Defendants moved for JNOV, asserting, among other grounds, that GADOT had Eleventh Amendment immunity. While the motion for JNOV was pending, Hobbs caused writs of execution to be issued against the assets of GADOT and each of the named defendants.

The district court granted defendants' motion for JNOV. Hobbs v. Georgia Dept. of Transp., 785 F.Supp. 980 (N.D.Ga.1991). The district court noted Georgia decisions holding that GADOT may have waived its sovereign immunity in state court by participating in a state liability insurance fund, ¹ but ruled that GADOT had not waived its Eleventh Amendment immunity in federal court. Id., 785 F.Supp. at 984-85.

The district court also ruled, sua sponte, that the named defendants enjoyed Eleventh Amendment immunity:

Here, Plaintiff has sued the individual Defendants only in their official capacity as agents of the GDOT, therefore, Plaintiff is clearly seeking compensation from the GDOT for these agents' actions. Any funds coming from the GDOT to indemnify these agents would have come from the same source as the funds needed to satisfy any judgment against GDOT, if GDOT had not been entitled to immunity. Consequently, because the GDOT is entitled to immunity, the individual defendants are also entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity in this action. Therefore, the Court also grants Defendants' Motion JNOV as to the individual defendants.

Id., 785 F.Supp. at 986. ²

Hobbs unsuccessfully moved for reconsideration of the JNOV. Id. The district court ruled that Hobbs's suit sought recovery from state funds only--that the "real party in interest was not the individual defendants, but was the GDOT and its Liability Trust Fund." Id., 785 F.Supp. at 987. The district court based that finding on four grounds:

(1) Hobbs offered into evidence, in camera, the State funded insurance policy which covered the individual defendants;

(2) Hobbs only referred to the individuals as "agents of GDOT";

(3) Hobbs asked for and received an instruction on agency law; and

(4) In responding to defendants' post-trial motion to stay enforcement of the judgment, Hobbs "specifically stated that '[she] is secure in the ultimate enforcement of her judgment through the DOAS Trust Fund and agrees to stay enforcement pending resolution of post-judgment issues raised by the Defendants.' "

Id., 785 F.Supp. at 988. The district court concluded that "[t]he combination of all these actions clearly shows that Plaintiff was seeking to tap into the Liability Trust Fund if she won a verdict in her favor." Id., 785 F.Supp. at 988-89. The district court was unpersuaded that Hobbs' having filed writs of execution against the individuals demonstrated the intention to recover from them personally. Id., 785 F.Supp. at 989. Hobbs brought this appeal.

II. Issue Presented

We must decide whether the course of proceedings in this case shows that Hobbs sought to recover from the named defendants in their official or their individual capacities, or both. ³

III. Discussion

A.

Absent an express waiver, the Eleventh Amendment bars a damages action against a State in federal court. Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159, 169, 105 S.Ct. 3099, 3107, 87 L.Ed.2d 114 (1985). Likewise, the Eleventh Amendment bars federal suits against state officials in their "official capacity" because such actions seek recovery from state funds. Id. The Eleventh Amendment protects no personal assets in "individual" or "personal" capacity suits in federal court. Hafer v. Melo, --- U.S. ----, ----, 112 S.Ct. 358, 362, 116 L.Ed.2d 301 (1991); Gamble v. Florida Dept. of Health & Rehab. Svcs., 779 F.2d 1509, 1518 (11th Cir.1986) ("[T]he Eleventh Amendment provides no bar to recovery of damages against state officers acting in their individual capacities.").

Where the complaint is unclear on "whether officials are sued personally, in their official capacity, or both," courts must look to "the course of the proceedings" which will "typically indicate the nature of the liability sought to be imposed." Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. at 167 n. 14, 105 S.Ct. at 3106 n. 14 (emphasis added); Gamble, 779 F.2d at 1513 ("[T]he question is whether the plaintiff is reasonably seeking relief from the state coffers or from the individual's assets.").

Although Hobbs plainly hoped and thought recovery from the Georgia liability insurance fund would be available, we see no good reason to conclude that Hobbs ever sought only to recover from the fund. Most plaintiffs hope the defendants have plenty of insurance to cover a judgment in plaintiff's favor, but that does not mean that plaintiffs restrict their sights only to insurance proceeds if other assets can serve the judgment. We think that Hobbs always left open the prospect of recovering from the named defendants' personal assets.

B.

Based on four specific facts, the district court concluded that Hobbs's suit was exclusively an official capacity action. But we think the course of proceedings shows that Hobbs sued the named defendants in their official and individual capacities.

(1) Insurance Policy. Hobbs introduced the insurance contract into evidence, in camera. The district court relied on this fact to show that Hobbs sought to impose official liability only. We guess that the policy was introduced to show that no sovereign immunity defense would bar the suit. ⁴ But, this purpose does not mean that the individual defendants were sued only in their official capacity.

Also, when Hobbs put in the policy, no case law clearly established that coverage under the policy would be available only if defendants were sued in their official capacities; job-related negligence for coverage purposes could arguably encompass individual liability too. And, we know of no law that said that introduction of the policy was, in itself, a waiver of claims against persons in their individual capacities. We see no reason to infer that Hobbs, by introducing the policy, showed that she sought to recover a judgment exclusively from state funds protected by the Eleventh Amendment. ⁵

(2) "As Agents". Hobbs says that she styled her action "[GADOT], and its Agents ..." to support a respondeat superior theory of liability for GADOT. ⁶ Appellees stress that the words "and its agents" indicate that this was purely an official capacity action. We note that the caption of pleadings, or even of judgments, shows, by itself, little about the capacity in which defendants are sued in a case. Lundgren v. McDaniel, 814 F.2d 600, 604 & n. 2 (11th Cir.1987).

To say in pleadings that someone is an agent is an allegation of fact about the person, but agency is no synonym for a limitation of liability to official capacity, that is, to a public purse. And to assert an agency relationship among two or more defendants--an assertion that could be prudent in an action for several reasons--is not, in and of itself, the same act as asserting that one or more defendants are sued only in their official capacity. When a complaint describes a defendant "as agent" of some governmental entity, that tends to show only that the person is alleged to have acted as something other than a purely private person. See Parker v. Graves, 479 F.2d 335, 336 (5th Cir.1973). But, that idea has little to do with whether the person is sought to be held liable in his individual capacity or in his official capacity. As so many suits on 42 U.S.C. § 1983 have shown us, persons can have individual liability for misconduct as government employees. Plaintiffs are not usually required to designate, with particular words in the pleadings, that they bring their action against defendants in the defendants' individual or official capacities, or both. Cf. Fed.R.Civ.P. 9(a) & 17(b) (the only rules discussing the pleading of "capacity," though a different kind of capacity than the kind at issue here).

Hobbs's chosen words most naturally read as a...