Hollyday v. Rainey, 91-2079

• Decision Date: 26 May 1992
• Docket Number: No. 91-2079,91-2079
• Citation: 964 F.2d 1441
• Parties: Maryjane HOLLYDAY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Gene E. RAINEY, Chairman of the Buncombe County Commissioners, in his official capacity and in his personal capacity; Doris P. Giezentanner, in her official capacity and in her personal capacity; Jesse I. Ledbetter; C.T. Sobol, in his official capacity and in his personal capacity; William H. Stanley, in his official capacity and in his personal capacity; Michael Kirstein, in his official capacity and in his personal capacity; Robert Thornberry, Jr., in his official capacity and in his personal capacity, Defendants-Appellees. BUNCOMBE COUNTY, a North Carolina County, Defendant, v. Robert Curtis RATCLIFF, Third Party Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 1441

964 F.2d 1441

Maryjane HOLLYDAY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Gene E. RAINEY, Chairman of the Buncombe County

Commissioners, in his official capacity and in his personal

capacity; Doris P. Giezentanner, in her official capacity

and in her personal capacity; Jesse I. Ledbetter; C.T.

Sobol, in his official capacity and in his personal

capacity; William H. Stanley, in his official capacity and

in his personal capacity; Michael Kirstein, in his official

capacity and in his personal capacity; Robert Thornberry,

Jr., in his official capacity and in his personal capacity,

Defendants-Appellees.

BUNCOMBE COUNTY, a North Carolina County, Defendant, v. Robert Curtis RATCLIFF, Third Party Defendant-Appellee.

No. 91-2079.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued Dec. 3, 1991.

Decided May 26, 1992.

Charles Robinson Brewer, Asheville, N.C., argued, for plaintiff-appellant.

William Alfred Blancato, Hendrick, Zotian, Cocklereece & Robinson, Winston-Salem, N.C., argued, for defendants-appellees.

Before HALL and LUTTIG, Circuit Judges, and BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge.

OPINION

K.K. HALL, Circuit Judge:

Mary Jane Hollyday appeals the dismissal of her federal civil rights claims and related state claims. We affirm.

I.

Hollyday was hired by Buncombe County, North Carolina, in January, 1987, to a newly-created position as office manager in the Assessor's Office. In the November, 1988, county election, Hollyday's political party was voted out of power. The county Board of Commissioners soon thereafter abolished her position. Contemporaneously with these events, the Assessor solicited applications for the position of assistant tax assessor, a position that had been budgeted for years, but had remained unfilled since before Hollyday's employment. Hollyday applied, but this position was also abolished by the Board of Commissioners before anyone had been offered the job.

Hollyday then brought this action against the County, the members of the Board, and two other County officials for monetary, injunctive, and declaratory relief. Basically, she claimed that her constitutional rights of free speech and association were violated by the defendants' elimination of the office manager position and by the refusal to hire her for the assistant tax assessor job. She also included claims grounded in state law for intentional infliction of emotional distress and breach of contract. Her claims died in three stages: summary judgment, failure to state a claim, and refusal to exercise pendant jurisdiction.

II.

The magistrate judge recommended that the defendants' summary judgment motion be granted with respect to Hollyday's § 1983 free speech/association claims and the state-law claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress. The district court adopted the magistrate judge's recommended conclusion of law that the doctrine of legislative immunity was a complete defense to these claims by all defendants. I agree.

As we have recently explained in Schlitz v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 854 F.2d 43, 45 (4th Cir.1988), "[w]here ... the suit would require legislators to testify regarding conduct in their legislative capacity, the doctrine of legislative immunity has full force." To prevail on her claims, Hollyday would necessarily have to show that her political affiliation was a determining factor in the Board of Commissioners' legislative decisions to abolish the position that she held and the position for which she applied. Either her case or the defense would perforce require testimony of the legislators involved regarding their motives. See id.

Hollyday argues that legislative immunity is aimed only at protecting the purses of individual legislators and that it should not in any way bar her claims against the City itself. This argument misconstrues the fundamental rationale for the doctrine. Legislators must be permitted to discharge their legislative duties without fear of being subjected to the cost and inconvenience of a trial at which their motives come under scrutiny. Id.; Baker v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, 894 F.2d 679, 681-82 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 56, 112 L.Ed.2d 31 (1990). The doctrine of legislative immunity insulates a governmental entity from liability only in cases where the cause of action is dependent on finding that legislation was enacted because of improper motives. Such is the case here. ¹

III.

The district court also dismissed Hollyday's § 1983 claim relating to the City's refusal to hire her for the assistant tax assessor position for failure to state a claim for which relief could be granted. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). This position had not been occupied for years prior to Hollyday's attempt to obtain the job, and the position was abolished before it was ever filled. Hollyday contends nevertheless that she had a protected property interest in the position. She has not, however, directed our attention to, nor has our research uncovered, any support for the proposition that a jobseeker has any property rights in a position that has never been occupied by the jobseeker and that has been completely abolished by a legislative act. We affirm on this alternative ground.

IV.

Hollyday also complains about the district court's decision to decline to exercise pendant jurisdiction over the remaining state claims. Inasmuch as her only argument is that the court erred in dismissing her federal claims, our affirmance of those rulings dictates affirmance of the discretionary decision to dismiss the pendant claims. See United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 726-27, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 1139, 16 L.Ed.2d 218 (1966). ² For the foregoing reasons, as explained more fully in the extensive analysis set forth in the magistrate judge's "Memorandum and Recommendation" and adopted by the district court, we affirm.

AFFIRMED.

LUTTIG, Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment and concurring in the opinion in part:

I concur in parts I, III, and IV of Judge Hall's opinion. Because I would affirm the district court's award of summary judgment to the defendants on Mary Jane Hollyday's First Amendment claim on grounds different from those relied upon by Judge Hall, however, I join only the judgment reached in part II of his opinion.

In part II, Judge Hall would extend absolute immunity to Buncombe County under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for the constitutional violations alleged by Hollyday because the County's officers are absolutely immune from testifying about their conduct as legislators. Ante at 1443. He concludes that this extension of the testimonial immunity of the County's officers derivatively to the County itself is compelled by this court's decisions in Baker v. Mayor & City Council, 894 F.2d 679, cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 56, 112 L.Ed.2d 31 (1990), and Schlitz v. Virginia, 854 F.2d 43 (1988), which held that a city and a state, respectively, were immune from liability for alleged violations of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-634, because their defense to the allegations would require the privileged testimony of the city's and the state's officers as to their motives in enacting particular legislation. See Baker, 894 F.2d at 682; Schlitz, 854 F.2d at 46.

In my view, extension of Baker and Schlitz to the constitutional claim advanced by Hollyday in this case would be, at the very least, in substantial tension with, if not foreclosed by, the Supreme Court's decision in Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U.S. 622, 100 S.Ct. 1398, 63 L.Ed.2d 673 (1980), a decision not cited or discussed in either Baker or Schlitz. See also Monell v. Department of Social Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 701, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 2041, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978) (holding that "municipal bodies sued under § 1983" for constitutional violations "cannot be entitled to ... absolute immunity"). In Owen, the Court held that a municipality is not entitled to qualified immunity under section 1983 based upon the good faith of its officers or agents. See id. 445 U.S. at 638, 650, 100 S.Ct. at 1409, 1415. The Court first surveyed the common law and found that there was "no [common law] tradition of [qualified] immunity for municipal corporations" based upon the good faith of their officers or agents. Id. at 638, 100 S.Ct. at 1409. It then considered whether Congress intended to import into section 1983 either of the municipal immunities that were recognized at common law. It concluded that Congress could not have intended either the common law municipal immunity for "governmental" (as distinguished from proprietary) activities or the immunity for "discretionary" or "legislative" (as distinguished from ministerial) activities to limit municipal liability under section 1983. See id. at 644-50, 100 S.Ct. at 1412-15.

As to governmental immunity, which it noted was grounded in the doctrine of sovereign immunity, the Court concluded that "[b]y including municipalities within the class of 'persons' subject to liability for violations of the federal Constitution and laws, Congress ... abolished whatever vestige of the State's sovereign immunity the municipality possessed." Id. at 647-48, 100 S.Ct. at 1413-14. As to discretionary or legislative immunity, which it explained was grounded in concerns for the separation of powers, it concluded that because "a municipality has no 'discretion' to violate the Federal Constitution," review of a municipality's conduct under section 1983 does not interfere with the municipality's policy discretion, which the immunity was accorded to preserve. Id. at 649, 100 S.Ct. at 1414. Having found that there was no tradition of municipal immunity based upon the good faith of the municipality's officers and that neither of the broader municipal immunities for which there existed a common law tradition could support an immunity of the kind sought by the City of Independence, the Court rejected the City's immunity defense.

The reasoning of the Court in Owen would appear...