Honaker v. Smith

• Citation: 256 F.3d 477
• Decision Date: 26 June 2001
• Docket Number: No. 00-2346,00-2346
• Parties: (7th Cir. 2001) FRED HONAKER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. GARY SMITH, Mayor, individually and as Mayor of the Village of Lovington and as Fire Chief of the Lovington Fire Department, Defendant-Appellee
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

Page 477

256 F.3d 477 (7th Cir. 2001)

FRED HONAKER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. GARY SMITH, Mayor, individually and as Mayor of the Village of Lovington and as Fire Chief of the Lovington Fire Department, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 00-2346

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

ARGUED DECEMBER 8, 2000

DECIDED June 26, 2001

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois. No. 98 C 2099--Michael P. McCuskey, Judge. [Copyrighted Material Omitted]

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Before FLAUM, Chief Judge, and RIPPLE and EVANS, Circuit Judges.

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge.

Fred Honaker filed a complaint against Gary Smith, the Mayor and Fire Chief of the Village of Lovington, Illinois ("the Village"), regarding the events surrounding a fire that consumed Mr. Honaker's house in Lovington. Two counts of the complaint, as amended, are before us on this appeal. In Count I, the complaint maintained that Mr. Smith, in his official capacity and under color of state law, had violated Mr. Honaker's rights under 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983 ("Section 1983") by causing the fire that burned down Mr. Honaker's house. Count I also alleged that Mr. Smith, in his role as the Village's Fire Chief, violated Mr. Honaker's rights under Section 1983 by failing to use his best efforts to extinguish that fire. Count IV of the complaint consisted of an Illinois common law claim against Mr. Smith, alleging the intentional infliction of emotional distress. At the close of all of the evidence, the district court granted Mr. Smith judgment as a matter of law on the intentional infliction of emotional distress claim. A jury returned a verdict for Mr. Honaker in the amount of $45,000 on the Section 1983 claims; however, the district court then entered judgment as a matter of law notwithstanding the verdict on that count in favor of Mr. Smith. For the reasons set forth in the following opinion, we affirm the judgment of the district court regarding Mr. Honaker's claims under Section 1983. We reverse and remand with respect to the intentional infliction of emotional distress claim.

I BACKGROUND

A. Facts

Mr. Honaker owned a house in Lovington that was not his primary residence, but where he would occasionally stay overnight. The utilities were kept on in the house, though the gas and electricity were not activated. Mr. Honaker had begun extensive remodeling on the house including the removal of an interior wall. Because of this ongoing construction, the house was in very poor condition.

Mr. Honaker earned a living by rebuilding pallets¹ on the property where this house was located. As a consequence of that business, wood and other debris were often strewn around the property. Despite the fact that building pallets often creates a great deal of noise, Mr. Honaker kept unusual hours in his work and would occasionally toil into the early morning. Residents often complained about the state of the property to Lovington's City Council, and Mr. Honaker received citations from local police officers due to the property's poor condition. One resident in particular, Mr. Honaker's neighbor Ed Crafton, had a long-running feud with Mr. Honaker. Crafton made a number of formal and informal complaints regarding the noise emanating from Mr. Honaker's property and the physical state of that property to members of the Village government. Members of the City Council often discussed these complaints and expressed their displeasure with the property's condition. As mayor, Mr. Smith was a member of the City Council.

Mr. Honaker had an acrimonious history with the Village. He had filed a civil rights suit against it in 1995, which was settled the next year. Village personnel also often made derogatory comments to him about the state of his property. Moreover, Mr. Honaker testified that, at some point near Thanksgiving in 1996, he had a rancorous encounter with Mr. Smith outside of a local bar. Mr. Honaker claimed that, on that occasion, Mr. Smith approached him and "told [him] to get [his] stuff and get out of town. . . . [or Mr. Smith would] burn [him] out." R.70 at 76. Mr. Honaker asserted that he told his lawyer about this threat immedi ately, but did not report it to any law enforcement agency. Mr. Smith denies that the conversation ever took place.

On the night of March 1, 1997, Mr. Honaker's house caught fire. The Village's volunteer Fire Department responded to the call regarding the fire, which came in at 1:51 a.m., within minutes. In total, four fire trucks and twenty volunteer firefighters from the Fire Department arrived at the scene. Additionally, one fire truck and several firefighters were called in from the neighboring Sullivan, Illinois, Fire Department to help extinguish the blaze. As the Village's Fire Chief, Mr. Smith arrived at the scene soon after the call and led the fighting of the fire. He immediately determined that the house's structure was already badly damaged and noticed that a number of floor joists and beams supporting the second floor were cracked and bowed. As a result, Mr. Smith decided that the firefighters should not enter the house to battle the fire because the house's structure was too unstable to risk such entry.² After three hours the fire was extinguished; however, it rekindled twice during that day, requiring the firefighters to return each time to quench the flames.

Don Tankersly, an investigator from the Illinois State Fire Marshall's Office, arrived at the scene of the fire at 3:30 a.m. He saw the firefighters actively engaged in attempting to put out the fire, and he believed that they were making every effort to extinguish the blaze. He also noticed that ceiling joists from the first floor of the house appeared to be cracking and that the second floor of the house looked to be sagging downward. Tankersly later completed his investigation of the fire and determined that it was set intention ally, but found no evidence to demonstrate that Mr. Smith or anyone else was specifically responsible for its origin.

Mr. Honaker arrived at his property on the morning of the fire and was visibly upset and distraught; at one point he even began to cry. He was also extremely angry and began yelling and screaming. However, Mr. Honaker did not seek medical treatment at any point for emotional distress that he may have suffered due to the fire.

The Honaker fire was not the first time that dilapidated buildings owned by a Lovington resident had burned down under suspicious circumstances. A few monthsbefore the fire to Mr. Honaker's house, buildings in poor condition that belonged to Lovington resident Tom Brewer also had caught fire. As in Mr. Honaker's case, the poor condition of Brewer's property had been discussed in the City Council before the fire, and the Village had asked Brewer to tear down those buildings. Before Brewer took any action, the buildings burned down, and the cause of that fire never was determined.

After the Honaker fire, a great deal of speculation in the Village focused on its possible cause. Mr. Honaker initially suspected that either Crafton or Mr. Smith was involved in setting the blaze. Additionally, rumors soon spread that Doug Thomas, a member of the Village government and of its Fire Department, may have had a role in starting the conflagration, allegations that Thomas denied. Jokes regarding the fact that Mr. Honaker's house had burned down, not long after many members of the community had expressed displeasure about the state of his property, were also prevalent around the Village and were made by some residents at City Council meetings. Mr. Smith denied taking part in those jokes; he also consistently maintained that he had nothing to do with starting the fire and that he made every effort as fire chief to put the fire out as quickly as possible.

B. District Court Proceedings

On December 16, 1998, Mr. Honaker filed a First Amended Complaint ("the complaint") in this matter, which alleged four causes of action against Mr. Smith. Count I maintained that Mr. Smith, in his official capacity as Mayor of Lovington and Fire Chief of the Lovington Fire Department, was liable under Section 1983 for setting the fire at Mr. Honaker's house and for intentionally failing to properly extinguish the fire. Count IV alleged that Mr. Smith was liable under Illinois law for the intentional infliction of emotional distress.³ A jury trial began on February 14 2000. At the close of all of the evidence, Mr. Smith filed a motion for judgment as a matter of law on all of the claims in the complaint. With regard to Count I's Section 1983 claims, the court took the motion under advisement, but allowed the action to be submitted to the jury. However, the court granted the motion as to Count IV's emotional distress claim. It did so because it found that Mr. Honaker presented "no evidence of emotional distress . . . other than the mere claim that [he] was upset" and "no evidence of any medical treatment . . . [or] any follow-up whatsoever with counseling in any way." R.70 at 418.

After its deliberations, the jury returned a verdict on Count I in favor of Mr. Honaker in the amount of $45,000. Mr. Smith then filed a renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law, and on May 4, 2000, the district court granted that motion and entered judgment as a matter of law notwithstanding the verdict on Count I. The court determined that, as to the claim that Mr. Smith was involved in setting fire to Mr. Honaker's house, there was no evidence to support that assertion because Mr. Honaker had put forward only unsupported speculation and conjecture on that point. It also ruled that, even assuming the evidence was sufficient to support a finding that Mr. Smith had set the fire, there was no evidence that he did so "under color of state law," a requirement of all Section 1983 claims. The court explained that in no way could Mr. Smith's action in setting such a fire relate to the performance of his...