Hudgins v. City of Ashburn, Ga., 88-8892
| Decision Date | 13 December 1989 |
| Docket Number | No. 88-8892,88-8892 |
| Citation | 890 F.2d 396 |
| Parties | Marie HUDGINS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. The CITY OF ASHBURN, GEORGIA, and J.I. Youngblood, individually and in his official capacity as Mayor of the City of Ashburn; and Larry Barfield, Shirley Turner, Freddie Weston, Everett A. Garner and Hollis Hayes, individually and in their capacities as council members of the City of Ashburn, and their successors in office, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
George M. Peagler, Jr., Americus, Ga., for defendants-appellants.
Robert C. Wilmot, Reinhardt & Whitley, Tifton, Ga., for plaintiff-appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia.
Before FAY and HATCHETT, Circuit Judges, and ALLGOOD *, Senior District Judge.
This appeal is limited to an examination of the qualified-immunity status of three Ashburn, Georgia, city-council members, who voted not to re-elect plaintiff-appellee Marie Hudgins as the city clerk for the year 1986. Finding that factual questions prevented determination of this issue, the district court denied summary judgment to defendants-appellants Larry Barfield, Shirley Turner and Everett A. Garner. After reviewing the record, we conclude that summary judgment is appropriate as a matter of law. Therefore, we reverse.
Plaintiff-appellee Hudgins has held Ashburn city-clerk positions in two capacities. She was assistant city clerk from February, 1963 until July, 1966, and from July, 1967 until January, 1976, when she was appointed city clerk by the Ashburn city council upon the retirement of the prior city clerk. 1 Thereafter, she was elected city clerk annually by the city council until January, 1986.
At the regular council meeting on January 2, 1986, Hudgins, as city clerk, recorded the minutes. The council members present at this meeting were Mayor J.I. Youngblood, Hollis Hayes, Freddie J. Weston, Larry Barfield, Shirley Turner and Everett A. Garner. Council members Barfield and Turner were newly elected to the city council in 1985, as was council member Garner in 1986.
Council member Barfield moved to nominate Buddy McLeod as city clerk for 1986. This motion was seconded by council member Garner. No other nominations were made. McLeod was elected city clerk with Barfield, Turner and Garner voting for him, and Hayes and Weston abstaining. Hudgins has admitted that she specifically asked Mayor Youngblood not to veto a three-to-two vote not to rehire her, although his overriding the election might have allowed her to continue as city clerk until another election. 2
The position of city clerk is provided and described in the relevant 1983 Ashburn, Georgia, Code of Ordinances (Ashburn Code), which recodified Ashburn ordinances and superseded former ordinances. 3 The Ashburn Code designates the election and term of office of specific officers, including the city clerk, as follows:
At the first regular meeting of the city council after qualification, or as soon thereafter as practicable, the following municipal officers of the city shall be elected by the city council and shall hold their office for a term of one (1) year and until their successors are elected and qualified: City attorney, city clerk, city treasurer, police chief, and such other officers and heads of departments as are deemed necessary and appropriate; provided however, that any two (2) or more offices may be combined and filled by one person.
Ashburn, Ga., Code art. IV, Sec. 4.1 (1983) (emphasis added). By individual affidavits, the council members have averred that they voted or abstained from voting in the 1986 election for city clerk pursuant to the Ashburn Code Sec. 4.1, providing that the city clerk be elected each year by the city council. 4 Hudgins has admitted that the Ashburn Code provides that the city clerk is elected for a twelve-month term, subject to re-election for the following year. 5
Furthermore, the Ashburn Code establishes a Personnel Management System concerning employment conditions, including disciplinary procedures. Thereunder, the city clerk specifically is excluded from coverage as stated in pertinent part:
The regular service shall be a permanent service to which this section shall apply. It shall comprise all employees serving in continuing positions with the exception of the following:
....
(4) Any person appointed to a position designated by the city council as excepted, which because of its nature cannot or should not be appropriately included in the regular service. Included in this category are confidential, policy determining, or key management positions. The city council may, by individual action, give an excepted, temporary or irregular employee coverage under any part, parts or all of the provisions of this section and its supporting policies. These positions include the following: city administrator, city clerk, chief of police, city attorney, water and sewage superintendent, streets and sanitation superintendent, and gas superintendent.
(5) Excepted employees shall have their pay and other conditions of employment established individually by the city council.
Ashburn, Ga., Code Sec. 2-39(b)(4) & (5) (emphasis added).
In this action, Hudgins has maintained that the 1982 City of Ashburn Personnel Management Plan (1982 Plan) was operative in January, 1986, when she was not re-elected as city clerk. From this source, she claims a property interest in her continued employment as city clerk. Hudgins concedes that the 1982 Plan was not included in the 1983 Ashburn Code. Nevertheless, she explains its omission as being her failure, as city clerk, to send that plan with other revisions to the company printing the 1983 Ashburn Code. 6 The 1983 Ashburn Code has not been amended subsequently to include the 1982 Plan. 7
Hudgins' complaint alleges that she had a legitimate expectation of continued employment as Ashburn city clerk and that she was deprived of this property interest without due process of law in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. 8 The individual defendants raised the immunity defense in their respective answers. Each council member-defendant states that he or she acted in good faith individually and as an elected official.
Following extensive discovery, including numerous depositions, defendants moved for summary judgment on two grounds. First, Hudgins had no property interest in her continued employment as city clerk under Georgia law and, consequently, she was not entitled to procedural due process when she was not re-elected. Second, the individual defendants warranted qualified immunity because they voted for the city clerk on January 2, 1986, pursuant to the Ashburn Code Sec. 4.1, which provides for the annual election of the city clerk. Plaintiff filed a cross motion for summary judgment and argued that defendants were precluded from qualified-immunity protection because they had acted in bad faith by terminating Hudgins' employment as city clerk without prior notice and a hearing in violation of her fundamental due-process rights under the 1982 Plan. 9 Defendants countered with a reply brief supporting their summary-judgment motion and opposing plaintiff's summary-judgment motion. They distilled the issue in this case to be whether or not Hudgins was covered by any laws or regulations that would create a property interest in her continued employment as city clerk. Defendants also reiterated their contention that they were entitled to qualified immunity in their individual capacity because their not re-electing Hudgins as city clerk was in accordance with the Ashburn Code.
After considering the parties' cross motions for summary judgment, the district court found that summary judgment as to all issues was inappropriate because material, factual questions remained to be decided. 10 With respect to Hudgins' property interest in her continued employment as Ashburn city clerk, the district court enumerated two factual questions which required resolution: "(1) whether the 1982 Personnel Management Plan or the Personnel Management System contained in the 1983 City Code is applicable to Plaintiff Hudgins' case; and, (2) if the 1982 Plan is applicable, then whether the office of city clerk should be categorized as a temporary or permanent position." 11 The district court concluded that "[t]hese issues are factual and not legal in nature, and can only be determined after an evidentiary hearing or trial." 12 Accordingly, the district court denied plaintiff's summary-judgment motion, in which she contended that she had a property interest in her continued employment as Ashburn city clerk. While not specifically addressed, the district court apparently also denied defendants' summary-judgment motion as to its basis on the lack of plaintiff's property interest in her continued employment. This issue evidently remains for trial on the merits.
The district court, however, granted partial summary judgment on the qualified-immunity defense raised by defendants. Finding that council members-defendants Youngblood, Weston and Hayes did not participate personally in Hudgins' alleged constitutional deprivation, the district court granted summary judgment to these defendants in their individual and official capacities. Concluding that plaintiff Hudgins' complaints primarily were lodged against council members-defendants Barfield, Turner and Garner for their roles in not re-electing her as city clerk and that her allegations implicated these defendants in their individual and official roles, the district court denied summary judgment to them on the basis of qualified immunity. The district court found that the two unresolved and above-stated factual issues, which prevented adjudication of plaintiff Hudgins' property interest in her continued employment as Ashburn city...
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