Jones v. City of Memphis

• Decision Date: 11 April 2012
• Docket Number: No. 10–2776–STA–dkv.,10–2776–STA–dkv.
• Citation: 868 F.Supp.2d 710
• Parties: Richard JONES, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF MEMPHIS and Jill Madajczyk, Senior Assistant City Attorney for Memphis, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Tennessee

868 F.Supp.2d 710

Richard JONES, Plaintiff,

v.CITY OF MEMPHIS and Jill Madajczyk, Senior Assistant City Attorney for Memphis, Defendants.

No. 10–2776–STA–dkv.

United States District Court,

W.D. Tennessee,

Western Division.

April 11, 2012.

Edmund J. Schmidt, III, Law Office of Eddie Schmidt, Tricia Ruth Herzfeld, American Civil Liberties Union Of Tennessee, Nashville, TN, for Plaintiff.

Bruce McMullen, Shannon Wiley, Stacie S. Winkler, Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz, Memphis, TN, for Defendants.

ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANTS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT AND DENYING PLAINTIFF'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

S. THOMAS ANDERSON, District Judge.

Before the Court is Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (D.E. # 55) filed on January 24, 2012. Plaintiff filed a Response (D.E. # 63) on February 15, 2012. Defendants filed a Reply (D.E. # 68), filed on March 5, 2012. Also before the Court is Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment (D.E. # 56), filed on January 25, 2012. Defendants filed a Response (D.E. # 67) on March 1, 2012. For the reasons set forth below, Defendants' Motion is GRANTED and Plaintiff's Motion is DENIED.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff initially filed his Complaint on August 24, 2010, in the Middle District of Tennessee (D.E. # 1). He also named a plethora of Defendants, but he took a nonsuit and voluntarily dismissed Phil Bredesen, Governor of Tennessee; Robert Cooper, Jr., Tennessee Attorney General; David H. Lillard, Jr., Tennessee State Treasurer; Justin Wilson, Tennessee State Comptroller; Tre Hargett, Tennessee Secretary of State; Joseph Barnes, Director of Legal Services for the Tennessee General Assembly; Gwendolyn Sims Davis, Tennessee Commissioner of General Services; and A.C. Warton, Jr., Mayor of Memphis. (D.E. # 15.) Therefore, the remaining defendants were the City of Memphis and Bridgett Handy–Clay (“Handy–Clay”), Public Records Coordinator for the City of Memphis. Next, Plaintiff filed an Amended Complaint (D.E. # 25) on October 20, 2010, which added a third Defendant: Jill Madajczyk (“Madajczyk”), Senior Assistant City Attorney for Memphis. The parties then agreed that venue was improper in the Middle District of Tennessee and that proper venue lay in the Western District of Tennessee, so United States District Judge Trauger transferred the case to this Court. (D.E. # 26–29.)

Handy–Clay filed two Motions to Dismiss (D.E. # 31, 43) on November 2, 2010, and January 12, 2011, respectively. However, the parties stipulated as to the dismissal of all claims against Handy–Clay and the office of Public Records Coordinator for the City of Memphis (D.E. # 46) on March 22, 2011. Therefore, the defendants remaining in this case are the City of Memphis (“Memphis”) and Madajczyk. Defendants filed a Motion to Dismiss (D.E. # 47) on April 18, 2011, which the Court denied on February 13, 2012. (D.E. # 62.) The parties filed cross Motions for Summary Judgment on January 24 and 25, 2012, while Defendants' Motion to Dismiss was pending.

The following facts are undisputed for purposes of this Motion unless otherwise noted. Plaintiff resides in Solon, Ohio, and works for the Reverend Al Sharpton (“Rev. Sharpton”) as the Midwest Director of National Action Network (“NAN”). (Defs.' Resp. to Pl.'s Facts, D.E. # 67–1, at 1–2.) Founded by Rev. Sharpton in 1991, NAN promotes a civil rights agenda that includes the fight for social justice and “one standard of justice and decency for all people regardless of race, religion, national origin, and gender.” ( Id.) NAN also assists minority, disadvantaged small business owners and contractors by providing information on public contracts and giving those business owners access to winning contract bids. ( Id. at 2.)

Defendants submit that Plaintiff is not in the trade or profession of civil rights advocacy and that he is not employed by NAN. (Pl.'s Resp. to Defs.' Facts, D.E. # 61, at 2.) Plaintiff admits that “his exclusive occupation is not in civil rights advocacy, [and he] further admits that he engages in civil rights advocacy.” ( Id.) Plaintiff earns a living as an insurance subrogation consultant for Abercrombie Cross, but he has not lost any income due to the denial of his public records request. ( Id. at 3.) Plaintiff does not allege that the denial of his public records request interferes with his work as a consultant. ( Id.) Moreover, Plaintiff is not compensated for his volunteer work as a civil rights advocate. ( Id.) Although Plaintiff admits that his profession and occupation is not civil rights advocacy, Plaintiff emphasizes that he engages in civil rights advocacy. ( Id.) The parties do not dispute that “[t]he sole effect of the [challenged provision] is that [Plaintiff] ‘cannot complete his obligation as a NAN volunteer.’ ” ( Id.)

NAN competes with other non-profit organizations such as The Urban League, but Plaintiff himself has no commercial competitors within the State of Tennessee. ( Id. at 5.) Tenn.Code Ann. § 10–7–503(a) imposes an economic disadvantage on NAN because the Tennessee Urban League can access bid proposals that non-citizens cannot, which puts NAN's website at a disadvantage compared to the charitable efforts of the Tennessee Urban League. ( Id.) NAN is a 503(c) non-profit corporation. ( Id.)

On NAN's behalf, Plaintiff investigated the granting of a government contract in Memphis, Tennessee. (Defs.' Resp. to Pl.'s Facts, D.E. # 67–1, at 2.) The records request related to Plaintiff's need to complete a website for NAN. (Pl.'s Resp. to Defs.' Facts, D.E. # 61, at 5.) On May 10, 2010, Plaintiff spoke with Handy–Clay and then emailed her the following request:

I am the Midwest Director for [NAN] and [Rev. Sharpton]. [Rev. Sharpton] has ask[ed] me to submit a public records request for the following records[: a]n email copy (pdf) of the wining bid for the following RFQ # 2957 for the State Advocacy/State Lobbying Services December 2008[sic].

(Defs.' Resp. to Pl.'s Facts, D.E. # 67–1, at 3.) Handy–Clay responded to Plaintiff that same day in her official capacity as Public Records Coordinator and denied his request because Plaintiff was not a citizen of Tennessee as required by Tenn.Code Ann. § 10–7–503(a)(1):

This email acknowledges receipt of your request for a copy of the winning bid for the following RFQ # 2957. Since it does not appear that you are a Tennessee resident, I must deny your request pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated Section 10–7–503, [which] states: “... open for personal inspection by any citizen of Tennessee ...”

( Id. (emphasis omitted).) Handy–Clay was acting under color of state law when she denied Plaintiff's request. ( Id.) Plaintiff then contacted Madajczyk to discuss his public records request. ( Id.) After a telephoneconversation with Madajczyk on May 12, 2010, she sent an email confirmation of their conversation's contents:

As discussed on the telephone, your open records request is being denied pursuant to the provisions of Tenn.Code Ann[.] § 10–7–503, which provides [that] any “citizen of Tennessee” has the right to inspect and/or copy public records. This office denies all public record requests from any individual or entity outside of the State of Tennessee.

( Id. at 3–4.) Madajczyk acted under color of state law in her official capacity as Senior Assistant Attorney for the City of Memphis when she enforced the provisions of Tenn.Code Ann. § 10–7–503(a). ( Id. at 4.) Plaintiff's public records request was denied because he is not a Tennessee citizen. (Pl.'s Resp. to Defs.' Facts, D.E. # 61, at 1.) However, Plaintiff obtained the requested records through his Tennessee attorney after he retained counsel and a lawsuit was filed. ( Id.)

Plaintiff alleges that Defendants admitted that Madajczyk's denial of Plaintiff's public records request reflects the City of Memphis' ongoing custom, policy, and practice of enforcing the unconstitutional provisions of Tenn.Code Ann. § 10–7–503(a) to deny non-Tennesseans' requests for public records. (Defs.' Resp. to Pl.'s Facts, D.E. # 67–1, at 4.) Defendants dispute this fact. They admit that the denial of Plaintiff's request for public records reflects the City of Memphis' requirement to follow the law by denying public record requests by non-Tennesseans. ( Id.) However, Defendants did not admit that the City of Memphis' custom, policy, and practice is unlawful or that Tenn.Code Ann. § 10–7–503(a) is unconstitutional. ( Id. at 4–5; Defendants' Ans., D.E. # 45, at 4–5.)

Each month, approximately ten to twenty percent of the public records requests received by the City of Memphis are from out-of-state residents. (Pl.'s Resp. to Defs.' Facts, D.E. # 61, at 3–4.) The amount of time required for Madajczyk, the attorney who handles all public records requests made to the City of Memphis, to respond to the public records requests is “pretty significant.” ( Id. at 4.) The volume of information requested, the amount of time, energy, and costs associated with gathering the information, and the production of the information to out-of-state requesters increases the amount of time she spends complying with public records requests. ( Id.) Defendants state that, if they were required to fulfill all public records requests, the time and money required to fulfill them “would exhaust state resources, [thereby] jeopardizing the state's ability to respond to requests from its own citizens [and] confounding the very purpose of the [Tennessee Public Records Act (“TPRA”) ].” ( Id.) Plaintiff disputes this assertion because the City of Memphis can charge fees for copies of its public records. ( Id.)

Defendants also submitted a Statement of Additional Facts to which Plaintiff has not responded.¹ In this Statement, Defendants respond to facts asserted by Plaintiff in his Memorandum in Support of his Motion for Summary Judgment which were not contained in his Statement of Undisputed Facts. In his Memorandum, Plaintiff states that the City of Memphis charges for copying the requested...