Kammeyer v. City of Sharonville

• Decision Date: 16 December 2003
• Docket Number: No. 1:01-CV-00649.,1:01-CV-00649.
• Citation: 311 F.Supp.2d 653
• Parties: Patricia KAMMEYER, et al., Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF SHARONVILLE, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Ohio

311 F.Supp.2d 653

Patricia KAMMEYER, et al., Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF SHARONVILLE, et al., Defendants.

No. 1:01-CV-00649.

United States District Court, S.D. Ohio, Western Division.

December 16, 2003.

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Alphonse Adam Gerhardstein, Paul Montague Laufman, Laufman & Gerhardstein, Cincinnati, OH, for Plaintiffs.

Lawrence Edward Barbiere, Michael Edward Maundrell, Schroeder, Mundrell, Barbiere & Powers, Thomas Tracey Keating, Keating, Ritchie & Norwine, Randolph Harry Freking, Leslie Elizabeth Ghiz, Freking & Betz, Brian E. Hurley, Robert Joseph Gehring, Crabbe, Brown & James, Cincinnati, OH, for Defendants.

ORDER

SPIEGEL, Senior District Judge.

This matter is before the Court on the Motion to Dismiss Plaintiffs' Third Amended Complaint by Defendants Mike Schappa and the City of Sharonville, Ohio (doc. 121), the Motion to Dismiss Plaintiffs' Third Amended Complaint by Defendants James I. Cramer and William Nuss (doc. 124), Plaintiffs' Memorandum in Opposition (doc. 127), the Reply of Defendants Mike Schappa and the City of Sharonville (doc. 128), and the Reply of Defendants James I. Cramer and William Nuss (doc. 129).

The Court issued an Order on qualified immunity on February 13, 2003, at which time it indicated that an Order on the balance of Defendants' Motions to Dismiss (docs. 49 & 54) would be forthcoming (doc. 93). However, after appeal of the qualified immunity issue to the Sixth Circuit, Plaintiffs requested leave to amend their Complaint, which the Court granted (doc. 118). As a result of Plaintiffs' filing of their Third Amended Complaint, the issue of qualified immunity was removed from the case (doc. 119). Plaintiffs dropped federal civil rights claims against Defendants in their individual capacities (Id.). Consequently, Defendants filed the present motions to dismiss, renewing many of the issues left unaddressed by the Court's prior order, and attacking the Third Amended Complaint.

The allegations of this case have been recited in previous Court Orders (doc. 55). This is a civil rights case in which Plaintiffs allege that their mothers, Marie Wright Schuholz and Starla Burns, were murdered by or at the direction of Albert Schuholz, and that the Defendants covered up facts related to the murder, resulting in a deprivation of the Wright Plaintiffs' rights to inheritance, and precluding an effective wrongful death claim by the Wright and Burns Plaintiffs (doc. 119).

Defendants filed their Motions to Dismiss pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) arguing that Plaintiffs have failed to state a claim 1) for a violation of equal protection under the "class of one" theory, 2) for a violation of denial of access to courts, and 3) for a violation of their substantive due process rights (docs. 121 & 124). Defendants further argue that Plaintiffs' claims for state law conspiracy, spoliation of evidence, and intentional infliction of emotional distress (hereinafter "IIED") are barred by Ohio's sovereign immunity statute, Ohio Rev.Code § 2744, while Schappa claims that Ohio Rev.Code § 2744.05(A) shields him from punitive damages (Id.). In addition to the challenges noted above, Defendants Cramer and Nuss argue that Plaintiffs' claim concerning spoliation of evidence fails as Defendants owed no duty to Plaintiffs (doc. 124).

Plaintiffs respond that the doctrine of the law of the case applies such that the Court need not address Defendants' arguments pertaining to their federal claims, as the Court addressed the viability of such claims in the first step of its qualified immunity analysis (doc. 127). In the event that the Court would find that the doctrine of the law of the case is inapplicable, Plaintiffs argue that they have adequately stated each of their claims and Defendants' Motions should be denied (Id.).

I. Standard for Motion to Dismiss Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6).

A Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss requires the Court to determine whether a cognizable claim has been pleaded in the complaint. The basic federal pleading requirement is contained in Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a), which states that, a pleading "shall contain ... a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." Westlake v. Lucas, 537 F.2d 857, 858 (6th Cir.1976). In its scrutiny of the complaint, the Court must construe all well-pleaded facts liberally in favor of the party opposing the motion. Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 1687, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974). Rule 8(a)(2) operates to provide the defendant with "fair notice of what plaintiff's claim is and the grounds upon which it rests." Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957). A court examines a complaint in light of the objectives of Rule 8 using the standard articulated in Jones v. Sherrill, 827 F.2d 1102, 1103 (6th Cir.1987):

In reviewing a dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6), the court must accept as true all factual allegations in the complaint. Windsor v. The Tennessean, 719 F.2d 155, 158 (6th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 826, 105 S.Ct. 105, 83 L.Ed.2d 50 (1984). The motion to dismiss must be denied unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of the claim which would entitle her to relief. Id. at 158; Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957).

Jones, 827 F.2d at 1103.

The admonishment to liberally construe the plaintiff's claim when evaluating a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal does not relieve a plaintiff of his obligation to satisfy federal notice pleading requirements and allege more than bare assertions of legal conclusions. Wright, Miller & Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure: § 1357 at 596 (1969). "In practice, a complaint ... must contain either direct or inferential allegations respecting all of the material elements [in order] to sustain a recovery under some viable legal theory." Car Carriers, Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 745 F.2d 1101, 1106 (7th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1054, 105 S.Ct. 1758, 84 L.Ed.2d 821 (1985) (quoting In Re: Plywood Antitrust Litigation, 655 F.2d 627, 641 (5th Cir.1981), cert. dismissed, 462 U.S. 1125, 103 S.Ct. 3100, 77 L.Ed.2d 1358 (1983)); see also Sutliff, Inc. v. Donovan Companies, Inc., 727 F.2d 648, 654 (7th Cir.1984); 5 Wright, Miller & Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure: § 1216 at 121-23 (1969). The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit clarified the threshold set for a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal:

[W]e are not holding the pleader to an impossibly high standard; we recognize the policies behind Rule 8 and the concept of notice pleading. A plaintiff will not be thrown out of court for failing to plead facts in support of every arcane element of his claim. But when a complaint omits facts that, if they existed, would clearly dominate the case, it seems fair to assume that those facts do not exist.

Scheid v. Fanny Farmer Candy Shops, Inc., 859 F.2d 434, 437 (6th Cir.1988).

II. Discussion

A. Plaintiffs' Claims Based on Equal Protection, Denial of Access to Courts, and Substantive Due Process Withstand Defendants' Motions.

Plaintiffs invoke the doctrine of the law of the case, requesting that the Court simply deny Defendants' Motions to Dismiss as to Plaintiffs' federal claims. Yet the Court finds Defendants' arguments that this would be inappropriate in this instance well-taken, because the Court has not yet explicitly addressed the issue of the potential liability of Defendant City of Sharonville (hereinafter, "City") and the individual Defendants in their official capacities. Cale v. Johnson, 861 F.2d 943, 947 (6th Cir.1988). The City may only be subjected to liability for its own policies, customs and law. Monell v. Department of Social Services of the City of New York, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978). To prevail on a claim of municipality liability under Section 1983, Plaintiffs must establish 1) that they were deprived of a constitutional right, 2) that the municipality had a "policy," and 3) that the policy was the moving force behind the constitutional violation. Id.

Under the law of the case doctrine, a court is ordinarily precluded from reexamining an issue previously decided by the same Court, or a higher court in the same case. Bowling v. Pfizer, Inc., 132 F.3d 1147, 1150 (6th Cir.1998). Defendants are correct that the doctrine of the law of the case is inapplicable in the sense that the issue of the individual Defendants' liability in their official capacities, and Defendant Sharonville's liability, adds a policy-maker element not present in the qualified immunity analysis. The policy-maker issue has not been previously decided by this Court in the context of a motion to dismiss, and so the Court will not deny Defendants' Motions on the basis of the law of the case.

That said, though Defendants are technically correct that the Court's first-prong qualified immunity analysis alone does not merit the denial of their Motions, it is still valid for the Court to incorporate by reference Sections A(1), (2), and (3), the portions of its prior Order (doc. 93) finding Plaintiff's constitutional claims viable. This is valid because the same threshold question, whether a constitutional right was violated, was addressed, and the Defendants have raised substantially identical arguments in relation to City and individual Defendant liability in their official capacity. The Court's findings that Plaintiffs have adequately alleged potential constitutional violations under equal protection "class of one," denial of access to courts, and denial of substantive due process theories therefore do constitute law of the case. Defendants have not proffered persuasive arguments so as to cause the Court to change its conclusions.¹ However, these findings alone are not adequate to justify denying Defendants' Motions to Dismiss, and the Court must now address the parties' arguments as to whether Plaintiffs have adequately...