Kelley v. Laforce

• Decision Date: 08 February 2002
• Docket Number: No. 00-2543.,00-2543.
• Parties: Michael K. KELLEY and Lenore T. Kelley, Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Joseph W. LAFORCE, Robert Fontaine, Melanie A. Jenkins, David Darrin, Richard Chabot, Douglas Blood, Peter Fullam and the Town of North Brookfield, Massachusetts, Defendants, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 1

288 F.3d 1

Michael K. KELLEY and Lenore T. Kelley, Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Joseph W. LAFORCE, Robert Fontaine, Melanie A. Jenkins, David Darrin, Richard Chabot, Douglas Blood, Peter Fullam and the Town of North Brookfield, Massachusetts, Defendants, Appellees.

No. 00-2543.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard September 13, 2001.

Decided February 8, 2002.

Corrected April 26, 2002.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Gary S. Brackett, with whom Brackett & Lucas was on brief, for appellants.

Kenneth H. Anderson, with whom William L. O'Brien, Thomas Drechsler and Finneran, Byrne, Drechsler, & O'Brien, L.L.P. were on brief, for appellees.

Before TORRUELLA and LIPEZ, Circuit Judges, and ZOBEL,^* District Judge.

TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from summary judgment entered in favor of defendants-appellees in a civil rights and pendent state tort suit brought by plaintiffs-appellants Michael and Lenore Kelley. Appellants allege that their property interest in a restaurant and liquor establishment, located in the Town of North Brookfield ("Town"), was violated under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 12, §§ 11H, 11I, by the Town, three Town police officers, two Town officials, the seller of the establishment, and an agent of the seller. In addition, appellants brought state law claims against these same defendants for conversion, intentional interference with prospective advantage and contractual rights, and fraud.

This Court reviews a district court's decision to grant summary judgment de novo. See Abreu-Guzmán v. Ford, 241 F.3d 69, 73 (1st Cir.2001). Because a motion for summary judgment can only be granted when the evidence shows that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the moving party is entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law, Fed.R.Civ.P. 56, we examine the facts according to appellants' version of events. See Abreu-Guzmán, 241 F.3d at 73 (stating that evidence must be viewed in light most favorable to non-moving party when reviewing grant of summary judgment). For the reasons given below, we reverse in part and affirm in part.

I.

Appellant Michael Kelley ("Kelley") entered into a purchase and sale agreement for a restaurant and liquor establishment, Jessica's Pub ("the Pub"), with Joseph LaForce on January 20, 1996. Pursuant to this agreement, Kelley agreed to purchase the Pub for $43,000, conditioned upon the successful transfer of LaForce's liquor license to Kelley. At the same time, Kelley and LaForce also signed a management agreement under which Kelley was to assume all responsibility for managing the Pub. The management agreement included specific conditions that prohibited LaForce from (1) removing Kelley from his management position, (2) excluding Kelley from the premises, or (3) resuming possession and operation of the business.

Prior to the date of the alleged civil rights violation, Kelley had paid LaForce a sum exceeding $38,000 for the Pub. Additionally, the Kelleys had begun operating the Pub, including hiring employees, purchasing stock and equipment, and paying vendors for the Pub's obligations. Kelley also had entered into a lease agreement for the real estate upon which the Pub was located. Although Kelley had attempted to place the liquor license under his name, he had not succeeded in this effort yet. All of the necessary business licenses for the Pub remained in LaForce's name.

On October 29, 1996, Robert Fontaine, bearing a power of attorney from LaForce that designated Fontaine as the new manager, attempted to take possession of the Pub from Kelley. At the time, Al Mascroft, Kelley's employee, was managing the Pub. Kelley was not at the Pub because he was incarcerated on an unrelated charge.

When Fontaine confronted Mascroft with the power of attorney, Mascroft refused to surrender control of the Pub. As a result, Fontaine sought assistance from the Town's police department. Fontaine informed Chief David Darrin that he had been appointed as the new manager by LaForce, the owner of the Pub, and that an employee, Mascroft, refused to leave after being terminated. Chief Darrin telephoned LaForce, who was then in Florida, to verify his ownership and his wishes regarding the Pub.

Fontaine subsequently returned to the Pub, accompanied by Officer Douglas Blood and Deputy Chief Peter Fullam, and informed Mascroft that he should leave. When Mascroft asked the officers for a court order, they responded by threatening to bring Chief Darrin to arrest him. One of the officers then left, returning shortly thereafter with Chief Darrin.

Chief Darrin told Mascroft that Kelley was having financial problems, was operating the Pub contrary to the liquor license, and that Mascroft should leave. Faced with no alternative, Mascroft left the Pub. Appellants allege that they were thereafter barred from the Pub, under threat of arrest, until January 2, 1997, when the state court issued a preliminary injunction enjoining LaForce and his agents from interfering with Kelley's use and possession of the Pub. Appellants claim that Melanie Jenkins, the Town administrator, and Richard Chabot, Town selectman, authorized the police officers' actions.

After the issuance of the preliminary injunction in state court, the case was removed to the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. On September 7, 1999, the district court denied defendants' motion to vacate the preliminary injunction. On March 13, 2000, the district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment, both on the civil rights claims, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act ("MCRA"), Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 12, §§ 11H, 11I, and on the state tort claims. Judgment for defendants Jenkins, Darrin, Chabot, Blood, Fullam, and the Town was entered on November 1, 2000, based on the court's finding that the individual defendants were entitled to qualified immunity and that the Town could not be held liable under § 1983 or the MCRA. The district court dismissed the case as to defendants LaForce and Fontaine because they were not served and never entered an appearance. Plaintiffs-appellants appeal only the summary judgment, and not the dismissal as to LaForce and Fontaine.¹

II.

Section 1983 provides a cause of action for a plaintiff to seek money damages from a defendant who acted under color of state law to deprive plaintiff of a right guaranteed by the Constitution or by federal law. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983; Camilo-Robles v. Hoyos, 151 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir.1998). In this case, appellants bring a § 1983 claim against both individual defendants (Town officers and officials) and the Town itself. Since a different standard is used to determine liability for individual and municipal defendants, we will discuss the § 1983 claims against these two sets of defendants separately.

A. Qualified Immunity

Although government officials are subject to suit for federal constitutional or statutory violations under § 1983, they are generally shielded from civil damages liability under the principle of qualified immunity so long as their actions do not "violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). In practice, this means that "whether an official protected by qualified immunity may be held personally liable for an allegedly unlawful action generally turns on the objective legal reasonableness of the action, assessed in light of the legal rules that were clearly established at the time it was taken." Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 639, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987) (internal quotation marks omitted).

A court evaluating a claim of qualified immunity must engage in a two-step inquiry. See Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 609, 119 S.Ct. 1692, 143 L.Ed.2d 818 (1999) (setting forth an order of analysis for qualified immunity); Abreu-Guzmán, 241 F.3d at 73 (recognizing Supreme Court's "preferred method of analysis" for qualified immunity). First, the court must determine whether plaintiff has alleged a deprivation of a constitutional or federal right by the defendant official. See Abreu-Guzmán, 241 F.3d at 73; Camilo-Robles, 151 F.3d at 6. If so, the court must "determine whether that right was clearly established at the time of the [official's] alleged violation." Wilson, 526 U.S. at 609, 119 S.Ct. 1692 (quoting Conn v. Gabbert, 526 U.S. 286, 290, 119 S.Ct. 1292, 143 L.Ed.2d 399 (1999)) (internal quotation marks omitted). Only after both these questions are answered affirmatively should the court address "the particular conduct in question," Abreu-Guzmán, 241 F.3d at 73, to decide whether an objectively reasonable official would have believed that his conduct was lawful "in light of clearly established law and the information the official possessed at the time of his allegedly unlawful conduct," McBride v. Taylor, 924 F.2d 386, 389 (1st Cir.1991).

As the Supreme Court has explained, "[t]his order of procedure is designed to spare a defendant not only unwarranted liability, but unwarranted demands customarily imposed upon those defending a long drawn out lawsuit. Deciding the constitutional question before addressing the qualified immunity question also promotes clarity in the legal standards for official conduct, to the benefit of both the officers and the general public." Wilson, 526 U.S. at 609, 119 S.Ct. 1692 (citations omitted). Here, however, the district court failed to consider the first part of the qualified immunity analysis that the Supreme Court laid out in Wilson. It never determined whether appellants had alleged a violation of a "clearly established" right. See 526 U.S. at 609, 119 S.Ct. 1692; Abreu-Guzmán, 241 F.3d at 73. Instead, the court stated that even if appellants were able to show a due process violation, the defendants still would be...