Kindem v. City of Alameda
| Decision Date | 11 November 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. C-78-2982 SW.,C-78-2982 SW. |
| Citation | 502 F. Supp. 1108 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of California |
| Parties | David A. KINDEM, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF ALAMEDA, a municipal corporation, Defendant. |
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
Kenneth Hecht, Penny Nakatsu, Chris Redburn, San Francisco, Cal., Bernice Lapow, Legal Aid Society of Alameda County, Oakland, Cal., for plaintiff.
Carter Stroud, City Atty., Alameda, Cal., for defendant City of Alameda.
In 1968, plaintiff David A. Kindem was convicted as a minor under the Federal Youth Corrections Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 5001-37, of felony violation of the now repealed federal marijuana importation tax laws, formerly codified at 26 U.S.C. § 4755. One decade later, plaintiff was fired from his job as a janitor with defendant City of Alameda ("the City") when his ten-year-old conviction was brought to the attention of his superiors. Plaintiff brought the present action under the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, to challenge the constitutionality of the City's long-standing written ban against municipal employment of exfelons. He claims the dismissal violated due process and equal protection rights secured to him by the United States Constitution.1
After the initial pleadings were filed, the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. Following oral argument on the matter, the court determined no material issues of fact were in dispute and summary judgment in favor of plaintiff was granted. The City was ordered to reinstate plaintiff and was enjoined from enforcing the offending portion of the City Charter. The court reserved for later decision the question of plaintiff's entitlement to backpay, but now rules he is entitled to such compensation in the amount of $9,433.90. Finally, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988, the court awards plaintiff's counsel a reasonable attorney's fee, in the amount of $7541.00.
By this Memorandum of Decision and Order, the court expresses the reasons for granting plaintiff's motion for summary judgment and the reasons for awarding backpay and for setting attorney's fees at $7541.00, and reduces to written form the rulings on backpay and attorney's fees.
The facts may be stated quite briefly. In September, 1977, plaintiff began work as a janitor for the City of Alameda under its CETA employment program. Shortly after the job began, plaintiff was requested to undergo a standard security check. At that time, plaintiff informed his immediate superiors about his 1968 felony conviction.2 Section 22-4 of the City Charter provides: "No person who shall have been convicted of a felony ... shall ever hold any office or position of employment in the service of the City." Plaintiff's CETA director therefore contacted the City Attorney for an opinion on whether this section applied to plaintiff. Five and a half month later, plaintiff was told the policy applied to all felony convictions and all jobs. On March 2, 1978, plaintiff received a letter from the City Manager informing him his employment would terminate in one week. The letter stressed the fact the dismissal was no reflection on plaintiff or the work he had performed. In fact, the City Manager made it clear the City had been very pleased with plaintiff's work and attitude towards his job, and even reported receipt of several unsolicited calls from citizens commending plaintiff's work. The sole reason given for plaintiff's dismissal was the City's absolute prohibition against hiring ex-felons.
The issue on the merits presented by plaintiff's action is not the wisdom of the City's policy, though many undoubtedly would find serious fault with it. Rather, the issue is whether the policy violates equal protection and due process rights protected by the Constitution. For although the court is sensitive to the need of local governments to fashion and implement employment policies without the fear of constant judicial intermeddling, the court also recognizes that local administrators and lawmakers, as well as the local electorate, sometimes do enact and implement policies which may transgress individual constitutional rights. Thus, although the City has a legitimate interest in securing a competent, trustworthy workforce, and ordinarily may do so by discriminating among applicants in a manner calculated to ensure only the most qualified are hired, it is subject to the same constitutional limitations applicable to governmental action at other levels.
The Supreme Court has rejected the idea that public employment is a "privilege" and therefore exempted from constitutional limitations. When the decisions or policies made regarding public employment involve impermissible discrimination or impair or deny certain protected rights, an individual applicant or employee properly may appeal to the courts for redress. Plaintiff's complaint raises important questions, questions meriting review of the City's policy.
The City does not dispute plaintiff's claim that the questioned practice operates to the severe detriment of a distinct class of individuals. The policy is not directed at all applicants equally. Instead, the Charter provision singles out a particular group and totally bars them from municipal employment. Such classifications are subject to examination under the limitations imposed on local governments by the Equal Protection Clause of the fourteenth amendment.3
Analysis must begin with a determination of the applicable standard of review. A challenged classification is subjected to strict scrutiny only when a fundamental right is impaired or a suspect class is disadvantaged.4 Public employment is not considered a fundamental right,5 and ex-felons are not thought to constitute a suspect class.6 Therefore, the City's policy must be tested according to a standard less rigorous than that employed when strictly scrutinizing a classification.
The rational basis test is a highly deferential standard of review. Under it, a court will not intercede on behalf of a discriminated class member unless it finds that the questioned classification is not rationally related to a legitimate state interest. Despite this low threshold, the court finds enforcement of the challenged City Charter section violated plaintiff's rights to equal protection of the laws. The court is unconvinced that the across-the-board ban on hiring ex-felons is reasonably related to any legitimate state goal. Because of this conclusion, it is not necessary to consider the possible application of some intermediate level of review.
The City unquestionably has a legitimate interest in hiring qualified, competent and trustworthy employees, and in employing persons who will inspire the public's confidence. But it has not been demonstrated that the sole fact of a single prior felony conviction renders an individual unfit for public employment, regardless of the type of crime committed or the type of job sought. This is not to say that a prior felony conviction can never be a factor in public employment decisions. It is reasonable to assume, for example, that a prior conviction might be highly relevant or properly determinative with respect to hiring decisions involving certain sensitive jobs.7 It may also be reasonable to assume that convictions for certain crimes may indicate that an individual is unfit for any future municipal employment. But the City's policy is not tailored along any lines to conform to what might be considered legitimate government interests.8
Plaintiff's case illustrates but one way in which the City's policy is arbitrary and unreasonable. Clearly, plaintiff's ten-year-old youth conviction has little if any bearing on his ability to perform as a janitor for the City, and the City admits as much in its dismissal letter. Individual examples of inequitable hardships are rarely adequate to support the overturning of a classification on grounds of arbitrariness, but plaintiff's situation can hardly be considered a unique result of the full enforcement of the City's policy. Employment is denied to individuals, like plaintiff, who were convicted of felonies bearing no relationship whatsoever to the individual's honesty or his ability to work. Thus, whereas a felony tax evader is denied a janitorship, a person with a known proclivity for violence or thievery, even a person actually convicted of misdemeanor assault or theft, is not automatically precluded from the job although his personal traits and even his previous misdemeanor convictions might reasonably be considered related to the opportunities and temptations presented by a janitorship. The distinction thus drawn between ex-felons and nonfelons is not rationally related to any legitimate state interests.
Similar bans on employment of distinct groups have been overturned by courts in numerous other instances.9 Even statutes which have tried to relate ex-felon status to a particular job have, on occasion, been struck down.10 Cases cited by the City in defense of the Charter's classification scheme each involved a close nexus between the felony involved and the particular job sought, and are therefore inapposite.11 The recent Supreme Court decision in New York City Transit Authority v. Beazer, 440 U.S. 568, 99 S.Ct. 1355, 59 L.Ed.2d 587 (1979), also cited by the City, is distinguishable on a number of grounds: (1) the regulation in Beazer, which prohibited employment of all drug addicts by the Transit Authority, was not, itself, under attack, just its application to individuals who had successfully undergone a year of methadone treatment, and the Court was thus faced with nothing more than a request to fine tune the regulatory classification; (2) the regulation itself was based on a legitimate concern for public safety and efficient operation of the system; and (3) the classification only covered current...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Black v. Sullivan, Civ. No. 80-0164-P.
...451 F.2d 1106 (1st Cir.1971); Martin v. Harrah Independent School District, 579 F.2d 1192 (10th Cir.1978); Kindem v. City of Alameda, 502 F.Supp. 1108 (N.D. Calif.1980); Beatham v. Manson, 369 F.Supp. 783, 789-792 (D.Conn.1973). Cf. Willens v. University of Massachusetts, 570 F.2d 403, 406 ......
-
Collins v. AAA Homebuilders, Inc.
...Carter v. Gallagher, 452 F.2d 315 (8th Cir.1971), cert. denied, 406 U.S. 950, 92 S.Ct. 2045, 32 L.Ed.2d 338 (1972); Kindem v. City of Alameda, 502 F.Supp. 1108 (N.D.Cal.1980); McGarvey v. District of Columbia, 468 F.Supp. 687 (D.D.C.1979); Butts v. Nichols, 381 F.Supp. 573 (S.D.Iowa 1974); ......
-
Committee of U.S. Citizens Living in Nicaragua v. Reagan, 87-5053
...action that is "legally irrational [in that] it is not sufficiently keyed to any legitimate state interests." Kindem v. City of Alameda, 502 F.Supp. 1108, 1113-14 (N.D.Cal.1980). Few if any cases illustrate the point that not all injuries involving violations of federal law are also violati......
-
Dixon v. McMullen
...concurring), affirmed by an equally divided court, 434 U.S. 356, 98 S.Ct. 786, 54 L.Ed.2d 603 (1978); Kindem v. City of Alameda, 502 F.Supp. 1108, 1111 (N.D.Calif.1980). Thus, in the context of occupational licensing, the Supreme Court has formulated a test which requires that any qualifica......
-
Unequal protection: comparing former felons' challenges to disenfranchisement and employment discrimination.
...Fox, 153 Cal. Rptr. 683 (Cal. Ct. App. 1979) (refusing to deny a real estate salesperson's license). (150.) Kindem v. City of Alameda, 502 F. Supp. 1108 (N.D. Cal. 1980); see also Butts v. Nichols, 381 F. Supp. 573 (S.D. Iowa 1974). (151.) People v. Lindner, 535 N.E.2d 829 (Ill. 1989). (152......