Langford v. City of Atlantic City

• Decision Date: 16 November 2000
• Docket Number: No. 00-5194,00-5194
• Citation: 235 F.3d 845
• Parties: (3rd Cir. 2000) LORENZO LANGFORD; WILLIAM MARSH, Appellants v. CITY OF ATLANTIC CITY; TIMOTHY MANCUSO; BARBARA HUDGINS; JOHN SCHULTZ; EDWARD P. MCGETTIGAN; GIBB R. JONES, JR.; MICHAEL ZINGARELLI; JAMES WHELAN Argued:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

Page 845

235 F.3d 845 (3rd Cir. 2000)

LORENZO LANGFORD; WILLIAM MARSH, Appellants v. CITY OF ATLANTIC CITY; TIMOTHY MANCUSO; BARBARA HUDGINS; JOHN SCHULTZ; EDWARD P. MCGETTIGAN; GIBB R. JONES, JR.; MICHAEL ZINGARELLI; JAMES WHELAN

No. 00-5194

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

Argued: November 16, 2000

Filed December 18, 2000

On Appeal from the United States District Court For the District of New Jersey (D.N.J. Crim. No. 99-cv-03064) District Judge: Honorable Joseph E. Irenas

Sidney L. Gold Lovitz & Gold 1835 Market Street 11 Penn Center, Suite 515 Philadelphia, PA 19103 Attorney for Appellant Lorenzo Langford

Robert A. Davitch (Argued) Scott A. George Sidkoff, Pincus & Green, P.C. 1101 Market Street Suite 2700 Philadelphia, PA 19107 Attorneys for Appellant William Marsh

Gerald J. Corcoran (Argued) Debra B. Albuquerque Youngblood, Corcoran, Aleli, Lafferty, Stackhouse, Grossman & Gormley, P.A. 3205 Fire Road, P.O. Box 850 Pleasantville, NJ 08232 Attorneys for Appellees

Before: SLOVITER, AMBRO and GARTH, Circuit Judges

OPINION OF THE COURT

GARTH, Circuit Judge:

The issue presented by this appeal is whether the plaintiffs, Lorenzo Langford ("Langford") and William Marsh ("Marsh"), can state a cause of action against a municipality, whose annual budget by reason of a lack of funding, eliminated their school positions. W e hold that where the plaintiffs' Complaint charging political retaliation alleges that the municipality, Atlantic City, violated their constitutional rights, it was error for the District Court to dismiss their Complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Procedure 12(b)(6). We will reverse.

I

In March 1998, the Atlantic City Board of Education, which employed plaintiffs Langford and Marsh, adopted a proposed budget for the 1998-99 school year. The budget did not include funding for several programs and nine supervisory jobs, including Langford's and Marsh's jobs.¹ A total of approximately $1.4 million was needed to fund those programs and jobs which were excluded from the proposed budget. The unfunded programs included certain school sports, transportation for some extra-curricular activities and the continued use and operation of community schools. Funding for these programs and jobs was not included in the budget because their projected costs exceeded the maximum budget increase allowable under New Jersey law.

On March 31, 1998, the Board of Education passed a resolution asking Atlantic City voters to approve a "Budget Cap Waiver" in the amount of $1.477 million, to fund all of the programs and positions. The voters rejected the Budget Cap Waiver proposal. Notwithstanding that rejection, the City Council was empowered without review to approve unilaterally the Cap Waiver, and thus fund the threatened positions and programs.

Langford and Marsh had opposed Mayor James Whelan and the City Council defendants in the 1994 and 1998 elections. In the Atlantic City mayoral election held on May 12, 1998, Langford had run against, and lost to, Mayor Langford was the Neighborhood Facilities Liaison. Langford's responsibilities included organizing and supervising weeknight and weekend community activities and events at a school facility, ensuring maximum use of the school facility by the community, and assigning security to cover events at the facility. His annual salary was $30,000, together with employment benefits. Whelan, Atlantic City's incumbent mayor. On May 15, 1998, the City Council voted to eliminate Langford's and Marsh's jobs as part of the budget reduction plan. Plaintiffs allege that their jobs were eliminated in retaliation for their political opposition to the Mayor in the 1998 election.

II

On June 29, 1999, Langford and Marsh filed the instant action in the District of New Jersey against the City of Atlantic City as well as its individual City Council members and Mayor Whelan. The defendants moved to dismiss the Complaint, asserting that it did not state a cause of action under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). The District Court granted that motion, and on December 27, 1999, the District Court dismissed all counts of Langford's and Marsh's Complaint against all defendants. In doing so, the District Court held that the individual defendants had immunity because their acts were legislative in nature.

As to Atlantic City, the District Court held that the passage of a budget does not constitute an official policy, custom, or practice triggering section 1983 municipal liability under Monell v. New York City Dep't of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 691-95 (1978), and its progeny. The District Court distinguished the Monell line of cases, asserting that "[t]he single act in those cases is the act adopting the policy, not the act in furtherance of carrying out the policy." It reasoned that a single, official act creating policy suffices under Monell and Pembaur v. City of Cincinnati, 475 U.S. 469, 485 (1986), to establish municipal liability.

Langford and Marsh appeal only the dismissal of their section 1983 claims against the municipality -- Atlantic City. They do not appeal the District Court's dismissal of their section 1983 claims against the individual defendants. Langford's and Marsh's appeal was timely filed on February 17, 2000, and we have jurisdiction over the District Court's final order of December 27, 1999 pursuant to 28 U.S.C. S 1291.²

III

Our standard of review is plenary and, in the context of a Rule 12(b)(6) decision by the District Court which dismissed all defendants and all counts of plaintiffs' Complaint, we adhere to the precepts which we summarized in Nami v. Fauver, 82 F.3d 63, 65 (3d Cir. 1996):

We must determine whether, under any reasonable reading of the pleadings, the plaintiffs may be entitled to relief, and we must accept as true the factual allegations in the complaint and all reasonable inferences that can be drawn therefrom. The complaint will be deemed to have alleged sufficient facts if it adequately put the defendants on notice of the essential elements of the plaintiffs' cause of action. Since this is a S 1983 action, the plaintiffs are entitled to relief if their complaint sufficiently alleges deprivation of any right secured by the Constitution. In considering a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, we do not inquire whether the plaintiffs will ultimately prevail, only whether they are entitled to offer evidence to support their claims. Thus, the district court's order granting the defendants' motion to dismiss will be affirmed only if it appears that the plaintiffs could prove no set of facts that would entitle them to relief.

Id. (citations omitted).

IV

42 U.S.C. S 1983, the section relied upon by Langford and Marsh in their Complaint, subjects to liability every person who under color of state law or custom deprives a citizen of his or her constitutional rights. The Supreme Court in Monell, 436 U.S. 658, held that a municipality can be held liable as a person under section 1983 when it unconstitutionally implements or enforces "a policy statement, ordinance, regulation, or decision officially adopted and promulgated by" the officers of that municipality. Id. at 690.³ By contrast, the Court expressly rejected municipal S 1983 liability based on a respondeat superior theory, finding "Congress did not intend municipalities to be held liable unless action pursuant to official municipal policy of some nature caused a constitutional tort." Id. at 691.

In Monell, a class of female employees of the Department of Social Services and the Board of Education of New York City brought suit under section 1983, alleging that the City, through its agencies, had as a matter of official policy unconstitutionally compelled pregnant employees to take unpaid leaves of absence before they were medically necessary. Id. at 661. "[I]t is when execution of a government's policy or custom, whether made by its lawmakers or by those whose edicts or acts may fairly be said to represent official policy, inflicts the injury that the government as an entity is responsible under S 1983." Id. at 694. The Court concluded that New York City was liable under section 1983 because its policy respecting the unpaid leaves of absence for pregnant employees violated their constitutional rights. Id. at 692.

A significant portion of the discussion conducted before the District Court in this case focused on the Supreme Court's decision in Pembaur, 475 U.S. 469, where both the county and the city were held liable for a county prosecutor's instruction to deputy sheriffs to break into a doctor's office to effect an arrest. Id. at 485. The Court noted that the municipal policy requirement discussed in Monell "was intended to distinguish acts of the municipality from acts of employees of the municipality, and thereby make clear that municipal liability is limited to action for which the municipality is actually responsible." Id. at 479.

Pembaur held that the Fourth Amendment was violated and that a municipality is liable for "acts which the municipality has officially sanctioned or ordered." Id. at 480. The Court concluded that "a municipality may be liable under S 1983 for a single decision by its properly constituted legislative body -- whether or not that body had taken similar action in the past or intended to do so in the future -- because even a single decision by such a body unquestionably constitutes an act of official government policy." Id. (emphasis added). "We hold that municipal liability under S 1983 attaches where-- and only where -- a deliberate choice to follow a course of action is made from among various alternatives by the official or officials responsible for establishing final policy with respect to the subject matter in question." Id. at 483-84.

In both Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U.S. 622 (1980), and City of Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 U.S. 247, 250-52 (1981), the Supreme Court consistently held that a single decision of a properly...