Lindsey v. Detroit Entertainment, LLC

• Decision Date: 01 May 2007
• Docket Number: No. 04-2424.,04-2424.
• Citation: 484 F.3d 824
• Parties: Brenda LINDSEY; Henry Hobson, Jr.; Sarah Gulley; Roger Gentry; Bertha Arnold; Dionne Echols; William Slaten, Jr., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. DETROIT ENTERTAINMENT, LLC, d/b/a Motor City Casino, a Michigan Limited Liability Company, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

484 F.3d 824

Brenda LINDSEY; Henry Hobson, Jr.; Sarah Gulley; Roger Gentry; Bertha Arnold; Dionne Echols; William Slaten, Jr., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. DETROIT ENTERTAINMENT, LLC, d/b/a Motor City Casino, a Michigan Limited Liability Company, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 04-2424.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: March 13, 2007.

Decided and Filed: May 1, 2007.

ARGUED:

Amos E. Williams, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellants. Rosalind Rochkind, Garan, Lucow & Miller, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellee.

ON BRIEF:

Amos E. Williams, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellants. Rosalind Rochkind, Robert F. MacAlpine, Megan K. Cavanagh, Garan, Lucow & Miller, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellee.

Before: MARTIN and CLAY, Circuit Judges; POLSTER, District Judge.^*

OPINION

CLAY, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiffs are seven unrelated individuals who were each detained by employees of Defendant Detroit Entertainment, L.L.C., which owns and operates MotorCity Casino, for picking up allegedly abandoned tokens or credits found in Defendant's slot machines. Plaintiffs brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that Defendant violated their constitutional rights under color of state law when Defendant's security personnel detained Plaintiffs. Plaintiffs also sought to represent a class of similarly situated individuals. The district court denied class certification, and granted summary judgment in favor of Defendant, holding that Plaintiffs could not demonstrate that Defendant's actions constituted "state action" for the purpose of § 1983. For the reasons that follow, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

BACKGROUND

This case concerns a practice that Defendant refers to as "slot-walking." "Slot-walking" is the practice of picking up tokens found on or around slot machines which appear to have been abandoned by the machine's original user. Plaintiffs in this case are Brenda Lindsey, Henry Hobson, Jr., Sarah Gulley, Roger Gentry, Bertha Arnold, Dionne Echols, and William Slaten, Jr. Although the stories of the individual plaintiffs vary in their detail, for purposes of this appeal, the specifics of Plaintiffs' allegations are immaterial to the issues before the Court.¹ Generally, Plaintiffs in this case all allegedly shared a relatively similar experience. Each plaintiff was a business invitee of Defendant, who entered Defendant's casino for the purpose of recreational gaming between April 14, 2000 and March 22, 2001. Each plaintiff, with the exception of Hobson,² took possession of one or more tokens from one of Defendant's slot machines. In each case, the dollar value of tokens taken by Plaintiffs was small, ranging from the two dollars worth of tokens that Plaintiff Echols recovered from the tray of a slot machine, to a single twenty-five cent credit that Plaintiff Gulley found on an allegedly unattended slot machine. All Plaintiffs claim that the tokens or credits of which they took possession had been abandoned by the original operator of the slot machine on which the tokens or credits were found.

After taking possession of the tokens or credits, each plaintiff was approached by Defendant's security personnel, and each plaintiff was forced to accompany Defendant's security personnel to a locked detention room. The length of Plaintiffs' detentions varied; Plaintiff Slaten was released within an hour, while several plaintiffs were allegedly detained for several hours. But in any event, after being held in Defendant's detention room for some period of time, each plaintiff was told to leave the casino and was informed that he or she was not allowed to return to Defendant's casino.

On March 21, 2003, Plaintiffs filed a complaint in the Eastern District of Michigan, alleging that Defendant violated 42 U.S.C. § 1983, by depriving Plaintiffs of their rights secured by the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The thrust of Plaintiffs' complaint, however, is their claim that Defendant's actions constituted an unreasonable seizure in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. Plaintiffs also sought to represent a class of similarly situated individuals which, by Plaintiffs' estimation, included approximately one-hundred and fifty people, but not less than seventy-five or more than seven-hundred and fifty people. Plaintiffs defined this class as:

persons who found coins or tokens left unattended on floors, chairs, or similar lack of physical possession by the owner and/or those persons who found coins, tokens, or credits left in the return tray or on unattended and unused, at the time, gaming machines or who were given permission to take unused credits or tokens by the owner of the tokens or credits, without intent to defraud.

J.A. at 18.

Defendant moved for summary judgment on July 1, 2003. Plaintiffs moved to certify the class on the following day. On September 2, 2003, the district court denied Defendant's motion for summary judgment, without prejudice, pending discovery. On February 6, 2004, the district court denied Plaintiffs' motion for class certification, holding that Plaintiffs could not meet the necessary requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. Plaintiffs moved this Court for permission to bring an interlocutory appeal, and we denied permission on June 15, 2004.

On August 2, 2004, Defendant renewed its motion for summary judgment. The district court granted Defendant's motion on October 14, 2004, and dismissed the case. The district court held that summary judgment in favor of Defendant was appropriate because Plaintiffs could not demonstrate that Defendant's actions constituted state action. The district court considered Plaintiffs' argument that the district court decisions of Romanski v. Detroit Entertainment, L.L.C., 265 F.Supp.2d 835 (E.D.Mich.2003) and Smith v. Detroit Entertainment, L.L.C., 338 F.Supp.2d 775 (E.D.Mich.2004) affected the outcome of the case, but concluded that, under the Sixth Circuit's en banc decision in Chapman v. Higbee Co., 319 F.3d 825 (6th Cir.2003), Plaintiffs could not demonstrate that Defendant's security personnel were state actors. On November 5, 2004, Plaintiffs filed a timely notice of appeal. Briefing for this appeal was held in abeyance pending the Sixth Circuit's disposition of Romanski v. Detroit Entertainment, L.L.C., which was decided on October 28, 2005. 428 F.3d 629 (6th Cir.2005).

DISCUSSION

Plaintiffs appeal from the district court's order granting summary judgment in favor of Defendants. "This Court reviews de novo a district court's decision to grant summary judgment." Gage Prods. Co. v. Henkel Corp., 393 F.3d 629, 637 (6th Cir. 2004) (citing Cockrel v. Shelby County School Dist., 270 F.3d 1036, 1048 (6th Cir. 2001)). Summary judgment is required if the pleadings and evidence "show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). "A dispute over a material fact is only a `genuine issue' if a reasonable jury could find for the nonmoving party on that issue." Gage Prods. Co., 393 F.3d at 637; Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). In determining whether summary judgment is appropriate, this Court must view all the facts and the inferences drawn therefrom in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986).

Plaintiffs brought their claims against Defendant pursuant to Title 42, United States Code, § 1983. Section 1983 states in relevant part:

Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State . . ., subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States . . . to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress . . . .

In order to prevail on a § 1983 claim, Plaintiffs must demonstrate that Defendant deprived them of their "rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution" under color of state law. The issue in this appeal is whether Plaintiffs can demonstrate that Defendant acted "under color of state law" by showing that Defendant's conduct constituted state action. See Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U.S. 922, 942, 102 S.Ct. 2744, 73 L.Ed.2d 482 (1982) (holding that state action for the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment constitutes action under color of state law for the purpose of § 1983). Section 1983 does not, as a general rule, prohibit the conduct of private parties acting in their individual capacities. "As a matter of substantive constitutional law the state-action requirement reflects judicial recognition of the fact that `most rights secured by the Constitution are protected only against infringement by governments.'" Id. at 936, 102 S.Ct. 2744 (quoting Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U.S. 149, 156, 98 S.Ct. 1729, 56 L.Ed.2d 185 (1978)). Drawing a line between private and governmental conduct preserves an area of individual freedom by limiting the reach of federal law, avoids the imposition of liability on a state for actions outside its control, and assures that constitutional standards are invoked only when the state is responsible for the conduct about which the plaintiff complains. Brentwood Acad. v. Tenn. Secondary School Athletic Assoc., 531 U.S. 288, 295, 121 S.Ct. 924, 148 L.Ed.2d 807 (2001). However, "[a] private actor acts under color of state law when its conduct is `fairly attributable to the state.'" Romanski, 428 F.3d at 636 (quoting Lugar, 457 U.S. at 937, 102 S.Ct. 2744).

"What [conduct] is fairly attributable [to the state] is a matter of normative judgment, and the criteria lack rigid simplicity." Brentwood Acad., 531 U.S. at 295, 121 S.Ct. 924. The Supreme Court and this...