Moore Jr. v. City of Harriman
| Decision Date | 04 February 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 99-5258,99-5258 |
| Citation | 218 F.3d 551 |
| Parties | (6th Cir. 2000) Ralph Moore, Jr.,Plaintiff-Appellant, v. City of Harriman; Harriman Police Department; Roy Jenkins, Chief of Police; Darren McBroom; Terry Fink; Randy Heidle; Virgil McCart; and Jerry Singleton, Defendants-Appellees. Argued: |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Knoxville; No. 97-00243--James H. Jarvis, District Judge.
Donald K. Vowell, VOWELL & ASSOCIATES, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellant.
Nathan O. Rowell, Robert H. Watson, Jr., WATSON, HOLLOW & REEVES, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellees.
Before: NELSON, COLE, and CLAY, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiff, Ralph Moore, Jr., appeals from the district court's order dismissing Plaintiff's claims against Defendants, various police officers with the City of Harriman ("the Officers"), on the basis that Plaintiff did not sue the Officers in their individual capacities and that, as such, any claim asserted against them should be dismissed for failure to state a claim. For the reasons set forth below, we REVERSE the district court's order.
Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the Officers on April 7, 1997, for allegedly using excessive force to effectuate Plaintiff's April 7, 1996 arrest in violation Plaintiff's Fourth Amendment rights. Plaintiff also alleged various pendent state law claims in his complaint. In the caption of his complaint, Plaintiff named as defendants "City of Harriman, Tennessee; Harriman Police Department; Roy Jenkins, Chief of Police1; Darren McBroom; Terry Fink; Randy Heidle; Virgil McCart; and Jerry Singleton." All of the parties named as defendants in the caption of Plaintiff's complaint filed a joint answer on May 14, 1997. The caption of the answer lists the City of Harriman, the police department, and the Officers in three separate groups.
The Officers filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim on January 22, 1998, on the basis that Plaintiff did not expressly state that the Officers were being sued in their individual capacities. On February 27, 1998, the district court granted the Officers' motion and dismissed any claims against them in their individual capacities without prejudice.
Plaintiff moved to alter or amend his complaint to specifically allege that the Officers were being sued in their individual capacities under § 1983, and to alter or amend the February 27, 1998, order to reflect that the state law causes of action against the Officers individually had not been dismissed. On April 15, 1998, the Court denied Plaintiff's motion to amend the complaint as to Plaintiff's § 1983 claims on the basis that it would be futile to do so because the claims would be barred by the statute of limitations2. The court reasoned that Plaintiff could not amend his complaint regarding the federal claims because "it is too late to notify the individual defendants that they may be individually liable for the federal civil rights action brought against them and the amended complaint could not relate back under Rule 15(c)" of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Nonetheless, the court permitted Plaintiff's state claims against the Officers in their individual capacities to continue, finding that the pleading requirements for state torts were not as "stringent" as the requirements for a § 1983 individual capacity claim. Accordingly, the case proceeded against the City of Harriman, but against the Officers individually only in regard to Plaintiff's state law claims.
The City of Harriman moved for summary judgment, which the district court granted on August 4, 1998; Plaintiff is not appealing that decision. All of the federal claims having been dismissed, the Officers moved to dismiss the remaining state law claims, and the district court granted the Officers' motion without prejudice on February 10, 1999. Plaintiff filed a notice of appeal on February 22, 1999, challenging the district court's decision to dismiss any § 1983 claims Plaintiff attempted to assert against the Officers in their individual capacities, as well as the district court's decision to deny Plaintiff an opportunity to amend his complaint to more specifically allege Plaintiff's § 1983 claims against the Officers in their individual capacities.
Plaintiff argues that the district court erred in dismissing his complaint for failure to state a claim on the basis that Plaintiff did not sue the Officers in their individual capacities. We review de novo a district court's dismissal of a complaint for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). See Turker v. Ohio Dep't of Rehabilitation & Corrections, 157 F.3d 453, 456 (6th Cir. 1998). We must construe the complaint in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, accept his factual allegations as true, and determine whether he can prove any set of facts in support of his claim that would entitle him to relief. Id.
In Wells v. Brown, 891 F.2d 591, 593 (6th Cir. 1989), this Court held that it will assume that a government official is being sued in his official capacity unless the plaintiff "properly allege[s] capacity in [his] complaint." The rationale behind the specificity rule was to afford state officials sufficient notice that they may be held personally liable for any damage award3. Id. The Court also held that the requirement applied to pro se plaintiffs, noting that "[i]t is certainly reasonable to ask that all plaintiffs, even pro se plaintiffs, some of whom file several appeals each year with us, [to] alert party defendants that they may be individually responsible in damages." Id.
However, in Pelfrey v. Chambers, 43 F.3d 1034, 1038 (6th Cir. 1995), this Court held that although the pro se plaintiff's complaint failed to specify that he was suing the state officers in their individual capacities, the plaintiff could proceed with his individual claims because the state officials "were given sufficient notice of the fact that they were being sued in their individual capacity." In reaching this conclusion the Court relied upon a motion filed by the plaintiff one month after the complaint was filed, which asked that the Ohio Attorney General be barred from representing the defendants and "specifically stated that the defendants acted outside the scope of their employment and in bad faith when they cut his hair." Id. Similarly, in Abdur-Rahman v. Michigan Dep't of Corrections, 65 F.3d 489, 491 (6th Cir. 1995), this Court found that although the plaintiff's complaint failed to specify the capacity in which the defendant was being sued, the plaintiff's reply to the motion for summary judgment made it clear that the plaintiff intended to sue the defendant in his individual capacity. The Court therefore concluded that the plaintiff had provided sufficient notice to the defendant that he was being sued in his individual capacity. Likewise, in Perry v. Croucher, No. 97-3033, 1998 WL 661151, at *7-*8 (6th Cir. Aug. 31, 1998), this Court found that where the complaint repeatedly specified that the defendants acted "'in bad faith'" and "'willfully, maliciously, and with reckless indifference to and in disregard of' [the] plaintiff's rights"; and where the defendants moved for dismissal on the basis of immunity, the defendants had sufficient notice that they were being sued individually. Id. The Court found "significant" that the defendants raised the immunity defense because "such immunity is extended to officials only in their personal capacities" thereby indicating that the defendants had an understanding that they were being sued in their personal capacities. Id.
Based upon the state of the law in this circuit as outlined above, the district court erred in granting the Officers' 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, where the complaint provided the Officers sufficient notice that they were being sued in their individual capacities. Although it is true that the caption to Plaintiff's complaint does not specify that the Officers were being sued in their individual capacities, and that ambiguity does exist throughout the complaint as to the capacity in which the Officers are being sued, the complaint taken as a whole provides sufficient notice to the Officers that they were being sued individually. See Wells, 891 F.2d at 593 ().
For example, what is most telling are the allegations set forth in paragraph eleven of the complaint, which state in relevant part that:
The said officers, acting for themselves and for the City, instituted all of the criminal charges against the plaintiff without probable cause and with malice. The charges were instituted not for the primary purpose of bringing the plaintiff to justice, but to shield and cover up the wrongful actions of the said defendants as described above. The said criminal proceedings for contributing to the delinquency of a minor and aggravated assault have already been terminated in favor of the plaintiff, with the said charges being dismissed at the preliminary hearing. The placing of the said charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and aggravated assault constitute the torts of malicious prosecution and abuse of process, and violated the plaintiff's civil rights enumerated above.
(J.A. at 11-12 (emphasis added)). As in Pelfrey, where this Court found that the plaintiff's allegations that "the defendants acted outside the scope of their employment and in bad faith" provided sufficient notice to the defendants that they were being sued individually, see 43 F.3d at 1038, Plaintiff's allegations that the Officers "act[ed] for themselves and . . . with malice," and also engaged in intentional torts, provided sufficient notice to...
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Moore, Jr. v. City of Harriman
...contained ambiguous language, taken as a whole it provided sufficient notice to the individual officers. See Moore v. City of Harriman, 218 F.3d 551 (6th Cir. 2000). The full Court vacated that decision and granted a rehearing en banc to clarify the pleading requirements for a § 1983 compla......
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Coleman v. Parra
...notes that the Sixth Circuit will soon revisit the issue of pleading individual capacity liability under § 1983. In Moore v. City of Harriman, 218 F.3d 551 (6th Cir. 2000), a panel of that court relied upon the Sixth Circuit case law cited herein and reversed the district court's dismissal ......