Morgan v. District of Columbia

• Decision Date: 27 October 1982
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 80-0517.
• Citation: 550 F. Supp. 465
• Parties: Ronald MORGAN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. The DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

550 F. Supp. 465

Ronald MORGAN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. The DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 80-0517.

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

October 27, 1982.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Harry T. Alexander, Washington, D.C., for plaintiffs.

Johnny M. Howard, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Washington, D.C., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

SIRICA, Senior District Judge.

This matter is before the Court on defendants' motion for dismissal and summary judgment. On May 27, 1982 the Court entered an order requiring the plaintiffs to submit more responsive affidavits setting forth the scope of the injuries alleged to have been suffered. The plaintiffs in the present case have levelled a number of different causes of action against the remaining six defendants. These claims arise from two separate incidents occurring in late 1979 and early 1980 when two of the plaintiffs were placed under arrest by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) of the District of Columbia. The first incident involved the arrest of Ronald Morgan on September 11, 1979 for parole and probation violations. The second incident occurred on January 5, 1980 when Linda Bannister Morgan, wife of Ronald Morgan, was arrested while exiting a courtroom in the Superior Court where her husband was on trial for his violations. Plaintiffs Ronald and Linda Morgan, both personally and as representatives of their two children, have filed suit against the three arresting officers, the District of Columbia, the Mayor of the District of Columbia, and the Chief of Police of the District. Although the amended complaint is not a model of clarity this Court construes the plaintiffs' claims to allege at least six separate federal claims along with four common law torts. For simplicity's sake, the Court will, on the defendants' motion to dismiss, address each cause of action separately and consider how each cause of action affects particular defendants.

To begin with, several of plaintiffs' legal claims can be dismissed as patently frivolous. For example, plaintiffs, in their "jurisdictional statement," allege a cause of action under the federal Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 701 et seq. How federal administrative procedures relate to plaintiffs' allegations is beyond imagination, even if the former federal defendants had remained in the case. Similarly, a cause of action is alleged under 42 U.S.C. § 1981. How plaintiffs' allegedly false arrest can be considered either a racially discriminatory action on a contract or a discriminatory effort to deny plaintiffs their rights "to sue, be parties, give evidence, ... and enjoy equal benefit of all laws and proceedings" cannot be discovered on the record before the Court. Plaintiffs have made no allegation of an attempt by the defendants to impair their legal rights to equal and full access to means of legal recourse. Therefore, this Court must dismiss those parts of plaintiffs' complaint that depend on either 5 U.S.C. §§ 701 et seq. or 42 U.S.C. § 1981. The four remaining federal causes of action require more serious treatment.

As the Court interprets the plaintiffs' amended complaint, these four claims are: 1) a deprivation of plaintiffs' civil rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983; 2) a conspiracy by the defendants to so deprive plaintiffs under § 1985(3); a direct constitutional violation of plaintiffs' rights to the equal protection of the laws; and 4) a direct constitutional violation of plaintiffs' rights to due process of law. Each federal cause of action will be considered in turn.

This Court, mindful of the instructions of the Supreme Court in Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 684, 66 S.Ct. 773, 776, 90 L.Ed. 939 (1946) and Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388, 396, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 2004, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971), has purposely placed plaintiffs' alleged constitutional injuries in their most favorable light. Nevertheless, the present plaintiffs are not pro se litigants. Their retained counsel are within the Supreme Court's statement that the "party who brings a suit is master to decide what law he will rely on ...." Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 681, 66 S.Ct. 773, 775, 90 L.Ed. 939 (1946) (quoting The Fair v. Kohler Die Co., 228 U.S. 22, 25, 33 S.Ct. 410, 411, 57 L.Ed. 716 (1913) ). Therefore, this Court will not include direct fourth and sixth amendment claims in this case when the plaintiffs themselves have failed to do so. Attention to the pleadings in this case demonstrates the great lengths this Court has already traveled in order to pass upon plaintiffs' alleged constitutional injuries.

While the Court is uncertain whether a direct private cause of action for damages can be implied for denials of equal protection, the Supreme Court, in Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228, 234, 99 S.Ct. 2264, 2271, 60 L.Ed.2d 846 (1979), clearly stated that the Due Process Clause of the fifth amendment can be so enforced. More importantly, the Passman Court stated that "the equal protection component of the Due Process Clause thus confers on petitioner a federal right to be free from gender discrimination ...." Id. 442 U.S. at 235, 99 S.Ct. at 2271. Whether the Court intended to indicate favor for the notion of a private right of action for the equal protection clause, arguably an even broader and less well defined clause than the due process clause of the fifth amendment, is not precisely clear from the case. This Court has determined, however, that at least as to some defendants, this thorny issue need not be reached.

The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has recently handed down its opinion in the case of Boykin v. District of Columbia, 689 F.2d 1092 (D.C. Cir.1982). In Boykin, the circuit court made it clear that the holding of the Supreme Court in Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978) was equally applicable to Bivens -type actions. That is to say, the doctrine of respondeat superior is not available to plaintiffs in suits brought under either 42 U.S.C. § 1983 or under Bivens. Significant in this respect is the fact that the Boykin court relied in great part on the well reasoned opinion of a panel of this circuit in Tarpley v. Greene, 684 F.2d 1 (D.C.Cir.1982) which had come to a similar conclusion. In this regard the Court observes that the plaintiffs have not made any allegation that the conduct of the police officers in question here was undertaken pursuant to an official or unofficial custom or policy of the Metropolitan Police Department. See Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U.S. 362, 371, 96 S.Ct. 598, 604, 46 L.Ed.2d 561 (1976); Leite v. City of Providence, 463 F.Supp. 585 (D.R.I.1978) ("deliberate indifference" minimum threshold for municipal attributed liability).¹ As a result, this Court must dismiss plaintiffs' § 1983 and direct constitutional claims for damages as they apply to defendants whose liability rests on a theory of respondeat superior. Therefore, the Bivens -type and § 1983 claims against the District of Columbia, Chief of Police Turner, and Mayor Barry must be dismissed for failure to state a claim for which relief may be granted.

The three remaining individual defendants under the Bivens and § 1983 claims are the three police officers who actually conducted the arrests which inspired this case. One of the police officers, Officer Hodges, has not been alleged to have been a participant in the incident of January 5, 1980 in the plaintiffs' complaint. Amended Complaint, ¶ 17. Accordingly, the only basis for defendant Hodges' liability under § 1983 in the present case stems from his alleged participation in the prior incident on September 11, 1979. This Court further observes that, although plaintiffs allege a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1985 requiring, among other things, proof of a conspiracy, the only allegation in the complaint proffering a conspiratorial role for Officer Hodges relates to his participation in the arrest of Ronald Morgan on September 11, 1979. This Court is unable to interpret the pleadings of the plaintiffs to allege that Officer Hodges was in any sense a co-conspirator with the other two officers who arrested Linda Morgan on January 5, 1980. Because of the Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia v. Carter, 409 U.S. 418, 93 S.Ct. 602, 34 L.Ed.2d 613 (1973), however, § 1983 has been interpreted to not reach the District of Columbia or its officials for causes of actions arising prior to December 29, 1979. See Boykin at 1094 n. 6. Therefore, at least as to Officer Hodges, the complaint fails to state a cause of action under § 1983 for which relief could be granted.

In short, as to plaintiffs' Bivens and § 1983 claims, the § 1983 claims can only lie against defendant Officers Exum and Skipper for their conduct on January 5, 1980. Plaintiffs' Bivens claims, on the other hand, can be asserted against all three police officers, District of Columbia v. Carter, 409 U.S. 418, 433, 93 S.Ct. 602, 610, 34 L.Ed.2d 613 (1973), for their individual involvement to the extent that a Bivens claim can be propounded on these facts. Of course, the officers can only be held liable in their individual capacity on the Bivens-type claims.

The plaintiffs' claim for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), however, requires a different analysis. In the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Carter, 409 U.S. 418, 93 S.Ct. 602, 34 L.Ed.2d 613 (1973), the availability of a cause of action against District of Columbia officials under 42 U.S.C. 1985(3) has remained unsettled. In Carter, the Supreme Court held that § 1983 actions could not be asserted against District of Columbia officials because the statute only reached officials of "every State or Territory." In arriving at this conclusion, the Supreme Court compared § 1983 actions with those pursued under 42 U.S.C. § 1982. In an extensive examination of the legislative history of these two statutes the Court found that despite similar...