Muzquiz v. City of San Antonio

• Decision Date: 08 October 1975
• Docket Number: No. 74-3177,74-3177
• Parties: Raymond MUZQUIZ et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CITY OF SAN ANTONIO et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 993

520 F.2d 993

Raymond MUZQUIZ et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CITY OF SAN ANTONIO et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 74-3177.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Oct. 8, 1975.

Kermitt L. Waters, Las Vegas, Nev., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Harvey L. Hardy, San Antonio, Tex., for defendants-appellees.

Edgar A. Pfeil, Asst. City Atty., San Antonio, Tex., for City of San Antonio.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas.

Before TUTTLE, GODBOLD and MORGAN, Circuit Judges:

TUTTLE, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiffs are former San Antonio policemen and firemen who challenge the operation of the city's Firemen's and Policemen's Pension Fund. The remaining defendants are the Pension Fund Board of Trustees and its members as individual party defendants. Pursuant to Article 6243f of Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes the city of San Antonio maintains a pension fund to which all policemen and firemen are obliged to contribute a portion of their salaries. The pension fund provides death and disability benefits for officers injured in the line of duty, and provides retirement benefits. Should an officer leave public employment before he is eligible for any of these benefits, however, the Act specifically provides:

"(N)o member of either of said Departments or of said Fund shall ever be entitled to any refund from said Fund on account of the money deducted from that amount of their pay . . . which money is in itself declared to be public money, and the property of said Fund for the benefit of the members qualifying for benefits, and their beneficiaries."

Article 6243f, § 19. The plaintiffs filed this class action seeking a refund of the amounts they contributed while they were serving as policemen or firemen in San Antonio. ¹

The district court granted defendants' motion for summary judgment, holding that the no-refund provisions of Article 6243f were constitutional. The plaintiffs appeal.

I. JURISDICTION

The plaintiffs primarily assert jurisdiction under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and its jurisdictional counterpart 28 U.S.C. § 1343. ² Section 1983 provides:

"Every person who, under color of any statute . . . of any State, . . . subjects . . . any citizen of the United States . . . to the deprivation of any rights . . . secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in any action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceedings for redress."

The Supreme Court has held that the term "person" as it is used in § 1983 does not include municipal corporations, Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961); City of Kenosha v. Bruno, 412 U.S. 507, 93 S.Ct. 2222, 37 L.Ed.2d 109 (1973). Relying on Kenosha the district court dismissed the City of San Antonio as a party, but found that jurisdiction would lie against the Pension Fund and its individual board members.

Although the issue is not raised by the briefs of either party, the correctness of the trial court's determination that the Pension Fund Board of Trustees and its individual members are subject to suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, was raised by the parties at oral argument. In any event, since the question touches on the court's jurisdiction, we consider that it should be disposed of.

The Pension Fund Board of Trustees and the named individuals comprising the Board contend, in a word, that they are immune from suit under § 1983 because they are not "persons", since they are performing governmental functions and that the reasoning by which the Supreme Court in Monroe, supra, arrived at the decision that the term "every person" in § 1983 did not comprehend a city, and, later, in Moor v. County of Alameda, did not comprehend a county, requires that actual designated persons acting as trustees of a governmental agency also be held not to be comprehended within the word "person" in this statute.

Neither the Supreme Court nor this Court has thus far limited the scope of § 1983. The most comprehensive discussion of the extension of the Monroe and later Kenosha principle in this Circuit is in Adkins v. Duval County School Board, 511 F.2d 690 (5th Cir., 1975). In that case a plaintiff sued Duval County School Board in its corporate capacity. The opinion stated, as to the issue relevant to the question now before us:

"Two things should be noted to the argument concerning the far-reaching effect of the district court's decision. First, the issue is not whether the school board can be sued. Personal jurisdiction of the defendants is not questioned. We are confronted only with subject matter jurisdiction, i. e., whether a cause of action against a school board recognizable in federal courts was created by § 1983. Second, our responsibility is not to decide whether Congress could or should establish such a cause of action, or whether a similar cause of action may exist under some other jurisprudence, but whether Congress in fact did direct a § 1983 cause of action against school boards. Unlike constitutional decisions, our determination here can be corrected by Congress itself if it desires another result.

We can find no controlling distinction between a Florida school board, as a governmental entity, and a Florida municipality or a Florida county, that would suggest that Congress would include one within the purview of the statute, and not the other two. All three find authority for their existence in the Florida Constitution. See F.S.A.Const. Art. VIII, §§ 1 and 2 and Art. IX, § 4. Counties, municipalities and school districts are granted the power in the Constitution to participate in establishing taxes and tax rates for their respective purposes, F.S.A.Const. Art. VII, § 9, which power is exercised by their respective governing bodies. See F.S.A. § 200.011. The legislature has provided each with significant governmental power with which to operate for its respective purposes. See F.S.A. § 125.001 et seq. (counties); F.S.A. § 165.01 et seq. (municipalities); F.S.A. § 230.01 et seq. (school districts).

In an exercise of legislative discretion the Florida legislature has chosen to designate the school board as a 'body corporate' for all purposes, including institution and defense of suits involving official action. See F.S.A. § 230.21. It has similarly chosen to have the governing authority of a municipality or county generally operate in the name of the county or municipality, including suing and being sued as a 'body corporate'. See F.S.A. §§ 125.15, 165.08. Each of these governmental entities, a school district, a county and a municipality, can operate as an entity only through its designated governing authority, the school board, the county commissioners, and the city council. The fact that the Florida legislature has designated the governmental entity to be sued in its own name in two instances and in the name of the governing authority in the third does not change the character of the suit. The suit, however styled, is against the governmental subdivision itself in each case.

We have recently held that the various arms of state government, such as the Department of Highways, are not 'persons' within the meaning of § 1983, Cheramie v. Tucker, 493 F.2d 586, 587-588 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 868, 95 S.Ct. 126, 42 L.Ed.2d 107 (1974). That decision would seem to follow logically from Monroe, Moor, and Kenosha. All of those precedents dealt specifically with political subdivisions of a state, i. e., municipalities and counties. If the subdivisions of a state were not 'persons' under § 1983, the state itself was obviously not such a 'person' and therefore, the entities through which the state functions should be excluded. An analysis of the approach taken by the Supreme Court in Kenosha and Monroe, and that Court's expression of what it views the legislative intent to have been when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1871, seems to require the conclusion that § 1983 was similarly not directed at county school boards."

In the Adkins case, the opinion also said: "We have recently decided that a Texas school district which 'under Texas law, is in the nature of a municipality' (emphasis added) is not a 'person' as that term is used in § 1983. Sterzing v. Fort Bend Independent School District, 496 F.2d 92, 93 n.2 (5th Cir. 1974)".

It is, thus, apparent that our inquiry here is whether the San Antonio Police and Firemen's Pension Fund Board of Trustees has such duties, powers, and purposes as would make it of "the nature of a municipality". If so, then the Board of Trustees cannot be sued under § 1983. If not, then it can. ³ While the determination whether the Police and Firemen's Pension Fund Board of Trustees is a "person" within the meaning of § 1983, is a question of federal law, See Monroe v. Pape, supra, 365 U.S. at 187-192, 81 S.Ct. 473, the Court must look to the state law to determine the powers and duties and purpose of the entity created. The purposes of this fund are set out above. The City of San Antonio, pursuant to Art. 6243f of Vernon's Civil Statutes maintains a pension fund to which all policemen and firemen are obliged to contribute a portion of their salaries. The named defendants are the trustees of this fund. The Board possesses none of the broad governmental powers which we held to be controlling in Adkins v. Duval County School Board. It is not responsible for any broad governmental function, thereby serving the public interest. As statutory trustees, the Board members are responsible only to the beneficiaries of the trust. In sum, while § 21 of Art. 6243f provides that the City of San Antonio is obliged to pay any deficiencies between the money procured under the Act and benefits paid, nonetheless, the Board of Trustees functions as a group of statutory trustees rather than as a governmental body; it partakes of no uniquely governmental responsibilities: it only administers the trust fund. Although not binding on this Court, we think the decision of...