Robinson v. City of Mount Rainier

• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland
• Writing for the Court: GEORGE J. HAZEL United States District Judge
• Decision Date: 31 March 2021
• Docket Number: Case No.: GJH-20-2246
• Citation: Robinson v. City of Mount Rainier, Case No.: GJH-20-2246 (D. Md. Mar 31, 2021)
• Parties: CHARNETTE I. ROBINSON, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF MOUNT RAINIER, et al., Defendants.

CHARNETTE I. ROBINSON, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF MOUNT RAINIER, et al., Defendants.

Case No.: GJH-20-2246

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND Southern Division

March 31, 2021

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Plaintiff Charnette I. Robinson brings this civil action against Defendants City of Mount Rainier, Malinda Miles, Celina Mendez Benitez, Luke Chesek, Bryan Knedler, Shivali Shah, and Miranda Braatz for violations of her First Amendment rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Count I, against the individual defendants, and Count V, against the City of Mount Rainier), defamation (Count II), violations of the Maryland Public Information Act, MD. CODE ANN., GEN. PROV. §§ 4-101-4-601(Count III), conspiracy under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Count IV), and violations of Articles 19 and 40 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights (Count VI). ECF No. 2-1. Pending before the Court are Defendants' Motions to Dismiss, ECF Nos. 4, 7, 21.¹ No hearing is necessary. See Loc. R. 105.6 (D. Md. 2018). For the following reasons, Defendants' Motions to Dismiss are granted, in part, and denied, in part.

I. BACKGROUND²

A. Plaintiff's Public Information Requests—Police Department

Plaintiff Charnette I. Robinson has lived in the city of Mount Rainier, a municipality in Prince George's County, Maryland that borders Washington, D.C., since 1993. ECF No. 2-1 ¶ 3, 12. She retired as a Commander with the Metropolitan Police Department in 2018 after thirty-two years of service. Id. ¶ 12. Plaintiff alleges that she has had ongoing conversations with former Police Chief Michael Scott, Captain Jimmy Scoots, and Mount Rainier Mayor Malinda Miles regarding the treatment of Mount Rainier youth by the Mount Rainier Police Department. Id. ¶ 13. In 2017, while Chief Scott was still serving in his position, Plaintiff obtained crime statistics and arrest rates from him showing that the vast majority of the Department's arrestees were African American. Id. ¶ 14. On July 12, 2018, after Chief Scott retired, Plaintiff requested additional crime and arrest statistics from Acting Chief Stephen O'Malley ("Request #1"), but despite initially stating that he would make them available, he refused to provide them. Id. ¶¶ 15-16.³

Following this refusal, on August 14, 2018, Plaintiff submitted a public information request⁴ ("Request #2") to the Mount Rainier Board of Elections for arrest statistics and stop-and-frisk reports from January 2015 through July 12, 2018. Id. ¶ 17; see also id. at 18.⁵ On thesame day, she sent another MPIA request ("Request #3") to the Office of the City Manager for information about the Mount Rainier Police Department, including:

1. The name, rank, and position of all members of the department "prior to and after July 1, 2018";

2. The name of any employee that received a raise "prior to and after July 1, 2018";

3. "Copies of any grievances filed by Mount Rainier Police Officers prior to July 1, 2018" as well as "[c]opies of any agreements/settlements reached with said grieved employees after July 1, 2018" and "[c]opies of any meetings/minutes between the City Manager" and those grieved officers prior to July 1, 2018;

4. Copies of any resignation letters from officers before July 1, 2018; and

5. "Copies of all employee's starting salaries, pay scales, raises, performance evaluations and justification for raises" from September 2016 through July 2018.

Id. ¶ 17; id. at 20. Plaintiff requested fee waivers in both requests, stating "the disclosure of the requested information is in the public interest and will contribute significantly to the public's understanding of election practices," regarding the first request, and the "to the public's understanding of handling of employee grievances and settlements," for the second. Id. ¶ 18; id. at 18, 20.

On September 14, 2018, Defendant Miranda Braatz—then-City Manager of the City of Mount Rainier, see id. ¶ 9—responded to Plaintiff regarding Request #3. Id. at 22-23. Enclosed with her response were "[c]opies of all employees' . . . pay scales . . . beginning September 2016 to July 2018." Id. at 23 (ellipses in original). Defendant Braatz denied Plaintiff's requests for other categories of information, stating they constituted personnel records not subject to disclosure under MD. CODE ANN., GEN. PROV. § 4-311 or that the City did not have responsive records. Id. at 23. Finally, with respect to several of Plaintiff's other requests, she explained, "[t]he production of responsive records . . . will require an extensive search of City personnel and finance records" and "redaction of confidential information by the City Attorney." Id. at 22. Defendant Braatz further stated, "[w]e anticipate that locating the responsive records will take at least 50 hours of search time by the Human Resources Director or Police Chief at an hourly rateof $40," and requested $1,920.00 "to begin the search." Id.; see also id. ¶ 18. Defendant denied Plaintiff's fee waiver request, stating that she had "not demonstrated an inability to pay the cost" and that "the City is not aware of broad public interest or demand for the detailed information you are seeking." Id. at 23.

On November 2, 2018, Plaintiff sent a request to the Office of the City Manager for the uniformed crime reports and calls for service for the Mount Rainier Police Department for 2017 and 2018 ("Request #4"), again asking that the information be provided "at no charge." Id. ¶ 19; id. at 25. On November 6, 2018, she submitted another request ("Request #5") to the Office of the City Manager for the following information for the time period between July 1, 2018, and November 1, 2018:

1. Police officers' schedules;

2. The number of officers on patrol;

3. "Documentation of all assignments received and handles on each tour of duty and final disposition;"

4. Stop-and-frisk reports; and

5. "Documentation of the number of vehicles ticketed for violation of reciprocity."

Id. ¶ 19; id. at 27. Request #5 did not include a fee waiver request. See id. at 27. Finally, on December 12, 2018, Plaintiff sent a request for "various police records" ("Request #6"). Id. ¶ 20. She did not include a copy of the request with her Complaint but, based on City Attorney Kenneth Sigman's response on January 4, 2019, it appears the request was identical to Request #5. See id. at 29.

In his response to Request #6, Mr. Sigman stated that "some responsive records" existed for the first category in her request, regarding officers' schedules. Id. "No responsive records" existed with respect to the second category—the number of officers assigned to patrol. Id. Regarding the third category, "assignments received and handled," Mr. Sigman stated, "[w]e will have to develop a report that extracts the requested information from a database." Id. Finally,with respect to the final two categories, he said the information would "require an extensive search of electronic and paper records by Police Department staff and the City's IT contractor" as well as "review of the responsive records and redaction of confidential information by the City Attorney," estimated to take 26 hours of staff time at a cost of $1,500. Id. at 30. Mr. Sigman instructed Plaintiff that she would need to pay that amount if she wished for them to proceed with the search. Id.

B. Plaintiff's Public Information Requests—Elected Officials

On July 12, 2018—the day she made Request #1 to Acting Chief Stephen O'Malley but before Requests #2-6 were submitted—Plaintiff made a "telephonic request" for information related to the "administration, duties and responsibilities of the current Ethics Board" ("Request #7") and was told the request was conveyed to Defendant Braatz. Id. at 32; see also id. ¶ 22. Based on a letter drafted by Plaintiff on August 14, 2018, and attached to the Complaint, it appears Request #7 included:

1. Names and dates of terms of "all members that served on the Ethics Board from 2013 to present";

2. "Copies of all complaints and information" the Ethics Board handled during that time;

3. "Copy of all training provided to the Ethics Board members";

4. Guidelines provided to the Ethics Board from the City Manager; and

5. Minutes from meetings between the Ethics Board and City manager.

See id. at 32.

In the Complaint, Plaintiff alleges that she received a response on July 16, 2018, when Defendant Braatz informed her that the terms for the Ethics Commission had expired. Id. ¶ 22. However, in the August 14, 2018 letter attached to her Complaint, Plaintiff states that she received an email from Defendant Braatz on July 16, 2018 "advising that the council was awareof the situation with the Ethics Board and that they would be addressing this matter during their September session." Id. at 33.

According to Plaintiff, "due to the rebuffs" she received "in response to her requests for police records and data"—presumably meaning Request #1, as that was the only request related to the police department that had been filed at the time—she decided to file an ethics complaint with the City of Mount Rainier Ethics Commission. Id. ¶ 22.⁶ On August 14, 2018, Plaintiff sent a complaint to the Mayor and City Council, raising not only Plaintiff's concerns with Acting Police Chief Stephen O'Malley's failure to respond to Request #1, but also Defendant Braatz's failure to respond to Request #7. Id. ¶ 23; id. at 32-34.⁷

On January 8, 2019, the City Council voted in five new members of the Ethics Commission after accepting resumes for the positions. Id. ¶ 24. The names of those who had submitted resumes, as well as the resumes themselves, were given out at a Council Meeting on November 27, 2018.⁸ Id. ¶ 26. However, Plaintiff alleges that one individual ultimately chosen for the Ethics Commission, Devon Brown, was not named at that meeting, and his resume was not distributed. Id. ¶¶ 24, 26.

On January 11, 2019, Plaintiff sent another request to the Office of the City Manager ("Request #8") asking for information related to the Ethics Commission and the selection process,...