Rodriguez v. Smithfield Packing Co., Inc.
| Decision Date | 30 July 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 02-2024.,No. 02-1835.,No. 02-1893.,02-1835.,02-1893.,02-2024. |
| Citation | 338 F.3d 348 |
| Parties | John Rene RODRIGUEZ; Rayshawn Ward, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. SMITHFIELD PACKING COMPANY, INCORPORATED; Daniel M. Priest, Defendants-Appellants, and Lasaven Richardson, in his individual and official capacities as a Bladen County Deputy Sheriff; Terry C. Davis, in his individual and official capacities as a Bladen County Deputy Sheriff; Bryson Robinson, in his individual and official capacities as a Bladen County Deputy Sheriff; Gene Lambert, in his individual and official capacities as a Bladen County Deputy Sheriff; Bladen County Sheriff's Department; Peerless Insurance Company; The Insurance Company of North America, Defendants. John Rene Rodriguez; Rayshawn Ward, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Smithfield Packing Company, Incorporated; Daniel M. Priest, Defendants-Appellees, and Lasaven Richardson, in his individual and official capacities as a Bladen County Deputy Sheriff; Terry C. Davis, in his individual and official capacities as a Bladen County Deputy Sheriff; Bryson Robinson, in his individual and official capacities as a Bladen County Deputy Sheriff; Gene Lambert, in his individual and official capacities as a Bladen County Deputy Sheriff; Bladen County Sheriff's Department; Peerless Insurance Company; The Insurance Company of North America, Defendants. John Rene Rodriguez; Rayshawn Ward, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Daniel M. Priest; Lasaven Richardson, in his individual and official capacities as a Bladen County Deputy Sheriff; Terry C. Davis, in his individual and official capacities as a Bladen County Deputy Sheriff; Bryson Robinson, in his individual and official capacities as a Bladen County Deputy Sheriff; Gene Lambert, in his individual and official capacities as a Bladen County Deputy Sheriff; Bladen County Sheriff's Department, Defendants-Appellants, and [PG] Smithfield Packing Company, Incorporated; Peerless Insurance Company Surety; The Insurance Company of North America, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Earle Duncan Getchell, Jr., McGUIREWOODS, L.L.P., Richmond, Virginia; Andrew John Hanley, CROSSLEY, McINTOSH, PRIOR & COLLIER, Wilmington, North Carolina, for Appellants.
Michael Griffin Okun, PATTERSON, HARKAVY & LAWRENCE, L.L.P., Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellees.
ON BRIEF:
Jeffrey S. Shapiro, Jonathan P. Harmon, McGUIREWOODS, L.L.P., Richmond, Virginia, for Appellants.
Ann E. Groninger, PATTERSON, HARKAVY & LAWRENCE, L.L.P., Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellees.
Before WILKINSON and MOTZ, Circuit Judges, and Robert R. BEEZER, Senior Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting by designation.
Affirmed in part and reversed in part by published opinion. Judge Wilkinson wrote the opinion, in which Judge Diana Gribbon Motz and Senior Judge Beezer joined.
Plaintiffs John Rodriguez and Rayshawn Ward filed suit against Daniel Priest, Smithfield Packing Company, and several members of the Bladen County Sheriff's Department, alleging that they were unlawfully arrested in the wake of a unionization election at a Smithfield Packing facility. After dismissing the Sheriff's Department defendants and some of the claims against Smithfield Packing and Priest, the district court allowed the case to go to trial. The jury found both Priest and Smithfield Packing liable for violating plaintiffs' constitutional rights. Because plaintiffs released Priest and the Sheriff's Department defendants from liability, and because Priest's actions did not constitute official policymaking on behalf of Smithfield Packing, we affirm in part and reverse in part. To do otherwise would transform a private company into a municipal corporation without sufficient justification.
Smithfield Packing operates a pork processing plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina, which is located in Bladen County. Defendant Daniel Priest was Chief of Security at the Tar Heel plant. He had been responsible for setting up the security program at the Tar Heel facility, including hiring the security guards and developing security procedures. On a day to day basis, he was charged with overseeing the plant's twenty-four full-time security guards and protecting Smithfield's employees and assets.
Priest was also affiliated with the Bladen County Sheriff's Department as an auxiliary deputy sheriff — a sworn deputy sheriff who is not on the payroll and works at the discretion of the County Sheriff. As an auxiliary deputy sheriff, Priest had the same legal authority as a full-time deputy, including the power to arrest. The County Sheriff also charged Priest with handling many law enforcement functions on behalf of the Sheriff's Department at the Tar Heel plant, including criminal investigations and the service of civil papers and criminal warrants. This freed up the full-time deputies to handle incidents elsewhere in Bladen County. Priest also performed special assignments for the Sheriff's Department that were unrelated to Smithfield Packing. Priest was at all times, however, in a subordinate role within the Sheriff's Department: he reported to the County Sheriff, was subject to Sheriff's Department regulations, and had no managerial authority over other deputies when they were dispatched to the Tar Heel plant (as they were, on average, three or four times a week when Priest was unavailable).
In 1997, after previous efforts to unionize the workers at the Tar Heel plant had failed, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union began a new organization campaign at the facility. John Rodriguez was an organizer for the union who worked on the Smithfield Packing organization campaign. Rayshawn Ward was a Smithfield employee who served as an election observer on behalf of the union.
At the conclusion of the unionization campaign, the NLRB conducted an election at the Tar Heel Plant in August 1997. On August 22, 1997, the votes were counted in the employee cafeteria. Priest requested the assistance of the Sheriff's Department with security during the count, and the Sheriff sent between eight and ten deputies to the plant. In the cafeteria, there were between 100 and 150 supporters of Smithfield management and between fifteen and twenty representatives of the union. Both Ward and Rodriguez were in the cafeteria during the vote count.
After the votes were counted, it was announced that the union had lost the election. The union representatives were ordered to leave the premises, and they began to walk out. At this point, trouble broke out. While the parties disagree about which side was at fault for the ensuing melee, the facts relevant to our decision are clear. Priest sprayed Ward with pepper spray, kneed him in the back as Ward lay on the ground, handcuffed him, and arrested him. A full-time sheriff's deputy handcuffed Rodriguez and arrested him. Both Ward and Rodriguez were then taken to jail on a series of misdemeanor charges, apparently according to Priest's instructions.1 Ward was charged with two counts of assault, one count of property destruction, and one count of inciting a riot, and Rodriguez was charged with two counts of assault on government officials.
Plaintiffs were represented on their criminal charges by a union attorney, J. Michael McGuinness. McGuinness met with the County Sheriff and suggested that plaintiffs sign a release of civil liability in exchange for a delayed prosecution agreement. McGuinness then met with an Assistant District Attorney and made the same proposal. McGuinness subsequently drafted the releases himself. The release agreements read, in relevant part:
I hereby fully release and forever discharge the Bladen County Sheriff's Department, including but not limited to Sheriff Steve Bunn [and several named sheriff's deputies] ... from all existing claims which I may have against [them] for alleged conduct that occurred on or about August 22, 1997....
I will not initiate any lawsuit, complaint or legal claim against any of the Releasees in any federal, state or any other court or other tribunal for any conduct that occurred on or about August 22, 1997.
Ward signed the release on September 29, 1997, and the prosecution against him was suspended on the same day with the understanding that all charges would be dropped if Ward did not violate any North Carolina laws for the following twelve months. Rodriguez signed the release on October 7, 1997, and his prosecution was then suspended under the same conditions that Ward received.
In August 2000, Ward and Rodriguez filed suit in federal court against the Bladen County Sheriff's Department, the County Sheriff, and several individual sheriff's deputies ("the Sheriff's Department defendants"), as well as Smithfield Packing and Priest. Ward and Rodriguez claimed that defendants had violated the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. Ward and Rodriguez also brought several state law claims, including false arrest, malicious prosecution, and assault and battery. The district court granted summary judgment to the Sheriff's Department defendants on all counts. The district court also granted summary judgment to Priest and Smithfield on all counts except plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment and Equal Protection Clause claims.2
The case then proceeded to trial. After evidence had been presented, the district court granted judgment as a matter of law to the plaintiffs under Fed.R.Civ.P. 50 on two issues, holding that Priest and Smithfield Packing had acted under color of state law on August 22, and that Priest was a final policymaker for Smithfield under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The case was sent to the jury, which found that Priest had violated plaintiffs' constitutional rights. The jury awarded Rodriguez $25,000 in compensatory damages and $130,000 in punitive damages, and awarded Ward $75,000 in compensatory damages and $525,000 in...
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