Rogers v. Louisville-Winston Cnty. Airport Auth.

• Decision Date: 31 March 2015
• Docket Number: CIVIL ACTION NO.: 1:13-CV-00197-SA-DAS
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Mississippi
• Parties: TIM ROGERS PLAINTIFF v. LOUISVILLE-WINSTON COUNTY AIRPORT AUTHORITY, AND MICHAEL FORSTER, SAM SUTTLE, BEN KIRK, WILLIAM COOPER, JOEY PARTRIDGE, ROBERT LLOYD, MARK DONALD AND TROY WARD, IN THEIR INDIVIDUAL CAPACITIES DEFENDANTS

TIM ROGERS PLAINTIFF v. LOUISVILLE-WINSTON COUNTY AIRPORT AUTHORITY,AND MICHAEL FORSTER, SAM SUTTLE, BEN KIRK,WILLIAM COOPER, JOEY PARTRIDGE, ROBERT LLOYD,MARK DONALD AND TROY WARD,

IN THEIR INDIVIDUAL CAPACITIES DEFENDANTS

CIVIL ACTION NO.: 1:13-CV-00197-SA-DAS

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF MISSISSIPPI ABERDEEN DIVISION

March 31, 2015

MEMORANDUM OPINION

This cause comes before the Court on the Motion for Summary Judgment [22] filed by Defendants William Cooper, Ben Kirk, and Robert Lloyd. Defendants Mark Donald, Michael Forster, Joey Partridge, Sam Suttle, and Troy Ward have joined in the motion [28]. Upon due consideration of the motion, responses, rules, and authorities, the Court finds as follows:

Factual and Procedural Background

In October 2010, Plaintiff Tim Rogers approached Commissioners of the Louisville-Winston County Airport Authority ("LWCAA") and inquired about leasing a hangar for an airplane he planned to purchase. Rogers was offered hangar space but claims that the proposed space was unsuitable because it was too small for his airplane. Over the course of the next two years, Rogers claims that he continued to request suitable hangar space but was denied by the Commissioners, despite adequate hangars being available. Rogers eventually entered into a lease agreement for the rental of hangar space in October 2012, but alleges that his airplane was damaged during the interim period of time that the Commissioners refused to rent him one of the available hangars.

Rogers filed suit in this Court pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that Defendants violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process and equal protection. The individual Defendants now seek the dismissal of Plaintiff's claims against them based on the doctrine of qualified immunity. These issues now being ripe for review, the Court is ready to rule.

Summary Judgment Standard

Summary judgment is warranted under Rule 56(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure when the evidence reveals no genuine dispute regarding any material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The rule "mandates the entry of summary judgment, after adequate time for discovery and upon motion, against a party who fails to make a showing sufficient to establish the existence of an element essential to that party's case, and on which that party will bear the burden of proof at trial." Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322, 106 S. Ct. 2548, 91 L. Ed. 2d 265 (1986).

The party moving for summary judgment "bears the initial responsibility of informing the district court of the basis for its motion, and identifying those portions of [the record] which it believes demonstrate the absence of a genuine issue of material fact." Id. at 323, 106 S. Ct. 2548. The nonmoving party must then "go beyond the pleadings" and "designate 'specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.'" Id. at 324, 106 S. Ct. 2548 (citation omitted). In reviewing the evidence, factual controversies are to be resolved in favor of the nonmovant, "but only when . . . both parties have submitted evidence of contradictory facts." Little v. Liquid Air Corp., 37 F.3d 1069, 1075 (5th Cir.1994) (en banc). However, conclusory allegations, speculation, unsubstantiated assertions, and legalistic arguments have never constituted an adequate substitute for specific facts showing a genuine issue for trial. TIG Ins. Co. v. SedgwickJames of Wash., 276 F.3d 754, 759 (5th Cir. 2002); SEC v. Recile, 10 F.3d 1093, 1097 (5th Cir. 1997); Little, 37 F.3d at 1075.

Analysis and Discussion

Qualified Immunity

"The doctrine of qualified immunity protects government officials from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231, 129 S. Ct. 808, 172 L. Ed. 2d 565 (2009) (internal quotations omitted). "[Q]ualified immunity is an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability." Id., 129 S. Ct. 808 (internal quotations omitted). Once a government official asserts qualified immunity, it is the plaintiff's burden to prove that he is not entitled to it. Michalik v. Hermann, 422 F.3d 252, 258 (5th Cir. 2005).

In evaluating qualified immunity, the Court employs a two-step process. The Court must determine whether the plaintiff has alleged a violation of a clearly established constitutional right and whether the government official's conduct was objectively reasonable under the law at the time of the incident. Id. at 257-58. "To be clearly established, a right must be sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right." Reichle v. Howards, --- U.S. ---, 132 S. Ct. 2088, 2093, 182 L. Ed. 2d 985 (2012) (internal quotations omitted). In conducting this analysis, the Court may address these issues in any order according to its sound discretion and in light of the circumstances of the case at hand. Pearson, 555 U.S. at 236, 129 S. Ct. 808.Substantive Due Process Claim

Rogers contends the individual Defendants violated his right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment by irrationally denying him access to public services. Though the Complaint [1] quotes a Mississippi statute when describing Rogers' due process claim against the individual Defendants,¹ Rogers argues in response to the pending motion that he "bases his due process claim directly on his Fourteenth Amendment right to access government services without an irrational and illegitimate deprivation of such access." Rogers claims that this

right of a citizen to be free from the denial of access to a public service based on discriminatory treatment at the hands of [a] public official, where that official lacks any rational basis for such treatment or harbors personal animus against the citizen, was clearly established by Olech in 2000 and expounded on by Mikeska and Lindquist, in 2006 and 2008 respectively . . . .

However, Village of Willowbrook v. Olech dealt exclusively with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and did not address whether citizens had a constitutional right to access public services. 528 U.S. 562, 563-65, 120 S. Ct. 1073, 145 L. Ed. 2d 1060 (2000) (per curiam). Similarly, the Fifth Circuit did not address in Mikeska v. City of Galveston whether the plaintiffs had a constitutionally protected right to access public utility services, as Rogers claims. 451 F.3d 376, 379 (5th Cir. 2006) ("The district court held that the appellants have a constitutionally protected right in their homes and in access to public utility services, a decision that the City does not seek to disturb on appeal."). And in Lindquist v. City of Pasadena, Tex., the Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the plaintiffs' substantive due process claims without addressing the alleged constitutional right. 525 F.3d 383, 387-88 (5th Cir. 2008).

The Court finds the Fifth Circuit's reasoning in Lindquist to be particularly applicable to the case at bar. There, the Fifth Circuit held that the plaintiffs' due process claim was simply their "equal protection claim recast in substantive due process terms" and therefore that it could not proceed. Id. (citing County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 842, 118 S. Ct. 1708, 140 L. Ed. 2d 1043 (1998) ("[W]here a particular Amendment provides an explicit textual source of constitutional protection against a particular sort of government behavior, that Amendment, not the more generalized notion of substantive due process, must be the guide for analyzing these claims.") (citation omitted); Willis v. Town of Marshall, 426 F.3d 251, 266 (4th Cir. 2005) ("Because Willis's substantive due process claim thus 'fully overlaps' her Equal Protection claim, the district court properly rejected the due process claim.") (citation omitted)).

Notably, Rogers sets forth his argument that he had a clearly established right to access public services in defense of his equal protection claim and then merely relies upon the same authority and arguments to support his due process claim. Thus, as in Lindquist and Willis, the Court finds that Rogers' substantive due process and equal protection claims fully overlap, and his due process claim must be dismissed.

Equal Protection

In response to the pending motion, Rogers clarifies that his claims against the Defendants for violations of his right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment are based on a "class of one" theory of discrimination. See Village of Willowbrook, 528 U.S. at 564, 120 S. Ct. 1073. "To be a 'class of one,' the plaintiff must establish (1) he was intentionally treated differently from others similarly situated and (2) there was no rational basis for any such difference." Wilson v. Birnberg, 667 F.3d 591, 599 (5th Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

The Fifth Circuit has recognized that "[t]he legal requirement that a class-of-one plaintiff's comparators be 'similarly situated' is not a requirement susceptible to rigid, mechanical application - '[t]here is no precise formula to determine whether an individual is similarly situated to comparators.'" Lindquist v. City of Pasadena, Tex., 669 F.3d 225, 233 (5th Cir. 2012) (quoting McDonald v. Vill. of Winnetka, 371 F.3d 992, 1002 (7th Cir. 2004)). Rather, "'the degree to which others are viewed as similarly situated' necessarily will depend 'substantially on the facts and context of the case.'" Id. at 234 (quoting Jennings v. City of Stillwater, 383 F.3d 1199, 1214 (10th Cir. 2004)). "In short, the inquiry is case-specific and requires [the Court] to consider 'the full variety of factors that an objectively reasonable . . . decisionmaker would have found relevant in making the challenged decision.'" Id. (quoting Griffin Indus., Inc. v. Irvin, 496 F.3d 1189, 1203 (11th Cir. 2007)).

Here,...