Schifanelli v. Queen Anne's Cnty. Bd. of Comm'rs

• Docket Number: 21-1942
• Decision Date: 09 June 2023
• Parties: GORDANA SCHIFANELLI, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, Defendant-Appellee, and MICHAEL CLARK, in his official and individual capacity; MATTHEW EVANS, in his official and individual capacity; CHRISTINE BETLEY, in her official and individual capacity; QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY LOCAL MANAGEMENT BOARD, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

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GORDANA SCHIFANELLI, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, Defendant-Appellee, and MICHAEL CLARK, in his official and individual capacity; MATTHEW EVANS, in his official and individual capacity; CHRISTINE BETLEY, in her official and individual capacity; QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY LOCAL MANAGEMENT BOARD, Defendants.

No. 21-1942

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit

June 9, 2023

UNPUBLISHED

Submitted: February 17, 2023

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. George L. Russell, III, District Judge. (1:20-cv-02906-GLR)

ON BRIEF:

Marc D. Schifanelli, Stevensville, Maryland, for Appellant.

Matthew D. Peter, Hanover, Maryland, for Appellee.

Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, and DIAZ and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

PER CURIAM

Gordana Schifanelli filed an amended complaint asserting multiple claims against the Queen Anne's County Board of Commissioners ("the County Board") and Michael Clark, in his individual capacity and in his official capacity as Director of the Queen Anne's County Local Management Board. The district court dismissed the entire amended complaint, but Schifanelli challenges only the district court's dismissal of her claim that the County Board violated her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983. We affirm.

"We review de novo a district court's decision to grant a motion to dismiss" under Fed. R. Crim. P. 12(b)(6) and "[w]hen doing so, we accept the factual allegations of the complaint as true and construe them in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party." Corder v. Antero Res. Corp., 57 F.4th 384, 401 (4th Cir. 2023) (internal quotation marks omitted). "To survive a motion to dismiss, the complaint's factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level-that is, the complaint must contain enough facts to state a claim for relief that is plausible on its face." Bass v. Weinstein Mgmt. Co., 56 F.4th 355, 360-61 (4th Cir. 2022) (internal quotation marks omitted). "Labels, conclusions, recitation of a claim's elements, and naked assertions devoid of further factual enhancement will not suffice." ACA Fin. Guar. Corp v. City of Buena Vista, 917 F.3d 206, 211 (4th Cir. 2019). Rather, "[t]o contain sufficient factual matter to make a claim plausible, the factual content must allow the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Id. at 212 (internal quotation marks omitted).

A local government body, like the County Board, cannot be held liable under § 1983 for alleged acts of its employees under a respondeat superior theory. Monell v. Dep't of Soc Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 692-94 (1978). Instead, "it is when execution of a government's policy or custom, whether made by its lawmakers or by those whose edicts or acts may fairly be said to represent official policy, inflicts the injury that the government as an entity is responsible under § 1983." Id. at 694; see Starbuck v. Williamsburg James City Cnty. Sch. Bd., 28 F.4th 529, 532-33 (4th Cir. 2022) ("Monell permits suits against a municipality for a federal constitutional deprivation only when the municipality undertook the allegedly unconstitutional action pursuant to an official policy or custom." (internal quotation marks omitted)).

While municipal liability under § 1983 attaches only to action taken pursuant to an official municipal policy or custom "it is plain that municipal liability may be imposed for a single decision by municipal policymakers under appropriate circumstances." Pembaur v. City of Cincinnati, 475 U.S. 469, 480 (1986). "Relying on this precedent," we have "held that a government policy or custom need not have received formal approval through the municipality's official decisionmaking channels to subject the municipality to liability." Hunter v. Town of Mocksville, 897 F.3d 538, 554 (4th Cir. 2018) (cleaned up). Nor is it necessary for an official policy to "be broadly applicable to factual circumstances likely to be repeated." Id. Rather, "we have recognized that a governmental unit may create an official policy by making a single decision regarding a course of action in response to particular circumstances so long as that governmental unit possessed final authority to create official policy." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus...