Slaybaugh v. Rutherford Cnty.
| Docket Number | 3:23-cv-00057 |
| Decision Date | 24 August 2023 |
| Parties | MOLLIE SLAYBAUGH and MICHAEL SLAYBAUGH, Plaintiffs, v. RUTHERFORD COUNTY, TENNESSEE, RUTHERFORD COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT, and THE TOWN OF SMYRNA, TENNESSEE, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of Tennessee |
Plaintiffs Mollie Slaybaugh and Michael Slaybaugh bring a Complaint (Doc. No. 1) asserting claims both directly under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, based upon a violation of their rights pursuant to the Takings Clause (Count I), and under article 1, section 21 of the Tennessee Constitution (Count II). Their claims are premised upon the substantial damage inflicted on their home by law enforcement officers during the apprehension and arrest of their adult son for homicide. Now before the court are the Motions to Dismiss the plaintiffs' Complaint filed by (1) defendant the Town of Smyrna, Tennessee (the “Town”) (Doc. No. 14) and (2) defendants Rutherford County, Tennessee (“County”) and the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department (“RCSD”) (Doc. No. 21). For the reasons set forth herein, the motions will be granted.
According to the plaintiffs' account of events as set forth in the Complaint, which the court accepts as true for purposes of the defendants' Motions to Dismiss, the Slaybaughs are residents of Rutherford County, Tennessee and the owners of a home located in Smyrna, within Rutherford County. On January 23, 2022, Mollie Slaybaugh's adult son, James Jackson Conn, who resided elsewhere, asked to visit her at the plaintiffs' home for a few days. Ms. Slaybaugh agreed. Conn apparently entered the home at that time. It appears that Mr. Slaybaugh was not at home.
Later that evening, while preparing for bed, Ms. Slaybaugh noticed two police cars parked at her neighbor's house, and she opened her front door to “check on her neighbor.” (Doc. No. 1 ¶ 15.) She was met at her front door by a police officer-with a drawn gun-who instructed her to come out of the house. Ms. Slaybaugh realized at this point that there were approximately twenty-five police cars from both the Smyrna Police Department (“SPD”) and the RCSD outside her house.
The police officers, using a loudspeaker, instructed Conn to come out of the house with his hands in the air. He refused to come out. Police officers denied Ms. Slaybaugh's request to go back into her house to try to convince him to come out. She was told that her son was wanted for questioning in connection with a homicide. This was the first time Ms Slaybaugh had heard anything about her son's alleged involvement in a murder.
Officers with the SPD and RCSD stayed outside the house for several hours, while Ms. Slaybaugh spent the night at her daughter's house nearby. The plaintiffs do not allege that any damage occurred to their home during this window of time. Ms. Slaybaugh walked back to her home early the next morning. She encountered a road block set up near her house by law enforcement officers and learned that a warrant for the arrest of her son had been issued. Conn still had not come out of the house. Ms. Slaybaugh again asked and was denied the opportunity to speak to Conn to convince him to leave the house, and she was not permitted to re-enter her home.
The plaintiffs do not provide a time frame for the ensuing events, but they allege that, in the course of executing the arrest warrant,[1] the police caused extensive damage to the exterior and interior of the plaintiffs' home, including by firing approximately thirty-five cannisters of tear gas into the house, which resulted in the plaintiffs having to take the house “down to the studs to repair the damage.” (Doc. No. 1 ¶ 25.) (Id. ¶ 26.) Photos of the home substantiate this assertion. (See Doc. No. 1-1.)
After this incident, the plaintiffs requested that the defendants compensate them for the cost of repairing the damage to their home. The RCSD responded to the request in writing, denying “responsibility for any damage to [the plaintiffs'] home.” (Doc. No. 1-2.) The Town denied the request in a telephone call. The plaintiffs allege that the cost of repairs, to date, has been approximately $70,000.[2] Based on these factual allegations, the plaintiffs assert that the defendants “blew up [their] home for public use.” (Doc. No. 1 ¶ 27.) More specifically, they claim that “[a]pprehending an individual accused of perpetrating a homicide is in the public interest” and that “destroying private property while doing so constitutes a taking for public use,” the cost of which should be “borne by the public, not innocent homeowners who attempted to assist law enforcement.” (Id. ¶ 35.) They assert that the defendants violated their Fifth Amendment right to “just compensation” for the taking of private property for public use when they denied the plaintiffs' requests for compensation.
The plaintiffs bring a claim for the violation of this right directly under the Fifth Amendment as “self-executing,” but they also state a claim through 42 U.S.C. § 1983, based on violation of the same right. (Doc. No. 1 ¶ 37.) In addition, they bring a parallel claim under article 1, section 21 of the Tennessee Constitution. (Id. ¶¶ 39-41.) They seek damages and attorney's fees.
The defendants responded to the Complaint by filing their Motions to Dismiss and supporting Memoranda of Law, which rely on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). (Doc. Nos. 14, 15, 21, 22.) The plaintiffs filed a consolidated Response to both motions (Doc. No. 24), and the defendants filed separate Reply briefs (Doc. Nos. 31, 32.) Following the completion of briefing, the plaintiffs filed a Notice of Supplemental Authority to bring to the court's attention the Sixth Circuit's opinion in Knight v. Metropolitan Government, 67 F.4th 816 (6th Cir. 2023), issued just over a month after the plaintiffs filed their Response.[3]
In ruling on a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), the court must “construe the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, accept all well-pleaded factual allegations in the complaint as true, and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff.” Courtright v. City of Battle Creek, 839 F.3d 513, 518 (6th Cir. 2016). While Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) requires only that a complaint contain “a short and plain statement of the claim,” Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2), “[t]he factual allegations in the complaint need to be sufficient to give notice to the defendant as to what claims are alleged, and the plaintiff must plead ‘sufficient factual matter' to render the legal claim plausible, i.e., more than merely possible.” Fritz v. Charter Twp. of Comstock, 592 F.3d 718, 722 (6th Cir. 2010) (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)).
When presented with a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the court “may consider the Complaint and any exhibits attached thereto, public records, items appearing in the record of the case and exhibits attached to defendant's motion to dismiss so long as they are referred to in the Complaint and are central to the claims contained therein.” Bassett v. Nat'l Collegiate Athletic Ass'n, 528 F.3d 426, 430 (6th Cir. 2008) (citing Amini v. Oberlin Coll., 259 F.3d 493, 502 (6th Cir. 2001)).
The Town argues in support of its motion that (1) the plaintiffs' claim under § 1983 must be dismissed, because the plaintiffs fail to allege that their damages were caused by a specific “policy or custom” of the Town, as required for municipal liability under § 1983 and Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978); (2) the claim brought directly under the Fifth Amendment must be dismissed, because property damage caused by an exercise of police power is not compensable as a Fifth Amendment “taking”; and (3) the claim for the alleged violation of the Tennessee Constitution must be dismissed, because Tennessee does not recognize a private right of action for violations of the state Constitution. (Doc. No. 15.)
In addition to those arguments, the County and the RCSD contend that, contrary to the plaintiffs' assertion, the Fifth Amendment is not “self-executing” and that violations of it can only be brought through § 1983. (Doc. No. 22, at 2.) They also assert that the claims against the RCSD must be dismissed, simply because the RCSD is not an entity capable of being sued. (Id. at 1, 7.)
As the RCSD points out, the “federal district courts in Tennessee have frequently and uniformly held that police departments and sheriff's departments are not proper parties to a § 1983 suit.” Mathes v. Metro. Gov't, No. 3:10-CV-0496, 2010 WL 3341889, at *2 (M.D. Tenn. Aug. 25, 2010) (Trauger, J.) (collecting cases); accord Campbell v. Cheatham Cty. Sheriff's Dep't, 511 F.Supp.3d 809, 824-25 & n.12 (M.D. Tenn. 2021) (Crenshaw, C.J.) (), aff'd, 47 F.4th 468 (6th Cir. 2022).[4]
Nor are sheriff's departments proper defendants for claims under Tennessee law. The Tennessee Code delineates sheriffs' responsibilities, Tenn. Code Ann. § 8-8-201, provides that sheriff's offices are to be funded by county governing bodies, id. § 8-20-120, and further provides that any person...
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