Snyder v. City of Moab

• Decision Date: 29 December 2003
• Docket Number: No. 01-4046.,01-4046.
• Citation: 354 F.3d 1179
• Parties: Marget A. SNYDER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF MOAB, a Utah municipal corporation, and Karla R. Hancock, an individual and Moab City Mayor, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

354 F.3d 1179

Marget A. SNYDER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF MOAB, a Utah municipal corporation, and Karla R. Hancock, an individual and Moab City Mayor, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 01-4046.

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

December 29, 2003.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

David B. Thompson, Portland, OR, (Christina I Miller, Park City, Utah, with him on the briefs), for the Plaintiff-Appellant.

Benson L. Hathaway, Jr. (Aimee Martinez Thoman with him on the brief), Stirba & Hathaway, Salt Lake City, UT, for the Defendants-Appellees.

Before BRISCOE, HOLLOWAY and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.

HOLLOWAY, Circuit Judge.

I

This appeal is from a judgment on a jury verdict for the defendant, the City of Moab, Utah ("the City"), in an employment discrimination case where Plaintiff, Marget Snyder, was not reappointed as treasurer. Snyder was first appointed treasurer of the City of Moab, Utah in 1990 by its then mayor, Tom Stocks. In January of 1998, a new Mayor, Karla Hancock took office. Mayor Hancock had statutory authority of appointment over four positions: the chief of police, the city attorney, the public works director, and the city treasurer. Snyder, who did not support Hancock in her campaign, was the only incumbent not reappointed. The day Hancock took office she wrote Snyder a letter noting that the mayor was given the power to make appointments to positions such as city treasurer because a mayor "must be able to rely upon the loyalty and support of ... key staff members." II Jt.App. 259 (letter dated Jan. 6, 1998 from Hancock to Snyder). The letter went on to say:

I'm sure you and I are in agreement that your commitment was definitely not to me in the recent election. Because of this, I feel that it would be in my best interest — and the City's — to make another appointment to the Treasurer position.

Id. (emphasis in original).

Snyder brought an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in the United States District Court in Utah against the City and against Mayor Hancock (collectively, "defendants") alleging violations of her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

The district court granted summary judgment for defendants on Snyder's Fourteenth Amendment Due Process claim on the grounds that Snyder had no protected property interest in her continued employment with the City. I Jt.App. 19k-19m.¹ On the remaining First Amendment claim the district court denied both parties' motions for summary judgment, and the case proceeded to trial. Id. at 19i. Snyder requested, and the district court denied, a jury instruction that the jury should find in her favor if the jury thought it was a "close case." Id. at 236. The jury, in a special verdict, found that Snyder's lack of political support for Hancock during the mayoral election was a substantial or motivating factor in the decision not to reappoint her. It was also found that the City and Mayor Hancock had proven that the effective performance of the treasurer's job required political allegiance to the mayor. Id. at 237-41. Judgment was, therefore, entered for the defendants. Id. at 242.

II

Snyder appeals, arguing that: 1) the district court erred in denying her motion for judgment as a matter of law or, in the alternative, denying her motion for a new trial on the issue of whether City Treasurer's office was a position for which political allegiance was required; 2) the district court committed reversible error when it refused to give her "close question" jury instruction; and 3) the district court erred in granting summary judgment for the defendants on the due process issue and erroneously holding that, because Utah state law gave the mayor of a city the size of Moab appointment power over city treasurers, Snyder had no protected property interest in her job as treasurer.

A

Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law and Motion for a New Trial

Snyder asks us to reverse the district court's denial of her motion for a judgment as a matter of law on her First Amendment claim or, in the alternative, to grant her a new trial on this claim. We address each argument in turn and, for reasons detailed below, decline to do either.

Snyder first argues the district court erred in denying her a judgment as a matter of law on the First Amendment claim.² We review de novo a district court's disposition of a motion for judgment as a matter of law, applying the same standard as the district court. Such a judgment is warranted only if the evidence points but one way and is susceptible to no reasonable inferences supporting the party opposing the motion. We must view the evidence and any inferences to be drawn therefrom most favorably to the non-moving party. Baty v. Willamette Indus., Inc., 172 F.3d 1232, 1241 (10th Cir.1999).

"The First Amendment protects public employees from discrimination based upon their political beliefs, affiliation, or non-affiliation unless their work requires political allegiance." Mason v. Oklahoma Tpk. Auth., 115 F.3d 1442, 1451 (10th Cir.1997) (citation omitted). This protection is violated, and a valid § 1983 claim may be asserted, where a public employee is discharged because of his or her position regarding a particular candidate for office except where the public employee is in a position requiring political allegiance. As the Supreme Court explained, if "the hiring authority can demonstrate that party affiliation is an appropriate requirement for the effective performance of the public office involved," then no First Amendment violation occurs if the employee is fired on the basis of his or her political allegiance. Branti v. Finkel, 445 U.S. 507, 518, 100 S.Ct. 1287, 63 L.Ed.2d 574 (1980). Whether political association is an appropriate requirement for a position has been held to be a question of fact. However that question may be resolved as a matter of law if the facts as to the nature of the duties of the position are undisputed. Barker v. City of Del City, 215 F.3d 1134, 1138 (10th Cir. 2000). The employer — here the City — bears the burden of proving whether political association is an appropriate requirement for the effective performance of the public office involved. Id.

Determining whether political allegiance is a proper job requirement calls for an analysis of "the nature of the employee's duties and responsibilities." Id. (quotations omitted). An analysis of the whole picture is necessary; no one specific factor need be proven to justify a political allegiance requirement. See McCloud v. Testa, 97 F.3d 1536 (6th Cir.1996) (finding no Supreme Court opinions categorically holding that political affiliation always is or is not an appropriate consideration for a particular type of position) (cited by Barker, 215 F.3d at 1138). As the Court noted in Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 367, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976) (plurality opinion), "no clear line can be drawn" between positions that require political allegiance and those that do not. The Court explained:

The nature of the responsibilities is critical. Employee supervisors, for example, may have many responsibilities, but those responsibilities may have only limited and well-defined objectives. An employee with responsibilities that are not well defined or are of broad scope more likely functions in a policymaking position. In determining whether an employee occupies a policymaking position, consideration would also be given to whether the employee acts as an adviser or formulates plans for the implementation of broad goals. Thus, the political loyalty justification is a matter of proof, or at least argument, directed at particular kinds of jobs.

Id. at 367-68 (quotation marks and citations omitted).

On appeal, Snyder argues that defendants presented no substantial evidence from which the jury could have found that her job as treasurer required political allegiance. Appellant's Brief at 25. In support of her argument, she cites certain portions of the testimony of Mayor Hancock and the city manager as "[t]he only evidence the City presented on the subject." Id. (citing Jt.App. 170-72, 185-88). She characterizes this testimony as merely generalized statements about the position of treasurer that did not support a conclusion that political loyalty was an appropriate job requirement. Id. at 26. Specifically, Snyder notes that the testimony failed to explain what kind of confidences the treasurer was required to keep, which of the mayor's policies the treasurer was required to support, and how a lack of loyalty or nonsupport of policy might affect the treasurer's job performance. Id.

This lack of specifics, Snyder suggests, is dispositive because the defendants were required to identify "specific, politically sensitive policies set by the mayor — as opposed to policies set by the city manager or the city council in Moab, neither of whom are under the control of the mayor or necessarily aligned politically with her...." Appellant's Reply Brief at 6 (emphasis in original). In support of her position Snyder cites Barker, 215 F.3d at 1136-38, and Green v. Henley, 924 F.2d 185, 187 (10th Cir.1991). These cases, Snyder contends, require that political allegiance can properly be found as a job requirement in this case only if the City could point to specifics that show either that the treasurer was the "alter ego" or "right hand" of the mayor as in Barker or had the same degree of representative and policymaking functions as in Green.

In reply, the City cites these facts as supporting the verdict: the treasurer's supervisory power, including that of hiring and firing employees; the treasurer's responsibility for "monitoring revenue generating functions" including fees of various kinds; the treasurer's responsibility for implementing standard accounting procedures; the treasurer's control of city monies "under the broad guidance of the Mayor and City Council;" the independence of the treasurer in the performance of her...