A Soc'y Without a Name v. Commonwealth of Va.
| Decision Date | 24 August 2011 |
| Docket Number | No. 10–1437.,10–1437. |
| Parties | A SOCIETY WITHOUT A NAME, For People Without A Home, Millennium Future–Present, Plaintiff–Appellant,v.Commonwealth of VIRGINIA, trading as Virginia Commonwealth University; City of Richmond, Virginia; Homeward, Defendants–Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
ARGUED: Henry Woods McLaughlin, III, Law Office of Henry McLaughlin, PC, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellant. Eric Blaine Martin, McGuirewoods, LLP, Richmond, Virginia; Brian Kraig Telfair, City Attorney's Office, Richmond, Virginia; Stephen Michael Hall, Office of the Attorney General of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, II, Attorney General, Peter R. Messitt, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Wesley G. Russell, Jr., Deputy Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee Commonwealth of Virginia. Nicholas F. Simopoulos, City Attorney's Office, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee City of Richmond, Virginia. Christina M. Jones, Kenneth W. Abrams, McGuirewoods, LLP, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee Homeward.Before MOTZ and WYNN, Circuit Judges, and RONALD LEE GILMAN, Senior Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation.Affirmed by published opinion. Senior Judge GILMAN wrote the majority opinion. Judge MOTZ wrote a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. Judge WYNN wrote a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Plaintiff–Appellant A Society Without a Name, For People Without A Home Millennium Future–Present (ASWAN) is an unincorporated association made up of homeless and formerly homeless people that advocates for their rights. On February 17, 2009, ASWAN sued defendants-appellees Commonwealth of Virginia, doing business as Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), City of Richmond (City), Homeward, a Virginia nonprofit corporation, and unidentified John Doe(s). It alleged that the defendants had conspired to establish the Conrad Center on Oliver Hill Way, a site removed from Richmond's downtown community, for the purpose of reducing the presence of the homeless population in the downtown area by providing services for them in a remote location. The Conrad Center began operating on February 5, 2007.
ASWAN claimed that the relocation of homeless services to the Conrad Center violated 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985(3), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Fair Housing Act (FHA). The district court dismissed all of ASWAN's claims either because they failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted or because they were barred by the applicable statute of limitations. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.
ASWAN filed suit in Virginia state court, but Homeward removed the action to federal court in accordance with 28 U.S.C. §§ 1441 and 1446. In its second amended complaint, ASWAN alleged that the Conrad Center is located about two miles from downtown Richmond; that this location is isolated and removed from Richmond's downtown community and VCU's campus; that the defendants took various actions to pressure organizations that provided services to the homeless in the downtown area, such as the Daily Planet, to relocate to the Conrad Center; that the defendants took these actions to make the homeless less visible to, and segregate them from, Richmond's downtown community and the VCU campus; that creating the Conrad Center on Oliver Hill Way makes it difficult for homeless people to travel between the Center and the downtown area, an area that includes open spaces such as Monroe Park located near VCU's campus; and that the efforts to make the homeless less visible have their roots in class, race, and disability prejudice. ASWAN contends there is a strong link between homelessness and disability, asserting that the public generally perceives and regards homeless people as being disabled due to mental illness, alcoholism, and substance abuse.
In addition to claiming that the defendants' actions violated the ADA, the FHA, and 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), ASWAN asserted that VCU retaliated against it in violation of the ADA for bringing this suit by withdrawing VCU's earlier promise to help pay the cost of transporting homeless people to and from the Conrad Center. ASWAN separately alleged that the City violated the Equal Protection Clause and 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
In response to ASWAN's complaint, all of the defendants filed motions to dismiss, arguing, among other things, that ASWAN's complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted and/or that the claims were barred by the applicable statute of limitations. The magistrate judge assigned to the case recommended that the motions be granted for the following reasons:
• ASWAN's conspiracy claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) should be dismissed “because it is comprised of conclusory allegations unsupported by concrete facts” and therefore fails to state a plausible conspiracy claim.
• ASWAN's ADA, FHA, equal-protection, and § 1983 claims should be dismissed because they fall outside the applicable statute of limitations.
• ASWAN's claim that VCU retaliated against ASWAN for bringing this suit in violation of the ADA should be dismissed because (1) ASWAN failed to allege the necessary elements of a retaliation claim, and (2) VCU was not obligated to help pay the cost of transporting homeless people to and from the Conrad Center, so VCU's withdrawal of its earlier promise to help pay these transportation costs, which occurred after ASWAN filed suit, does not amount to a discriminatory act or an adverse action.
The district court adopted the magistrate judge's Report and Recommendation in its entirety and dismissed ASWAN's lawsuit. ASWAN now appeals.
“To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, ‘to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ ” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007)). A court decides whether this standard is met by separating the legal conclusions from the factual allegations, assuming the truth of only the factual allegations, and then determining whether those allegations allow the court to reasonably infer that “the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. at 1949–50. In other words, the factual allegations (taken as true) must “permit the court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct.” Id. at 1950.
Facts pled that are “merely consistent with” liability are not sufficient. Id. at 1949 (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 557, 127 S.Ct. 1955). “Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, [similarly] do not suffice,” because “we are not bound to accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation.” Id. at 1949–50 (internal quotation marks omitted).
In addition, where a conspiracy is alleged, the plaintiff must plead facts amounting to more than Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556–57, 127 S.Ct. 1955 (). The factual allegations must plausibly suggest agreement, rather than being merely consistent with agreement. Id. at 557, 127 S.Ct. 1955.
The first issue on appeal is whether ASWAN's complaint stated a valid 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) conspiracy claim. To state such a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), a plaintiff must prove the following:
(1) a conspiracy of two or more persons, (2) who are motivated by a specific class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus to (3) deprive the plaintiff of the equal enjoyment of rights secured by the law to all, (4) and which results in injury to the plaintiff as (5) a consequence of an overt act committed by the defendants in connection with the conspiracy.
Simmons v. Poe, 47 F.3d 1370, 1376 (4th Cir.1995). Moreover, the plaintiff “must show an agreement or a meeting of the minds by [the] defendants to violate the [plaintiff's] constitutional rights.” Id. at 1377 (internal quotation marks omitted). “[W]e have specifically rejected section 1985 claims whenever the purported conspiracy is alleged in a merely conclusory manner, in the absence of concrete supporting facts.” Id.
ASWAN alleges that a conspiracy has existed since at least 1995 to “segregate ... homeless people and to reduce the visibility of black homeless people and ADA protected people and handicapped homeless people from Richmond's mainstream, its downtown,” which includes VCU's main campus and the surrounding majority-white neighborhoods. But on the required element of a conspiracy of two or more persons, the complaint alleges nothing more specific than statements that the “Doe(s) and the City entered into a conspiracy,” that they had a “meeting of the minds that they would act in concert with VCU” to pressure the Daily Planet to relocate to Oliver Hill Way, and that “Homeward was created as part of the conspiracy and ... became part of the conspiracy.”
ASWAN's claim that the defendants conspired to force homeless people out of downtown Richmond by relocating homeless services to Oliver Hill Way fails because it is comprised almost entirely of conclusory allegations unsupported by concrete facts. For example, the allegations that “Doe(s) and the City entered into a...
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