Stevens v. Tillman

• Decision Date: 08 July 1983
• Docket Number: No. 81 C 3588.,81 C 3588.
• Citation: 568 F. Supp. 289
• Parties: Dorothy A. STEVENS, Plaintiff, v. Dorothy Wright TILLMAN, Clascile Broughton, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

568 F. Supp. 289

Dorothy A. STEVENS, Plaintiff, v. Dorothy Wright TILLMAN, Clascile Broughton, et al., Defendants.

No. 81 C 3588.

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, E.D.

July 8, 1983.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Ronald H. Balson, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff.

James P. Chapman, Chapman & Royce, Ltd., Anna R. Langford, Chicago, Ill., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

NORDBERG, District Judge.

Plaintiff Dorothy A. Stevens ("Stevens") brought this action for damages and injunctive relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) against Dorothy Wright Tillman and nine other parents of Mollison Elementary School students ("parents"). Stevens charged defendants with conspiracy to violate her civil rights, defamation and tortious interference with contract. This action is presently before the Court on defendants' motion to dismiss pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b). For the reasons set forth below, this motion is denied.

FACTS

Plaintiff Stevens is an elementary school principal who has been employed by the Chicago Board of Education since 1939. She is currently principal at Pierce Elementary School, but at the time of the events at issue she was principal at Mollison Elementary School. Plaintiff is white and the students at Mollison are primarily black. Defendants include ten members of the Mollison School Advisory Board, headed by Dorothy Wright Tillman.

Plaintiff charges that defendants conspired to remove her from her position as principal solely because of her race. This conspiracy, plaintiff contends, amounted to invidious discrimination in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3). Plaintiff claims that defendant parents harassed her and defamed her, organized a boycott of the school and staged a demonstration in her office.¹ As a result of defendants' conduct, plaintiff alleges that she suffered high blood pressure which forced her to take a medical leave of absence and ultimately to accept a reassignment from Mollison to Pierce Elementary School.

Stevens filed a four-count complaint for relief on June 26, 1981. Count I seeks damages for injuries suffered in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3). Count II seeks damages for libel and slander. Count III seeks damages for tortious interference of contract. Count IV seeks an injunction enjoining defendants from further harassment of Stevens.

Defendants argue that they organized to protest and attempt to change certain conditions at Mollison which were harming their children. These problems included: the lack of educational progress by their children; an improperly administered testing system which retarded the achievement levels of the children; and a school policy of locking the students out of the building during lunch hour. Defendants argue further that it was only in the course of their dealings with the plaintiff on these issues that they came to oppose her continued assignment as principal of Mollison.

MOTION TO DISMISS

The guidelines to be used in considering a motion to dismiss are clear. A complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim that would entitle him to the relief requested. Cruz v. Beto, 405 U.S. 319, 322, 92 S.Ct. 1079, 1081-1082, 31 L.Ed.2d 263 (1979); Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 101-102, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957). The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has noted:

Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, it is well established that, on a motion to dismiss, a complaint must be construed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the allegations thereof being taken as true; and if it appears reasonably conceivable that at trial the plaintiff can establish a set of facts entitling him to some relief, the complaint should not be dismissed. Mathers Fund, Inc. v. Colwell, 564 F.2d 780, 783 (7th Cir.1977).

A. § 1985(3) Claim

To allege a cognizable cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), the complaint must set forth five elements: (1) a conspiracy; (2) motivated by racial or other class-based invidious discriminatory animus; (3) for the purpose of depriving, directly or indirectly, any person or class of persons of equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws; (4) that the conspirators committed some act in furtherance of the conspiracy; and (5) that the plaintiff was either injured in his person or property or was deprived of having and exercising any right or privilege of a citizen of the United States. Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U.S. 88, 102-3, 91 S.Ct. 1790, 1798-1799, 29 L.Ed.2d 338 (1971).

Defendants argue that Stevens' civil rights claim should be dismissed due to her failure to allege state action. While § 1985(3) does not expressly require that a defendant act under color of state law, defendants contend there still can be no claim for relief based on a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment if there has been no involvement by the state. Defendants argue further that Stevens' civil rights claim can only be premised upon the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which requires state action, and therefore it should be dismissed. There is no dispute regarding the absence of state action in the case at bar.

The question of what types of private conduct can be said to deprive individuals of "equal protection of the laws" or of "equal privileges and immunities" is unsettled.² The Supreme Court in Griffin, supra, opened the door to utilizing § 1985(3) for relief from private action conspiracies to violate the Constitution. The Griffin court held that the right to engage in interstate travel and the right to be free of racial discrimination are protected by the Constitution against interference by private action, as well as impairment by state action. It found that Congress was empowered by section two of the Thirteenth Amendment to create a federal cause of action to provide a remedy against private conspiracies motivated by racial animus. No decision has been found which expressly extends the protection of § 1985 to whites as well as nonwhites.

The Supreme Court upheld under the Thirteenth Amendment, the constitutionality of 42 U.S.C. § 1981, as applied to private contracts. Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, 421 U.S. 454, 459-460, 95 S.Ct. 1716, 1719-1720, 44 L.Ed.2d 295 (1975). It expanded this ruling in McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transp. Co., 427 U.S. 273, 282, 295-296, 96 S.Ct. 2574, 2575, 2586, 49 L.Ed.2d 493 (1976). The Court ruled that § 1981 prohibits private acts of racial discrimination against whites as well as nonwhites. The Court stated:

Unlikely as it might have appeared in 1866 that white citizens would encounter substantial racial discrimination of the sort proscribed under the Act, the statutory structure and legislative history persuade us that the 39th Congress was intent upon establishing in the federal law a broader principle than would have been necessary simply to meet the particular and immediate plight of the newly freed Negro slaves. Id. at 295-296, 96 S.Ct. at 2586.

In the instant action, plaintiff alleges that she was denied equal protection of the law and asserts that her Fourteenth Amendment rights have been violated. Complaint for Violation of Civil Rights and Other Relief, ¶ 8 and ¶ 9. Her allegations under § 1985(3), although not strictly within the scope of the Griffin private action analysis, are sufficiently broad so as to state a cause of action. The complaint alleges facts which meet the five-part test for § 1985(3) outlined by the Court in Griffin which the Court found to be constitutional under the Thirteenth Amendment.

The Seventh Circuit has repeatedly held that state action is required in order to state a § 1985(3) claim premised upon a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Dombrowski v. Dowling, 459 F.2d 190 (7th Cir.1972); Cohen v. Illinois Institute of Technology, 524 F.2d 818 (7th Cir.1975); Murphy v. Mount Carmel High School, 543 F.2d 1189 (7th Cir.1976); Williams v. St. Joseph Hospital, 629 F.2d 448 (7th Cir.1980). Conversely, the Seventh Circuit has stated, "(E)ven absent state action, plaintiffs may make out a § 1985(3) claim if they show that the defendants conspired to deprive the plaintiffs of equal protection of the laws. This requires, according to Griffin (supra) ... a showing of some racial or perhaps otherwise class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus behind the conspirators' action." Askew v. Bloemker, 548 F.2d 673 (7th Cir.1976). The Seventh Circuit has also held that defamatory remarks that were racially motivated can constitute a denial of equal protection. Harris v. Harvey, 605 F.2d 330, 338 (7th Cir.1979).

In the case at bar, plaintiff Stevens has clearly alleged that defendants were motivated by racial discriminatory animus and conspired to deprive her of equal protection. As found by the Court in Griffin, the cause of action is constitutional under the Thirteenth Amendment. It would be wholly inconsistent with the spirit of both the United States Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1871 to hold that a black plaintiff could bring a claim under § 1985(3) alleging racial discrimination without the existence of state action and a white plaintiff could not. The Supreme Court stated: "The guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color ... Racial and ethnic distinctions are inherently suspect and thus call for the most exacting judicial examination." Regents of University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 289-290, 291, 98 S.Ct. 2733, 2748, 57 L.Ed.2d 750 (1978).

It follows, therefore, that the instant action can be factually distinguished from the cases cited earlier supporting the necessity of alleging state action in a § 1985(3) claim based on the Fourteenth Amendment. That line of precedent does not address the validity of...