Thomas v. Cohen

• Decision Date: 31 March 2006
• Docket Number: No. 05-5072.,05-5072.
• Citation: 453 F.3d 657
• Parties: Natasha THOMAS; Susan Gibbs; Edwina Lewis, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Ann COHEN; Glenn Craig; James Embry; Susan Harbour, in their individual capacities, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

453 F.3d 657

Natasha THOMAS; Susan Gibbs; Edwina Lewis, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Ann COHEN; Glenn Craig; James Embry; Susan Harbour, in their individual capacities, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 05-5072.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: January 31, 2006.

Decided and Filed: March 31, 2006.^*

ARGUED: David A. Friedman, Fernandez Friedman Grossman Kohn ELLC, Louisville, KY, for Appellants. Paul V. Guagliardo, Jefferson County Attorney's Office, Louisville, KY, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: David A. Friedman, Fernandez Friedman Grossman Kohn ELLC, Louisville, KY, for Appellants. Paul V. Guagliardo, Gregory S. Gowen, Jefferson County Attorney's Office, Louisville, KY, for Appellees.

Before RYAN, CLAY, and GILMAN, Circuit Judges.

RYAN, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which GILMAN, J., joined. CLAY, J. (pp. 663-668), delivered a separate dissenting opinion.

RYAN, Circuit Judge.

The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant police officers in this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 civil rights action in which the plaintiffs allege that their constitutional rights were violated when the officers evicted them from a transitional homeless shelter. We AFFIRM because the court properly concluded that, under Kentucky law, the plaintiffs lacked a protected property interest in the premises.

I.

On December 8, 1998, the defendants, all officers of the Louisville, Kentucky, police department, removed the plaintiffs, Natasha Thomas, Susan Gibbs, and Edwina Lewis, from Augusta House, a transitional shelter in which the women were residing. They did so at the request of the director of the shelter and without affording the plaintiffs legal process of any kind. The director had earlier asked the plaintiffs to leave the shelter for various violations of house rules, but they refused to leave.

At the time of the eviction, Augusta House was owned and operated by Mission House, Inc. The residence was the least restrictive stage of a three-stage transitional shelter program operated to help homeless women become financially independent members of mainstream society. There is no evidence in the record to support the dissent's characterization of Augusta House as low-income housing rather than a transitional homeless shelter, and the plaintiffs themselves presented no proof that Augusta House was not a shelter.

All Augusta House residents were homeless women with financial difficulties who had progressed through the first two stages of the Mission House program. Emmaus House was the first stage of the program. Participants resided there for approximately two months until Mission House staff determined they were ready to advance to the next stage, the Annex. Emmaus House residents were subject to a curfew and rules governing a wide range of conduct, and Mission House staff provided constant supervision. The staff requested that each participant pay a $140 monthly shelter fee and assigned each participant a sleeping area and chores. In addition to providing shelter in a structured environment, Mission House offered Bible study opportunities and assisted program participants in obtaining social security benefits, food stamps, and employment.

As the women progressed through the program, Mission House gave them greater responsibility in order to ease their transition into mainstream society. The staff continued to assign each participant a sleeping area and chores, but the women were subject to fewer rules and received less supervision. When the women reached Augusta House, they were no longer subject to a curfew or live-in supervision. They were expected to have employment or income of some kind prior to moving into Augusta House, but the shelter fee arrangement remained unchanged. The women resided at Augusta house until "they g[o]t on their feet," which could take up to a couple of years, and, with the help of the Mission House staff, they found permanent housing.

Augusta House was located in a house in a residential neighborhood in order to provide the residents with the responsibility of maintaining a house before their transition into mainstream society. At the time of the eviction, each plaintiff was the sole occupant of her bedroom, and the plaintiffs shared the common living areas, bathroom, and kitchen with other occupants of the house. The residents were given keys to the house, and they were able to come and go freely, subject to the house rules. There was no lease between the plaintiffs and Mission House or Augusta House, and staff members were authorized to enter the bedrooms in Augusta House, move the residents to different bedrooms, and place two residents in a bedroom if they wished to do so.

In the fall of 1998, a dispute arose between the plaintiffs and the director of Augusta House, Laura Zinious, over the plaintiffs' alleged violation of house rules. After allegedly asking the residents to leave, as was standard practice when residents violated house rules, Zinious called the police to have the plaintiffs evicted. The responding officers evicted the plaintiffs over their protests that they were tenants who paid rent and despite their attempts to show the officers documents from their legal aid attorney expressing an opinion as to their tenancy.

The plaintiffs filed a complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that the eviction violated their civil rights protected by the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The officers moved for summary judgment, stipulating, for purposes of the motion, that the plaintiffs were tenants of Augusta House at the time of the eviction, but claiming the officers' actions were protected from suit based on qualified immunity. The court denied the motion, and the officers appealed.

A divided panel of this court concluded that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity with respect to the Fourth Amendment claim, but that the officers were not entitled to qualified immunity with respect to the Fourteenth Amendment claim. See Thomas v. Cohen, 304 F.3d 563, 565-66 (6th Cir.2002).

On remand, the defendants again moved for summary judgment, this time arguing that the plaintiffs' living arrangements were not governed by the Kentucky Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (KURLTA) and that the plaintiffs, therefore, did not have a recognized property interest under Kentucky state law. The district court granted the defendants' motion and the plaintiffs now appeal.

II.

"We review a grant or denial of summary judgment de novo, using the same Rule 56(c) standard as the district court." Williams v. Mehra, 186 F.3d 685, 689 (6th Cir.1999). Summary judgment is proper only where "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). "In deciding upon a motion for summary judgment, we must view the factual evidence and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the non-moving party." Nat'l Enters., Inc. v. Smith, 114 F.3d 561, 563 (6th Cir.1997).

III.

The district court found that no material facts were in dispute and that the plaintiffs did not have a protected property interest under Kentucky law because the KURLTA expressly provides that it does not apply to "[r]esidence at an institution, public or private, if incidental to detention or the provision of medical, geriatric, educational counseling, religious, or similar service." KY.REV.STAT. ANN. § 383.535(1). The KURLTA does not define the term "institution," and we find no Kentucky authority applying the KURLTA's "institution exception." The plaintiffs argue that Augusta House is not an institution because it is located in a residential building and neighborhood, but we reject that argument, and, as we will explain, we agree with the district court that, as a matter of law, the plaintiffs' residence at Augusta House was incidental to the provision of "educational counseling, religious, or similar service[s]."

Although Kentucky courts have not interpreted the "institution exception" to the KURLTA, Kentucky's general rule of statutory interpretation is that, in the absence of ambiguity, the words in a statute are given their plain and ordinarily understood meaning, unless such an application would lead to an absurd result. See Autozone, Inc. v. Brewer, 127 S.W.3d 653, 655 (Ky. 2004). As the dissent notes, courts have interpreted identical provisions of the Oregon and Washington versions of the KURLTA. See Burke v. Oxford House of Oregon Chapter V, 196 Or.App. 726, 103 P.3d 1184 (2004); Sunrise Group Homes, Inc. v. Ferguson, 55 Wash.App. 285, 777 P.2d 553 (1989). Using a dictionary definition, these courts explained that "incidental `does not mean that room and board must be trivial or unimportant in comparison with the overall institutional purpose; it means that living there is subordinate or attendant to the institutional purpose.'" Burke, 103 P.3d at 1193 (quoting Sunrise, 777 P.2d at 555). The courts in Burke and Sunrise also rejected the dissent's argument that housing cannot be subordinate or attendant to an institution's provision of services when one of the institution's primary services is the provision of housing. See id. & n. 9; Sunrise, 777 P.2d at 555.

The court in Sunrise affirmed the trial court's finding that a group home for the developmentally disabled was an institution, explaining:

[T]he room and board provided by the Olivia Park facility is incidental to the receipt of services the facility was created to provide. Congregate care homes provide those who are unable to "maintain a safe environment in an independent living arrangement" with supervision and "assistance with activities of daily living and/or health-related services[.]"

While congregate care facilities exist to keep developmentally disabled persons mainstreamed, and...