Voyticky v. Village of Timberlake, Ohio

• Decision Date: 22 June 2005
• Docket Number: No. 04-3252.,04-3252.
• Citation: 412 F.3d 669
• Parties: Kenneth C. VOYTICKY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. VILLAGE OF TIMBERLAKE, OHIO, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

412 F.3d 669

Kenneth C. VOYTICKY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. VILLAGE OF TIMBERLAKE, OHIO, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 04-3252.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: April 21, 2005.

Decided and Filed: June 22, 2005.

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ARGUED: Charles K. Webster, Andrechick & Webster, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellant. Nick Tomino, Tomino & Latchney, Medina, Ohio, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Charles K. Webster, Andrechick & Webster, Cleveland, Ohio, David M. Maistros, Chagrin Falls, Ohio, for Appellant. Nick Tomino, Tomino & Latchney, Medina, Ohio, for Appellee.

Before: KENNEDY and MOORE, Circuit Judges; RESTANI, Judge.^*

OPINION

KENNEDY, Circuit Judge.

Appellant Kenneth Voyticky appeals from the district court's dismissal of some of his claims due to a lack of subject matter jurisdiction and its grant of summary judgment to Defendants on his remaining claims in which he alleged violations of his constitutional rights and seeks recovery pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. We reverse the dismissal of Plaintiff's claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and grant Defendants summary judgment on all claims as sought in their motion.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff is a former police lieutenant of the Village of Timberlake, Ohio, a community of approximately 800 people. While employed by the village, Plaintiff was active in a voluntary association of Timberlake police officers. He was one of several officers authorized to make deposits and expenditures of the group's funds. In 1997, the association raised money by producing and selling telephone directories to village residents for three dollars. Local businesses paid to place advertisements in the directories.

In 2000, Plaintiff assumed responsibility for a new directory. Deposits for new directories were left at the police station while Plaintiff was still employed and deposited by him in the association account. Deposits made into the account included at least one check made payable to the Village of Timberlake. Plaintiff left the police force on June 28, 2001. Around the same time, the police association disbanded, and it decided to give directories away free even though several villagers had already paid for them.

At least two businesses claimed to have paid Plaintiff money for advertisements that did not appear in the new directory. These businesses whose advertisements were not included and several people who claimed to have paid to purchase the directory complained to the police department and requested refunds from the Village.

Defendant Graham, the chief of police, directed defendant Clifford, a Timberlake officer, to investigate Plaintiff's handling of directory monies. Clifford investigated and reported that at least two businesses claimed to have paid Plaintiff for advertisements, that those advertisements had not been printed in the directory, and that several residents claimed to have paid three dollars for directories either directly to Plaintiff or by leaving their money at the police station. The investigation also revealed that Plaintiff had deposited a small sum into a bank account entitled "Timberlake Police Special Fund," and that after he had resigned, Plaintiff had withdrawn all money ($311.46) from the account.

The officer informed the chief of his findings. The chief informed the village solicitor, who wrote Plaintiff on several occasions for an explanation concerning the alleged missing funds. Plaintiff emailed the solicitor and requested receipts or cancelled checks for those people that requested refunds.¹ The solicitor provided Plaintiff a list of people that had complained. The village solicitor did not receive a further response from Plaintiff, nor did he receive any accounting of the funds. He so informed Chief Graham on April 12, 2002.

On April 30, 2002, Graham, Clifford, and another police officer presented their findings to a magistrate judge in Willoughby Municipal Court. The magistrate judge conducted a probable cause hearing and determined that sufficient probable cause existed to issue an arrest warrant for Plaintiff for the offense of theft in office in violation of Ohio Revised Code § 2921.41. Defendant Clifford signed a complaint charging Plaintiff with the violation.

Plaintiff was arrested at his new place of employment. The media covered Plaintiff's arrest and arraignment. Charges against Plaintiff were eventually dismissed for lack of probable cause. Plaintiff then sued Sam Santangelo, Jr., the Mayor of Timberlake; Graham; and Clifford, alleging that they were guilty of malicious prosecution, abuse of process, false arrest, defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, violations of his Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights, and conspiracy to deprive him of his rights under the U.S. Constitution. He also asserted that the Village of Timberlake was municipally liable for the torts. Jurisdiction was based on 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

Defendants moved for summary judgment on all claims. The district court dismissed Plaintiff's claims in two opinions. In its first opinion, the district court identified Plaintiff's claims for abuse of process, defamation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress as solely state law claims. The district court found that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over those claims because Plaintiff did not specifically invoke the court's supplemental jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367. It then granted Defendants summary judgment on Plaintiff's claims for false arrest, malicious prosecution, and municipal liability. In a second opinion, upon Defendants' motion for reconsideration, and after briefing by both parties, the district court granted Defendants summary judgment on the remaining conspiracy claim.

Plaintiff appeals the district court's dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction of the claims it identified as state law claims. He asserts both in his brief and at oral argument that all of his claims are federal constitutional claims. He also argues that should this court find that some of his claims are state law claims, the district court erred in dismissing them. He also asserts that material disputes of fact exist that preclude the district court's grant of summary judgment.² Defendants respond, arguing that even if the district court erred in holding it did not have supplemental jurisdiction over some of Plaintiff's claims, Defendants deserve judgment as a matter of law on all claims.

ANALYSIS

A. The District Court's dismissal of Plaintiff's state law claims

Relying on this court's opinion in Musson Theatrical, Inc. v. Federal Exp. Corp., 89 F.3d 1244 (6th Cir.1996), the district court determined that because Plaintiff never identified which claims in his complaint were state law claims, nor did he specifically invoke jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367, it did not have subject matter jurisdiction to address state law claims. Consequently, the district court dismissed Plaintiff's claims for abuse of process, defamation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress because it determined that those claims were solely state law claims. We review a district court's decision that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction de novo. Anderson v. Charter Township of Ypsilanti, 266 F.3d 487, 492 (6th Cir.2001) (citing Green v. Ameritech Corp., 200 F.3d 967, 972 (6th Cir.2000)).

We do not believe Musson Theatrical can be read in the manner the district court read it. Plaintiffs do not need to specifically plead the supplemental jurisdiction statute, nor do they need to specifically identify state law claims as such if the cause of action obviously exists under state law. Musson Theatrical stands for the proposition that where a plaintiff does not mention state claims in a federal complaint at all, and where a plaintiff files those state claims in a separate and parallel suit in a state court, a federal court may not address those claims on the basis of supplemental jurisdiction. See Musson Theatrical, 89 F.3d at 1252-54. ("Modern pleading rules may be lax, but they still require that a party plead a claim before the court decides it.") Supplemental jurisdiction, in general, allows a plaintiff to include claims over which a federal court would not normally have jurisdiction provided that that plaintiff's complaint properly invokes the district court's jurisdiction and that the other claims: "are so related to claims in the action within such original jurisdiction that they form part of the same case or controversy under Article III of the United States Constitution." 28 U.S.C. § 1367.

Where, as here, a plaintiff pleads violations of the U.S. Constitution, unambiguously federal claims over which a district court has jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1983, a district court has supplemental (and, hence, subject matter) jurisdiction to address additional state law claims related to the federal claims. To the extent that the district court determined that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over Plaintiff's state law claims, it erred. Since the Defendants requested summary judgment on all claims, however, and since the parties on appeal and in the district court have addressed both the state and the federal claims, the district court's error was harmless in the sense that we need not remand to the district court to correct it. For the reasons that follow, we agree that Defendants are entitled to summary judgment or dismissal as to all claims.

B. Summary Judgment Standard and Standard of Review

This court reviews a grant of summary judgment de novo. Adams v. City of Auburn Hills, 336 F.3d 515, 518 (6th Cir.2003). For the purposes of this appeal, we construe the evidence in the light most favorable to Plaintiff and draw all reasonable inferences in his favor. Aiken v. City of Memphis, 190 F.3d 753, 755 (6th Cir.1999) (citing Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574,...