Wilson v. Warren Cnty.
| Decision Date | 18 July 2016 |
| Docket Number | No. 15-1939,15-1939 |
| Citation | 830 F.3d 464 |
| Parties | Thomas Wilson and Randy Brown, Plaintiffs–Appellants, v. Warren County, Illinois, Martin Edwards, Thomas Carithers, Albert Algren, Ronald Hanson, Mark Johnson, and Douglas Reiners, Defendants–Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Mark V. Kelly, Attorney, Alpha, IL, for Plaintiffs–Appellants.
Bhairav Radia, Attorney, O'Halloran, Kosoff, Geitner & Cook, LLC, Northbrook, IL, Brad A. Elward, John P. Heil, Jr., Attorneys, Heyl, Royster, Voelker & Allen, Peoria, IL, Mark D. Johnson, Attorney, Johnson Law Group, Bloomington, IL, for Defendants–Appellees.
Before Bauer and Williams, Circuit Judges, and Adelman, District Judge.*
Plaintiffs Thomas Wilson and Randy Brown bring claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983
against private citizen defendants, Ronald Hanson, Mark Johnson, and Douglas Reiners, as well as against Warren County, Illinois and several of its officials including Sheriff Martin Edwards, Deputy Thomas Carithers, and State Attorney Albert Algren, referred to as the public defendants. Wilson also brings a Fair Housing Act (“FHA”) claim against the private defendants, and plaintiffs assert supplemental state law claims. The claims arise out of an incident in which the private defendants seized items of plaintiffs' personal property. The district court dismissed Wilson's FHA claim for failure to state a claim, granted summary judgment on plaintiffs' § 1983 claims, and chose not to address the state law claims. Plaintiffs appeal, and we affirm.
Wilson and Hanson were business partners who got into a dispute about the ownership of property. On September 14, 2009, Warren County issued a letter relating to real property occupied by Wilson stating that it had to be cleaned up within 30 days. The County, however, sent the letter to Hanson. When he received the letter, Hanson, Hanson's lawyer Johnson, and Reiners, photographed the items on Wilson's property. This activity upset Wilson, who suffers from various psychological disorders, causing him to be hospitalized.
Subsequently, a friend of Wilson called Algren and expressed concern that Hanson, Johnson, and Reiners would return and take personal property belonging to Wilson. Algren assured him that they could not do this without a court order and that, if they returned, Wilson should call the sheriff. Hanson, represented by Johnson, sought an order in state court authorizing him to remove material from Wilson's property but was unsuccessful because the judge was unavailable. Johnson told Algren about the suit but did not disclose his failure to get a court order or when he, Hanson, and Reiners planned to remove material from Wilson's property. On September 26, the private defendants began removing items from Wilson's property. Wilson called the sheriff's department, which dispatched Carithers to the property. Carithers, however, believed that Hanson owned the property and thought that his job was to stand by and observe.
When Carithers arrived, Johnson told him that the private defendants had a legal right to remove property and handed him a stack of what he called court papers. Wilson objected and encouraged Carithers to call Algren. Carithers did not understand the court papers and called Algren, who advised him that if Johnson had the proper papers the private defendants were within their rights. It is unclear whether Algren mistakenly understood Carithers to say that Johnson had a valid court order or whether Carithers misunderstood Algren on that point. In any case, Carithers believed that the private defendants could legally remove items from the property and he stood by as they did so. At this point, Wilson suffered another anxiety attack. In addition to removing Wilson's property, the private defendants removed an item belonging to Brown.
Wilson's FHA claim alleges that the private defendants committed disability discrimination by intentionally attempting to trigger his disability to prevent him from objecting to the removal of property. We review the district court's dismissal of the claim de novo , accepting all well-pleaded facts as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in plaintiffs' favor. Roberts v. City of Chi. , 817 F.3d 561, 564 (7th Cir. 2016)
. Dismissal is appropriate where the complaint fails to set forth facts which amount to a plausible claim.
The FHA makes it unlawful to make unavailable or deny a dwelling to anyone because of a handicap, 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(1)
, and to coerce, intimidate, threaten, or interfere with a person's exercise or enjoyment of the rights granted by the FHA, 42 U.S.C. § 3617. To adequately plead a disability discrimination claim under § 3617 and § 3604, Wilson must allege facts suggesting that the private defendants entered his real estate and removed personal property because of his disability.
Bloch v. Frischholz , 587 F.3d 771, 784 (7th Cir. 2009)
.1
Wilson's complaint fails because it does not plausibly allege that the private defendants acted because of his disability. It alleges that Hanson blamed Wilson for the failure of their business, that Wilson sold a piece of Hanson's machinery for less than they had agreed, and that Hanson believed that Wilson refused to return items that he had taken from him. R. at 286–87. These allegations suggest that the private defendants were motivated by Wilson's dealings with Hanson rather than by his disability, and that they would have behaved the same regardless of the disability. Wilson argues that the private defendants exploited his disability to prevent him from protesting their removal of his property. But this is not enough to survive a motion to dismiss because it does not raise the inference that the private defendants would not have removed his property if he wasn't disabled.
claims
The district court granted summary judgment to all defendants on plaintiffs' § 1983
Fourth Amendment and due process claims based on the alleged unconstitutional removal of property. We review grants of summary judgment de novo , construing the evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiffs and taking all reasonable inferences in plaintiffs' favor. Carman v. Tinkes , 762 F.3d 565, 566 (7th Cir. 2014). Summary judgment is appropriate where no reasonable jury could find for plaintiffs based on the evidence in the record. Id.
To succeed on their § 1983
claim, plaintiffs must prove (1) the deprivation of a right secured by the Constitution or federal law and (2) that defendants were acting under color of state law. Armato v. Grounds , 766 F.3d 713, 719–20 (7th Cir. 2014) (citing Parratt v. Taylor , 451 U.S. 527, 535, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981) ). For a private actor to act under color of state law he must have “had a ‘meeting of the minds' and thus reached an understanding” with a state actor to deny plaintiffs a constitutional right. Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co. , 398 U.S. 144, 158, 90 S.Ct. 1598, 26 L.Ed.2d 142 (1970) ; see also
–
Maltese , 212 F.3d 353, 356 (7th Cir. 2000) (); Cunningham v. Southlake Ctr. for Mental Health, Inc. , 924 F.2d 106, 107 (7th Cir. 1991) (). Because § 1983 allows a private actor to be sued as if it were the state and makes state actors potentially liable as well, the state actor must share the private actor's unconstitutional goal in order for a state actor to be acting under color of state law. In other words, “[a] private actor ... cannot unilaterally convert a state actor's legitimate activity into an illegal act, conferring both constitutional accountability on itself and liability on the state.” Cunningham , 924 F.2d at 108.
In the present case, plaintiffs fail to present evidence supporting an inference of a meeting of minds between the private and public defendants. No evidence suggests that any of the public defendants knew that the repossession was unlawful or that they shared an unconstitutional goal with the private plaintiffs. Rather, the record indicates that the private defendants, particularly Johnson, misrepresented that a court order authorized them to remove plaintiffs' property. Lying to a state actor in order to induce him to participate in unlawful conduct, however, is the type of unilateral action that does not create private actor liability. See, e.g. , Betts v. Shearman , 751 F.3d 78 (2d Cir. 2014)
(); Peng v. Mei Chin Penghu , 335 F.3d 970 (9th Cir. 2003) (). Thus, plaintiffs cannot establish that the private defendants acted under color of state law.
claims against the public defendants fail for similar reasons. Plaintiffs must show that the defendants were personally responsible for the deprivation of their rights. Gentry v. Duckworth , 65 F.3d 555, 561 (7th Cir. 1995). A defendant is personally responsible “if the conduct causing the constitutional deprivation occurs at his direction or with his knowledge and consent.” Id. (internal quotations and citation omitted); see also
Jones v. City of Chi. , 856 F.2d 985, 992 (7th Cir. 1988). This is a mental state requirement and requires plaintiffs to prove more...
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