Eaton v. Meneley

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
PUBLISH
AUG 3 2004
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
TENTH CIRCUIT

KENNETH EATON; JANET PRICE;
PATRICIA MCCLELLAN,

Plaintiffs-Appellees,
No. 03-3215
v.

DAVID MENELEY,

Defendant-Appellant,

and

SHAWNEE COUNTY, KANSAS,

Defendant.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS
(D.C. Nos. 01-CV-2097-KHV and 01-CV-2098-CM)

Submitted on the briefs:

Ron D. Martinek of Parker & Hay, LLP, Topeka, Kansas, for
Defendant-Appellant.

Robert V. Eye of Irigonegaray & Associates, Topeka, Kansas, for
Plaintiffs-Appellees.

Before EBEL , ANDERSON , and BRISCOE , Circuit Judges.
EBEL , Circuit Judge.

Defendant-appellant David Meneley, the former sheriff of Shawnee County,

Kansas, appeals the district court’s denial of his defense of qualified immunity. *

Plaintiffs-appellees Janet Price, Patricia McClellan, and Kenneth Eaton brought

suit against Meneley under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and various state statutes for

allegedly violating their First Amendment rights by misusing his position as

sheriff to defeat their petition drive to have him removed from office. Meneley

had run the plaintiffs’ names through a computer system available only to law

enforcement personnel to discover if they had criminal records. When the

plaintiffs disseminated the information that Meneley had run their names through

the system, the plaintiffs’ supporters deserted them and the petition drive failed.

Meneley was later removed from office, though, when the Kansas courts found

that he had given false testimony on two occasions. See State ex rel. Stovall v.

Meneley , 22 P.3d 124, 132, 150 (Kan. 2001).

*
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously to grant the parties’ request for a decision on the briefs without oral
argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore
ordered submitted without oral argument.

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 The district court here initially ruled that Meneley was entitled to qualified

immunity because the plaintiffs had not produced sufficient evidence that their

First Amendment rights to political expression and free association had, in fact,

been chilled. See Aplt. App., Vol. II at 545-46. The court noted that the

plaintiffs had continued to organize the petition drive after Meneley had run their

names, and they had continued to participate vigorously in public debate. Id. But

the district court reversed itself on reconsideration in light of the plaintiffs’

argument that it should have used the objective standard for evaluating harms

articulated in our First Amendment retaliation cases. See id. , Vol. III at 592-96

(citing Worrell v. Henry , 219 F.3d 1197, 1212-13 (10th Cir. 2000)). On

reconsideration, the district court found that Meneley’s abuse of his official

position in running the plaintiffs’ names was actionable under the retaliation

cases because it should have chilled a person of ordinary firmness from engaging

in protected political expression. Id. at 594-96.

We have jurisdiction to hear appeals of the denial of qualified immunity

when they turn on an issue of law. Mitchell v. Forsyth , 472 U.S. 511, 530 (1985).

We hold that the district court on reconsideration used the proper objective

standard of First Amendment retaliation cases to evaluate the plaintiffs’ claims,

but we disagree with its conclusion that Meneley’s single action in running the

background check would have chilled the speech of a person of ordinary firmness

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engaged in political debate. We reverse the district court’s denial of qualified

immunity and remand for further proceedings consistent with this decision.

Background

In evaluating a defendant’s assertion of qualified immunity, we view the

evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs as the non-moving party.

See DeSpain v. Uphoff , 264 F.3d 965, 971 (10th Cir. 2001); Patrick v. Miller ,

953 F.2d 1240, 1243 (10th Cir. 1992).

In March 1999, plaintiffs Price, McClellan, and Eaton organized a petition

to recall Meneley for alleged misconduct in office. See Aplt. App., Vol. II

at 535-36. Price at the time told the local newspaper, the Topeka Capital-Journal,

that more than 100 individuals were willing to sponsor the recall. Id.

In early April 1999, Price discovered through a contact at the Shawnee

County Sheriff’s Department that Meneley had run the names of the three

plaintiffs, as sponsors of the recall petition, through the department’s criminal

history check system (the Interstate Identification Index, or “III” system). Id.

at 536. Price contacted the Topeka Capital-Journal and the Kansas Bureau of

Investigation (the KBI) to report that Meneley had run her name through the

system. Id. McClellan also spoke to the newspaper about having her name run

through the computer. Id.

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 Soon afterwards, the Topeka Capital-Journal printed a story about how the

KBI was investigating the Sheriff Department’s use of the criminal history system

to run the names of recall petition sponsors. Id. The Sheriff’s Department,

through a spokesman, confirmed that it had run the background checks, but stated

that it had acted on a tip that the recall petition sponsors had felony records. Id.

The Department acknowledged, however, that none of the recall petition sponsors

had ever been convicted of a felony. Id. at 537.

When interviewed by the KBI, Meneley reasserted that he had run the

sponsors’ names on the basis of an anonymous tip, but he could produce no notes

or other documentation to support his claim. Id. at 537-38. KBI agents later

testified that, if Meneley had received such an anonymous tip, he should have

turned the tip over to an independent law enforcement agency for investigation to

avoid a conflict of interest. Id. at 538.

Not long after the Topeka Capital-Journal article on the background checks

ran, sponsors of the petition began to withdraw from the movement for fear of

retaliation from the sheriff. Id. at 539. McClellan testified that about forty

sponsors dropped their names from the petition, some sponsors solicited

signatures less enthusiastically, and other sponsors refused to turn in their petition

lists because signatories did not want their names to be made public. Id. Eaton

confirmed that supporters of the drive told him that they were concerned about

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signing the petition because they feared that their criminal histories would be

checked. Id. at 540. Also, as evidence of how widespread the negative reaction

was, Eaton testified that, when he first learned of the background checks, even he

assumed that there had been a legitimate basis for the checks, and he had become

leery of the other sponsors. Id.

In June 1999, it became clear that the recall petition drive would fall short

of the number of signatures it needed to be successful. Id. at 541. The recall

movement required 29,000 signatures to put Meneley’s removal to a vote, and the

plaintiffs had been able to collect only approximately 15,000 signatures. Id.

Price then destroyed the signature sheets as she had promised numerous

signatories to protect them from possible retaliation from Meneley. Id. ; id. n.12.

Finally, the plaintiffs allege various personal injuries as a result of the III

check, independent of the general failure of the petition drive. Price testified that

discovery of the III checks had caused her stress, and that she had cried for

several months and become depressed. Id. at 541. McClellan testified that news

of the III checks had harmed her reputation in the community. Id. Eaton, who is

a detective with the Topeka Police Department, testified that the alleged running

of a III check on him damaged both his personal and professional reputations. 1

1
There is some debate in the record whether a III check was actually run on
Eaton, but the newspaper, the plaintiffs, and the wider community reported and
(continued...)

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Id. at 541-42. He also testified to feeling humiliated, slandered, and embarrassed

by the process. Id. at 542. And he has lost confidence in the justice system

because he believes that Meneley has felt no formal repercussions for his abuse of

the III system. Id.

Standard of Review

Because the application of qualified immunity is a question of law, we

review the district court’s decision de novo . See, e.g. , Walter v. Morton , 33 F.3d

1240, 1242 (10th Cir. 1994). We also employ the de novo standard to scrutinize

a defendant’s actions whenever a plaintiff’s activity is protected by the First

Amendment. Lytle v. City of Haysville , 138 F.3d 857, 862 (10th Cir. 1998).

We have the duty to conduct “an independent examination of the whole record in

order to make sure that the judgment does not constitute a forbidden intrusion on

the field of free expression.” Id. (quotation omitted).

Qualified immunity shields government officials performing discretionary

functions from liability for civil damages unless their conduct violates clearly

established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would

have known. Harlow v. Fitzgerald , 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). Under our

two-part test for evaluating qualified immunity, the plaintiff must show (1) that

1
(...continued)
believed that one had been run on him along with the other petition sponsors.

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the defendant’s conduct violated a constitutional or statutory right, and (2) that

the law governing the conduct was clearly established at the time of the alleged

violation. Baptiste v. J.C. Penney Co. , 147 F.3d 1252, 1255 (10th Cir. 1998);

accord Tonkovich v. Kan. Bd. of Regents , 159 F.3d 504, 516 (10th Cir. 1998).

For a right to be clearly established, “[t]he contours of the right must be

sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing

violates that right.” Anderson v. Creighton , 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987). Unless

both prongs are satisfied, the defendant will not be required to “engage in

expensive and time consuming preparation to defend the suit on its merits.”

Siegert v. Gilley , 500 U.S. 226, 232 (1991).

But if a plaintiff fails to demonstrate that a defendant’s conduct violated

the law, the court need not determine whether the law was clearly established.

Hinton v. City of Elwood , 997 F.2d 774, 782 (10th Cir. 1993). Our threshold

analysis thus focuses on determining “first whether the plaintiff has alleged

a deprivation of a constitutional right at all.” County of Sacramento v. Lewis ,

523 U.S. 833, 841 n.5 (1998). For there to have been a violation of First

Amendment rights, the defendant’s action must have had a deterrent, or “chilling”

effect on the plaintiff’s speech. See, e.g. , Waters v. Churchill , 511 U.S. 661, 669

(1994). And when the plaintiff alleges that the defendant’s action was taken in

retaliation for protected speech, our standard for evaluating that chilling effect on

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speech is objective, rather than subjective. Smith v. Plati , 258 F.3d 1167,

1176-77 (10th Cir. 2001). The harm must be of the type that would chill a person

of ordinary firmness from continuing to engage in the protected speech. Worrell ,

219 F.3d at 1212-13. Thus, although the objective standard permits a plaintiff

who perseveres despite governmental interference to bring suit, “a trivial or

de minimis injury will not support a retaliatory prosecution claim.” Poole v.

County of Otero , 271 F.3d 955, 960 (10th Cir. 2001).

Discussion

Because of how this case has been argued, we address briefly three

preliminary issues before we analyze the qualified immunity question.

First, neither party debates that the plaintiffs have established standing to

bring their First Amendment claims in their own right. The plaintiffs were

individually the targets of alleged government misconduct, and they assert

individual harms from the running of the III check, not harms merely as

third-party representatives of other supporters who deserted the petition drive.

See, e.g. , Meese v. Keene , 481 U.S. 465, 472-77 (1987) (holding that harm to

reputation is a cognizable injury for standing in First Amendment retaliation

cases); Riggs v. City of Albuquerque , 916 F.2d 582, 584-86 (10th Cir. 1990)

(recognizing standing where the plaintiffs were the actual targets of illegal

surveillance and where they alleged harms to their personal and professional

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reputations). Because there is no debate over whether the plaintiffs here have

standing, we also need not be further concerned about the precedential weight of

Riggs , which the parties quote at length. Although Riggs involved facts similar to

this case, our decision in Riggs exclusively discussed the issue of standing, and

therefore does not provide guidance in evaluating the next question whether the

merits of the plaintiffs’ claim should survive the application of qualified

immunity. The test for a plaintiff to establish standing to bring a claim is

specifically separate from the test the plaintiff’s allegations must pass to establish

the claim itself. See Phelan v. Laramie County Cmty. Coll. Bd. of Trs. , 235 F.3d

1243, 1247 n.1 (10th Cir. 2000) (emphasizing that although an alleged harm to

reputation may be sufficient to establish standing, it may not be enough to

establish an abridgement of free speech rights); cf. also generally United States v.

Torres , 182 F.3d 1156, 1164 n.2 (10th Cir. 1999) (reiterating the importance of

considering only issues in the case before us).

Second, although the plaintiffs make much of the fact that running their

names through the III system violated Sheriff Department policy and official III

guidelines, see Aplt. App., Vol. II at 546; Aplt. Br. at 14, those potential

violations of local codes are not issues before us when considering qualified

immunity under § 1983. We evaluate the plaintiffs’ arguments only for whether

there are allegations sufficient to support the finding of a federal constitutional

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or statutory violation, here of the First Amendment. See, e.g. , Harlow , 457 U.S.

at 818; Tonkovich , 159 F.3d at 516.

Third, although the plaintiffs assert that questions of fact remain about

Meneley’s actual motives in running the III check, that argument does not touch

upon our jurisdiction in this matter. Aplee. Br. at 1. Even if issues of fact exist,

we have jurisdiction because we inquire only into the legal question whether

Meneley’s conduct, as alleged by the plaintiffs and as construed in the light most

favorable to them, would violate constitutional law. See, e.g. , Gross v. Pirtle ,

245 F.3d 1151, 1156-57 (10th Cir. 2001) (discussing circumstances under which

this court has jurisdiction to review the denial of qualified immunity despite the

existence of disputed facts).

Finally, we are able to turn to the central issue in the case against Meneley

on qualified immunity, which is whether the plaintiffs’ allegations, as construed

in the light most favorable to them, would establish a violation of their

constitutional rights. Although we strongly disapprove of Meneley’s conduct in

running the background check on the plaintiffs, we hold that this single action

was not enough to chill the actions of persons of ordinary firmness who enter the

arena of political debate to sponsor a recall petition against a sheriff who they

accuse of abusing his office. We reaffirm with this decision that the objective

standard of a person of ordinary firmness is a vigorous standard; although the

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standard permits a plaintiff who perseveres despite serious injury from official

misconduct to assert a constitutional claim, it is substantial enough that not all

insults in public debate become actionable under the Constitution. See Poole ,

271 F.3d at 960.

Our case law recognizes that the nature of political debate is rough and

tumble. Plaintiffs in public debates are expected to cure most misperceptions

about themselves through their own speech and debate. For example, in the case

of Phelan v. Laramie County Community College Board of Trustees , 235 F.3d

1243 (10th Cir. 2000), we held that a member of a college board could not sustain

an action for alleged violation of her First Amendment rights when the Board

publically censured her for campaigning against its decision on an issue because

both parties remained free to express their views. Id. at 1248. Even in the

context of that First Amendment retaliation case, we wrote that “injury to one’s

reputation is not enough to defeat constitutional interests in furthering

‘uninhibited, robust’ debate on public issues.” Id. at 1248 (citation omitted).

The plaintiffs here remained free to talk to the media about the sheriff’s use

of the III system, and they did. Aplt. App., Vol. II at 536; see also Schalk v.

Gallemore , 906 F.2d 491, 495 (10th Cir. 1990) (noting that most speech focusing

on “disclosing public officials’ malfeasance or wrongdoing” should be considered

a matter of public concern) . Indeed, the plaintiffs were the ones to bring the story

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to the newspaper, and they were the ones who repeatedly spoke to the press about

how the petition drive was progressing and what message they wanted to give

their supporters about the III checks. Despite anything the sheriff had done, the

plaintiffs were very much “free to express [their] views publically and to

criticize” the sheriff’s conduct, as we have found to be significant. Phelan ,

235 F.3d at 1248. These plaintiffs have not then stated a claim that would

support a finding that their constitutional rights have been violated.

Accordingly, for the reasons stated above, the judgment of the district court

is REVERSED, and the case is REMANDED for further proceedings consistent

with this decision.

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