[PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT FILED
_____________________________ U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
JUNE 19, 2002
No. 01-10863 THOMAS K. KAHN
_____________________________ CLERK
D. C. Docket No. 98-00159 CV-DHB-1
ELAINE MATTHEWS,
Plaintiff-Appellee-
Cross-Appellant,
versus
COLUMBIA COUNTY,
Defendant-Appellant-
Cross-Appellee,
RICHARD REYNOLDS, et al.,
Defendants.
_________________________________________
Appeals from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Georgia
_________________________________________
(June 19, 2002)
Before EDMONDSON, Chief Judge, HILL and LAY*, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
*
Honorable Donald P. Lay, U.S. Circuit Judge for the Eighth Circuit, sitting by designation.
This case deals with the question of whether a county can be held liable,
under Section 1983, when some -- but less than a majority -- of the county’s
commissioners vote to eliminate a public employee’s job for an unconstitutional
reason. We conclude that it cannot.
BACKGROUND
This suit arises out of the elimination of Plaintiff Elaine Matthews’s
(“Plaintiff”) job with Defendant Colombia County (“County”). Plaintiff was
employed by the County as Director of Administrative Services. In 1993, the five-
member County Board of Commissioners voted to eliminate several County
positions; Plaintiff’s job was among those eliminated. Three County
Commissioners -- Richard Reynolds, Diane Ford, and David Titus -- voted in favor
of the resolution eliminating Plaintiff’s job. The other two Commissioners either
voted against it or were absent from the vote.
Plaintiff claims that the elimination of her job was in retaliation for
comments she had made about Renaissance Environmental Corporation, a
company with which the County was considering contracting. She claims that the
elimination of her job therefore violates the First Amendment. Plaintiff sued the
2
County, Commissioners Reynolds, Ford, and Titus, and County Administrator
Stephen Szablewski; the people were sued in both their official and individual
capacities. A motion to dismiss the suit against Reynolds, Ford, and Titus in their
official capacities was granted.
Later, Plaintiff filed, in Georgia state court, a Georgia RICO action against
the individual defendants and against Renaissance and two of its agents: Jeffrey
Nolan and Rick Byrd. This RICO action was removed to federal court and
consolidated with the First Amendment claim.
Except for the First Amendment claim against the County, all of Matthews’s
claims were dismissed at various stages. Before trial, the district court granted the
defendants’ motion to dismiss the state RICO claim. And, after the trial had
started, the district court granted Reynolds, Ford, Titus, and Szablewski’s motions
for summary judgment on the claims against them in their individual capacities.
The district court ruled that Reynolds, Ford, and Titus were protected by legislative
immunity and that Szablewski was protected by qualified immunity.
Plaintiff’s claim against the County was tried to a jury, who returned a
verdict in favor of Plaintiff. In a special verdict, the jury found that only one
Commissioner -- Commissioner Reynolds -- was motivated by Plaintiff’s
“protected speech activity” in voting to eliminate Plaintiff’s position. But the jury
3
also found that Titus and Ford had been “influenced in [their] vote[s] by another
Commissioner who was motivated to eliminate Plaintiff’s employment because of
the Plaintiff’s protected speech activity[.]”1 After the verdict was announced, the
County moved for judgment as a matter of law under Fed. R. Civ. P. 50. The
district court denied the motion. The County also moved to set aside the jury’s
award of emotional and mental distress damages. That motion, also, was denied.
Both parties appeal. The County appeals the district court’s denial of
judgment as a matter of law on the claim against it and the district court’s refusal to
set aside the jury’s emotional damages award. Plaintiff cross-appeals, challenging
the district court’s resolutions of the suits against the County officials in their
individual capacities and the RICO claim. We reverse the district court’s denial of
the County’s motion for judgment as a matter of law, and affirm on all issues
raised in Plaintiff’s cross-appeal.
DISCUSSION
1
The district court submitted two verdict forms to the jury in this case. The second form --
which included the two special interrogatories discussed above -- was submitted after the jury had
issued a general verdict in Plaintiff’s favor. On appeal, Plaintiff argues that it was error to submit
the second form to the jury. But, at trial, Plaintiff told the district court that she did not object to the
submission of the second form. Plaintiff cannot now complain about a jury instruction that she
explicitly accepted before the district court. See generally, In re Carbon Dioxide Industry Antitrust
Litigation, 229 F.3d 1321, 1327 (11th Cir. 2000) (“It is a cardinal rule of appellate review that a
party may not challenge as error a ruling or other trial proceeding invited by that party.”).
4
The County advances two arguments against the district court’s ruling for
Plaintiff: 1) Plaintiff’s speech was not protected by the First Amendment; and 2)
even if the speech was protected, it is improper to hold the County liable based on
the improper motives of only one commissioner. For the purposes of this appeal,
we will assume (without deciding) that Plaintiff’s speech is protected by the First
Amendment. A district court’s denial of a motion for judgment as a matter of law
is reviewed de novo. See Morro v. City of Birmingham, 117 F.3d 508, 513 (11th
Cir. 1997). We conclude that holding the County itself liable was error.
The determination of county liability in this case is somewhat complicated
by the fact that the unlawfulness of the County’s act is not apparent: reductions in
force are a perfectly proper way for a government to get its finances in order.
Instead, the unlawfulness can only be assessed by looking at the motives of those
who enacted the reduction in force (“RIF”). See Scott-Harris v. City of Fall River,
134 F.3d 427, 437 (1st Cir. 1997) (“In cases like this one, implicating the exercise
of First Amendment rights, liability under Section 1983 can attach to the passage
of a facially benign law only if one peers beneath the textual facade and concludes
that the legislative body acted out of a constitutionally impermissible motive.”),
rev’d on other grounds sub nom. Bogan v. Scott-Harris, 118 S. Ct. 966 (1998). In
5
this case, the jury found that Commissioner Reynolds did act with unconstitutional
motive. But this determination does not settle the question of the County’s
liability.
That a local government “may only be held liable under Section 1983 if
‘action pursuant to official . . . policy of some nature caused a constitutional tort’”
is well-settled law. Church v. City of Huntsville, 30 F.3d 1332, 1342 (11th Cir.
1994) (quoting Jett v. Dallas Indep. Sch. Dist., 109 S. Ct. 2702, 2719 (1989)).
And, “[o]nly those municipal officers who have final policymaking authority may
by their actions subject the government to § 1983 liability.” Id. (quoting City of
St. Louis v. Praprotnik, 108 S. Ct. 915, 924 (1988) (plurality opinion)). In this
case, Commissioner Reynolds does not possess final policymaking authority by
himself; that authority rests with the entire Board of Commissioners.
Because policymaking authority rests with the Commission as an entity, the
County can be subject to liability only if the Commission itself acted with an
unconstitutional motive. An unconstitutional motive on the part of one member of
a three-member majority is insufficient to impute an unconstitutional motive to the
Commission as a whole. Mason v. Village of El Portal, 240 F.3d 1337, 1339 (11th
Cir. 2001) (granting summary judgment to municipality where plaintiff had only
shown evidence that one member of a three-member majority had voted to fire
6
plaintiff for a discriminatory reason); cf. Church, 30 F.3d at 1343 (concluding that
comments of one city councilman suggesting an unconstitutional motive was
insufficient to show that the city council had authorized an unconstitutional
policy).
Plaintiff attempts to get around Mason by arguing that Reynolds’s
unconstitutional motive can be imputed to the board as a whole because
Commissioners Ford and Titus either ratified Reynolds’s unconstitutional motive
or delegated final policymaking authority to him. See Praprotnik, 108 S. Ct. at
925-26. In support of these theories, Plaintiff points to these things: 1) the jury’s
finding that Commissioners Ford and Titus were “influenced” by Commissioner
Reynolds in voting for the termination of Plaintiff; 2) evidence that Commissioners
Ford and Titus knew of Commissioner Reynolds’s improper motive; 3) evidence
that Reynolds, Ford, and Titus often voted as a bloc, and 4) evidence that Reynolds
was the one who selected which County positions would be included in the layoff.
Plaintiff’s argument lacks merit; these considerations do not change the outcome of
this case.
A delegation theory of county liability does not apply here. Local
government liability can exist when someone with final policymaking authority
delegates that authority to someone else. But, the delegation must be such that the
7
decision is not subject to review by the policymaking authority. See Scala v. City
of Winter Park, 116 F.3d 1396, 1399 (11th Cir. 1997). Here, even if Reynolds was
given the power to select which positions would be eliminated in the RIF, his
selections still had to be accepted by a majority of the board. As such, Reynolds
never possessed final policymaking power himself; and the delegation doctrine
does not apply.
Nor does the doctrine of ratification apply. County liability on the basis of
ratification exists when a subordinate public official makes an unconstitutional
decision and when that decision is then adopted by someone who does have final
policymaking authority. See generally, Bannum, Inc. v. City of Fort Lauderdale,
901 F.2d 989, 998 (11th Cir. 1990). The final policymaker, however, must ratify
not only the decision itself, but also the unconstitutional basis for it. Gattis v.
Brice, 136 F.3d 724, 727 (11th Cir. 1998) (“A policymaker's approval of an
unconstitutional action can constitute unconstitutional county policy only when the
policymaker ‘approve[s] a subordinate's decision and the basis for it.’”) (emphasis
in original) (quoting Praprotnik, 108 S. Ct. at 926).
That Titus and Ford may have known about the unconstitutional basis of
Reynolds’s selection and vote or that Reynolds may have affected Titus and Ford’s
votes by his influence is not enough to show that they ratified the unlawful basis by
8
also voting for the RIF. In reaching this conclusion, we draw not only upon our
precedent, but also upon our belief that a contrary rule would put lawmakers in an
unacceptable position. Lawmakers’ support for legislation can come from a
variety of sources; one commissioner may support a particular piece of legislation
for a blatantly unconstitutional reason, while another may support the same
legislation for perfectly legitimate reasons. A well-intentioned lawmaker who
votes for the legislation -- even when he votes in the knowledge that others are
voting for it for an unconstitutional reason and even when his unconstitutionally
motivated colleague influences his vote -- does not automatically ratify or endorse
the unconstitutional motive.2 If we adopt the rule suggested by Plaintiff, the well-
intentioned lawmaker in this hypothetical would be forced either to vote against his
own view of what is best for his county or to subject his county to Section 1983
liability. We think the law compels no such outcome.
We conclude, therefore, that, because only Commissioner Reynolds was
actually motivated by an unconstitutional consideration, the County cannot be held
liable under Section 1983. Mason, 240 F.3d at 1340 (“[T]here can be no municipal
liability unless all three members of the council who voted against reappointing
2
We think this proposition is true even where -- as Plaintiff argues is the case here -- the properly
motivated lawmaker has often voted the same way as the improperly motivated lawmaker.
9
[p]laintiff shared the illegal motive.”) (emphasis added). The judgment of the
district court on this issue must be reversed.
Therefore, we need not reach the damages issue raised by the County. And,
we see no merit to Plaintiff’s cross-appeals of the district court’s resolution of the
claims against the individual defendants or of the state RICO claim. We therefore
affirm the district court on the rulings Plaintiff challenges on cross-appeal.
We remand this case to the district court, with instructions to enter judgment
in favor of the County.
AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, AND REMANDED.
10
Elaine Matthews v. Columbia County
Court: Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
Date filed: 2002-06-19
Citations: 294 F.3d 1294
Copy Citations