M.R. et al v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County et al

Filing 81

Order granting 56 MOTION for Judgment on the Pleadings. Plaintiffs' claims against defendants Jerome Woods, Kirven Lang, and Jason D. Laffitte are dismissed without prejudice, and the Clerk of Court is directed to terminate those individuals as parties defendant. Signed by Chief Judge William H. Steele on 7/18/2012. (tgw)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA
SOUTHERN DIVISION
M.R., et al.,

)
)
Plaintiffs,
)
)
v.
)
)
BOARD OF SCHOOL COMMISSIONERS )
OF MOBILE COUNTY, et al.,
)
)
Defendants.
)

CIVIL ACTION 11-0245-WS-C

ORDER
This matter comes before the Court on the Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings (doc.
56) filed by defendants Jerome Woods, Kirven Lang, and Jason D. Laffitte (collectively, the
“Individual Defendants”). The Motion has been briefed and is now ripe for disposition.
I.

Background.1
This putative class action was brought by six Mobile County Public School (“MCPS”)

students pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging infringement of their procedural due process
rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. In particular, plaintiffs maintain that each of them was
“long-term suspended [from school] without proper notice or a hearing for minor infractions,” in
violation of their “Fourteenth Amendment right to receive notice and a hearing before being
punished with long-term suspensions.” (Doc. 1, ¶ 1.) The Complaint names as defendants the
Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County (the “Board”), as well as the three Individual
Defendants, solely in their official capacities as principals or assistant principals in the MCPS
system.2 No claims are asserted against the Individual Defendants in their individual capacities.
1

Because this matter is presented on a Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings, this
Court “must accept the facts alleged in the complaint as true and view them in the light most
favorable to the nonmoving party.” Cannon v. City of West Palm Beach, 250 F.3d 1299, 1301
(11th Cir. 2001).
2

Defendant Jerome Woods is alleged to be the Principal of Mattie T. Blount High
School. (Doc. 1, ¶ 14.) Defendant Kirven Lang is alleged to be an Assistant Principal at the
same facility. (Id., ¶ 16.) And defendant Jason D. Laffitte is alleged to be the Principal of C.L.
(Continued)

The Complaint asserts a § 1983 procedural due process claim against the Board for its
“official disciplinary procedure … that allows principals to impose long-term suspensions
without first holding hearings at which students and parents can challenge proposed
suspensions.” (Id., ¶ 4.) It also asserts a § 1983 procedural due process claim against the
Individual Defendants for their alleged practice of “summarily suspend[ing] students until the
end of the semester without following even the minimal procedures set forth in the Board’s
official policy.” (Id.) So, plaintiffs contend that the Board has a policy that violates the
Fourteenth Amendment, and that the Individual Defendants (who work for the Board) have a
custom or practice that does the same thing. The ad damnum clause of the Complaint specifies
that plaintiffs seek, inter alia, judicial declarations that defendants’ conduct deprived plaintiffs of
their Fourteenth Amendment due process rights, an injunction requiring defendants to cease their
unconstitutional activities, other equitable relief, and an award of costs and attorney’s fees. (Id.
at 32.) Plaintiffs do not claim monetary damages.
The Individual Defendants have now filed a Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings, in
which they argue that plaintiffs’ claims against them are redundant of their claims against the
Board, and should therefore be dismissed. Plaintiffs oppose the Motion for the stated reasons
that (i) their claims against the Individual Defendants are not redundant and (ii) their claims are
confined to seeking injunctive and declaratory relief.3

Scarborough Middle School. (Id., ¶ 18.) Both Blount and Scarborough are public schools in the
MCPS system. As to each of the Individual Defendants, the Complaint alleges that in carrying
out the duties and actions at issue herein, that defendant was “a state actor acting under color of
state law” who is “named as a defendant in his official capacity.” (Id., ¶¶ 15, 17, 19.)
3

Plaintiffs also oppose the Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings as being
“premature” because the deadline for plaintiffs to amend their Complaint is July 31, 2012. This
objection is unfounded. Nothing in Rule 12(c) or the case law construing it forbids a defendant
from seeking judgment on the pleadings until expiration of a scheduling order deadline for
amending pleadings. Although plaintiffs seize on language in Rule 12(c) specifying that a party
may move for judgment on the pleadings “[a]fter the pleadings are closed,” abundant precedent
confirms that this innocuous phrase means nothing more than the filing of a complaint and
answer. See, e.g., Doe v. United States, 419 F.3d 1058, 1061 (9th Cir. 2005) (“[T]he pleadings
are closed for the purposes of Rule 12(c) once a complaint and answer have been filed.”); U.S. v.
Dish Network L.L.C., 754 F. Supp.2d 1004, 1007 (C.D. Ill. 2011) (Rule 12(c) “permits a party to
move for judgment after the complaint and answer have been filed by the parties”); Atiyeh v.
National Fire Ins. Co. of Hartford, 742 F. Supp.2d 591, 595 (E.D. Pa. 2010) (“The pleadings are
(Continued)
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II.

Analysis.
In this Circuit, “[j]udgment on the pleadings is proper when no issues of material fact

exist, and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law based on the substance of
the pleadings and any judicially noticed facts.” Cunningham v. District Attorney’s Office for
Escambia County, 592 F.3d 1237, 1255 (11th Cir. 2010) (citation omitted); see also Palmer &
Cay, Inc. v. Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc., 404 F.3d 1297, 1303 (11th Cir. 2005)
(“Judgment on the pleadings is appropriate where there are no material facts in dispute and the
moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”) (citations omitted). As a general rule,
courts “will not consider matters outside the pleadings when passing on a Rule 12(c) motion.”
Horsley v. Feldt, 304 F.3d 1125, 1136 n.6 (11th Cir. 2002).4
The legal issue presented by the Individual Defendants in their Rule 12(c) Motion is
narrowly circumscribed, to-wit: Whether plaintiffs can maintain a § 1983 claim against them for
declaratory and injunctive relief solely in their official capacity as MCPS employees/
administrators, when plaintiffs are already pursuing a separate § 1983 claim against the Board
itself seeking the same remedies.

closed after an answer is filed, along with a reply to any additional claims asserted in the
answer.”); In re Enron Corp. Securities, Derivative & “ERISA” Litigation, 439 F. Supp.2d 692,
695 (S.D. Tex. 2006) (“Once a responsive pleading has been filed, a motion to dismiss for failure
to state a claim should properly be filed as a motion for judgment on the pleadings.”). Plaintiffs
identify no authority to the contrary. Here, the Complaint was filed in May 2011 and all
defendants filed their Answer in June 2011. The pleadings have been “closed” for Rule 12(c)
purposes for more than a year; thus, the Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings is plainly not
premature, and this objection need not detain the Court further.
4

The limited purposes and obvious utility of Rule 12(c) motions were aptly
summarized by one federal court as follows: “Judgment on the pleadings is, of course, not lightly
to be given. On the other hand, litigants should not be required to go through the full and
elaborate process of trial of issues when there is a dominating legal principle governing liability
which is dispositive of the case without the necessity of trial.” Moss v. School Dist. of
Norristown, 33 F.R.D. 518, 519 (E.D. Pa. 1963); see also Scranton Times, L.P. v. Wilkes-Barre
Pub. Co., 2009 WL 3100963, *2 (M.D. Pa. Sept. 23, 2009) (“A court should only grant a motion
for judgment on the pleadings if it is clear that the merits of the controversy can be fully and
fairly decided in this summary manner.”).

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A.

The Redundancy of Official-Capacity and Entity Claims.

The logical starting point is the well-worn proposition that “[w]hen an officer is sued
under Section 1983 in his or her official capacity, the suit is simply another way of pleading an
action against an entity of which an officer is an agent. …. Such suits against municipal officers
are therefore, in actuality, suits directly against the city that the officer represents.” Busby v. City
of Orlando, 931 F.2d 764, 776 (11th Cir. 1991) (footnote, citations, and internal marks omitted);
see also Will v. Michigan Dep’t of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 71, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 105 L.Ed.2d 45
(1989) (“[A § 1983] suit against a state official in his her official capacity is not a suit against the
official but rather is a suit against the official’s office. … As such, it is no different from a suit
against the State itself.”) (citations omitted); Penley v. Eslinger 605 F.3d 843, 854 (11th Cir.
2010) (“Official-capacity suits … generally represent only another way of pleading an action
against an entity of which an officer is an agent.”) (citation omitted); Snow ex rel. Snow v. City of
Citronelle, AL, 420 F.3d 1262, 1270 (11th Cir. 2005) (similar).
In reliance on this notion, courts in this Circuit routinely and overwhelmingly deem suits
against both a local government official in his official capacity and the entity of which the officer
is an agent to be redundant, and dismiss the official-capacity claims against the individual
defendant on that basis. See, e.g., Abusaid v. Hillsborough County Bd. of County Com’rs, 405
F.3d 1298, 1302 n.3 (11th Cir. 2005) (explaining that where plaintiff named county and county
fire marshal in his official capacity as separate defendants, only the fire marshal’s employer – the
county – was proper party); Busby, 931 F.2d at 776 (“To keep both the City and the officers sued
in their official capacity as defendants in this case would have been redundant and possibly
confusing to the jury.”).5 Plainly, then, extensive authorities illustrate the well-entrenched

5

See also May v. Mobile County Public School System, 2010 WL 3039181, *2 n.5
(S.D. Ala. July 13, 2010) (noting that to the extent plaintiff was suing superintendent and school
principal in their official capacities, “such claims are redundant of the claims against the Board
and due to be dismissed.”); Btesh v. City of Maitland, 2010 WL 883642, *5 (M.D. Fla. Mar. 5,
2010) (“When identical Section 1983 claims are made against both a governmental entity and the
entity’s officers, employees, or agents in their official capacities, courts should dismiss the claim
against the named individual defendants in their official capacities as redundant and possibly
confusing to the jury.”) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted); Carr v. Alabama Dep’t
of Youth Services, 2009 WL 903280, *7 (M.D. Ala. Mar. 31, 2009) (“Because plaintiff has sued
her employer directly, her official capacity claim against Wood is redundant and is due to be
dismissed.”); Bean v. Fulton County School System, 2008 WL 515007, *2 (N.D. Ga. Feb. 22,
(Continued)
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principle that suits against both an official in his or her official capacity and the entity that
official represents are redundant and unnecessary.
B.

Plaintiffs’ Counterarguments are Not Persuasive.

In response, plaintiffs propound two arguments. First, plaintiffs insist that their claims
against the Board and against the Individual Defendants “are not the same,” because they charge
the Board with “implementing a policy authorizing the violation of due process,” and the
Individual Defendants with violating plaintiffs’ due process rights, “whether or not the policy
itself authorizes violations.” (Doc. 67, at 7.) But this argument amounts to disingenuous hairsplitting. Under any reasonable reading, the Complaint states the same claim (violation of
Fourteenth Amendment due process rights by summarily suspending plaintiffs for longer than 10
days without notice or hearing) in two different ways, first that the Board has a policy that
violates plaintiffs’ rights and second that the Board has a custom or practice that violates
plaintiffs’ rights (irrespective of what the official policy states). Either way, it is the same claim
(due process violation based on failure to provide adequate pre-suspension notice and hearing)
against the same real party in interest (the Board).6

2008) (where plaintiff sued school district and superintendent in official capacity, granting
superintendent’s motion to dismiss because “[i]t would be redundant to allow plaintiffs to assert
the same claims against both the School District and Mr. Wilson in his official capacity”); Adams
v. City of Orlando Code Enforcement Bd., 2007 WL 1229103, *2 (M.D. Fla. Apr. 26, 2007)
(“the Court will dismiss the Section 1983 claims against Defendant Dyer in his official capacity,
as the local governmental unit was sued directly in the Complaint and remains a Defendant in the
instant case”); Nixon v. Autauga County Bd. of Educ., 273 F. Supp.2d 1292, 1296-97 (M.D. Ala.
2003) (“Where, as here, the proper defendant is Nixon’s employer and that employer, the Board,
has already been made a defendant, official capacity claims against members of the Board and
Nixon’s supervisor are redundant and due to be dismissed.”); Garrett v. Clarke County Bd. of
Educ., 857 F. Supp. 949 (S.D. Ala. 1994) (where plaintiff sued school board and superintendents
in official capacities under § 1983, “the plaintiff has sued the Board directly, so all of the § 1983
claims against the Superintendents in their official capacities are due to be dismissed”).
6

Regardless of whether the nominal defendant is the Board or its officials in their
official capacities, plaintiffs’ burden is the same, to-wit: to establish that the Board’s policy or
custom deprived plaintiffs of their due-process rights. See generally Craig v. Floyd County, Ga.,
643 F.3d 1306, 1310 (11th Cir. 2011) (reciting bedrock § 1983 principles that liability “may not
be based on the doctrine of respondeat superior,” but that municipality can only be held liable
where plaintiff proves “policy or custom” that violated constitutional rights); Doe v. School Bd.
of Broward County, Fla., 604 F.3d 1248, 1263 (11th Cir. 2010) (school board may be held liable
(Continued)
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Some elaboration on this point may be helpful. Again, as a matter of law, “suits against
an official in his or her official capacity are suits against the entity the individual represents.”
Burrell v. Board of Trustees of Ga. Military College, 970 F.2d 785, 789 n.10 (11th Cir. 1992)
(citation omitted); see also Cooper v. Dillon, 403 F.3d 1208, 1221 n.8 (11th Cir. 2005) (“We note
that a suit against Dillon in his official capacity is the same as a suit against the municipality of
the City of Key West.”) (citation omitted); Busby, 931 F.2d at 776 (“suits against a municipal
officer sued in his official capacity and direct suits against municipalities are functionally
equivalent”). What is the entity that the Individual Defendants represent? The Complaint does
not specify, but it could only be the Board. Thus, plaintiffs’ claims against the Individual
Defendants in their official capacities are, in actuality, claims against the Board. But the Board
is already a defendant in this case. What reason could there possibly be for naming the Board as
a defendant in two different ways? This situation implicates precisely the concern articulated by
the Eleventh Circuit in Busby that including as defendants at trial both the Board and the
Individual Defendants in their official capacities would be “redundant and possibly confusing.”
931 F.2d at 776. Plaintiffs can get to the same place (without the pitfalls of inefficiency and
confusion) by suing the Board – and the Board alone – for having a policy or custom of doling
out long-term suspensions without first providing proper notice and a hearing. Naming the
Individual Defendants in their official capacities as separate, additional parties adds nothing to
those claims other than an overlay of needless confusion and redundancy.7

under § 1983 “only if such constitutional torts result from an official government policy, the
actions of an official fairly deemed to represent government policy, or a custom or practice so
pervasive and well-settled that it assumes the force of law”) (citation omitted); Cooper v. Dillon,
403 F.3d 1208, 1221 (11th Cir. 2005) (“When suing local officials in their official capacities
under § 1983, the plaintiff has the burden to show that a deprivation of constitutional rights
occurred as a result of an official government policy or custom.”) (footnote omitted). Under
either variant of plaintiffs’ claim, then, a “policy or custom” attributable to the Board is
necessary for § 1983 liability to attach.
7

Another way of highlighting this point is to examine plaintiffs’ statements that
“[r]egardless of the policy of the Board, the Plaintiffs seek to enjoin the long-standing practice of
suspending students without due process at Blount High School and Scarborough Middle
School,” and that “[a]ll relief sought by Plaintiffs is aimed at preventing additional deprivations
of students [sic] rights.” (Doc. 67, at 7-8.) So plaintiffs want an injunction bringing to a halt the
alleged practice of suspending students without due process. Suppose plaintiffs prevail and
(Continued)
-6-

Second, plaintiffs urge the Court to find that the entire Busby line of authorities is
distinguishable because Busby involved claims for money damages, whereas the plaintiffs in this
action seek only injunctive and declaratory relief. The immediate problem with plaintiffs’
argument is that they identify no authorities recognizing such a distinction, much less declining
to apply the rule in Busby where claims of injunctive and declaratory relief are in play.8 This

obtain the desired injunction. What does an injunction against the Individual Defendants in their
official capacities accomplish that the injunction against the Board would not? Plaintiffs do not
say, and the Court cannot imagine what it might be. To enjoin the Board from implementing an
unconstitutional policy, custom or practice as to student discipline would effectively forbid the
Individual Defendants (in their official capacities as Board officials, employees and agents) from
implementing such a policy, custom or practice. To enjoin the Individual Defendants in their
official capacities separately and in addition to an injunction of the Board would afford not an
iota of additional relief to plaintiffs. So, again, inclusion of these official-capacity claims against
Individual Defendants is a wasteful, redundant, and ultimately pointless enterprise that would
serve only to confuse the issues, bog down the proceedings, and distract the finder of fact at trial.
8

The one decision identified by plaintiffs is Welch v. Laney, 57 F.3d 1004 (11th
Cir. 1995). In Welch, the Eleventh Circuit found that Eleventh Amendment immunity did not
bar a plaintiff’s claims against a sheriff and sheriff’s deputy in their official capacities for
prospective injunctive relief. Id. at 1008 (“the Eleventh Amendment does not insulate state
officials acting in their official capacities from suit in federal court, at least to the extent the
complainant seeks prospective injunctive relief”). Importantly, the Welch plaintiff sued only the
individuals, not any overarching entity (at least, as far as the sheriff’s defendants were
concerned), so Busby on its face was not applicable. Simply put, the issue in Welch (whether and
when Eleventh Amendment immunity applies to state officials sued in their official capacities) is
entirely distinct from the question raised by the Individual Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. This
case is not about immunity at all, but is instead about the analytically distinct Busby doctrine that
a plaintiff cannot sue both a municipality and a municipal official in his official capacity for the
same wrong because doing so would be redundant and confusing. Welch says nothing that
would negate that rule where a plaintiff seeks prospective injunctive relief. And of course, the
Individual Defendants are not state officials, so any kind of Eleventh Amendment analysis would
be wholly inapposite here, even if the Individual Defendants had raised it as a ground for their
Motion to Dismiss (which they unquestionably have not). See, e.g., Stewart v. Baldwin County
Bd. of Educ., 908 F.2d 1499, 1511 (11th Cir. 1990) (“We conclude … that the Baldwin County
Board of Education is not an ‘arm of the State’ for purposes of Eleventh Amendment immunity
….”); Eason v. Clark County School Dist., 303 F.3d 1137 (9th Cir. 2002) (collecting authorities
and pointing out that “most courts have held that school districts are not entitled to Eleventh
Amendment immunity”).

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Court cannot and will not develop plaintiffs’ legal argument for them.9 More fundamentally, the
Court’s own research (including the authorities cited in § II.A., supra, many of which involved
both damages claims and claims for injunctive relief) has revealed no cases where courts in this
Circuit have treated the Busby rule any differently for claims of prospective injunctive relief than
for those involving money damages. If such a distinction existed, one would expect courts
applying Busby to dismiss only the money-damages claims against the government officials in
their official capacities, while allowing the injunctive and declaratory claims to proceed to trial.
From this Court’s research, it appears that no such strand can be found in the Busby line of
precedents. Certainly, plaintiffs have not identified one. And the Supreme Court decision on
which Busby is predicated strongly implies that its reasoning applies to all types of claims, not
just those seeking a damages remedy. See Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159, 167 n.14, 105
S.Ct. 3099, 87 L.Ed.2d 114 (1985) (“There is no longer a need to bring official-capacity actions
against local officials, for … local government units can be sued directly for damages and
injunctive or declaratory relief.”) (emphasis added).
The bottom line is this: Plaintiffs insist that official-capacity claims against municipal
officials are not redundant of claims against the municipality as long as they seek injunctive
relief, not money damages. But they identify not a single authority that supports this proposition.
The Court’s research discloses none. And cases in this Circuit, apparently following the
Supreme Court’s lead in Graham, routinely dismiss both damages and injunctive relief claims
against municipal agents in their official capacities as redundant and confusing under Busby
where, as here, the entity has also been sued for the same relief. Under these circumstances, the
Court will not unilaterally devise a sweeping exception to the Busby rule that is drawn from
nothing more than thin air. This conclusion holds particularly true given that, as discussed
9

See, e.g., Vision Bank v. Merritt, 2010 WL 5474161, *4 (S.D. Ala. Dec. 8, 2010)
(“If Merritt wishes to pursue such a legal theory, it is incumbent on him to perform the necessary
research and develop that argument, rather than stating it in the vaguest of outlines and expecting
this Court to fill in the gaps.”); York v. Day Transfer Co., 525 F. Supp.2d 289, 301 n.10 (D.R.I.
2007) (“It is not enough merely to mention a possible argument in the most skeletal way, leaving
the court to do counsel’s work, create the ossature for the argument, and put flesh on its bones.”);
Federal Ins. Co. v. County of Westchester, 921 F. Supp. 1136, 1139 (S.D.N.Y. 1996) (“Under the
adversary system, it is counsel’s responsibility to explain why thesepoints have legal merit; the
Court does not serve as counsel’s law clerk.”).

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supra, if plaintiffs successfully obtain a prospective injunction barring the Board from
implementing a custom or policy of imposing long-term suspensions of MCPS students without
prior notice and hearing, then imposition of a similar injunction against the Individual
Defendants in their official capacities would gain precisely nothing for plaintiffs, but would
simply reiterate the injunction against the Board. Repetition neither makes the heart grow fonder
nor the injunction grow stronger, and an entity need not be told the same thing twice before a
court order will stick. This case is about claims for injunctive relief against the Board, and
plaintiffs cannot repackage those same claims against the Individual Defendants in their official
capacities to bring them twice, at the cost of unnecessary redundancy, inefficiency, and risk of
confusion.
III.

Conclusion.
For all of the foregoing reasons, the Individual Defendants’ Motion for Judgment on the

Pleadings (doc. 56) is granted. Plaintiffs’ claims against defendants Jerome Woods, Kirven
Lang, and Jason D. Laffitte are dismissed without prejudice, and the Clerk of Court is directed
to terminate those individuals as parties defendant.
DONE and ORDERED this 18th day of July, 2012.
s/ WILLIAM H. STEELE
CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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