Brown et al v. Herbert et al

Filing 90

VACATED PER #112 ORDER TO VACATE JUDGMENTMEMORANDUM DECISION AND JUDGMENT-The court therefore finds in favor of Plaintiffs on their seventh and final count in the Complaint under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and GRANTS summary judgment in their favor on this last remaining count. Case Closed. See Memorandum Decision for details. Signed by Judge Clark Waddoups on 8/27/14. (jmr) Modified on 3/9/2017 (jwt).

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF UTAH, CENTRAL DIVISION

KODY BROWN, MERI BROWN,
JANELLE BROWN, CHRISTINE BROWN,
ROBYN SULLIVAN,

MEMORANDUM DECISION AND
JUDGMENT

Case No. 2:11-CV-0652-CW
Plaintiffs,
Judge Clark Waddoups
v.
GARY R. HERBERT, MARK SHURTLEFF,
JEFFREY R. BUHMAN,
Defendants.
MEMORANDUM DECISION
The court granted in part Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment (Dkt. No. 49),
denying Defendant’s Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment (Dkt. No. 55), in its Memorandum
Decision and Order dated December 13, 2013 (Dkt. No. 78). That Order, however, left
unresolved the matter of Plaintiffs’ claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and in a status conference held
on January 17, 2014, the court requested supplemental briefing on the issue.
Defendant contends that his failure to include an affirmative defense or any answer to
Plaintiffs’ Section 1983 claim in his Answer (Dkt. No. 33) or in any of his briefs in the summary
judgment process does not constitute a waiver of prosecutorial immunity or qualified immunity
as defenses because Plaintiffs did not properly seek an award of money damages against him.
(Def.’s Resp. to Pls.’ Resp. 5 [Dkt. No. 89].) This line of argument, though creative, is not
persuasive. Plaintiffs unambiguously asserted a number of specific injuries in their Complaint

that entitle them to monetary damages. (See, e.g., Compl. ¶¶ 172-77 [Dkt. No. 1].) Moreover, in
connection with the recitation of these injuries, Plaintiffs explicitly seek to “recover all of their
attorneys’ fees, costs, and expenses incurred in this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988, and any
other relief that this Court may order.” (Id. at ¶ 29 (emphasis added).) In fact, in their Prayer for
Relief at the conclusion of their Complaint, they include their claim under Section 1983 with the
rest of their Constitutional claims and follow their request pursuant to Section 1988 with a
specific request that the court “award such other relief as it may deem just and proper.” (Id. at
39, ¶ 4.) As the Tenth Circuit noted in Frazier v. Simmons, the plaintiff’s request for monetary
damages and “such other relief as the court deems just and equitable” was sufficient to put the
defendant in that case on notice that he also sought injunctive relief, which protected his claim
from an Eleventh Amendment immunity defense. 254 F.3d 1247, 1254-55 (10th Cir. 2001)
(concluding that through this language and the “nature of the harms” he alleged, “Mr. Frazier
sufficiently indicated in his complaint, and the district court repeated in its pretrial order, that he
sought prospective equitable relief against Mr. Simmons,” though also noting that such a
“boilerplate recitation . . . included in one’s prayer for relief is far from an exemplary request
for” the desired relief). The same logic requires the court to find that Defendant was adequately
on notice that Plaintiffs were seeking money damages in addition to the injunctive and
constitutional relief sought.
Defendant, therefore, has waived his various immunity defenses by not raising them in
his Answer, as was his duty under Rule 8(c)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, or
opposing or mentioning Plaintiffs’ assertion of their Section 1983 claim in their Complaint, their
Motion for Summary Judgment, and their Opposition to Defendant’s Cross-Motion. The court
must view this as a conscious decision on the part of Defendant, a decision that has

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consequences under the orderly administration of justice in the federal courts. “Failure to plead
an affirmative defense results in a waiver of that defense.” Bentley v. Cleveland Cnty. Bd of Cnty.
Comm’rs, 41 F.3d 600, 604 (10th Cir. 1994). This is so well settled a principle under the Federal
Rules of Civil Procedure that “the very possibility of waiver makes it important (and certainly
prudent) to plead all appropriate affirmative defenses,” specifically to avoid waiver. H.S. Field
Servs. v. CEP Mid-Continent, LLC, No. 12-cv-531-JED-PJC, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 137341, at
*3-*4 (N.D. Okla. Sept. 25, 2013).
The court must therefore agree with Plaintiffs that Defendant’s approach of neither
raising the defenses of qualified immunity or prosecutorial immunity as affirmative defenses, or
even mentioning them in the briefing responding to Plaintiffs’ Section 1983 claim constitutes a
waiver of these defenses. If not, “there would be little reason for parties to completely answer a
complaint or offer a full defense to summary judgment. Defendant has not claimed the right to
retroactively claim such defenses, but such a claim would allow parties to adopt a nondefense
position as to a claim and later ask for an exemption from the rules when an obvious waiver is
raised. There is no provision in the federal rules for such a judicial equivalent of a Mulligan for
the hapless or absent litigant.” (Pl.’s Resp. to Court Order 14 [Dkt. No. 85].)
The court therefore finds in favor of Plaintiffs on their seventh and final count in the
Complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and GRANTS summary judgment in their favor on this last
remaining count. Plaintiffs, however, have chosen to drop their claim for monetary damages
aside from attorney’s fees: “[Plaintiffs] believe strongly that the focus of the case should be on
the Court’s historic ruling and not their insular losses associated with the criminal investigation
and public comments of the Defendant. To that end, they will not ask for repayment of their
moving costs, loss of contracts, or other expenses detailed in the prior filings,” although

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“reserve[ing] their right to seek attorneys’ fees in this case.” (Id. at 2 & n.1.) In severing the
cohabitation prong 1 of Utah’s Anti-Bigamy Statute, Utah Code Ann. § 76-7-101(1) in its
Memorandum Decision and Order Granting in Part Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment
dated December 13, 2013 (Dkt. No. 78), the court has therefore provided the relief sought while
leaving the Statute in force as narrowly construed in the absence of the cohabitation prong. That
Order is fully incorporated herein for purposes of the below final Judgment in this case.
JUDGMENT
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that Utah Code Ann. § 767-101 (2013) is facially unconstitutional in that the phrase “or cohabits with another person” is a
violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution
and is without a rational basis under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; to
preserve the integrity of the Statute, as enacted by the Utah State Legislature, the Court hereby
severs the phrase “or cohabits with another person” from Utah Code § 76-7-101(1); it is further
ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the statute is readily susceptible to and
the Court hereby adopts a narrowing construction of the terms “marry” and “purports to marry”

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The court found that the phrase “or cohabits with another person” in the Statute violates the Free
Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, Brown v. Buhman, 947
F.Supp.2d 1170, 1203-21 (D. Utah 2013), and is also without a rational basis under the Due Process
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, id. at 1222-25. The court, however, acknowledged that “it is not
the role of federal courts in the constitutional framework of checks and balances to ‘rewrite a state law to
conform it to constitutional requirements.’” Id. at 1226 (quoting Virginia v. Am. Booksellers Ass’n, 484
U.S. 383, 397 (1988)). Thus, the court adopted a “narrowing construction,” id. at 1231-32, of the
accompanying phrase “purports to marry another person” as required by the canon of constitutional
avoidance, “under which ‘[t]he elementary rule is that every reasonable construction must be resorted to,
in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality.’” Id. at 1226 (quoting Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S.
124, 153 (2007)). This obliged the court “to save the Statute from being invalidated in its entirety,” if the
Statute were “readily susceptible” to such a narrowing construction. Id. at 1233. As a result, “under this
narrowing construction, the Statute remains in force, submitting anyone residing in Utah, knowing he has
a wife or she has a husband or knowing the other person has a husband or wife, to prosecution for the
crime of bigamy for entering into any further purportedly legal union.” Id. at 1233-34.
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to save the Statute from being invalidated in its entirety, and that portion of the Statute is upheld as
constitutional; it is further
ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the Plaintiffs, as prevailing parties in an
action for enforcement of civil rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, are entitled to an award of
attorney’s fees, costs, and expenses incurred in this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 upon further
and proper application.
SO ORDERED this 27th day of August, 2014.
BY THE COURT:

______________________________
Clark Waddoups
United States District Court Judge

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