Filed: Jun. 14, 2019
Latest Update: Mar. 03, 2020
Summary: Case: 19-10103 Date Filed: 06/14/2019 Page: 1 of 9 [DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT _ No. 19-10103 Non-Argument Calendar _ D.C. Docket No. 5:16-cv-01699-MHH THE ASSOCIATION OF COUNTY COMMISSIONS OF ALABAMA LIABILITY SELF-INSURED FUND Intervenor – Appellee, GLENDA LOCKHART Plaintiff – Appellee, STRIGHTLINE DRYWALL & ACOUSTICAL LLC Plaintiff – Appellee, versus BLAKE ROBINSON Defendant – Appellant, ROBERT WILSON Defendant – Appellant, Case: 19-10103
Summary: Case: 19-10103 Date Filed: 06/14/2019 Page: 1 of 9 [DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT _ No. 19-10103 Non-Argument Calendar _ D.C. Docket No. 5:16-cv-01699-MHH THE ASSOCIATION OF COUNTY COMMISSIONS OF ALABAMA LIABILITY SELF-INSURED FUND Intervenor – Appellee, GLENDA LOCKHART Plaintiff – Appellee, STRIGHTLINE DRYWALL & ACOUSTICAL LLC Plaintiff – Appellee, versus BLAKE ROBINSON Defendant – Appellant, ROBERT WILSON Defendant – Appellant, Case: 19-10103 D..
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Case: 19-10103 Date Filed: 06/14/2019 Page: 1 of 9
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 19-10103
Non-Argument Calendar
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 5:16-cv-01699-MHH
THE ASSOCIATION OF COUNTY COMMISSIONS OF ALABAMA
LIABILITY SELF-INSURED FUND
Intervenor – Appellee,
GLENDA LOCKHART
Plaintiff – Appellee,
STRIGHTLINE DRYWALL & ACOUSTICAL LLC
Plaintiff – Appellee,
versus
BLAKE ROBINSON
Defendant – Appellant,
ROBERT WILSON
Defendant – Appellant,
Case: 19-10103 Date Filed: 06/14/2019 Page: 2 of 9
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Alabama
________________________
(June 14, 2019)
Before JORDAN, BRANCH, and JULIE CARNES, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Robert Wilson and Blake Robinson are deputy sheriffs in Morgan County,
Alabama. They assert that the district court should have dismissed the plaintiffs’
suit against them because their state-law tort claims are barred by Alabama sovereign
immunity and by the Eleventh Amendment. But the deputies have not met their
burden under Alabama law to show that they were acting within the scope of their
employment, so they are not entitled to state-law immunity at this stage of the
proceedings. And they are not entitled to sovereign immunity under the Eleventh
Amendment, because the plaintiffs are suing them in their individual capacities for
damages.
I
Glenda Lockhart, one of the plaintiffs, is a member and owner of Straightline
Drywall and Acoustical, LLC (“Straightline”), a company in Morgan County that
installs drywall and other products in federal buildings. Ms. Lockhart also operates
a “Whistleblower Blog” that “is devoted to investigating and exposing public
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corruption by employees of the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department.” In 2015, the
Whistleblower Blog reported extensively on a case involving Ana Franklin, the
Morgan County Sheriff, and a dispute in which Sheriff Franklin was accused of
“invest[ing] . . . $150,000 of funds collected in the Morgan County jail food account
into Priceville Partners . . . a used car and title loan business” for her personal
interest. D.E. 79 at 3–4.
The plaintiffs claim that Deputies Wilson and Robinson approached Ms.
Lockhart’s grandson and offered to “pay him $1,000 for information on who was
leaking information to his grandmother.” Id. at 21. The plaintiffs allege that
Deputies Wilson and Robinson gave Ms. Lockhart’s grandson a thumb drive
containing keylogger software to install on Ms. Lockhart’s computer, software that
would “record keystrokes on [her] computers in real time . . . [that could] obtain
information concerning the Whistleblower Blog.”
Id. at 22–23. Sheriff Franklin
and Deputies Wilson and Robinson allegedly instructed Ms. Lockhart’s grandson to
“‘pilfer around’ at the Straightline office and gather information.”
Id. at 24.
The plaintiffs allege that Deputy Robinson “signed a false and misleading
affidavit in order to obtain a warrant to search” (1) the home of someone suspected
of being a source for the Whistleblower blog, (2) Ms. Lockhart’s property, and (3)
the Straightline office. Deputies Wilson and Robinson then executed a search
warrant on the Straightline office, confiscating “files and devices” that prevented
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Straightline from “conduct[ing] business.” Id. at 29. The files contained
information about Sheriff Franklin’s involvement with Priceville Partners, and the
plaintiffs allege that the defendants “maliciously destroyed these documents to
conceal their corruption” because the “documents did not fit within the description
of the information sought as indicated by the warrant.”
Id. at 30. Finally, the
plaintiffs allege that Sheriff Franklin slandered Ms. Lockhart by publishing a
statement with the press accusing her of engaging in criminal activity.
Ms. Lockhart and Straightline sued Sheriff Franklin, Deputies Wilson and
Robinson, and sheriff’s department employee Justin Powell. The plaintiffs pled six
federal and state-law claims, and sought solely monetary relief. 1 The complaint
asserts federal claims for violations of the plaintiffs’ First and Fourth Amendment
rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and for violations of the Electronic Communications
Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2511. It also asserts claims under Alabama law, including
intentional interference with contractual relations, civil conspiracy, invasion of
privacy, and slander per se.
Deputies Wilson and Robinson moved to dismiss the state-law claims, arguing
that because they were sued in their individual capacities, Alabama granted them
“absolute immunity from suits for damages based upon their official acts.” D.E. 107
1
The plaintiffs filed a motion for a separate temporary restraining order against the defendants for
the return of their property, but they voluntarily withdrew the motion.
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at 2. They also argued that, because they are agents of the state and the Eleventh
Amendment bars the district court “from exercising jurisdiction over suits by
citizens against a state or a state agent,” the district court lacked subject-matter
jurisdiction as to the state-law claims.
The district court denied the motion to dismiss. The court agreed that Article
I, § 14 of the Alabama Constitution granted Alabama deputy sheriffs immunity
“from state law claims for damages,” but only “when the conduct that forms the
basis of the state-law claims was performed within the course and scope of the
officer’s employment.” D.E. 168 at 2. Accepting the allegations of the complaint
as true, the court found “no authority for the proposition that a deputy sheriff acts
within the line and scope of his employment when he engages in bribery,
intimidations, and other misconduct to silence a private citizen who has been
publicly critical of the sheriff and her deputies.” Id. at 5. Thus, it concluded that
Deputies Wilson and Robinson were not entitled to state-law immunity. They
appealed.
II
We review de novo the district court’s order denying a motion to dismiss
based on state-law sovereign immunity. See Tinney v. Shores, 77 F.3d 378, 383
(11th Cir. 1996). We accept the factual allegations in the complaint as true and draw
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all reasonable inferences in the plaintiffs’ favor. See Dalrymple v. Reno, 334 F.3d
991, 994 (11th Cir. 2003).
Alabama generally grants sovereign immunity to its state executive officers,
sheriffs, and deputy sheriffs pursuant to Article I, Section 14 of the Alabama
Constitution of 1901. See Ex parte Donaldson, 80 So. 3d 895, 897 (Ala. 2011); Ex
Parte Purvis,
689 So. 2d 794, 795–96 (Ala. 1996); Parker v. Amerson,
519 So. 2d
442, 446 (Ala. 1987). “[A] claim for monetary damages made against a
constitutional officer in the officer’s individual capacity is barred by State immunity
whenever the acts that are the basis of the alleged liability were performed within
the course and scope of the officer’s employment.” Ex parte Davis,
930 So. 2d 497,
500 (Ala. 2005).
But “[n]o state officer,” including a sheriff or deputy sheriff, “can avoid tort
liability simply by claiming that his mere status as a state official cloaks him with
the state’s constitutional immunity.” Ex parte Haralson, 853 So. 2d 928, 933 (Ala.
2003). Compare Ex parte Blankenship,
893 So. 2d 303, 305 (Ala. 2004) (granting a
deputy sheriff immunity from damages arising out of a car accident because the
plaintiff specifically pleaded that the deputy sheriff was acting within the scope of
his authority); Ex parte McWhorter,
880 So. 2d 1116, 1117 (Ala. 2003) (finding that
state immunity applied because “[i]t [wa]s undisputed that Deputy McWhorter was
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acting within the line and scope of his employment as a deputy sheriff at the time of
the accident”).
Moreover, immunity under § 14 “is an affirmative defense for which the
burden of proof rests with those asserting it.” Hickman v. Dothan City Bd. of Educ.,
421 So. 2d 1257, 1259 (Ala. 1982). See also Matthews v. Alabama A&M Univ.,
787
So. 2d 691, 695 (Ala. 2000) (“Immunity is an affirmative defense that the defendant
must plead and prove.”). In Haralson, for example, the Alabama Supreme Court
denied state immunity at the motion-to-dismiss stage because the plaintiff’s
complaint was silent on whether the deputy sheriff was acting within the scope of
his employment and the motion to dismiss failed to provide evidence that the deputy
sheriff had a “clear legal right” to the immunity sought.
Haralson, 853 So. 2d at 933
(“We cannot conclude, at this early stage of the proceedings, without evidence
showing at the time of the accident he was acting within the line and scope of his
employment, that Deputy Haralson is entitled to immunity.”).
The complaint here repeatedly alleges that the defendants acted beyond their
authority by making material misrepresentations to obtain the search warrant, by
searching the plaintiffs’ property, by intentionally interfering with the plaintiffs’
contractual relations, and by intercepting the plaintiffs’ electronic communications.
Yet Deputies Wilson and Robinson, in moving to dismiss, simply made the
conclusory assertion that they are entitled to state-law immunity because they are
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deputies. Deputies Wilson and Robinson did not provide any evidence or legal
authority establishing that the alleged conduct was within the scope of their duties
and authority. Without more information about whether they were acting within the
scope of their employment, Deputies Wilson and Robinson have not met their
burden to be entitled to state-law immunity at the motion-to-dismiss stage.
We emphasize, however, that this appeal is about whether the district court
was required to dismiss the state-law claims on state-immunity grounds, not about
whether the plaintiffs are entitled to relief on the merits of their claims. If Deputies
Wilson and Robinson believe, after a period of discovery, that the evidence
establishes their entitlement to state-law immunity, they may seek summary
judgment on this defense.
III
The defendants also assert that they are entitled to Eleventh Amendment
immunity on the state-law claims because this suit is essentially one against the state
of Alabama. “It is well established in this Circuit that Alabama sheriffs and their
deputies are state officials and are absolutely immune from suit as an officer of the
state under the Eleventh Amendment.” Melton v. Abston, 841 F.3d 1207, 1234 (11th
Cir. 2016). But “Alabama officials who have sovereign immunity when sued in their
official capacities are not entitled to sovereign immunity when they are sued in their
individual capacities under Section 1983.”
Id.
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As the district court explained, the plaintiffs have sued Deputies Wilson and
Robinson for damages in their individual capacities. Therefore, the Eleventh
Amendment does not bar the plaintiffs’ state-law claims.
IV
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s denial of the motion
to dismiss the state-law claims filed by Deputies Robinson and Wilson.
AFFIRMED.
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