Sylvie v. City of Dallas Texas , 75 F. App'x 221 ( 2003 )


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  •                                                       United States Court of Appeals
    Fifth Circuit
    F I L E D
    IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS        September 8, 2003
    FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT          Charles R. Fulbruge III
    Clerk
    _____________________
    No. 03-10007
    Summary Calendar
    _____________________
    CHARLIE SYLVIE
    Plaintiff - Appellee
    versus
    CITY OF DALLAS TEXAS; ET AL.
    Defendants
    TED KILPATRICK; MICHAEL RICKMAN
    Defendants - Appellants
    _________________________________________________________________
    Appeal from the United States District Court
    for the Northern District of Texas
    District Court No. 01-CV-1549-K
    _________________________________________________________________
    Before HIGGINBOTHAM, EMILIO M. GARZA and PRADO, Circuit Judges.1
    PRADO, Circuit Judge.
    The appellants in this interlocutory appeal challenge the
    district court’s denial of their motion for summary judgment on
    qualified immunity grounds.    In their appeal, the appellants
    1
    Pursuant to 5th Cir. R. 47.5, this Court has determined
    that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent
    except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5th Cir. R.
    47.5.4.
    1
    maintain the district court misapplied the law for determining
    whether a governmental official is entitled to qualified
    immunity.   After considering the parties’ arguments, this Court
    affirms the district court’s order denying the motion for summary
    judgment.
    Standard of Review
    This Court does not have jurisdiction to review
    interlocutory appeals from the denial of summary judgment based
    on qualified immunity grounds when the appeal challenges the
    district court’s ruling that genuine issues exist concerning
    material facts.    See Jones v. Collins, 
    132 F.3d 1048
    , 1051-52
    (5th Cir. 1998).    The Court, however, has jurisdiction over
    appeals that challenge questions of law, such as the materiality
    of factual issues.     See Bazan v. Hidalgo County, 
    246 F.3d 481
    ,
    490 (5th Cir. 2001).    The determination of whether a defendant’s
    conduct was objectively reasonable is a question of law, but that
    question of law can only be reviewed when there are no underlying
    genuine issues of material fact.       
    Id.
       This Court may consider
    this appeal because the appellants contend the district court
    misapplied the law in considering whether their conduct was
    objectively reasonable.
    Whether the District Court Erred
    The defendant-appellants first argue that the district court
    misapplied the law for determining whether a governmental
    2
    official is entitled to qualified immunity.    In considering a
    defendant’s entitlement to qualified immunity as grounds for
    summary judgment, the district court must first determine whether
    the plaintiff alleged a violation of a clearly established right,
    and then determine whether the defendant official’s conduct was
    objectively reasonable in light of clearly established law at the
    time of the alleged violation.     See Fontenot v. Cormier, 
    56 F.3d 669
    , 673 (5th Cir. 1995); see also Siegert v. Gilley, 
    500 U.S. 226
    , 231-33 (1991).   On appeal, the appellants contend the
    district court misapplied this test because the court did not
    first determine whether the plaintiff proved a violation of a
    clearly established right.   Despite this complaint, the order
    denying the motion for summary judgment indicates the district
    court correctly applied the law.
    The district court initially denied the appellant’s motion
    in an order that stated “the Court finds that there are disputed
    issues of material fact.”    The appellants then filed their notice
    of interlocutory appeal.    In response, the district court issued
    a memorandum opinion clarifying its reason for denying the
    appellant’s summary judgment motion.    After setting out the test
    for qualified immunity, the district court reviewed the
    plaintiff-appellee’s summary judgment evidence in support of his
    claims that the appellants violated the appellee’s rights to
    equal protection under the law by placing the appellee on
    3
    administrative leave and later terminating him for violating a
    city employment policy for assessing sexually explicit internet
    sites on a city computer.   The district court explained that the
    appellee claimed the appellants falsely indicated that city
    records showed that the appellee was on duty on the particular
    dates the sexually explicit material was viewed and that the
    appellee was solely responsible for accessing the internet sites
    because the appellee was the exclusive user of the computer in
    the office.   The district court then detailed the appellee’s
    evidence supporting his claims.
    The district court indicated the plaintiff-appellee
    presented summary judgment evidence that: (1) the plaintiff did
    not have exclusive use of the computer in his office, (2) other
    individuals had a key to the office where the plaintiff’s
    computer was located, (3) the plaintiff gave the defendant-
    appellants records showing that he was not at the office during
    the times of day the computer was used to access sexually
    explicit sites, and (4) evidence that the defendant-appellants
    accepted without question denials from other employees who had
    computers with sexually explicit materials while refusing to
    accept the plaintiff’s denial.    After detailing this evidence,
    the district court concluded, “taking the evidence in the light
    most favorable to [the plaintiff-appellee], the facts determining
    whether the defendants acted with objective reasonableness are in
    dispute.   Specifically, it is disputed whether the defendants
    4
    were deliberately indifferent in the investigation leading up to
    [the plaintiff-appellee’s] suspension and termination by the
    City.”   Although the district court’s order did not explicitly
    state that the court found the plaintiff alleged the violation of
    a clearly established right, that finding is implicit in the
    court’s order.    In particular, the order recognized that the
    plaintiff had sued the appellants “alleging that because of his
    race, African-American, he was denied equal employment
    opportunities and [was] discriminated against” and that the
    appellants “violated his rights to equal protection under the
    law.”
    Title VII protects an employee from unlawful employment
    discrimination.    See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a); see also McDonnell
    Douglas Corp. v. Green, 
    411 U.S. 792
    , 801 (1973).       The Fourteenth
    Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees a person
    equal protection under the law.       See U.S. CONST. amend. 14, § 1;
    see also Washington v. Davis, 
    426 U.S. 229
    , 239 (1976). Because
    the plaintiff alleged unlawful employment discrimination and the
    denial of equal protection, the plaintiff alleged the deprivation
    of a clearly established right.    Although the appellants maintain
    the plaintiff-appellee failed to prove the violation of a clearly
    established right, the plaintiff was only required to allege the
    violation of a clearly established right.        See Siegert, 
    500 U.S. at 231-33
    .   The district court may not have explicitly addressed
    5
    the first prong of the qualified-immunity test, but the court’s
    order makes it abundantly clear that the district court correctly
    applied the law.
    The appellants next argue that the genuine issue of material
    fact that the district court identified is not material to the
    issue of objective reasonableness.   In particular, the appellants
    argue that no objective unreasonableness exists even if the
    plaintiff did not have exclusive use of his office, or of his
    computer; even if the plaintiff provided documents indicating he
    was not in the office at the time of the alleged misuse; and,
    even if appellants believed others over the plaintiff.    That
    conclusion is especially illogical in light of the plaintiff’s
    summary judgment evidence that 24 computers in the same
    department showed access to pornographic sites although the
    employees using those computers were not disciplined; and that a
    white employee in the same department had 312 incidents of access
    to sexual materials on his computer, but that he was not
    confronted with a claim that he had misused his computer.
    The evidence discussed above is material for the following
    reason.   If a supervisor who disciplined an African-American
    employee who did not have exclusive use of a computer in an
    office to which other individuals had a key, and that employee
    had evidence he was not at the office during the times the
    computer was used to access sexually explicit sites, the
    supervisor would not act with objective reasonableness if he did
    6
    not discipline other non-African-American employees who had
    sexually explicit materials on their computers.   Thus, the
    plaintiff’s summary judgment evidence was clearly material to
    whether the defendant-appellants raised a question of fact about
    the entitlement to qualified immunity.   As such the district
    court properly denied the motion for summary judgment.
    Having determined that the district court properly denied
    the defendant-appellants’ motion for summary judgment on
    qualified immunity grounds, this Court AFFIRMS the district
    court’s order and returns this case to the district court for
    further proceedings.
    AFFIRMED
    7