Gatewood v. City of O'Fallon, Missouri

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI

EASTERN DIVISION

KATIE GATEWOOD, )

)

Plaintiff, )

)

vs. ) Case No. 4:22-cv-00089-AGF

)

CITY OF O’FALLON, MISSOURI, et al., )

)

Defendant. )

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

This matter is before the Court on Defendant’s motion (ECF No. 24) to dismiss

Plaintiff’s First Amended Verified Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief pursuant

to the Court’s prior Order of Abstention (ECF No. 16) under Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37

(1971), and on the grounds of res judicata, collateral estoppel, deference to state final

judgments, and/or waiver. Further, Defendants argue that any claims against those

Defendants named in their individual capacities should be dismissed for the additional

reason that they are entitled to absolute immunity.

Plaintiff failed to file a timely opposition to Defendants’ motion, so on April 25,

2022, the Court ordered Plaintiff to show cause in writing why Defendants’ motion should

not be granted. ECF No. 25. Plaintiff has responded to the Order to Show Cause and

argues that the Court should reconsider its Order of Abstention or, alternatively, dismiss this

matter so that Plaintiff may appeal of the Order of Abstention. As to the individual

Defendants’ immunity claims, Plaintiff acknowledges that Eighth Circuit precedent supports

Defendants’ arguments but contends that the precedent was wrongly decided.

For the reasons set forth below, the Court will grant Defendants’ motion to dismiss.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Katie Gatewood filed this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and sought a

temporary restraining order (“TRO”) and preliminary injunction preventing the City of

O’Fallon (“City”), Missouri from impeaching her and removing her from office as a

member of the City Council. Plaintiff asserted constitutional claims against the City, the

City’s Board of Impeachment (“Board”), Mayor Bill Hennessy in his official capacity

(“Mayor”), and City Council members Dale Kling, Dave Hinman, and Jeff Keuhn in their

individual capacities.

On January 27, 2022, the Court issued a written Order of Abstention, holding that it

was abstaining from deciding this case, including the motion for a TRO, under Younger v.

Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971). ECF No. 16. In that Order, the Court noted that Younger

abstention ordinarily requires dismissal of the federal court action but that when claims for

damages are raised, a stay is usually preferable to dismissal, subject to certain exceptions.

See id. at 14. Plaintiff’s complaint, in addition to seeking injunctive and declaratory relief,

sought certain forms of monetary relief. Id. at 14-15. Because the parties had not addressed

the issue of how, if at all, the requests for monetary relief impacted the procedure that

should be used by the Court in abstaining, the Court gave the parties until February 10,

2022, to brief these issues before the Court determined whether to dismiss or stay this case.

Id. at 15.

On February 9, 2022, the day before her brief was due, Plaintiff filed an amended

complaint, which she asserts was filed as of right under Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(1)(a). See

ECF No. 17. In her amended complaint, Plaintiff alleges that, on February 7, 2022, the

Board in fact voted to impeach her and the Mayor removed her from office. Id. Plaintiff

also amended her requests for relief to request that the Court: (a) declare that Defendants

violated the Fourteenth Amendment by denying Plaintiff a fair trial; (b) declare that the City

and the Board violated the First Amendment by subjecting Plaintiff to an impeachment

proceeding and removing her from office; (c) order the Board and Mayor to restore Plaintiff

to her office; (d) assess the amount of taxpayer money expended in pursuing the

impeachment action; (e) assess attorney’s fees and costs incurred in the impeachment

action; (f) award monetary damages to compensate Plaintiff for losses she suffered as a

consequence of her removal from office; (g) award attorney’s fees and costs incurred in this

litigation; and (h) order the individual Defendants to pay to the City a proportional

percentage of the taxpayer money and attorney’s fees and costs incurred in the impeachment

action and this litigation. Id. at 30-31.

On February 10, 2022, the parties filed their briefs with respect to whether a stay or

dismissal was appropriate. ECF Nos. 18 & 19. Upon review of their briefs, the Court

concluded that a stay rather than dismissal was appropriate in light of the monetary relief

requested, and the Court stayed this action pending final resolution of the impeachment

proceeding, including judicial review of that proceeding. ECF No. 20.

Defendants thereafter advised the Court that Plaintiff failed to seek judicial review

under the state’s Administrative Procedure Act, that the time to do so had passed, and that

the complaint should now be dismissed based on Younger or various preclusion doctrines.

See ECF No. 21. The Court thereafter lifted the stay and set a deadline for Defendants to

answer or otherwise respond to Plaintiff’s complaint. ECF No. 22.

Defendants then timely filed the instant motion to dismiss. As noted above,

Defendants assert that dismissal is appropriate based on Younger or, alternatively, based on

various preclusion theories because Plaintiff could have but failed to pursue judicial review

of the impeachment decision; and that the individual Defendants are in any event entitled to

absolute immunity.

Plaintiff requests that the Court either reconsider its Order of Abstention or dismiss

this matter so that Plaintiff may appeal the abstention order. Plaintiff “expresses no opinion

as to what theory the Court might rely upon to dismiss the action.” ECF No. 26 at 3.

Plaintiff also disputes that the individual defendants are entitled to immunity and indicates a

desire to seek overruling of Eighth Circuit precedent on this issue.

DISCUSSION

Plaintiff’s Request for Reconsideration

As the Court explained in response to Plaintiff’s prior request for reconsideration, the

Court carefully considered the arguments raised by the parties in each round of briefing, and

nothing in Plaintiff’s more recent filings changes the Court’s analysis that Younger

abstention was appropriate. Plaintiff asserts that the Court should reconsider its decision to

abstain under Younger because, in her amended complaint filed after the Court entered its

Order of Abstention,1 she alleges that the Mayor was in fact biased in that he prejudged the

1 Plaintiff has not cited, and the Court has not found, any legal authority suggesting that

Plaintiff could circumvent the Court’s Order of Abstention by amending her federal complaint

purportedly as a matter of right under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Rather, the

issues before him, he was incapable of acting impartially due to Plaintiff’s accusations

against the Board, and he issued rulings that were contrary to federal law.

But the Court considered and rejected a bias-based exception to Younger in its Order

of Abstention. The Court recognized that “bad faith, harassment, or some extraordinary

circumstance [may] make abstention inappropriate.’” ECF No. 16 at 12 (quoting Aaron v.

Target Corp., 357 F.3d 768, 778 (8th Cir. 2004)). However, the Court noted that the Eighth

Circuit has suggested that the bad faith exception may only apply in criminal cases and, in

any event, must be construed very narrowly and invoked only in extraordinary

circumstances. Id. at 12-13 (citing Aaron, 357 F.3d at 778; Tony Alamo Christian

Ministries, 664 F.3d at 1254).

The Court further noted that Plaintiff had the chance to litigate the question of bias

before an impartial adjudicator, the Mayor; Plaintiff had not argued at that time that the

Mayor was biased; and Plaintiff had not shown or even suggested that the process by which

the Mayor decided her motions for disqualification was unfair. Id. at 13. Indeed, Plaintiff

was able to present a full record with respect to her motions to disqualify during the

impeachment proceeding, including submitting legal briefing through counsel, examining

witnesses, and presenting evidence. Thus, the operative complaint and record on which the

Court decided to abstain under Younger did not reflect or even suggest the Mayor’s bias.

Plaintiff’s amended complaint—the validity of which is questionable at best, as it

was filed after the Court abstained—does not impact the Court’s conclusion. Even if the

applicable legal authorities suggest that issues related to abstention are determined at the time

the federal complaint was first filed. See, e.g., Tony Alamo Christian Ministries v. Selig, 664

F.3d 1245, 1250 (8th Cir. 2012).

Younger exception on which Plaintiff relies could apply in this non-criminal context,

Plaintiff has not demonstrated the level of bias recognized by federal courts as rising to the

level warranting intervention in state proceedings. Cf. Yamaha Motor Corp., U.S.A. v.

Riney, 21 F.3d 793, 798 (8th Cir. 1994) (holding that a state tribunal was incompetent for

the purpose of Younger abstention where there was “ample evidence of bias” on the part of a

state motor vehicle commissioner, including a financial interest). Missouri’s Administrative

Procedure Act (“APA”) provided an adequate forum to litigate Plaintiff’s claim of bias. See

Brown v. City of O’Fallon, 728 S.W.2d 595, 596 (Mo. Ct. App. 1987) (reviewing under the

state’s APA the impeachment of a city mayor and reversing impeachment on the ground that

board members were biased). And as discussed below, Plaintiff’s intentional failure to

pursue relief in that forum precludes her from doing so now in this Court.

Younger Abstention and Preclusion

“[T]he Supreme Court long ago held that parties may not avoid Younger by

withholding defenses from the state proceeding and commencing the federal suit as soon as

the state case ends.” Nelson v. Murphy, 44 F.3d 497, 502 (7th Cir. 1995) (citing Huffman v.

Pursue, Ltd., 420 U.S. 592, 607–11 (1975)). “Federal post-trial intervention, in a fashion

designed to annul the results of a state trial, . . . deprives the States of a function which quite

legitimately is left to them, that of overseeing trial court dispositions of constitutional issues

which arise in civil litigation over which they have jurisdiction.” Huffman, 420 U.S. at 609;

see also Alleghany Corp. v. McCartney, 896 F.2d 1138, 1144 (8th Cir. 1990) (applying

Huffman to an administrative action from which judicial review was not timely sought and

holding that because “a necessary concomitant of Younger is that a party must exhaust his

state appellate remedies before seeking relief in the District Court, . . . a party cannot avoid

Younger by choosing not to pursue available state appellate remedies”).2 Plaintiff seeks to

do exactly what Huffman precluded—to annul the result of her impechment proceeding

without exhausting the available state remedies to do so. See Huffman, 420 U.S. at 610

(“[C]onsiderations of comity and federalism which underlie Younger permit no truncation of

the exhaustion requirement merely because the losing party in the state court of general

jurisdiction believes that his chances of success on appeal are not auspicious.”).

Plaintiff’s failure to seek judicial review in the state courts also bars her

constitutional claims under the preclusion doctrines. See id. at 607 n.19 (noting overlap

between Younger’s restrictions after entry of a state trial court judgment and the res judicata

implications of such a judgment). “Res judicata (claim preclusion) and collateral estoppel

(issue preclusion) are fully applicable under § 1983.” Nelson, 44 F.3d at 503; see also

Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 497 (1973).

These preclusion doctrines prevent a party from litigating claims and issues that have

been previously adjudicated, including claims that have been adjudicated in administrative

2 Although the ongoing state proceeding at the time of the abstention decision here was

administrative rather than judicial, the Eighth Circuit and most other circuits to consider the

issue have held that the distinction makes no difference in this context, where the

administrative proceeding is quasi-judicial, or coercive in nature, in that it declares or enforces

liabilities based on existing facts and law. See Alleghany, 896 F.2d at 1144; accord Maymo-

Melendez v. Alvarez-Ramirez, 364 F.3d 27, 34 (1st Cir. 2004); O’Neill v. City of Philadelphia,

32 F.3d 785, 790–91 (3d Cir. 1994); Laurel Sand & Gravel, Inc. v. Wilson, 519 F.3d 156, 166

(4th Cir. 2008); Majors v. Engelbrecht, 149 F.3d 709, 713 (7th Cir. 1998). Only the Fifth and

Sixth Circuits have held otherwise. See Norfolk & Western Ry. v. Pub. Util. Comm’n of Ohio,

926 F.2d 567, 572–73 (6th Cir.1991) (holding that Younger abstention does not apply if

administrative proceedings have been completed and the agency’s ruling has not been

appealed); Thomas v. Texas State Bd. of Med. Exam’rs, 807 F.2d 453, 456 (5th Cir.1987)

(same).

hearings, so long as the administrative hearing provided procedural protections akin to a

judicial proceeding. “When an administrative agency is acting in a judicial capacity and

resolves disputed issues of fact properly before it which the parties have had an adequate

opportunity to litigate, the courts have not hesitated to apply res judicata to enforce repose.”

Johnson v. Vilsack, 833 F.3d 948, 953 (8th Cir. 2016) (citation omitted).

“Whether the agency is acting in a judicial capacity, in turn, depends in part on the

procedural protections it provides . . . .” Id. at 954. Although there is no “litmus test” for

determining what procedural protections are required to give an administrative proceeding

preclusive effect, courts have concluded that safeguards such as representation by counsel,

the opportunity for discovery and witness examination, the opportunity to present

memoranda of law, and the opportunity for judicial review are sufficient. Cf. id. at 956-58

(determining that the lack of any such protections in an agency proceeding rendered the

proceeding too bare bones to warrant preclusion). Each of those safeguards was present in

the impeachment proceeding here. See ECF No. 16 at 6-7 (describing proceedings); see

also Brown v. Griesenauer, 970 F.2d 431, 437 (8th Cir. 1992) (“[I]mpeachment proceedings

[in the City of O’Fallon, Missouri] are essentially judicial or adjudicatory in nature, even

though the decision-making body and the form of the proceedings are legislative.”).

As the Court noted in its prior Orders, Plaintiff in fact raised her constitutional claims

in the impeachment proceeding, she failed to seek state-court judicial review of the adverse

rulings on those claims, and she is precluded from relitigating those claims now.3 See

3 In a prior brief, Plaintiff indicated that, if she sought judicial review in the state court,

“she would simply assert a reservation as authorized by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in

England v. La. State Bd. of Med. Exam’rs, 375 U.S. 411 (1964), to preserve her right to have

Nelson, 44 F.3d at 503 (“Plaintiffs had, and did not use, a state forum in which they could

have presented the arguments they now urge. Their deliberate bypass of the opportunity to

litigate in state court forecloses them from litigating in federal court.”); see also Mueller v.

Woodmen of the World Life Ins. Soc’y, No. 12-0283-CV-ODS, 2012 WL 4957087, at *2

(W.D. Mo. Oct. 16, 2012) (“Missouri courts generally afford preclusive effect to

administrative determinations to prevent parties from relitigating issues or claims resolved

in administrative proceedings.”) (citing Bresnahan v. May Dep't Stores Co., 726 S.W.2d

327, 329–30 (Mo. 1987)).

Each of Plaintiff’s claims, including her claims for damages, depend on finding a

constitutional violation, and such a finding is foreclosed by the preclusion doctrines

described above. Therefore, each of Plaintiff’s claims must be dismissed.

Moreover, as Plaintiff appears to concede, Eighth Circuit precedent makes clear that

her claims for damages against the individual defendants separately fail under the doctrine

her constitutional claims resolved by this Court.” ECF No. 19 at 9. In England, the Supreme

Court held when a federal court has abstained under Railroad Comm’n of Tex. v. Pullman

Co., 312 U.S. 496 (1941) and returned a case to state court, the litigant may explicitly reserve

her federal claim for future litigation in federal court after the state court has resolved the

state-law claims. See England, 375 U.S. at 421-22. It is questionable whether an England

reservation would apply here, where the Court abstained under Younger and not Pullman.

Several circuits have held that it would not. See, e.g., Duty Free Shop, Inc. v. Administracion

de Terrenos de Puerto Rico, 889 F.2d 1181, 1183 (1st Cir. 1989) (“England, and its

reservations, are not relevant here, in the Younger context, where the purpose of abstention is

not clarification of state law, but reluctance to interfere with an ongoing state judicial

proceeding.”); Temple of Lost Sheep Inc. v. Abrams, 930 F.2d 178, 183 (2d Cir. 1991) (same);

Nivens v. Gilchrist, 444 F.3d 237, 246 (4th Cir. 2006) (same); but see Los Altos El Granada

Invs. v. City of Capitola, 583 F.3d 674, 690 (9th Cir. 2009) (“The mere fact that a district

court abstains under Younger does not require us to ignore the England reservation . . . .”).

Regardless, Plaintiff did not seek such a reservation, instead opting to forego judicial review

in the state court entirely. Under these circumstances, she is precluded from raising her

constitutional claims in federal court. See Huffman, 420 U.S. at 609.

of absolute immunity. See Brown, 970 F.2d at 439 (“[W]e hold that defendants acted in a

judicial capacity in voting to impeach the mayor and that their function as a board of

impeachment was sufficiently comparable to ‘classic’ adjudication so as to justify absolute

immunity from personal liability for damages.’’).

CONCLUSION

Accordingly,

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss is GRANTED.

ECF No. 24.

A separate Order of Dismissal will accompany this Memorandum and Order.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Dated this 29th day of June, 2022.

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