Roland McCarthy v. City of Cordele Georgia

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[PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 23-11036

____________________

ROLAND MCCARTHY,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

versus

CITY OF CORDELE, GEORGIA,

JOSHUA DERISO,

In his individual and official capacities,

Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Georgia

D.C. Docket No. 1:22-cv-00072-LAG

____________________

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2 Opinion of the Court 23-11036

Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and JILL PRYOR and BRASHER,

Circuit Judges.

WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge:

This appeal involves a complaint about racial politics in a

small town in rural Georgia. Joshua Deriso campaigned for election

as chairman of the City Commission of Cordele, Georgia, by pub-

licly stating his intent to “replace Caucasian employees with Afri-

can Americans”; to lead “an entirely African American” City Com-

mission; and to replace Roland McCarthy, the white City Manager,

with a black City Manager. On social media, Deriso declared,

“Structure needs to change . . . More Blacks!!!”; “The new City

Manager should be Black”; and “it is time for African Americans to

run our city.” Deriso won the election. The same day he and fellow

commissioners took their oaths of office, the Commission voted on

racial lines to fire McCarthy and to replace him with a black City

Manager. Without a tie vote, Deriso, as chairman, did not vote.

But he encouraged the other black commissioners to fire McCarthy

because he is white. Before the vote, Deriso and Royce Reeves, an-

other black commissioner, warned McCarthy that he would be re-

placed with a black City Manager. And they told him that he could

not return to his former position as Finance Director because he

“did not look like” them.

The question for us is whether those allegations permit the

inference that the City Commission fired McCarthy because he is

white. The district court said no and dismissed his complaint. We

disagree. We vacate the dismissal of the complaint against the City,

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23-11036 Opinion of the Court 3

affirm the dismissal against Deriso in his individual capacity, and

remand.

I. BACKGROUND

At this stage, we recount and accept the allegations of

McCarthy’s complaint as true. See Ziyadat v. Diamondrock Hosp. Co.,

3 F.4th 1291, 1295 (11th Cir. 2021). The district court dismissed the

complaint without requiring an answer to it. We do not know

whether the City and Deriso would deny any of the allegations.

The City Commission of Cordele, Georgia, hired Roland

McCarthy, a white man, as its Finance Director in 2017. In January

2021, the Commission unanimously promoted McCarthy to City

Manager. McCarthy demonstrated “exemplary service and exper-

tise” in these roles.

Seven months into McCarthy’s tenure as City Manager,

Joshua Deriso announced his campaign for chairman of the City

Commission. During that campaign, he “frequently” expressed his

goal to see “an entirely African American Commission” and to “re-

plac[e] Caucasian employees with African Americans.” He stated

in a Facebook post that if elected chairman, he would replace

McCarthy with a City Manager “of color; ideally a woman,” within

90 days of taking office. He wrote in another post that the “new

City Manager should be Black.” And in another, he complained

that “Cordele’s heads of Departments are not diverse at all! Struc-

ture needs to change . . . More Blacks!!!” Deriso echoed his racially

discriminatory hiring plans during two “Facebook Live” video

streams. In the first stream, he again promised “to replace

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4 Opinion of the Court 23-11036

Caucasian department heads with African Americans.” In the sec-

ond stream, he stated that “it is time for us [African Americans] to

run our city” and promised to “take actions” to secure an “all black”

City Commission within four years. Deriso was elected Commis-

sion chairman in November 2021.

The following month—after Deriso was elected, but before

he took the oath of office—the outgoing commissioners voted to

renew McCarthy’s employment as City Manager for another year.

McCarthy’s renewed contract provided that, if his employment

were terminated during its term, he would “be entitled to all com-

pensation including salary, accrued vacation[,] and sick leave”

through December 31, 2022.

The newly elected commissioners—four black and one

white—were sworn into office on January 4, 2022. That day, the

Commission voted to terminate McCarthy’s employment as City

Manager and to hire Angela Henderson Redding—a black

woman—to replace him. The commissioners voted along racial

lines: three black commissioners voted to fire McCarthy and hire

Redding, and one white commissioner voted to retain McCarthy

for the rest of his contractual term. Deriso did not participate in the

vote because, as chairman, he voted only to break ties. But McCar-

thy alleges that Deriso “orchestrated the decision to terminate

[him] due to his race” and “led, directed, and encouraged” the other

commissioners to replace McCarthy “with an African American

candidate.”

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23-11036 Opinion of the Court 5

Deriso and Commissioner Royce Reeves, one of the black

commissioners who voted to fire McCarthy, had warned McCar-

thy before the vote that “they were replacing him with an African

American candidate.” McCarthy asked Deriso and Reeves whether

he could at least return to his former position as City Finance Di-

rector. Deriso and Reeves told McCarthy that “that would not be

possible” because he does not “look like them.” The City refused

to pay McCarthy for the rest of his contractual term.

McCarthy sued the City and Deriso for intentional race dis-

crimination and breach of contract. He alleged that the City and

Deriso, in both his official and individual capacities, violated federal

laws prohibiting racial discrimination in contracting and by persons

acting under color of state law. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983. And he

alleged that the City violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of

1964, which prohibits racial discrimination in employment. Id.

§ 2000e-2(m).

The City and Deriso moved to dismiss McCarthy’s com-

plaint for failure to state a claim. They argued that McCarthy failed

to state a claim of racial discrimination against the City because he

failed to plausibly allege that a “majority” of the five-member Com-

mission harbored racial animus against him when it voted to fire

him as City Manager; that McCarthy’s claims against Deriso in his

official capacity were “impermissibly duplicative” of his claims

against the City; and that qualified immunity barred McCarthy’s

claims against Deriso in his individual capacity.

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6 Opinion of the Court 23-11036

The district court dismissed McCarthy’s complaint. It ruled

that McCarthy failed to state plausible claims of racial discrimina-

tion against the City because he failed to allege that the “Commis-

sion itself” acted with a racially discriminatory motive. Although

McCarthy alleged that Deriso “expressed an intent to replace [him]

with a person of color,” Deriso “did not take part in the vote that

resulted in [his] termination.” The “only allegation” of racial ani-

mus on the part of a voting commissioner was Reeves’s statement

that McCarthy was being replaced with a black woman and could

not return to his former position because he is not black. And a

“single allegation” that Reeves acted with a discriminatory motive

is not sufficient to allege that “the entire Commission” acted with

a discriminatory motive. Because the claims against the City failed,

the district court ruled that the claims against Deriso in his official

capacity failed too. The district court also dismissed McCarthy’s

claims against Deriso in his individual capacity because Deriso

“was not a participant in the alleged unlawful act—the vote to ter-

minate [McCarthy]’s employment.” The district court declined to

exercise supplemental jurisdiction over McCarthy’s claim for

breach of contract.

II. STANDARDS OF REVIEW

We review de novo the dismissal of a complaint for failure to

state a claim. MacPhee v. MiMedx Grp., 73 F.4th 1220, 1238 (11th Cir.

2023). A complaint states a claim if its factual allegations permit a

“reasonable inference” that the defendant is liable. Ashcroft v. Iqbal,

556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). We view the allegations of the complaint

in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, Ziyadat, 3 F.4th at 1295;

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23-11036 Opinion of the Court 7

accept as true the well-pleaded allegations, id.; and draw all reason-

able inferences in the plaintiff’s favor, Bailey v. Wheeler, 843 F.3d

473, 478 n.3 (11th Cir. 2016). We ignore any “[t]hreadbare recitals

of the elements of a cause of action” that the complaint supports

with only “conclusory statements.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678.

III. DISCUSSION

We divide our discussion into two parts. First, we explain

that McCarthy alleged plausible claims of racial discrimination

against the City. Second, we explain that McCarthy cannot sue De-

riso individually.

A. The District Court Erred by Dismissing

McCarthy’s Claims of Discrimination Against the City.

McCarthy argues that the district court erred by dismissing

his claims of racial discrimination against the City and against De-

riso in his official capacity. Because a “claim asserted against an in-

dividual in his or her official capacity is, in reality, a suit against the

entity that employs the individual,” Mann v. Taser Int’l, Inc., 588

F.3d 1291, 1309 (11th Cir. 2009), we treat McCarthy’s official-capac-

ity claims against Deriso as claims against the City.

Title VII, section 1981, and section 1983 prohibit a public

employer from firing any employee because of his race. These pro-

visions “are not limited to discrimination against members of any

particular race.” McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transp. Co., 427 U.S. 273,

278–79, 286–87 (1976) (Title VII and section 1981); see Hornsby-Cul-

pepper v. Ware, 906 F.3d 1302, 1312 n.6 (11th Cir. 2018) (sec-

tion 1983). They “proscribe racial discrimination in . . .

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8 Opinion of the Court 23-11036

employment against whites on the same terms as racial discrimina-

tion against nonwhites.” McDonald, 427 U.S. at 279–80, 287.

When the employer is a municipality, the employee must

allege that the racial discrimination was a municipal “policy or cus-

tom.” Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 694 (1978). An “em-

ployment decision, such as termination,” qualifies as a municipal

policy if the “decisionmaker ‘possesse[d] final authority to establish

municipal policy with respect to the action.’” Quinn v. Monroe

County, 330 F.3d 1320, 1325 (11th Cir. 2003) (emphasis omitted)

(quoting Pembaur v. City of Cincinnati, 475 U.S. 469, 481 (1986)). And

when the final policymaker for a challenged employment decision

was a multimember body, the plaintiff must allege that “a major-

ity” of the members voted in favor of the decision “for an uncon-

stitutional reason.” Matthews v. Columbia County, 294 F.3d 1294,

1295 (11th Cir. 2002). When policymaking authority rests with a

collegial body “as an entity,” allegations that fewer than a “major-

ity” of the members harbored unconstitutional motives are “insuf-

ficient to impute an unconstitutional motive” to the entity “as a

whole.” Id. at 1297.

The City argues, and the district court ruled, that McCarthy

failed to allege that a majority of the commissioners voted to fire

him because of his race. The City does not dispute that McCarthy

plausibly alleged that both Deriso and Reeves had racially discrim-

inatory motives. But because Deriso did not vote, the City argues

that McCarthy plausibly alleged only that one of the commission-

ers who voted to fire him was motivated by racial animus. And an

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23-11036 Opinion of the Court 9

“unconstitutional motive on the part of one member of a three-

member majority is insufficient to impute an unconstitutional mo-

tive to the Commission as a whole.” Id.; accord Mason v. Village of El

Portal, 240 F.3d 1337, 1339 (11th Cir. 2001).

We disagree with the City. The allegations in McCarthy’s

complaint, viewed in his favor, permit the reasonable inference

that the commissioners who voted to fire him did so because of his

race. McCarthy alleged that Deriso “led, directed, and encouraged”

his fellow commissioners to fire McCarthy and replace him “with

an African American candidate”; that, even before the new com-

missioners took office, Deriso and Reeves had garnered enough

support for their discriminatory plan to tell McCarthy that he was

being replaced with a black woman; that, immediately upon enter-

ing office, a majority of the commissioners voted to fire McCarthy,

even though he was an exemplary employee and the former Com-

mission had renewed his contract one month earlier; that the Com-

mission hired a black woman to replace McCarthy, as Deriso and

Reeves had promised; and that all the commissioners who voted to

fire McCarthy were black, cf. Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N.A., 534 U.S.

506, 514 (2002) (plaintiff stated a plausible national-origin discrimi-

nation claim by alleging, among other facts, the “nationalities of at

least some of the relevant persons involved with his termination”).

Taken together, these allegations “nudge[]” McCarthy’s race-dis-

crimination claims “across the line from conceivable to plausible.”

See Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 680 (citation and internal quotation marks

omitted).

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10 Opinion of the Court 23-11036

McCarthy plausibly alleged that the Commission discrimi-

nated against him because he is white, and the district court erred

by dismissing his claims of racial discrimination against the City.

Federal law is no more tolerant of discrimination against whites

than it is discrimination against members of any other race. “Elim-

inating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” Students

for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard Coll., 143

S. Ct. 2141, 2161 (2023). We vacate the order insofar as it dismissed

McCarthy’s claims against the City and declined to exercise supple-

mental jurisdiction over his claim of breach of contract.

B. The District Court Correctly Dismissed

McCarthy’s Claims Against Deriso Individually.

McCarthy argues that the district court also erred by dismiss-

ing his claims of discrimination against Deriso individually. See 42

U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983. He argues that Deriso is individually liable

because, by encouraging the other commissioners to vote against

McCarthy because of his race, Deriso caused the Commission to

fire him. We disagree.

Only a person who has “the power to make official deci-

sions” can be individually liable for racial discrimination under sec-

tion 1983. Quinn, 330 F.3d at 1326. The Commission, not Deriso

individually, fired McCarthy. Deriso cannot be held individually li-

able for that decision under section 1983. See id. at 1326, 1328 (hold-

ing that an “official decisionmaker” may be held individually liable

if he had the authority “not merely to recommend [the employee]’s

termination” but to “effectuate” it). And because “a section 1981

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claim . . . merge[s] into [a] section 1983 claim for racial discrimina-

tion,” Busby v. City of Orlando, 931 F.2d 764, 771–72 n.6 (11th Cir.

1991), McCarthy’s section 1981 claim against Deriso individually

falls with his section 1983 claim. We affirm the dismissal of McCar-

thy’s claims against Deriso individually.

IV. CONCLUSION

We AFFIRM in part, VACATE in part, and REMAND for

further proceedings.