Supplemental Brief — City of Ferguson, Missouri, Petitioner v. Keilee Fant, et al.

No. 19-1025

In the

Supreme Court of the United States

__________________

THE CITY OF FERGUSON, MISSOURI,

Petitioner,

v.

KEILEE FANT, ET AL.,

Respondents.

__________________

On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the

United States Court of Appeals

for the Eighth Circuit

__________________

THE CITY OF FERGUSON’S SUPPLEMENTAL

BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF ITS PETITION

FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

__________________

RONALD A. NORWOOD

LEWIS RICE LLC

600 Washington Ave.

Suite 2500

St. Louis, MO 63101

(314) 444-7759

rnorwood@lewisrice.com

JOHN M. REEVES

Counsel of Record

REEVES LAW, LLC

3703 Watson Rd.

St. Louis, MO 63109

(314) 775-6985

reeves@reeves-law.org

Counsel for Petitioner

The City of Ferguson, Missouri

February 25, 2020

Becker Gallagher · Cincinnati, OH · Washington, D.C. · 800.890.5001

i

QUESTIONS PRESENTED

1. An interlocutory appeal lies from a denial of

sovereign immunity to protect the sovereign’s dignitary

interests. Under Fed.R.Civ.P. 19, a case may not

proceed in the absence of a required-entity sovereign’s

joinder, but rather must be dismissed. Merely

considering the lawsuit’s merits without the requiredentity sovereign is itself a violation of sovereign

immunity. A named, non-sovereign defendant has

standing to seek dismissal on these grounds, as a

means of vicariously protecting the required-entity

sovereign’s dignitary interests. The federal appellate

courts are divided over whether an interlocutory appeal

lies from a refusal to dismiss for failure to join a

required-entity sovereign.

To the extent the matter is a purely legal question,

does an interlocutory appeal lie from a refusal to

dismiss for failure to join a required-entity sovereign?

2. An absent, required-entity sovereign’s liability

cannot be litigated behind its back. In §1983 litigation

against municipalities, state law determines whether

the officials in question acted on behalf of a

municipality or the State, based on the functions at

issue. If the officials acted on behalf of the State, then

any unlawful policy or custom was one of the State, not

of the municipality.

If, in a §1983 lawsuit against a municipality, state

law vests final policymaking authority for the functions

at issue with a non-party state entity, does that render

the state entity a required-entity sovereign, thus

mandating the case’s dismissal under Rule 19?

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

QUESTIONS PRESENTED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

ARGUMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

A. Teagan, like this case, was an indirect attack on

a state entity’s policies and customs under

McMillian without its participation. . . . . . . . . . . 2

B. Teagan, like this case, demonstrates why an

interlocutory appeal must lie from a refusal to

dismiss for failure to join a required-entity

sovereign. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

C. Teagan demonstrates that this is a recurring

problem of national importance warranting this

Court’s full review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

APPENDIX

Appendix 1 Opinion and Concurring Opinions in

the United States Court of Appeals for

the Eleventh Circuit, No. 18-11060

Ziahonna Teagan v. The City of

McDonough, Georgia

(February 11, 2020) . . . . . Supp. App. 1

iii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

CASES

Alden v. Maine,

527 U.S. 706 (1999). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Fant v. City of Ferguson,

107 F.Supp.3d 1016 (E.D. Mo. 2015) . . . . . . . . . 10

Kickapoo Tribe v. Babbitt,

43 F.3d 1491 (D.C. Cir. 1995). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

McMillian v. Monroe Cnty.,

520 U.S. 781 (1997). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2, 3, 4, 8

Microsoft v. Baker,

137 S.Ct. 1702 (2017) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Mine Safety App. Co. v. Forrestal,

326 U.S. 371 (1945). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 5, 6

Mitchell v. Forsyth,

472 U.S. 511 (1985). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Mohawk Ind., Inc. v. Carpenter,

558 U.S. 100 (2009). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Provident Trades. Bank & Trust Co. v. Patterson,

309 U.S. 102 (1968). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Republic of the Philippines v. Pimentel,

553 U.S. 851 (2008). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . passim

Siegert v. Gilley,

500 U.S. 226 (1991). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Taylor v. Cnty. of Pima,

913 F.3d 930 (9th Cir. 2019). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

iv

Teagan v. City of McDonough,

-- F.3d --, 2020 WL 624695 (11th Cir. Feb. 11,

2020) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . passim

Two Shields v. Wilkinson,

790 F.3d 791 (8th Cir. 2015). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 6

Wichita and Aff. Tribes of Ok. v. Hodel,

788 F.2d 765 (D.C. Cir. 1986). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Wood v. Moss,

572 U.S. 744 (2014). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

STATUTES

42 U.S.C. §1983 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1, 2, 11

RULES

Fed.R.Civ.P. 19. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . passim

Fed.R.Civ.P. 19(a)(1)(B)(i) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5, 6, 8

Fed.R.Civ.P. 19(b) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5, 8

Sup.Ct.R. 15.8. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

OTHER AUTHORITIES

Fed.R.Civ.P. advisory committee notes (1966) . . . . . 7

T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men, (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

1

INTRODUCTION

Two days before the City of Ferguson (“the City”)

filed its petition for a writ of certiorari, the Eleventh

Circuit published its opinion in Teagan v. City of

McDonough, -- F.3d --, 2020 WL 624695 (11th Cir.

Feb. 11, 2020). It is reproduced at Supp.App.1-31.

Pursuant to S.Ct.R. 15.8, the City files this

supplemental brief to bring the case to this Court’s

attention.

Teagan, a §1983 lawsuit, is a practical, concrete

example of a plaintiff attempting to litigate an absent,

required-entity sovereign’s liability behind its back

through an indirect attack on its policies and customs.

The plaintiff named a municipality as the only

defendant, alleging her constitutional rights were

violated by a municipal court. The Eleventh Circuit

affirmed the district court’s granting of summary

judgment to the city, finding that since the municipal

court, despite its formal title, was a state entity, the

city could not be liable for the alleged constitutional

violations under §1983. But in doing so, the Eleventh

Circuit also declared it was disturbed by the municipal

court’s actions, even though that court was never part

of the lawsuit and never had an opportunity to defend

its conduct, thus creating confusion and uncertainty

about the validity of its actions. This is a textbook

example of why, in such a situation, a lawsuit should

be dismissed under Fed.R.Civ.P. 19 and Pimentel,1 and

why an interlocutory appeal should lie from a refusal to

dismiss. The Eleventh Circuit’s mere affirmance of the

1

Republic of the Philippines v. Pimentel, 553 U.S. 851 (2008).

2

district court’s granting of summary judgment to the

city on the merits could not rectify this attack on the

municipal court’s sovereign immunity and dignitary

interests, given that by this point its policies and

customs had already been subjected to scrutiny in the

district court.

The Eleventh Circuit’s holding in Teagan also

demonstrates that this is not an isolated concern unique

to the City’s lawsuit, but rather is a recurring, nationwide problem that cries out for this Court’s intervention,

review, and resolution, particularly given the circuit

split discussed in the City’s petition. (Pet.20-27).

ARGUMENT

A. Teagan, like this case, was an indirect attack

on a state entity’s policies and customs under

McMillian2 without its participation.

In Teagan, the plaintiff brought a §1983 suit

against a Georgia municipality for alleged

constitutional violations arising out of the disposition

of misdemeanor charges in a municipal court.

(Supp.App.1-2). She alleged that the city, as part of an

unlawful policy or custom, failed to appoint her

counsel, unlawfully issued an arrest warrant for her

once she was unable to pay the $795 fine, incarcerated

her for longer than 72 hours upon her arrest, failed to

inquire whether she could afford to pay the fine,

imposed an additional $100 contempt charge upon her,

and executed the previously-suspended 60-day jail

sentence against her. (Supp.App.1-2, 4-7). It is thus

2

McMillian v. Monroe Cnty., 520 U.S. 781 (1997).

3

similar in substance to the lawsuit that Respondents

(“Motorists”) have brought against the City.

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s

granting of summary judgment on the merits in favor

of the municipality. Relying on McMillian’s functionbased test, the Eleventh Circuit noted that “[w]hether

an official…acts on behalf of a municipality or the State

‘in a particular area, or on a particular issue’, is—labels

aside, a federal question that is ‘dependent on an

analysis of state law.’” (Supp.App.10) (quoting

McMillian, 520 U.S. at 786)). The “critical and

threshold question,” therefore, was whether the

municipal court’s judge, in carrying out the above

functions, acted on behalf of the municipality or the

State in taking “the actions which form[ed] the based

for the [alleged] constitutional violations….”

(Supp.App.9-10). As Georgia law plainly made the local

court a state entity under these circumstances, even

though it was formally labeled a “municipal court,” the

Eleventh Circuit affirmed the granting of summary

judgment in favor of the municipality. (Supp.App.2, 1216, 20).

But the matter did not end there. Having held that

the judge acted on behalf of the State under McMillian,

and that the municipal court was a state entity, the

Eleventh Circuit went on to admonish the municipal

court’s conduct by declaring it was “deeply troubled by

what happened to [the plaintiff] in the McDonough

municipal court.” (Supp.App. 20). One of the judges on

the panel filed a concurring opinion expressing similar

concerns. (Supp.App.21-30) (Jordon, J., concurring).

4

Thus, the Eleventh Circuit addressed the merits of

a sovereign entity’s policies and customs without that

entity’s participation in the litigation as a party. This

is exactly the type of situation that Pimentel sought to

avoid through the proper application of Rule 19. An

absent entity’s joinder is required if it “claims an

interest relating to the subject of the action and is so

situated that disposing of the action in the [entity’s]

absence may…as a practical matter impair or impede

the person’s ability to protect the interest….” Rule

19(a)(1)(B)(i). State entities, of their very nature, have

an interest in any indirect attacks on their policies and

customs, even if they would not be formally bound by a

ruling on the matter. See Mine Safety App. Co. v.

Forrestal, 326 U.S. 371, 373-375 (1945); Two Shields v.

Wilkinson, 790 F.3d 791, 796 (8th Cir. 2015).

The city in Teagan, as a named party, was not in a

position to protect the municipal court’s interests, as

“[i]f a defendant cannot be expected to articulate the

[sovereign’s] position in its absence…the prejudice to

the [sovereign] is obvious.” See Wilkinson, 790 F.3d at

799 (internal quotation marks omitted). While one

defense available to the city was that the plaintiff

suffered no constitutional violations in the first place,

another defense—which the city utilized—was that to

the extent any constitutional violations occurred, they

were the result of an unlawful “State practice or

custom, not a municipal practice or custom.” See Taylor

v. Cnty. of Pima, 913 F.3d 930, 937 (9th Cir. 2019)

(Graber, J., concurring) (citing McMillian, 520 U.S.

781) (emphasis in original). Accordingly, the city was in

no position to protect the municipal court’s interests as

a sovereign entity. See Wilkinson, 790 F.3d at 799

5

(“[The named, non-sovereign defendants] have strong

incentives to characterize any breach as resulting

solely from the government’s independent action and

judgment.”).

The municipal court in Teagan, as a sovereign

entity, was vested with this interest in not having its

liability “tried behind its back,” see Forrestal, 326 U.S.

at 375 (internal quotation marks omitted), as well as

the interest in not having the case proceed without its

participation. See Wichita and Aff. Tribes of Ok. v.

Hodel, 788 F.2d 765, 775-776 (D.C. Cir. 1986). This

interest should have required its joinder under Rule

19(a)(1)(B)(i) and dismissal of the case under Rule 19(b)

if joinder was legally impossible. Given how “[t]he

inquiry as to prejudice [the required-entity sovereign

would suffer if the case proceeded in its absence] under

Rule 19(b) is the same as the inquiry under [Rule

19(a)(1)(B)(i)] regarding whether continuing the action

will impair the absent party’s ability to protect its

interest,” Kickapoo Tribe v. Babbitt, 43 F.3d 1491, 1497

n.9 (D.C. Cir. 1995), the municipal court’s inability to

be joined due to its sovereign immunity should have

mandated the entire lawsuit’s dismissal. See Pimentel,

553 U.S. at 867 (ruling that if “the claims of the

sovereign are not frivolous, dismissal of the action must

be ordered where there is a potential for injury to the

interests of the absent sovereign.”). By proceeding in

the municipal court’s absence, both the district court

and the Eleventh Circuit in Teagan impaired its

ability, as a sovereign entity, to protect its dignitary

interests.

6

Rule 19 focuses on whether, as a practical matter, a

case may injure the interests of an absent, requiredentity sovereign. See Rule 19(a)(1)(B)(i). By declaring

that the municipal court acted unlawfully, despite it

not being a party to the lawsuit, the Eleventh Circuit

has, practically speaking, violated that court’s

dignitary interests as a sovereign entity by litigating

its liability behind its back. See Pimentel, 553 U.S. at

866-867; Forrestal, 326 U.S. at 373-375. It has now

created confusion and uncertainty as to the

constitutional validity of a sovereign entity’s policies

and customs. See Wilkinson, 790 F.3d at 796 (“Without

the participation of the United States, any

determination that particular lands had been illegally

titled would potentially cloud the validity of many of

the land grants approved by the government.”).

Even if the Eleventh Circuit in Teagan had declined

to opine on whether the municipal court’s policies and

customs were unconstitutional, this would not have

obviated the problem. The issue is not whether a

required-entity sovereign’s dignitary interest are, in

fact, violated in its absence, but rather whether “there

is a potential for injury to the interests of the absent

sovereign.” Pimentel, 553 U.S. at 867 (emphasis added).

Due to the relevant state law vesting policymaking

authority for all the actions at issue there with the

municipal court as a sovereign, state entity, it was

clear from the very start of Teagan that the litigation

had the potential to injure the local court’s interests as

a required-entity sovereign. The Eleventh

Circuit’s—and the district court’s—mere “consideration

of the merits was itself an infringement on…sovereign

7

immunity,” see Pimentel, 553 U.S. at 864, regardless of

the outcome.

Given how the city never moved for dismissal under

Rule 19 as a means of vicariously protecting the local

court’s sovereign immunity, see Fed.R.Civ.P. advisory

committee notes (1966), the Eleventh Circuit should

have sua sponte raised the matter, reversed the

granting of summary judgment, and remanded with

instructions to dismiss for failure to join a requiredentity sovereign. See Pimentel, 553 U.S. at 861;

Provident Trades. Bank & Trust Co. v. Patterson, 309

U.S. 102, 111 (1968). Indeed, the district court itself

should have sua sponte dismissed under Rule 19 at the

lawsuit’s very beginning, given that the joinder issues

were purely legal and consequently did not require the

resolution of any disputed fact, and given how this

Court has “repeatedly stressed the importance of

resolving immunity questions at the earliest possible

stage of the litigation.” See Wood v. Moss, 572 U.S. 744,

755 n.4 (2014) (brackets and internal quotation marks

omitted).

B. Teagan, like this case, demonstrates why an

interlocutory appeal must lie from a refusal to

dismiss for failure to join a required-entity

sovereign.

Teagan demonstrates why an interlocutory appeal

must lie, under the collateral order doctrine, from a

refusal to dismiss under Rule 19 for failure to join a

required-entity sovereign, as such a refusal

conclusively resolves a matter completely separate

from the merits on an issue effectively unreviewable

8

from a final judgment. See Microsoft v. Baker, 137 S.Ct.

1702, 1708 n.3 (2017).

Motorists will no doubt argue that Rule 19 cannot be

a matter completely separate from the merits, given how

the above analysis of Teagan required an examination of

the merits—that is, the issue of final policymaking

authority under McMillian—to determine whether the

municipal court did, in fact, have an interest in the

lawsuit’s subject matter such that Rule 19(a)(1)(B)(i)

made it a required-entity sovereign, thus mandating

dismissal under Rule 19(b). But this need to examine the

merits of the plaintiff’s claims to determine whether the

municipal court’s interests would potentially be harmed

in the lawsuit is no different from the need to examine

the merits of a Fourth Amendment lawsuit against a

police officer to determine if the officer is entitled to

qualified immunity. See, e.g., Siegert v. Gilley, 500 U.S.

226, 227 (1991) (ruling that the officer was entitled to

qualified immunity because the plaintiff’s “allegations,

even if accepted as true, did not state a claim for

violation of any rights secured to him under the United

States Constitution.”).

Indeed, Pimentel itself hinted at this similarity to

qualified immunity, noting that even though dismissal

Rule 19 is not an adjudication on the merits, Pimentel,

553 U.S. at 862, resolving the matter “may require

some preliminary assessment of the merits of certain

claims.” Id. at 868. If the need to conduct an initial

assessment of the merits means Rule 19 fails the

collateral order doctrine, then by that same rationale

qualified immunity must fail it as well. See Mitchell v.

Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 528-529, 529 n.10 (1985).

9

Finally, Teagan makes clear that a refusal to

dismiss for failure to join a required-entity sovereign is

effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final

judgment. Suppose that the city as the named

defendant had sought dismissal under Rule 19 at the

beginning of the case, the district court denied it,

discovery commenced, and then the district court

granted summary judgment on the merits in favor of

the city. This could not cure the damage the municipal

court’s interests had suffered through its policies and

customs being examined for liability, as by examining

the lawsuit’s ultimate merits, the district court had

violated the municipal court’s sovereign immunity.

That the Eleventh Circuit subsequently affirmed, and

in the process chastised the municipal court for its

supposedly illegal conduct, only added insult to injury

as far as the municipal court’s dignitary interests were

concerned. An interlocutory appeal from a refusal to

dismiss under Rule 19 is the only way to ensure a

situation like this never comes about. Such a refusal to

dismiss is “on all fours with orders” this Court has

“previously…held to be appealable under the collateral

order doctrine.” See Mohawk Ind., Inc. v. Carpenter,

558 U.S. 100, 115 (2009) (Thomas, J., concurring in

part and concurring in the judgment).

C. Teagan demonstrates that this is a recurring

problem of national importance warranting

this Court’s full review.

The concurring opinion in Teagan did not limit itself

to admonishing the municipal court. It also discussed

how, over the last several years, lawsuits similar to it

have sprung up throughout the country involving the

10

intersection of municipalities as non-sovereign, local

entities, and local courts that, depending on the

relevant state law, may in fact be sovereign entities,

despite their formal title as “municipal courts,” with

various results. (Supp.App.28-30) (listing cases).

Among other matters, the concurring opinion cited an

earlier order of the district court in this very lawsuit.

(Supp.App.29) (citing Fant v. City of Ferguson, 107

F.Supp.3d 1016, 1030-1032 (E.D. Mo. 2015) (Doc.19)).

There is now an ongoing, nation-wide effort to

litigate the liability of absent, required-entity

sovereigns behind their backs through an indirect

attack on their policies and customs. Under the

smokescreen of naming municipalities as the only

formal defendants, plaintiffs—including Motorists—are

attempting to circumvent the sovereign immunity

inherent in the fundamental structure of the U.S.

Constitution, see Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, 728-729

(1999), in many cases successfully. Unless this Court

steps in to resolve the matter under Rule 19, lawsuits

of this kind will continue unabated. In the context of

the State overseeing the operations of local, municipal

divisions of its trial courts, these lawsuits will empty

sovereign immunity of any practical meaning,

rendering it nothing more than a “[s]hape without

form, shade without colour, [p]aralysed force, gesture

without motion….” T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men, (1925).

In one swoop, this Court can both (1) resolve the split

among the federal appellate courts on the question of

whether an interlocutory appeal lies from a refusal to

dismiss for failure to join a required-entity sovereign

under Rule 19, and (2) reinforce Pimentel by ruling that

the interests of a required-entity sovereign may not be

11

litigated behind its back under the guise of seeking to

impose §1983 liability on a municipality.

CONCLUSION

This Court should grant the City’s petition for a

writ of certiorari.

Respectfully submitted,

JOHN M. REEVES

Counsel of Record

REEVES LAW, LLC

3703 Watson Rd.

St. Louis, MO 63109

(314) 775-6985

reeves@reeves-law.org

RONALD A. NORWOOD

LEWIS RICE LLC

600 Washington Ave., Suite 2500

St. Louis, MO 63101

(314) 444-7759

rnorwood@lewisrice.com

Counsel for Petitioner

The City of Ferguson, Missouri

APPENDIX

i

APPENDIX

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Appendix 1 Opinion and Concurring Opinions in

the United States Court of Appeals for

the Eleventh Circuit, No. 18-11060

Ziahonna Teagan v. The City of

McDonough, Georgia

(February 11, 2020) . . . . . Supp. App. 1

Supp. App. 1

APPENDIX 1

[PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

No. 18-11060

D.C. Docket No. 1:15-cv-00607-ELR

[Filed February 11, 2020]

__________________________________________

ZIAHONNA TEAGAN,

)

Plaintiff-Appellant,

)

)

versus

)

)

THE CITY OF MCDONOUGH, GEORGIA, )

Defendant-Appellee.

)

_________________________________________ )

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Georgia

(February 11, 2020)

Before JORDAN, TJOFLAT and ANDERSON, Circuit

Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Ziahonna Teagan sued the City of McDonough,

Georgia, for claims related to her misdemeanor

proceedings in municipal court for failure to maintain

automobile liability insurance as required by Georgia

Supp. App. 2

law. She asserted federal claims under 42 U.S.C.

§ 1983 for violations of her Fourth, Sixth, and

Fourteenth Amendment rights, and a state-law claim

under Georgia law for false imprisonment. The district

court granted summary judgment in favor of the City,

ruling that the actions of the municipal court could not

be attributed to the City so as to impose § 1983

municipal liability under Monell v. Department of

Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), and its progeny.

We affirm the district court’s grant of summary

judgment on Ms. Teagan’s § 1983 claims. The

McDonough municipal court was exercising its judicial

power under Georgia law to adjudicate a state-law

offense—and not a violation of a city or county

ordinance—and therefore was not acting on behalf of

the City when it took the actions that Ms. Teagan

complains of.

But we do not affirm the final judgment in favor of

the City. The district court did not address Ms.

Teagan’s separate state-law claim for false

imprisonment, so we remand for further proceedings on

that claim.

I

This case is primarily about federal law, specifically

the principles for imposing municipal liability under

§ 1983 pursuant to Monell. Yet, as we have explained

a number of times, whether an individual or entity acts

on behalf of a municipality or the state generally turns

on an analysis of state law. See, e.g., Owens v. Fulton

Cty., 877 F.2d 947, 950 (11th Cir. 1989). So before we

get to the facts, we set out a bit of background on

Supp. App. 3

municipal courts in Georgia to provide context for Ms.

Teagan’s claims.

Municipal courts in Georgia are generally creatures

of local government. See Ga. Code Ann. § 36-32-1(a).

But municipal courts also have jurisdiction to

adjudicate state-law misdemeanor traffic offenses

pursuant to Georgia Code § 40-13-21(a)-(b) if the

defendant waives his or her right to a jury trial. See

Kolker v. State, 391 S.E.2d 391, 393–94 (Ga. 1990)

(holding that Article VI, § 1, ¶ 1 of the Georgia

Constitution “authorizes the General Assembly to vest

municipal courts with jurisdiction over state

misdemeanor offenses”). As the Georgia Supreme Court

has explained: “The [Georgia] General Assembly’s

exercise of its constitutional authority to enact

legislation vesting municipal courts with jurisdiction

over various state misdemeanor offenses . . . imbues

the municipal court with limited state judicial power

when it tries a defendant for violation of the state

misdemeanors the General Assembly has placed within

its jurisdiction.” Nguyen v. State, 651 S.E.2d 681, 684

(Ga. 2007), overruled on other grounds by Brown v.

Crawford, 715 S.E.2d 132 (Ga. 2011).

In Georgia, the failure to maintain automobile

liability insurance constitutes a state-law

misdemeanor. That offense is punishable by a fine of

between $200 and $1,000 and/or a term of

imprisonment of up to 12 months. See Ga. Code Ann.

§ 40-6-10(a)(4).

Supp. App. 4

A

On November 7, 2013, an officer cited Ms. Teagan

for failure to maintain automobile liability insurance,

which as noted is a misdemeanor under Georgia law.

Approximately six weeks later, she appeared before a

judge in the McDonough municipal court for

arraignment.

Ms. Teagan was one of several defendants present

in the courtroom for arraignment that day. The judge

collectively read to the entire group a statement

advising them of their constitutional rights, including

the right to a jury trial, the right to counsel, and the

right to request court-appointed counsel. The judge

further advised that anyone who did not understand

could request clarification. He did not, however,

conduct an individual colloquy with Ms. Teagan

regarding her rights. Nor did she waive those rights,

orally or in writing, at the arraignment.

When her case was called, Ms. Teagan pleaded not

guilty and orally advised the judge that she wanted a

bench trial. She also requested a continuance of her

trial, informing the court clerk that the continuance

would allow her sufficient time to obtain an attorney.

On March 19, 2014, Ms. Teagan appeared at her

bench trial before Donald Patten, the Chief Judge of

the McDonough municipal court. She was not

represented by counsel. Just before the trial

commenced, the bailiff instructed her to initial and sign

a form titled “Jury Trial Waiver.” This form purported

to waive her right to a jury trial as well as her right to

counsel. Chief Judge Patten also signed the form,

Supp. App. 5

attesting that Ms. Teagan had knowingly and willingly

waived her right to a jury trial. But he conducted no

additional inquiry of Ms. Teagan regarding her

understanding of the form or the voluntariness of her

waivers.

Proceeding pro se, Ms. Teagan cross-examined the

officer who issued the citation and who had testified for

the state. She also testified on her own behalf,

conceding that she had been driving without insurance.

Chief Judge Patten found her guilty of driving without

insurance and imposed a fine of $745, as well as a $50

penalty for being late to court.

Ms. Teagan informed Chief Judge Patten that she

was unable to pay the fine that day, but that she would

be able to do so by the following Friday—March 28,

2014. Chief Judge Patten then sentenced her to 60 days

in jail, suspended on the condition that she pay the

$795 fine by March 28.

B

On March 24, Ms. Teagan—again proceeding pro

se—filed a “Motion for Stay Pending Appeal” with the

municipal court, requesting the court to “grant a Stay

of [the] Court’s Order dated March 14, 2014 pending

appellate review[.]” Chief Judge Patten reviewed the

filing and determined that it was not in the proper

form to serve as a valid motion for appeal, but took no

action beyond instructing the deputy clerk to place it in

Ms. Teagan’s court file. No one at the municipal court

notified Ms. Teagan that her motion had effectively

been denied.

Supp. App. 6

When Ms. Teagan was unable to pay the $795 fine

by March 28, the municipal court clerk prepared an

application for an arrest warrant. Chief Judge Patten

then executed and issued the warrant at the same

time, imposing an additional $100 “contempt charge.”

Pursuant to the warrant, a deputy from the Henry

County Sheriff’s Office arrested Ms. Teagan at her

home on May 18, 2014, in front of her family and

neighbors. She was taken directly to the Henry County

Jail, where she was photographed, fingerprinted, and

issued a jail uniform.

Under Georgia law, Ms. Teagan should have been

taken before a municipal court judge “within 72 hours”

of her arrest. See Ga. Code Ann. § 17-4-26; Ga. Unif.

Mun. Ct. R. 20.1 (Dec. 2011); Tidwell v. Paxton, 651

S.E.2d 714, 715 (Ga. 2007). Yet she stayed in jail for 10

days—housed in a two-person cell with other inmates,

including some awaiting trial on felony charges—until

she was again brought before Chief Judge Patten on

May 28, 2014. 1

At her appearance on May 28, Chief Judge Patten

explained to Ms. Teagan—who was again without

counsel—that she had been incarcerated for her failure

to pay her fine by the agreed-upon March 28 deadline,

1

The purpose of Ms. Teagan’s May 28 appearance before Chief

Judge Patten is unclear. At his deposition, Chief Judge Patten

testified that he could not remember why Ms. Teagan was brought

before the municipal court at that time. The appearance was well

after the 72-hour time frame required by Georgia law, and Chief

Judge Patten explained that it was not his normal procedure to

order someone into court from the jail, unless it was specifically

requested or warranted under other special circumstances.

Supp. App. 7

and that she was therefore subject to the previously

suspended 60-day jail sentence. Chief Judge Patten did

not inquire into why Ms. Teagan had failed to pay the

fine or whether she had the ability to pay it. At the

conclusion of the appearance, Chief Judge Patten

ordered Ms. Teagan to be returned to the Henry

County Jail to serve the remainder of her 60-day

sentence.2

The following day, Ms. Teagan’s brother wrote a

check to the Henry County Sheriff for $895 to pay for

Ms. Teagan’s initial fine and the $100 “contempt

charge.” To be able to satisfy the fine, her brother drew

from the government benefits of Ms. Teagan’s

daughter, his own government benefits, and their rent

money. The Sheriff transferred the money to the City,

and Ms. Teagan was released on May 30, 2014.

C

In early 2015, Ms. Teagan sued the City of

McDonough in federal court. In her operative

complaint, she asserted federal claims under § 1983 for

violations of her Fourth, Sixth, and Fourteenth

Amendment rights, and a state-law claim for false

imprisonment. Specifically, she alleged that the

McDonough municipal court (1) violated her Due

Process and Equal Protection rights by imprisoning her

2

Ms. Teagan explained at her deposition that, at the time of the

trial, she had intended to secure a loan to pay the fine by the

March 28 deadline. She had stopped working in February,

however, and learned only after the trial that she would be unable

to secure a loan without proof of employment. She therefore filed

a motion to stay pending appeal.

Supp. App. 8

without determining the willfulness of her failure to

pay or her ability to pay; (2) ran afoul of the Sixth

Amendment by failing to secure a proper, individual

waiver of counsel from her and by failing to appoint

counsel; (3) violated the Fourth Amendment by

executing and issuing an invalid arrest warrant

unsupported by probable cause; (4) failed to conduct a

preliminary revocation hearing to determine whether

she had failed to comply with a condition of her

suspended sentence; (5) failed to bring her before a

judicial officer within 72 hours of her arrest and

incarceration, as required by Georgia law; and

(6) falsely imprisoned her in violation of Georgia Code

§ 51-7-20.

Both parties moved for summary judgment, which

the district court granted in favor of the City. The

district court ruled that all of the actions alleged in Ms.

Teagan’s complaint were taken by the McDonough

municipal court pursuant to its authority to act with

“limited state judicial power” to enforce state

misdemeanor laws under Georgia Code § 36-32-1(a)

(granting municipal courts “jurisdiction over the

violation of municipal ordinances and over such other

matters as are by general law made subject to the

jurisdiction of municipal courts”). The district court

relied on the Georgia Supreme Court’s decision in

Nguyen, 651 S.E.2d at 684, which explained that the

General Assembly, as permitted by the Georgia

Constitution, has given municipal courts “limited state

judicial power” to try a defendant for the violation of

certain state misdemeanor offenses. Because the

municipal court was not acting on behalf of the City,

the district court concluded that the City could not be

Supp. App. 9

held liable under § 1983 pursuant to Monell and its

progeny. The district court, however, did not separately

address Ms. Teagan’s state-law false imprisonment

claim.

II

Our review of the district court’s summary

judgment order is plenary. See, e.g., Jones v. Firestone

Tire & Rubber Co., 977 F.2d 527, 535 (11th Cir. 1992).

Summary judgment is appropriate if the record shows

that there are no genuine issues of material fact and

that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a

matter of law. See, e.g., Eberhardt v. Waters, 901 F.2d

1578, 1580 (11th Cir. 1990). As the parties have raised

no disputes over the material facts, this appeal

concerns only questions of law.

A

“Municipal liability under § 1983 is incurred only

where ‘a deliberate choice to follow a course of action is

made from among various alternatives by the official or

officials responsible for establishing final policy with

respect to the subject matter in question.’” Owens, 877

F.2d at 949–50 (citation omitted). To prove municipal

liability under § 1983, a plaintiff “must show that the

local government entity . . . has authority and

responsibility over the governmental function at

issue[.]” Grech v. Clayton Cty., 335 F.3d 1326, 1330

(11th Cir. 2003) (en banc). With respect to Ms. Teagan’s

§ 1983 claims against the City, therefore, the critical

and threshold question is whether the McDonough

municipal court, through Chief Judge Patten, was

acting on behalf of the City when it took the actions

Supp. App. 10

which form the basis for the constitutional violations

alleged by Ms. Teagan. If it was not, the City cannot be

held liable under § 1983. See McMillian v. Johnson, 88

F.3d 1573, 1578 (11th Cir. 1996) (“A threshold question

. . . is whether the official is going about the local

government’s business. If the official’s actions do not

fall within an area of the local government’s business,

then the official’s actions are not acts of the local

government.”), aff’d sub nom. McMillian v. Monroe

Cty., 520 U.S. 781 (1997).

Whether an official or entity acts on behalf of a

municipality or the state “in a particular area, or on a

particular issue,” is—labels aside—a federal question

that is “dependent on an analysis of state law.”

McMillian, 520 U.S. at 786. See also Grech, 335 F.3d at

1330. Although we have not yet addressed this

question with respect to municipal courts in Georgia,

our decision in Familias Unidas v. Briscoe, 619 F.2d

391 (5th Cir. 1980), provides a critical starting point.

In Familias Unidas, a Texas county judge in

Medina County, acting pursuant to the request of a

local school district, ordered an organization of

Mexican-American students and adults to disclose its

members. See id. at 396. The judge did so pursuant to

state law, specifically § 4.28 of the Texas Education

Code. See id. at 396–97. The organization and one of its

members then filed suit in federal court against the

former Texas governor, the county court judge, and the

superintendent and members of the board of trustees

of the school district (all in their individual and official

capacities). See id. at 394–95, 397. The plaintiffs sought

a declaration that § 4.28 was unconstitutional, an

Supp. App. 11

injunction against its implementation, and damages for

the members of the organization as a class. See id. at

397.

We ultimately concluded that § 4.28 violated the

First Amendment, and ruled that the individual

plaintiff was entitled to an award of nominal damages

not to exceed one dollar “based on the instant

application of the unconstitutional statute and the

resultant infringement of her First Amendment right

of association.” Id. at 402. We then turned to the

question of “who shall be required to pay this award.”

Id. at 403.

As relevant here, we surveyed Texas law and held

that the county judge’s compliance with the school

district’s request and issuance of the disclosure

demand did not “represent[ ] the official policy” of the

county. Id. at 404. Recognizing that a county judge

could act in ways that might constitute county policy

(e.g., the performance of certain administrative duties),

we explained that “the narrow authority delegated to

the county judge in [§] 4.28 . . . bears no relation to his

traditional role in the administration of county

government or the discretionary powers delegated to

him by state statute in aid of that role.” Id. “Instead,”

we continued, “his duty in implementing [§] 4.28, much

like that of a county sheriff enforcing a state law, may

more fairly be characterized as the effectuation of the

policy of the State of Texas embodied in that statute,

for which the citizens of a particular county should not

bear singular responsibility. Accordingly, under the

standards set forth in Monell we hold that Medina

County is not susceptible to liability under [§] 1983 for

Supp. App. 12

[the county judge’s] issuance of the disclosure

demands.” Id.

B

“The practical test articulated in Familias Unidas

. . . is whether the decisionmaker, by virtue of his

official conduct, serves as the ‘final authority or

ultimate repository of county power.’” Owens, 877 F.2d

at 950 (quoting Familias Unidas, 619 F.3d at 404). The

narrow question here is whether under Georgia law the

McDonough municipal court, through Chief Judge

Patten, acted on behalf of the state or the City when

adjudicating Ms. Teagan’s state-law misdemeanor

offense. As we explain, we conclude that Chief Judge

Patten acted on behalf of the state because he was

exercising his authority under state law to preside over

a state misdemeanor offense.3

3

Because this case does not present the question, we leave for

another day whether a municipal court judge acts on behalf of a

municipality when he or she exercises judicial authority with

respect to local ordinances enacted by the municipality. Compare

Walker v. City of Calhoun, 901 F.3d 1245, 1256 (11th Cir. 2018)

(concluding, at the preliminary injunction stage, that a Georgia

municipal court acted on behalf of the city in setting bail policy,

and therefore was not immune from § 1983 liability in an indigent

arrestee’s class action lawsuit challenging the court’s standing bail

order); ODonnell v. Harris Cty., 892 F.3d 147, 155–56 (5th Cir.

2018) (holding that a county judge was a policymaker for the

county in establishing an “unwritten, countywide process for

setting bail that violated both state law and the Constitution”);

Anela v. City of Wildwood, 790 F.2d 1063, 1066–67 (3d Cir. 1986)

(holding that a municipal court judge’s “cash bail schedule,” which

failed to comply with a state supreme court rule, constituted a

municipal practice for which the city could be held liable under

Monell).

Supp. App. 13

Familias Unidas generally teaches that a county or

municipal court judge acts on behalf of the state, and

not on behalf of the municipality, when he engages in

judicial acts for the purpose of applying or enforcing a

state law. See Lucas v. O’Loughlin, 831 F.2d 232, 235

(11th Cir. 1987) (“The Court [in Familias Unidas]

found that the action of the state judge upon which the

plaintiff sought to bind the county was an act of the

judge mandated by a state statute, rather than one of

the functions normal to the operation of a county judge.

The plaintiff, therefore, lost on his contention that the

county should be liable.”). Familias Unidas was, of

course, based on an examination of Texas law, so it is

not controlling. But an analysis of Georgia law leads to

the same result as in Familias Unidas.4

Ms. Teagan correctly points out that municipal

courts in Georgia are generally creatures of local

government—Georgia law, after all, gives

municipalities the power to create municipal courts,

appoint judges to those courts, and fix their

compensation. See, e.g., Ga. Code Ann. §§ 36-32-1(a) &

36-32-2(a). And the judges of the McDonough municipal

court may be removed from office by the mayor and city

council. See McDonough City Charter, Art. IV, § 411(d). But the question here is not whether municipal

courts in Georgia should be generally viewed as state or

4

We note—without passing on or endorsing their rationales—that

a number of circuits have come to the same conclusion with respect

to municipal or local courts adjudicating state-law offenses. See,

e.g., Eggar v. City of Livingston, 40 F.3d 312, 314–15 (9th Cir.

1994) (Montana); Johnson v. Moore, 958 F.2d 92, 93–94 (5th Cir.

1992) (Mississippi).

Supp. App. 14

municipal actors. It is, instead, is a more narrow one:

whether municipal courts in Georgia act on behalf of

the state or on behalf of the municipality when they

adjudicate misdemeanor offenses under state law. See

McMillian, 520 U.S. at 785–86 (“Thus, we are not

seeking to make a characterization of Alabama sheriffs

that will hold true for every type of official action they

engage in. We simply ask whether Sheriff Tate

represents the State or the county when he acts in a

law enforcement capacity.”).

Although the Georgia Supreme Court has

sometimes characterized municipal courts as municipal

bodies “discharging strictly municipal functions,” Ward

v. City of Cairo, 583 S.E. 2d 821, 823 (Ga. 2003), such

a definitive across-the-board classification is not

accurate. As noted earlier, municipal courts in Georgia

have jurisdiction to adjudicate state-law misdemeanor

traffic offenses pursuant to Georgia Code § 40-13-21(a)(b). See Kolker, 391 S.E.2d at 393 (holding that Article

VI, § 1, ¶ 1 of the Georgia Constitution “authorizes the

General Assembly to vest municipal courts with

jurisdiction over state misdemeanor offenses”). See also

Ga. Code Ann. § 36-32-3 (“All judges of all municipal

courts in this state shall have and are given the same

powers and authorities as magistrates in the matter of

and pertaining to criminal cases of whatever nature in

the several courts of this state.”). The Georgia Supreme

Court has explained that the “General Assembly’s

exercise of its constitutional authority to enact

legislation vesting municipal courts with jurisdiction

over various state misdemeanor offenses . . . imbues

the municipal court with limited state judicial power

when it tries a defendant for violations of the state

Supp. App. 15

misdemeanors the General Assembly has placed within

its jurisdiction.” Nguyen, 651 S.E.2d at 684 (emphasis

added).

Ms. Teagan was charged with driving without

insurance, which constitutes a state-law misdemeanor

offense. See Ga. Code Ann. § 40-6-10(a). Under Georgia

law and the rationale of Familias Unidas, Chief Judge

Patten was acting on behalf o f t h e sta t e w hen h e

presided over her case, found her guilty, sentenced her,

signed a warrant for her arrest, issued a $100

“contempt charge” for her failure to pay the fine, and

ordered her to serve the 60-day sentence that had been

suspended. See Familias Unidas, 619 F.2d at 404. And

because a conviction in a Georgia municipal court for a

state-law misdemeanor traffic offense is appealable to

the superior court, see Ga. Code Ann. § 40-13-28, we

cannot say that under Georgia law the City had

“control over” Chief Judge Patten or the McDonough

municipal court with respect to the adjudication of Ms.

Teagan’s state-law misdemeanor traffic offense. See

McMillian, 520 U.S. at 785 (“Our cases on the liability

of local governments under § 1983 instruct us to ask

whether governmental officials are final policymakers

for the local government in a particular area, or a

particular issue.”); Grech, 335 F.3d at 1332 (“[T]he

appropriate § 1983 inquiry under federal law is

whether . . . Clayton County, under Georgia law, has

control over the Sheriff in his law enforcement

function, particularly for the entry and validation of

warrants . . . and the training and supervision of his

employees in that regard.”). We therefore affirm the

district court’s grant of summary judgment to the City

on Ms. Teagan’s § 1983 claims.

Supp. App. 16

C

In his concurrence, Judge Tjoflat concludes that Ms.

Teagan’s § 1983 claims are barred by Heck v.

Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994). Having already

affirmed the grant of summary judgment in favor of the

City on the § 1983 claims, we need not address the

applicability of Heck.

First, the Supreme Court’s own language suggests

that Heck deprives the plaintiff of a cause of

action—not that it deprives a court of jurisdiction. See

id. at 489 (“We do not engraft an exhaustion

requirement upon § 1983, but rather deny the existence

of a cause of action. . . . Just as a cause of action for

malicious prosecution does not accrue until the

criminal proceedings have terminated in the plaintiff’s

favor . . . so also a § 1983 cause of action for damages

attributable to an unconstitutional conviction or

sentence does not accrue until the conviction or

sentence has been invalidated.”). As a result, some of

our sister circuits have concluded that Heck is an

affirmative defense and not a jurisdictional rule. See,

e.g., Carr v. O’Leary, 167 F.3d 1124, 1126 (7th Cir.

1999) (“The failure to plead the Heck defense in a

timely fashion was a waiver[.]”); Washington v. Los

Angeles Cty. Sheriff’s Dep’t, 833 F.3d 1048, 1056 (9th

Cir. 2016) (“[C]ompliance with Heck most closely

resembles the mandatory administrative exhaustion of

PLRA claims, which constitutes an affirmative defense

and not a pleading requirement.”). We have not

definitively answered that question. See Dixon v.

Hodges, 887 F.3d 1235, 1237–40 (11th Cir. 2018)

(describing Heck in dicta as “strip[ping] a district court

Supp. App. 17

of jurisdiction,” but reversing the district court’s

dismissal based on Heck without directly addressing

whether Heck is jurisdictional); Topa v. Melendez, 739

F. App’x 516, 518 & n.1 (11th Cir. 2018) (noting that

“other circuits have treated Heck as an affirmative

defense subject to waiver”).

Second, there is an open question as to whether

Heck applies to situations where, as here, a § 1983

plaintiff may no longer seek habeas relief because she

is no longer in custody. See Muhammad v. Close, 540

U.S. 749, 752 n.2 (2004) (“Members of the Court have

expressed the view that unavailability of habeas for

other reasons may also dispense with the Heck

requirement. . . . This case is no occasion to settle the

issue.”). It is unclear whether Heck would apply here,

as the length of imprisonment was so short “that a

petition for habeas relief could not have been filed and

granted while [Ms. Teagan] was unlawfully in custody.”

Morrow v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 610 F.3d 1271, 1272

(11th Cir. 2010). See also id. at 1273 (Anderson, J.,

concurring) (“[S]everal circuits have recognized an

exception from the Heck favorable termination

requirement for plaintiffs no longer in custody that

were precluded from obtaining habeas relief.”).

III

That leaves Ms. Teagan’s false imprisonment claim

under Georgia Code § 51-7-20. We conclude that the

district court erred in not separately addressing that

claim, and remand for further proceedings. See, e.g.,

Stillman v. Travelers Ins. Co., 88 F.3d 911, 914 (11th

Cir. 1996) (district court erred in granting final, rather

than partial, summary judgment where other issues

Supp. App. 18

and defenses should have survived and the summary

judgment order “did not even purport to adjudicate [a

party’s] other affirmative defenses”).

After ruling that the City could not be liable under

§ 1983 for the actions of Chief Judge Patten or the

McDonough municipal court, the district court stated

in a footnote that it did not need to address the parties’

other arguments. See D.E. 96 at 9 n.2. Insofar as the

district court meant to say that it did not need to

consider the City’s other arguments for rejecting Ms.

Teagan’s § 1983 claims, it was correct. But if the

district court believed that its Monell municipal

liability ruling necessarily disposed of Ms. Teagan’s

state-law false imprisonment claim, it was mistaken.

The Georgia tort of false imprisonment does not require

the sort of municipal liability analysis mandated under

§ 1983.

False imprisonment in Georgia requires a showing

of “the unlawful detention of the person of another, for

any length of time, whereby such person is deprived of

his personal liberty.” Ga. Code Ann. § 51-7-20. The

“only essential elements [of false imprisonment] are the

arrest or detention and the unlawfulness thereof.”

Miller v. Grand Union Co., 552 S.E. 2d 491, 494 (Ga.

Ct. App. 2001) (citations omitted).

The City urges us to resolve the false imprisonment

claim on the merits and argues that it fails because Ms.

Teagan was arrested on a “warrant which was properly

issued” by Chief Judge Patten. See Appellee’s Br. at 29

(citing Carruth v. Roberts, 375 S.E.2d 499, 501–02 (Ga.

Ct. App. 1988)). We decline the City’s invitation to

address the merits for the following reason.

Supp. App. 19

Ms. Teagan contends that the City, through Chief

Judge Patten, committed the tort of false imprisonment

when it arrested her on a facially invalid warrant and

without a finding that she had willfully failed to pay

the fine. See Appellant’s Br. at 29–30. For example, she

asserts that there is no such thing as an offense for

“failure to pay a fine” under state law or under the

City’s ordinances. See id. at 29. And if there was no

such offense, she continues, there could not be any

probable cause for her arrest. See id. Because there are

some Georgia cases suggesting that the invalidity of a

warrant may permit a false imprisonment claim, we

think it is best for the district court to consider that

claim in the first instance. See, e.g., Franklin v. Consol.

Gov’t of Columbus, 512 S.E.2d 352, 355 (Ga. Ct. App.

1999) (rejecting false imprisonment claim because

arrest was based on a warrant and “there [wa]s no

evidence of invalid process”); Ridgeview Inst., Inc. v.

Handley, 481 S.E.2d 531, 533 (Ga. Ct. App. 1997) (“An

action for false imprisonment will lie where a person is

unlawfully detained under a void process, or under no

process at all, and can not be maintained where the

process is valid[.]”) (citation and internal quotation

marks omitted); Stephens v. Big Apple Supermkts. of

Rome, Inc., 204 S.E.2d 805, 806 (Ga. Ct. App. 1974)

(“As the district attorney’s affidavit demonstrates that

the arrests complained of were founded upon warrants,

and as there is no allegation that the warrants are not

valid, there was no error in granting defendants’

motion for summary judgment on the false

imprisonment averments.”).

Supp. App. 20

IV

We are deeply troubled by what happened to Ms.

Teagan in the McDonough municipal court. She, like

all other citizens of that City, deserved better. But

given Georgia law and the rationale of our decision in

Familias Unidas, Chief Judge Patten was acting on

behalf of the state, and not on behalf of the City, when

he took the actions complained of in the course of

adjudicating Ms. Teagan’s state-law misdemeanor

offense. We therefore affirm the district court’s grant of

summary judgment to the City on Ms. Teagan’s § 1983

claims.

With respect to Ms. Teagan’s state-law false

imprisonment claim, the district court erred by not

separately addressing it. As a result, we reverse the

grant of summary judgment on that claim and remand

for further proceedings.

AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART,

AND REMANDED.

Supp. App. 21

JORDAN, Circuit Judge, concurring:

I join the court’s opinion. The City of McDonough

cannot be held liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 because

the municipal court was not acting on its behalf when

adjudicating Ms. Teagan’s state-law misdemeanor for

failing to maintain automobile liability insurance.

I write separately, however, to express my concern

that the McDonough municipal court acted

unconstitutionally by jailing Ms. Teagan for failing to

pay a fine without determining whether her failure to

pay was willful. This practice, which does not appear to

be isolated throughout municipal courts in Georgia,

flouts the venerable and long-standing principle that

debtors’ prisons are unconstitutional.

*******

“There can be no equal justice where the kind of

trial a man gets depends on the amount of money he

has.” Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12, 19 (1956). Based

on this understanding, the Supreme Court held in

Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660, 672–73 (1983), that

revoking an indigent defendant’s probation for failure

to pay a fine, without inquiring into the reasons for the

failure to pay, violates the “fundamental fairness

required by the Fourteenth Amendment.” The Court

explained that if “the probationer has willfully refused

to pay the fine . . . when he has the means to pay,” or

“fail[ed] to make sufficient bona fide efforts to seek

employment or borrow money in order to pay the fine,”

then imprisonment may be justified. See id. at 668.

“But if the probationer has made all reasonable efforts

to pay the fine or restitution, and yet cannot do so

Supp. App. 22

through no fault of his own, it is fundamentally unfair

to revoke probation automatically without considering

whether adequate alternative methods of punishing a

defendant are available.” Id. at 668–69. “Only if

alternate measures are not adequate to meet the

State’s interests in punishment and deterrence may the

court imprison a probationer who has made sufficient

bona fide efforts to pay.” Id. at 672.

Bearden was based on two earlier Supreme Court

cases, Williams v. Illinois, 399 U.S. 235 (1970), and

Tate v. Short, 401 U.S. 395 (1971)—both of which

prohibit jailing a criminal defendant “solely because of

his indigency.” Tate, 401 U.S. at 398. See also Williams,

399 U.S. at 242. In Williams, the Court held that a

defendant could not be imprisoned for longer than the

statutory maximum for his offense based on his

inability to pay a fine or court costs. See 399 U.S. at

239–41. In Tate, the defendant was initially fined for

traffic offenses, but when he was unable to pay the

fines, he was committed to a municipal prison. See 401

U.S. at 396–97. The Court held that “the Constitution

prohibits the State from imposing a fine as a sentence

and then automatically converting it into a jail term

solely because the defendant is indigent and cannot

forthwith pay the fine in full.” Id. at 398.

Many decades ago, the former Fifth Circuit likewise

“accept[ed] the principle that imprisonment solely

because of indigent status is invidious discrimination

and not constitutionally permissible.” Pugh v.

Rainwater, 572 F.2d 1053, 1056 (5th Cir. 1978) (en

banc). It has also held that imposing an alternative

sentence “requiring an indigent defendant to pay a fine

Supp. App. 23

forthwith or serve a specified number of days in jail” is

unconstitutional. See Frazier v. Jordan, 457 F.2d 726,

726–730 (5th Cir. 1972). We, of course, are bound by

Bearden, Frazier and Rainwater. See, e.g., Walker v.

City of Calhoun, 901 F.3d 1245, 1259 (11th Cir. 2018)

(applying Bearden and Rainwater).

Georgia courts have also repeatedly applied

Bearden. See, e.g., Massey v. Meadows, 321 S.E.2d 703,

704 (Ga. 1984) (“[A] defendant’s probation may not be

revoked or withheld because of his failure to pay the

fine without a showing of willfulness on his part or

inadequacy of alternative punishments.”); Gaither v.

Inman, 322 S.E.2d 242, 243 (Ga. 1984) (applying

Bearden and Massey to a conditionally suspended

sentence); Johnson v. State, 707 S.E.2d 373, 375 (Ga.

Ct. App. 2011) (holding that the defendant’s probation

could not be revoked for failing to pay court-ordered

fines and fees without the trial court first making a

finding as to willfulness, even though the defendant

entered a negotiated plea, because the court

unilaterally imposed the fines). In addition, Georgia’s

own constitution bans debtors’ prisons. See Ga. Const.

art. 1, § 1, para. XXIII (“There shall be no

imprisonment for debt.”). See also Messenger v. State,

72 S.E.2d 460, 461 (Ga. 1952) (explaining that the

Georgia Constitution “commands the three

departments of the government . . . to refrain from

imprisoning a single person for debt.”). And longstanding Georgia precedent makes clear that municipal

courts cannot use imprisonment to coerce the payment

of a fine. See Brieswick v. City of Brunswick, 51 Ga.

639, 642–43 (1874) (holding that a municipal court did

not have the power or authority to “coerce the payment

Supp. App. 24

of the fine imposed by imprisonment”). What happened

to Ms. Teagan is therefore impossible to defend and

difficult to understand.

*******

As set forth in the court’s opinion, Chief Judge

Donald Patten of the McDonough municipal court

found Ms. Teagan guilty of driving without insurance

and imposed a $745 fine, as well as a $50 penalty for

being late to court. Ms. Teagan informed Chief Judge

Patten that she was unable to pay the fine that day,

but that she would be able to do so by the following

Friday, March 28, 2014. After learning that Ms.

Teagan could not pay her fine that day, Chief Judge

Patten sentenced her to 60 days in jail, suspended on

the condition that she pay the $795 fine by March 28.

This is exactly what the Supreme Court prohibited

in Tate: “imposing a fine as a sentence and then

automatically converting it into a jail term solely

because the defendant is indigent and cannot forthwith

pay the fine in full.” 401 U.S. at 398. As the Supreme

Court explained, “[i]mprisonment in such a case is not

imposed to further any penal objective of the State. It

is imposed to augment the state’s revenues but

obviously does not serve that purpose; the defendant

cannot pay because he is indigent and his

imprisonment, rather than aiding collection of the

revenue, saddles the State with the cost of feeding and

housing him for the period of his imprisonment.” Id. at

399. It also contravenes Georgia’s own precedent that

a municipal court cannot coerce a fine by

imprisonment. See Brieswick, 51 Ga. at 642–43.

Supp. App. 25

Here, as in Tate, sentencing Ms. Teagan to

jail—when Chief Judge Patten initially was only going

to impose a fine—served no legitimate penological

purpose. See 401 U.S. at 399. As suggested in Tate, it

seems more likely that the suspended jail term was

imposed to coerce payment and raise City revenues, as

the City profits from the collection of fines. Ms. Teagan

was convicted of failing to maintain automobile liability

insurance in violation of Georgia Code § 40-6-10. But

under Georgia law, when a municipal court tries

offenses under § 40-6-10, “[a]ny fines . . . arising from

the prosecution of such cases shall be retained by the

municipality and shall be paid into the treasury of such

municipality.” Ga. Code Ann. § 36-32-7(b). Indeed, Ms.

Teagan presented evidence demonstrating that since

2012, the McDonough municipal court has generated

over $7.4 million in revenue for the City from the

payment of fines, averaging over 10 percent of the

City’s general-fund revenues for that time period.

Given Ms. Teagan’s experience, one wonders how much

of that sum was secured through unconstitutional

means.

After Ms. Teagan did not pay the fine, she was

arrested and jailed on May 18, 2014, without any

hearing to determine whether her failure to pay was

willful. Even at her subsequent appearance ten days

later, Chief Judge Patten made no attempt to

determine whether Ms. Teagan had the ability to pay

the fine. These actions by Chief Judge Patten directly

contravened the Supreme Court’s holding in Bearden

that imprisoning a defendant for failure to pay a fine,

without inquiring into the reasons for the failure to pay

or considering alternative measures, violates the

Supp. App. 26

“fundamental fairness required by the Fourteenth

Amendment.” 461 U.S. at 672–73.

Had there been a hearing, Ms. Teagan could have

shown that she did not willfully fail to pay the fine. In

her unrebutted deposition testimony, Ms. Teagan

explained that she lost her job in February of 2014, but

that at the time of the bench trial on March 19, 2014,

she thought that she would be able to secure a loan to

pay the fine. When she went to obtain the loan,

however, she found out that she could not secure the

loan without proof of employment.

That Ms. Teagan did not willfully fail to pay is

further evidenced by the fact that she filed a pro se

“Motion for a Stay Pending Appeal” on March 24, days

before the March 28 deadline. Although Chief Judge

Patten determined that the motion was not in the

proper form, he did not issue an order denying the

motion. And no one at the municipal court notified Ms.

Teagan that her motion, though filed, had effectively

been denied. Thus, when her fine came due on

March 28, Ms. Teagan reasonably believed that her

sentence (including the payment of the fine) had been

stayed pending appellate review.

Adding further insult to injury, not only was Ms.

Teagan jailed without a hearing, but Chief Judge

Patton added an additional $100 “contempt charge” to

her fine. I know of no Georgia law authorizing a

municipal court to impose additional fees against an

indigent defendant as punishment for his or her failure

to pay a fine. A Georgia statute gives municipal courts

the power and authority “[t]o impose fines upon

persons convicted of . . . offenses, with the alternative

Supp. App. 27

of other punishment allowed by law,” e.g., ordering

community service, “in the event such fines are not

paid.” See Ga. Code Ann. § 36-32-5 (emphasis added).

In other words, if a person is unable to pay a fine, the

municipal court may impose “other,” or different,

punishment—not an additional fine. See American

Heritage College Dictionary 967 (3d ed. 1993) (defining

“other” as “[d]ifferent from that or those implied or

specified”).

*******

Ms. Teagan’s ordeal seems to exemplify a broader

problem. The City of McDonough is not the only

municipality in Georgia that raises a significant

portion of its revenue from collecting fines—or that

collects these fines through its municipal court’s

vigorous enforcement of traffic violations. See, e.g.,

Dick M. Carpenter II, Ph.D., Kyle Sweetland, &

Jennifer McDonald, Inst. for Justice, The Price of

Taxation by Citation: Case Studies of Three Georgia

Cities that Rely Heavily on Fines and Fees 4–5 (2019)

(examining three Georgia cities which generate on

average 14–25% of their revenues from fines and fees,

and which use municipal courts as “highly efficient

revenue collectors”).

Nor is Georgia the only state where local

governments collect a significant portion of their

revenues from fines. See U.S. Comm’n on Civil Rights,

Targeted Fines and Fees Against Communities of Color:

Civil Rights and Constitutional Implications 21–22

(2017) (discussing municipalities throughout the

country that receive 10% or more of their revenue from

fines and fees). Some commentators have noted that

Supp. App. 28

municipal courts’ aggressive enforcement of the

payment of fines—including unconstitutionally

imprisoning defendants for their debt—has been on the

rise since the 2008 recession, when local governments

became increasingly strapped for funds. See, e.g.,

Christopher D. Hampson, The New American Debtors’

Prison, 44 Am. J. Crim. L. 1, 8 (2017) (noting that the

problem of imprisonment for debt “has become

exacerbated since the Great Recession, when many

municipalities were driven by financial need to look for

alternative sources of money”); Roopal Patel & Meghna

Philip, Brennan Ctr. for Justice, Criminal Justice Debt:

A Toolkit for Action 2 (2012) (“As states have become

increasingly strapped for funds, some have looked to a

most unlikely revenue source: the disproportionately

poor people involved in the criminal justice system. . . .

[I]ncreasing numbers of states are creating new

pathways to imprisonment based solely on criminal

justice debt.”).

Not surprisingly, multiple lawsuits have been filed

in our Circuit challenging these types of practices on

various grounds, and in at least some cases, district

courts have denied motions to dismiss. See, e.g.,

Chapman v. City of Clanton, No. 2:15-cv-125, 2017 WL

1508182, at *2–5 (M.D. Ala. Apr. 25, 2017) (denying in

part motion to dismiss claims that the city violated the

plaintiffs’ constitutional rights by jailing them for their

inability to pay fines without inquiring as to their

indigency); Brucker v. City of Doraville, 391 F. Supp. 3d

1207, 1215–17 (N.D. Ga. July 9, 2019) (denying motion

to dismiss the plaintiffs’ due process claim, which

asserted that the city’s reliance on fines, fees, and

forfeitures created a conflict of interest for municipal

Supp. App. 29

court judges, who are financially incentivized to convict

defendants appearing before them); Ray v. Judicial

Corr. Servs., No. 2:12-CV-02819, 2013 WL 5428360, at

*15 (N.D. Ala. Sept. 26, 2013) (denying in part the

city’s motion to dismiss constitutional claims

challenging fine collection practices that resulted in the

plaintiffs being jailed without an indigency

determination). Some courts in other parts of the

country have likewise allowed these types of claims to

proceed past the dismissal or summary judgment

stages, or even granted summary judgment in favor of

the plaintiffs. See, e.g., Alkire v. Irving, 330 F.3d 802,

816–19 (6th Cir. 2003) (reversing the district court’s

grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendants

on the plaintiff’s claims that his Thirteenth and

Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated when he

was imprisoned for failing to pay court costs and fees

without any inquiry into his ability to pay); Fant v. City

of Ferguson, 107 F. Supp. 3d 1016, 1030–32 (E.D. Mo.

2015) (holding that the plaintiffs pleaded sufficient

facts to state a plausible claim that the city’s policy and

practice of jailing them for their inability to pay fines

violated the Due Process and Equal Protection

Clauses); Doe v. Angelina Cty., 733 F. Supp. 245,

255–57 (E.D. Tex. 1990) (granting the plaintiff’s motion

for partial summary judgment on his § 1983 due

process claim against the county, which asserted that

he was unlawfully imprisoned for failing to pay a fine

as a result of a county’s policy); Kneisser v. McInerney,

No. 1:15-cv-07043-NLH-AMD, 2018 WL 1586033, at

*13–14 (D.N.J. Mar. 30, 2018) (granting the plaintiff’s

motion for partial summary judgment against the city

on his claims that his constitutional rights were

violated by the municipal court when he was sent to

Supp. App. 30

jail because he was unable to pay a fine imposed for a

littering offense).

But what happened to Ms. Teagan should not be a

common occurrence. “Courts are supposed to dispense

justice, not be looked upon as cash registers for the

government.” ACLU, In For a Penny: The Rise of

America’s New Debtors’ Prisons 55 (2010) (citation and

internal quotation marks omitted). Jailing a defendant

for failing to pay a fine—without any determination

that her failure to pay was willful—is a flagrant

violation the U.S. Constitution. See Bearden, 461 U.S.

at

668–69. A municipal court cannot shirk its

duties to protect indigent defendants’ constitutional

rights in order to line its city’s coffers.

Supp. App. 31

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge, specially concurring:

I concur in the judgment of the Court. I write

separately to state that I believe Teagan’s 42 U.S.C.

§ 1983 claims are barred under Heck v. Humphrey, 512

U.S. 477, 114 S. Ct. 2364 (1994), which requires

Teagan to prove that her “conviction or sentence has

been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive

order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to

make such determination, or called into question by a

federal court’s issuance of a writ of habeas corpus”

before her claims are cognizable under § 1983. Id. at

487, 114 S. Ct. at 2372. Because Teagan has not offered

such proof, the City is entitled to summary judgment

on her § 1983 claims regardless of whether the actions

of the municipal court could be attributed to the City

under Monell.