The City and Deriso moved to dismiss McCarthy's complaint 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 Commission 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.
The district court dismissed McCarthy's complaint. It ruled that McCarthy failed to state plausible claims of racial discrimination against the City because he failed to allege that the "Commission 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 animus 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 terminate [McCarthy]'s employment." The district court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over McCarthy's claim for breach of contract.
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.
Vacated — McCarthy plausibly alleged that the Commission discriminated against him because of his race, and the district court erred by dismissing his claims of racial discrimination against the City. The dismissal against Deriso in his individual capacity is affirmed.
McCarthy argues that the district court erred by dismissing his claims of racial discrimination against the City and against Deriso in his official capacity. Because a "claim asserted against an individual 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-capacity 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 provisions "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, 96 S.Ct. 2574, 49 L.Ed.2d 493 (1976) (Title VII and section 1981); see Hornsby-Culpepper v. Ware, 906 F.3d 1302, 1312 n.6 (11th Cir. 2018) (section 1983). They "proscribe racial discrimination in ... employment against whites on the same terms as racial discrimination against nonwhites." McDonald, 427 U.S. at 279-80, 287, 96 S.Ct. 2574.
When the employer is a municipality, the employee must allege that the racial discrimination was a municipal "policy or custom." Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 694, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978). An "employment 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, 106 S.Ct. 1292, 89 L.Ed.2d 452 (1986)). And when the final policymaker for a challenged employment decision was a multimember body, the plaintiff must allege that "a majority" of the members voted in favor of the decision "for an unconstitutional 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 "majority" of the members harbored unconstitutional motives are "insufficient 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 discriminatory motives. But because Deriso did not vote, the City argues that McCarthy plausibly alleged only that one of the commissioners who voted to fire him was motivated by racial animus. And an "unconstitutional motive on the part of one member of a three-member majority is insufficient to impute an unconstitutional motive 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 commissioners 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 entering office, a majority of the commissioners voted to fire McCarthy, even though he was an exemplary employee and the former Commission had renewed his contract one month earlier; that the Commission 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, 122 S.Ct. 992, 152 L.Ed.2d 1 (2002) (plaintiff stated a plausible national-origin discrimination 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-discrimination claims "across the line from conceivable to plausible." See Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 680, 129 S.Ct. 1937 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
McCarthy plausibly alleged that the Commission discriminated 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. "Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it." Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard Coll., 600 U.S. 181, 143 S.Ct. 2141, 2161, 216 L.Ed.2d 857 (2023). We vacate the order insofar as it dismissed McCarthy's claims against the City and declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over his claim of breach of contract.
THIS CASEBOOK contains a selection of U. S. Court of Appeals decisions that analyze and discuss municipal liability and 42 U.S.C. Section 1983. Volume 1 of the casebook covers the District of Columbia Circuit and the First through the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Volume 2 of the casebook covers the Sixth through the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.