Lead Opinion
MOORE, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which MARTIN, BOGGS, COLE,
OPINION
The former principal of Jefferson County, Tennessee’s alternative school and two former teachers at the school (collectively, “the teachers”) allege that, by closing the county’s public alternative school and contracting with Kingswood Academy (“Kingswood”) to provide alternative-school services for public-school students, the Jefferson County Board of School Commissioners and its members (collectively, “the Board” or “the defendants”) violated the teachers’ (1) First Amendment Establishment Clause rights under the U.S. Constitution and similar rights under article I, section 3 of the Tennessee Constitution; and (2) procedural and substantive due-process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and article I, section 8 of the Tennessee Constitution. The teachers appeal the grant of summary judgment to the Board on all of the teachers’ claims and the denial of the teachers’ motion for partial summary judgment.
We hold that the teachers have standing to raise the Establishment Clause claim. In addition, we hold that the Board did not violate the teachers’ procedural and substantive due-process rights and that the individual Board members are entitled to legislative immunity. Therefore, we REVERSE the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the Board on the teachers’ Establishment Clause claims and the district court’s determination that legislative immunity for the Board members was moot, and REMAND to the district court for further proceedings. We AFFIRM the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the Board on the teachers’ procedural and substantive due-process claims. Finally, because we hold that the individual Board members are entitled to legislative immunity, we need not address whether they are entitled to qualified immunity.
I. BACKGROUND
A. Factual Background
The Board employed all of the teachers in this case during the 2002-2003 school year. Vickie F. Forgety and Steve B. Smith were tenured teachers. Forgety served as the principal of the alternative school. David Kucera taught under a contract that entitled him to continue in his position for another year unless he was notified by April 15, 2003 of the nonrenewal of his contract.
1. Budget Cuts
After discussion of the budget on June 26, 2003, the Board voted to eliminate several programs, including the alternative school and the positions of the teachers and principal working there. It voted again to “officially delete” the alternative school at its July 10, 2003 meeting. Joint Appendix (“J.A.”) at 351 (7/10/03 Mins, of the Regular Meeting). In addition, the Board voted at the July meeting to contract with Kingswood to provide alternative-school services for public-school students for the 2003-2004 academic year. Id. at 352. The contract between the
Moody submitted a “Request for Closing a School” to the Tennessee Department of Education on July 23, 2003, indicating that “[bjudget constraints for FY 2003-2004 led to a School Board decision to outsource Alternative school services on contract.” J.A. at 361. He stated that he had only one reason for recommending the Kings-wood contract to the Board: “it was entirely a financial consideration that would fit in with other budget cuts.” J.A. at 159 (Moody Dep. at 46). Similarly, the Chair of the Board, Lana Leckie, stated in her deposition that “financial costs” constituted “the primary reason to enter into the contract” and that it would save them $171,423. J.A. at 378 (Leckie Dep. at 34).
Moody informed Forgety, Smith, and Kucera of the abolishment of their positions after the Board’s decision. Each of the teachers eventually found a new position, though only one continued her employment with the Board. As tenured teachers, Forgety and Smith were placed on a “Preferred List for Re-employment of Tenured Teachers.” J.A. at 243. Forgety declined to accept the positions that the Board initially offered to her because she considered them to be inferior in pay and rank to her previous position at the alternative school; she drew unemployment for the 2003-2004 school year. When the Board offered Forgety a principalship in the spring of 2004, she accepted. Smith, however, did not respond to the Board’s offer of a History position in the fall of 2003; he had accepted a history position in Georgia in late July 2003. Kucera, a nontenured teacher, drew unemployment pay for two months; by November 2003, he had not received any offers of employment from the Board in areas in which he was certified. Eventually, he took a job with Mountain View Youth Development Center as a case manager.
2. Kingswood
In a sworn statement, the “Administrator” of Kingswood, Darrell M. Helton, stated that the school is an accredited private school, providing “day treatment programs for children and adolescents who have behavioral and/or emotional problems.” J.A. at 178 (Sworn Statement of Helton). Helton noted that the school is licensed by the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities. Also, he noted that an April 2005 study of Tennessee’s alternative schools by “the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury Office of Education Accountability ... specifically identified as [sic] Kingswood School, Inc. [as] a private contract provider of alternative school services that local education agencies could explore to provide alternative schooling to their students.” Id.; J.A. 327 (Tennessee’s Alternative Schools at 37). In addition, Helton stated that Kingswood had contracted with Jefferson, Grainger, Hancock, and Claiborne counties in Tennessee to provide alternative-school services.
Kingswood’s promotional materials state that “[f|or over 60 years Kingswood School and Home for Children has helped children who have been abused, abandoned and neglected. Kingswood School is unique because we offer children a Christian environment of love and encouragement.” J.A. at 454 (Happy Easter, 2006 letter from Kingswood). The school’s 2005 Annual Report states that
Kingswood was founded with the intent to insure that each child placed in its care receives Christian religious training. A unique feature of the Kingswood program is the emphasis that is placed upon instilling in each child a personal faith in God, and the assurance of the saving grace of Jesus Christ while remaining unaffiliated with any specific denomination or Church.
J.A. at 457 (Annual Report). The 2005 Annual Report also states that Kings-wood’s “ministry” can be supported in many ways. Id. at 456. Although the residential-care description states that there is an “emphasis” on “spiritual” growth, the day-treatment description does not include that statement. Id.
B. Procedural Background
The district court consolidated cases brought by Forgety, Smith, and Kucera.
1. That this Court issue a judgment declaring that the acts of School Defendants in eliminating the Jefferson County Alternative School Program were illegal and ultra vires acts, and thus were void acts. Further, and accordingly, that this Court further declare that any procedural due process which attached to those void acts was likewise void. Further, that this Court directly evaluate the challenged procedures to ensure that they comport with due process, and that this Court declare that the procedures invoked by School Defendants did not so comport with due process.
2. That this Court issue a judgment declaring that the acts of School Defendants hereinbefore complained of violated the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the Constitution of the State of Tennessee, and Tennessee Code Annotated §§ 49-2-203, 49-5-501 et seq., and 49-6-3402, and further denied Plaintiffs equal protection of the law. Further that this Court issue a judgment declaring that the acts of School Defendants hereinbefore complained of violated Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights protecting them from the impairment of the obligations of their contracts.... That the Court also issue a judgment finding and declaring that the acts of the Defendants violated Plaintiffs’ rights under The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and under Article I, Section 3 of the Tennessee Constitution.
3. That this Court issue a judgment directing School Defendants to make
J.A. at 58 (Third Am. Compl. ¶ 40).
On August 9, 2006, the teachers moved for partial summary judgment “on the Federal Establishment Clause and Due Process claims and upon the pendent State claims, on the issue of liability, and the legality of Defendants’ actions.” J.A. at 390. Less than two weeks later, the Board filed a cross-motion for summary judgment. The Tennessee Education Association filed an amicus curiae brief. On November 2, 2006,
II. ANALYSIS
A. Standards of Review
We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo. Mazur v. Young,
When the district court reaches conclusions of law regarding standing, we review the district court’s decision de novo. Doe v. Potter,
As a threshold matter, we must determine whether the teachers have standing to bring their federal Establishment Clause claim. Although the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment raised the issue of whether the teachers had established both individual standing and municipal-taxpayer standing, the district court addressed only individual standing in its decision. The district court concluded that the teachers did not meet the individual-standing requirements because their alleged injuries were the direct result of the Board’s decision to allow a third party to run the alternative school, not the result of that third party being a “faith based organization.” J.A. at 69 (Dist. Ct. Op. at 9). On appeal, the teachers argue that they meet the requirements for both individual standing and municipal-taxpayer standing. We hold that none of the teachers have individual standing to bring suit, but Forgety and Kucera meet the municipal-taxpayer standing requirements.
1. Standing as Individuals
Standing to bring suit must be determined at the time the complaint is filed. Lynch v. Leis,
a plaintiff must show (1) it has suffered an “injury in fact” that is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; (2) the injury is fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant; and (3) it is likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.
Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Sews. (TOC), Inc.,
A plaintiff must also meet the following prudential requirements for standing developed by the Supreme Court. First, a “plaintiff generally must assert his own legal rights and interests, and cannot rest his claim to relief on the legal rights or interests of third parties.” Id. at 474,
Here, the teachers clearly satisfy the constitutional requirements for standing, at least as to damages. They suffered the injury of losing their jobs; that injury was the direct result of the Board’s decision to abolish the public alternative school and to contract with Kingswood;
Under the prudential limitations on standing, however, even when litigants have established a substantial injury from a government action, they “cannot challenge its constitutionality unless [they] can show that [they are] within the class whose constitutional rights are allegedly infringed.” Barrows v. Jackson,
“Ordinarily, one may not claim standing in this Court to vindicate the constitutional rights of some third party.” Barrows,
The first is the relationship of the litigant to the person whose right he seeks to assert. If the enjoyment of the right is inextricably bound up with the activity the litigant wishes to pursue, the court at least can be sure that its construction of the right is not unnecessary in the sense that the right’s enjoyment will be unaffected by the outcome of the suit. Furthermore, the relationship between the litigant and the third party may be such that the former is fully, or very nearly, as effective a proponent of the right as the latter.
Id. at 114-15,
The teachers may have a sufficiently close relationship to their students to satisfy the first prong of the test for third-
party standing. The Supreme Court “has found an adequate ‘relation’ ... when nothing more than a buyer-seller connection was at stake.” Kowalski,
Although the teachers may be able to meet the first prong of the test for third-party standing, they cannot meet the second. Unlike in the key cases in which the Supreme Court has permitted third-party claims, we discern no indication here
2. Standing as Municipal Taxpayers
The teachers next argue that because they are municipal taxpayers, they have standing to challenge the Kingswood outsourcing as an expenditure of municipal funds alleged to be in violation of the Establishment Clause. As a threshold matter, we note that Jefferson County is considered a municipality under Tennessee law. Weakley County Mun. Elec. Sys. v. Vick,
The Supreme Court recognizes three types of taxpayer standing: federal, state, and municipal. All three categories of taxpayers must demonstrate that they were injured, that the challenged action caused their injury, and that the court could provide relief to redress that injury. D.C. Common Cause v. District of Columbia,
Plaintiffs seeking to establish municipal-taxpayer standing are required to meet a less rigorous injury standard than those seeking standing as federal or state taxpayers. Unlike federal or state taxpayers, municipal taxpayers may fulfill the injury requirement by pleading an alleged misuse of municipal funds. Frothingham,
The interest of a taxpayer of a municipality in the application of its moneys is direct and immediate and the remedy by injunction to prevent their misuse is not inappropriate. It is upheld by a large number of state cases and is the rule of this court.... The reasons which support the extension of the equitable remedy to a single taxpayer in such cases are based upon the peculiar relation of the corporate taxpayer to the corporation, which is not without some resemblance to that subsisting between stockholder and private corporation.
Id. at 486-87,
The defendants, however, argue that municipal taxpayers must show more than an alleged misuse of municipal funds. They contend that a potential plaintiff must show that the challenged government action resulted in a depletion of the munic
We reject the exhortation to apply this novel rule. There is no precedent for a requirement that municipal taxpayers show that an unconstitutional act shrinks the public treasury in order to establish standing. Indeed, any such rule would run directly counter to case law from the Supreme Court, from this court, and from our sister circuits.
As noted above, the Supreme Court has clearly stated that “resident taxpayers may sue to enjoin an illegal use of the moneys of a municipal corporation” and that “the remedy by injunction to prevent their misuse is not inappropriate.” Frothingham,
The idea that the unconstitutional spending of taxpayer money is itself an injury, actionable at the municipal level even if not at the federal level, is rooted in the stockholder analogy drawn by the Supreme Court in Frothingham. A person who owns stock in a corporation values profitability, but she also has an interest in seeing her money well spent by the corporate officers. “Like a shareholder of a private corporation, a municipal taxpayer has an immediate interest in how the municipality spends resources that reflect his contributions.” Am. Atheists,
The defendants’ argument under Doremus to suggest otherwise is misplaced because that case concerned state-taxpayer standing and does not govern the case at bar. In Doremus, state taxpayers challenged a New Jersey statute that provided for the reading, without comment, of the Old Testament in public schools at the beginning of each school day. Requiring the plaintiffs to establish that their suit was a “good-faith pocketbook action,” the Court denied standing because “the grievance which it is sought to litigate here is not a direct dollars-and-cents injury but is a religious difference.” Doremus,
We recognize that some circuits have invoked Doremus’s “good-faith pocketbook action” language in eases involving municipal taxpayers, although never to hold that standing depends on a net loss to the municipal fisc. See ACLU-NJ v. Twp. of Wall,
More importantly, while some of our sister circuits have cited Doremus’s pocketbook-injury language in municipal-taxpayer cases, they have not applied it in the way that the defendants urge. None has required municipal taxpayers to show a depletion of public funds to reach the courthouse door. To the contrary, all agree that the unconstitutional expenditure of government funds can itself be injury enough to confer municipal-taxpayer standing. See Koenick,
This approach is perfectly consistent with our own case law, which has conferred standing on municipal taxpayers who challenge government expenditures that allegedly violate the Constitution. In American Atheists, we explained that “[o]nly if the challenged local government action involves neither an appropriation nor expenditure of city funds will the municipal taxpayer lack standing, for in that case he will have suffered no ‘direct dollars-and-cents injury.’ ” Am. Atheists,
Undeterred, the defendants cite our decision in Hawley v. City of Cleveland,
In sum, the rule that plaintiffs must show depletion of the public fisc in order to access the courts has no foundation, explicit or implied, in the binding decisions of the Supreme Court. And with good reason. Determining whether a municipality “lost” or “saved” money raises a host of implementation problems. Consider the Kingswood contract. One method to calculate depletion is to compare the average yearly cost of the Kingswood contract with the average yearly cost of the alternative public school during its final five years. But the results might differ if the court compares the last year of the alternative school with the first year of Kingswood. Moreover, because both methods rely on past costs, neither would prove reliable if the market for alternative schools changes. The Kingswood contract might “save” the municipality money in the short term, but five years from now, the (now-closed) alternative public school might be the more cost-effective option. There is no principled way to determine what costs or savings we should compare and over what time period we should compare them.
The Court has specifically carved out an expansive understanding of taxpayer standing at the municipal level, Frothingham,
We turn, then, to the requirements of causation and redressability. When plaintiffs’ sole request for relief is an order enjoining the conduct at issue, “causation and redressability are essentially identical requirements.” D.C. Common Cause,
The taxpayer’s injury is not the payment of taxes, for which the only cure would be a rebate or reduction in taxes. Just as the shareholder need not prove that the funds he claims the Board of Directors has misapplied will be returned to him as a dividend, so the taxpayer need not show that the specific taxes he paid were used unlawfully, nor that his taxes will be reduced as a result of the judgment. By enjoining an illegal expenditure, the court can redress the taxpayer’s injury caused by the misuse of public funds and ensure that the funds will be devoted to lawful purposes of possible benefit to the taxpayers.
Id. at 5. On this persuasive reasoning, we hold that Forgety and Kucera meet the causation and redressability requirements of Article III. Accordingly, they have established municipal-taxpayer standing.
With respect to the teachers’ Establishment Clause claims under the U.S. Constitution, we REMAND the case to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. We also REMAND the teachers’ Establishment Clause claims under the Tennessee Constitution for the district court to consider in the first instance.
C. Procedural Due Process
In addition to their Establishment Clause claim, the teachers also raise a procedural-due-process claim. The district court did not analyze this claim; instead, it granted summary judgment to the Board based on its holding that the teachers failed to pursue their post-deprivation remedies. The teachers argue that their property rights include “the right not to be dismissed by abolition except in compliance with state law.” Appellants Br. at 33-34. Also, the teachers contend that their positions were not abolished, but, rather, were improperly delegated. The Board asserts that even if the teachers could establish a property interest in their positions, nonetheless the teachers received all of the process that they were due because the Board was acting in a legislative capacity when it abolished the alternative school.
Analysis of the teachers’ procedural-due-process claim involves two steps: establishing whether the teachers have a property interest in their positions, and determining what process (if any) is due them. Leary v. Daeschner,
When examining the activities of an entity such as the Board, “ ‘[w]e find little guidance in formalistic distinctions between “legislative” and “adjudicatory” or “administrative” government actions.’ ” Nasierowski Bros. Inv. Co. v. City of Sterling Heights,
D. Substantive Due Process
In addition to their procedural-due-process claim, the teachers raise a substantive-due-proeess claim. The district court concluded that “all substantive due process claims collapse into the decision on the plaintiffs’ First Amendment ... Establishment Clause claim[ ].” J.A. at 73 (Dist. Ct. Op. at 13). The teachers argue that “[although substantive due process protections are limited, Plaintiffs may, in the context of a § 1983 action, establish a substantive due process claim when some state action has deprived them of a particular constitutional guarantee.” Appellants Br. at 43. The teachers contend that the record demonstrates that their positions were not eliminated, but “merely delegated to a religious organization” in violation of the Establishment Clause. Id. at 33-34. The Board, however, argues that because the teachers alleged a violation of the Establishment Clause, they may not recover under the generalized concept of substantive due process.
Substantive-due-process challenges usually do not survive if a provision of the Constitution directly addresses the allegedly illegal conduct at issue. Montgomery v. Carter County,
the Supreme Court has repeatedly cautioned that the concept of substantive due process has no place when a provision of the Constitution directly addresses the type of illegal governmental conduct alleged by the plaintiff. See, e.g., Graham v. Connor,490 U.S. 386 , 394-95,109 S.Ct. 1865 ,104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989) (concluding that the reasonableness or unreasonableness of force used by police during an investigatory stop or arrest must be analyzed as a Fourth Amendment claim, rather than under “the more generalized notion of ‘substantive due process’ ”).
Id. Because the teachers’ Establishment Clause claim directly addresses the conduct at issue, we affirm the district court’s decision to dismiss the teachers’ substantive-due-process claim.
E. Legislative Immunity
The Board members raise legislative and qualified immunity as defenses to the claims brought against them by the teachers. Having granted summary judgment to the Board on all of the teachers’ claims, the district court held that the Board members’ defenses of legislative and qualified immunity were moot. However, because we are remanding the Establishment Clause claim to the district court, we must consider the parties’ arguments re
The teachers argue that the individual Board members are not legislators, and that their actions were void under Dillon’s Rule.
We recognize that local legislators can be sued both in their individual and in their official capacities. Although plaintiffs may sue a local legislator in his or her official capacity under § 1983, local legislators may invoke legislative immunity to insulate themselves as individuals from liability based on their legislative activities. Bogan,
Because we determined in our analysis of the teachers’ procedural-due-process claim that the Board was performing a legislative function, we conclude that the members of the Board are entitled to legislative immunity in their individual capacities. See id. As noted above, the Board members did not need to be members of the legislature in order to enjoy legislative immunity. Id. The teachers, however, have argued that even if we find the actions of the Board to be legislative in nature, Dillon’s Rule should prevent application of legislative immunity in this case. Even if the Board did not have the power to abolish the alternative school under Tennessee law, the Board members may still enjoy legislative immunity as individuals in federal court for their legislative actions, sound or unsound. See R.S.W.W., Inc. v. City of Keego Harbor,
III. CONCLUSION
For the reasons discussed above, we AFFIRM the district court’s conclusion that Smith did not have standing, but REVERSE its conclusion as to Forgety and Kucera, who have standing to bring suit as municipal taxpayers seeking to prevent misuse of their tax dollars. We REMAND the case to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Because we hold that the Board was performing a legislative function when it abolished the alternative school, we AFFIRM the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the Board on the teachers’ procedural-due-process claim. In addition, because we hold that the Establishment Clause claim adequately addresses the alleged substantive-due-process violation, we AFFIRM the district court’s dismissal of this claim.
As to the Board members’ legislative- and qualified-immunity defenses, we REVERSE the district court’s determination that the issue whether the Board members qualify for these protections is moot. We hold that the Board members are entitled to legislative immunity on the individual-capacity claims because their decisions about the budget were legislative in nature. Because we conclude that legislative immunity applies to the individual-capacity claims against the named Board members, we need not analyze whether the Board members are entitled to qualified immunity-
Notes
. Forgety filed suit on June 24, 2004 against the same entities and individuals that Smith and Kucera had filed suit against on November 13, 2003. Forgety, Smith, and Kucera did not oppose the defendants’ motion to consolidate the cases, and the district court ordered consolidation on January 18, 2005.
. The teachers sued the Director of Schools, Douglas R. Moody (who also served as Secretary to the Board) and the following Board members in both their official and individual capacities: Lana Leckie, Bill Powell, David Lockhart, Anne M. Potts, Greg Sharpe, and Louise Snodderly. The only Board member that the teachers did not sue, Emily Fox, voted against the program cuts that affected the alternative school.
. In this context, “fairly traceable” merely means that something must link the plaintiffs'
Chief Judge Batchelder's opinion contests this link by bifurcating the Board's decision into two steps, one eliminating the alternative school and another granting Kingswood the contract. However, the vote about how to replace the alternative school never would have occurred but for the school’s dissolution, and the vote about how to replace the alternative school was statutorily required after the school’s dissolution. The fact that the Board could have picked a secular replacement is beside the point. What matters is that the Board chose Kingswood. The requirement of a replacement school inextricably ties the plaintiffs’ lost jobs to the Kingswood contract.
. Judge Batchelder calls it "a matter of common sense” that the proper remedy for Establishment Clause violations is "an injunction or a declaratory judgment.” Op. at 225. Certainly, those forms of relief sometimes are the appropriate response to an Establishment Clause violation. There is no reason, however, to think that each right has exactly one appropriate remedy for all circumstances. See Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics,
. The Supreme Court carved out an exception to its rule against federal taxpayer standing in Flastv. Cohen,
. The dissent mischaracterizes our opinion as an expansion of municipal-taxpayer standing such that "any county taxpayer [can] challenge any county action no matter whose interests are involved.” Dissent at 226. But as American Atheists makes clear, municipal-taxpayer standing itself is a recognition that constitutionally dubious municipal spending implicates the interests of each municipal taxpayer.
. Contrary to the dissent's assertion, we do not read DaimlerChrysler as "implicitly undo[ing] previously applicable limits on municipal taxpayer standing.” Dissent at 228 n. 1. Rather than altering Doremus’s reach, DaimlerChrysler conformed to the Court’s longstanding interpretation of Doremus.
. We note that two years later, in Thompson v. County of Franklin,
. A panel of this court cited Doremus in the context of a municipal-taxpayer case in Hawley v. City of Cleveland,
. " 'Dillon's Rule' originated with John F. Dillon, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Iowa and former circuit judge for The United States Eighth Judicial Circuit.” Williams v. Town of Hilton Head Island,
Concurrence Opinion
CONCURRING IN FULL IN THE MAJORITY OPINION
joined by KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge, concurring in full in the majority opinion.
I join the majority opinion in full and write only to provide context to the factors identified in Judge Sutton’s critique of the municipal-taxpayer standing doctrine. Judge Sutton’s concurring opinion faults municipal-taxpayer standing because, today, the distinction between municipalities and states does not reflect a categorical difference in population size. The concurrence is correct with respect to these population differences. However, large cities and small states are not new to this country. In fact, the population differences between municipalities and states were more pronounced in the Roaring Twenties when the Supreme Court announced the doctrine of municipal-taxpayer standing in Frothingham v. Mellon,
Similarly, developments in constitutional and prudential standing over the last century also do not warrant such a change. Judge Sutton’s concurrence argues that plaintiffs who were not present in the religious school have not suffered the type of injury against which the Establishment Clause protects. That argument misapprehends the nature of the plaintiffs’ injury. The injury to the plaintiffs was not witnessing the result of the expenditure, but the expenditure itself. Paying taxes that are used to support religion is precisely the type of injury that the Establishment Clause guards against. See Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 88, 103, 88 S.Ct. 1942,
Concurrence Opinion
CONCURRING IN FULL IN THE MAJORITY OPINION
concurring.
Finally, the varied sources that combine to fund municipal treasuries discussed in Judge Sutton’s concurrence also do not affect the viability of this doctrine. From the perspective of a municipal taxpayer, funding unconstitutional conduct may be cheap because other sources subsidize the
I join the majority opinion in full and write separately (1) to identify a tension between the municipal-taxpayer-standing doctrine and modern standing principles and (2) to elaborate why the doctrine applies to a local expenditure that purports not to increase any burden on the local public fisc but to save money.
1. Whatever the virtue of a line between state-and municipal-taxpayer standing at its birth 88 years ago, see Frothingham v. Mellon,
While the municipal-taxpayer doctrine has stood still, moreover, standing principles have moved on. In the last few decades, the Court has made it clear that “[a] plaintiff must allege personal injury fairly traceable to the defendant’s allegedly unlawful conduct and likely to be redressed by the requested relief.” Allen v. Wright,
Just as the state/city taxpayer dichotomy has grown more curious since Frothingham, so too has the gap in reasoning between the municipal-taxpayer-standing doctrine and prudential limitations on standing, namely that a claimant must suffer the type of injury that the constitutional provision at issue protects. See Valley Forge Christian Coll. v. Ams. United for Separation of Church & State, Inc.,
One other oddity surrounds the doctrine. Perhaps in 1923 it was easy to speak of city and state treasuries as distinct. Yet today, particularly in the context of a public school case, it is pure fiction to think of municipal (or county) treasuries as holding money raised only through local taxes. Most city budgets contain state and federal dollars, often substantial sums of them, and many school district budgets consist primarily of state and federal dollars. On average, the federal government supplies 8.5% of the public school system funds, the state governments 48.7% of the funds and local sources 42.8% of the funds. At one extreme, local funds in Hawaii make up just 1.7%, while state sources account for more than 90%. Nat’l Center for Education Statistics, Revenues & Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary Education: School Year from 2002-03, tbl.2 (2005). Because the Court has long shown a concern for developing a “principled way of distinguishing” claimants with standing from those without it, Daimler-Chrysler Corp. v. Cuno,
Save for one thing: The Supreme Court created the distinction and has stood by it for some time, requiring lower courts like ours to apply it as is. See Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/Am. Express, Inc.,
2. Under current law, the municipal-taxpayer-standing doctrine applies to all appropriations, even those that purport to be “cost-saving measures.” Pet. Rehearing at 12; see Dissent at 5. A contrary approach would force litigants and courts to determine at a fixed point in time, presumably when the lawsuit is filed, whether a law designed to be implemented over a period of years will net out in the black or in the red. That asks a lot, and more perhaps than the federal courts can deliver. As the majority correctly points out, a net-loss requirement raises a host of insurmountable implementation problems.
The roots of the municipal-taxpayer-standing doctrine in corporate law pose a conceptual problem as well. Let us assume for the sake of argument that the Kingswood contract violates the Establishment Clause and that the unconstitutional expenditures may one day amount to local “savings.” Would a fiduciary’s illegal expenditures be beyond reproach if the same could be said about a company’s spending decisions — that the illegal acts eventually would save the company money? I don’t think so, and the same should be true here. If a corporate fiduciary misspends shareholder funds, his liability (as opposed to any damages) does not turn on whether he can show that the expenditures turned into a good investment or a bad one. Imagine a fiduciary defending a breach on the ground that, in the year before the illegal expenditure, the corporation foolishly, but legally, spent more money on a related program or on the ground that deflation insulated the breach from liability. That is not how it works. An appropriation is an appropriation, and if it violates fiduciary duties or the Establishment Clause, a shareholder or a city taxpayer, as the case may be, may challenge the expenditure under current law.
Concurrence Opinion
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
While I join Part II.C (procedural due process) and Part II.D (substantive due process) of the majority opinion, I cannot agree with the majority’s conclusion that Plaintiffs have municipal taxpayer standing. I therefore join Judge Rogers’ dissent with respect to that issue. Because I do not believe that Plaintiffs have standing to bring their Establishment Clause claims, I would affirm the district court’s judgment dismissing those claims, I would not reach the question of legislative immunity, and I therefore do not join Part II.E of the majority opinion. I write separately only to note my disagreement with the majority’s analysis of individual Article III standing and with its conclusion that Plaintiffs may have a sufficiently close relationship with the students at the alternative school to satisfy the first prong of prudential standing.
As the majority correctly states, every plaintiff must satisfy both constitutional and prudential standing requirements in
(1) it has suffered an “injury in fact” that is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; (2) the injury is fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant; and (3) it is likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.
Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs., Inc.,
Both Plaintiffs and Defendants agree that each of the teachers has suffered an injury; each lost his or her position at the alternative school and the attendant benefits. Supp. Br. for PI. at 8; Supp. Br. for Appellants at 9. This injury hits in the pocketbook, it is classically “concrete,” “particularized,” and “actual,” and therefore satisfies the “injury in fact” requirement. See Lujan,
These individual injuries, however, are not “fairly traceable to [Defendants’] challenged action.” Plaintiffs claim that the Board violated the Establishment Clause when it outsourced the alternative school to Kingswood for 2003-2004. That decision is the “challenged action of the defendants.” That decision, however, did not cause the teachers to lose their jobs. Their jobs were terminated when the Board voted to abolish the Board-run alternative school, a decision separate and distinct from the Board’s later decision to contract with Kingswood. Both the Board’s legal authority and the undisputed record make clear that Plaintiffs would have lost their jobs regardless of where the Board decided to place the alternative school program.
As a matter of Tennessee law, nothing about the Board’s decision to abolish its own school compelled it to then contract with Kingswood. The majority is correct that the Board was required by Tennessee law to maintain at least one alternative school, see Maj. Op. at 206-07 n. 3, but ignores the fact that the Board had broad discretion as to how to fulfill that mandate. After abolishing its own school, the Board was free to contract with a school such as Kingswood, make an arrangement with another school board to provide a joint alternative school, or “send its suspended or expelled students to any alternative school already in operation.” Tenn.Code Ann. §§ 49-2-203(b)(12), 49-6-3402(a), 49-6-3402(h)(1) (2009). The wide range of options available to the Board is consistent with Tennessee’s legislative choice to “grant[ ] broad discretionary powers to the county Board of Education to ... govern[ ] the public schools as the Board deems advisable.” Morrison v. Hamilton County Bd. of Educ.,
The record bears out the distinction between the two Board decisions. The Board’s choice of Kingswood was clearly related in time to the decision to close the Board’s own alternative school. The
Board explored the pricing with Kings-wood before the meeting, and made the decisions in sequence at the July board meeting. Circumstantially, these actions are tied together. But the same undisputed record shows that the decisions were nonetheless distinct. At the July meeting the Board addressed agenda item six, the current alternative school program. After discussion, it voted to “delete the Alterna
Considering whether the teachers’ injury is redressable further exacerbates the standing problem in this case. The majority claims that Plaintiffs’ “injury can be redressed by an order that the Board compensate the teachers for lost salary and benefits,” and that relief would, in the abstract, redress the injury of losing a job. Maj. Op. at 207. This case, however, is not abstract. Plaintiffs’ claim for monetary damages rests on an alleged Establishment Clause violation. As a matter of common sense, when the claim is that the government is establishing religion, the remedy is an injunction or a declaratory judgment telling it to stop. See, e.g., Salazar v. Buono, — U.S. -,
By articulating the “conduct of which the defendant complains” and comparing it to Plaintiffs’ injuries, one can clearly see that there is no causal connection between Plaintiffs’ injuries and the Board’s conduct that allegedly violated the Establishment Clause. The Board’s decision to abolish their alternative school was entirely within its authority, and it was that decision that terminated the teachers’ jobs. No one has claimed that abolishing the alternative school violated the Establishment Clause, and the majority reaches its conclusion only by erroneously turning two separate actions into one. Accordingly, I would hold that Plaintiffs do not have individual Article III standing, and would therefore not reach the prudential standing question.
I also briefly note my disagreement with the majority’s dicta that the teachers “may have a sufficiently close enough relationship to their students to satisfy the first prong of the test for third-party standing.” Maj. Op. at 208. Because Plaintiffs cannot show a hindrance to the students’ and parents’ bringing their own suit, it is un
I would affirm the district court’s opinion on these issues and would further join Judge Rogers in concluding that Plaintiffs lack municipal taxpayer standing. I therefore respectfully dissent from the corresponding portions of the majority opinion.
Dissenting Opinion
DISSENT
dissenting.
The plaintiffs in this case lack prudential standing in their capacity as teachers to make their Establishment Clause challenge in this case, as the majority properly determines. The plaintiffs would be litigating the rights of third parties — e.g., children who would be subject to government imposition of religion — who have not sued.
The plaintiffs also lack Article III standing as taxpayers. To hold that some of the teachers nonetheless have standing as county taxpayers because the county is misusing county funds, without more, permits the wholesale disregard of third-party standing limits in the context of this case. The holding also opens up the prospect of permitting any county taxpayer to challenge any county action no matter whose interests are involved. Because counties act through their paid officers and employees, any unconstitutional action could amount to misuse of county funds. The armchair newspaper reader and county taxpayer who reads that a high school principal replaced a coach could sue because the replaced coach was of a different race or gender. The same newspaper reader might be able to sue because an across-town local policeman used unreasonable force.
No Supreme Court or Sixth Circuit precedent requires us to set such a questionable precedent, even though standing requirements for municipal taxpayers are less demanding than those for state or federal taxpayers. See Taub v. Kentucky,
It is true that the Supreme Court stated in Frothingham, v. Mellon,
[.Frothingham ] recognized ... that “[t]he interest of a taxpayer of a municipality in the application of its moneys is direct and immediate and the remedy by injunction to prevent their misuse is not inappropriate.” Indeed, a number of states provide for it by statute or decisional law and such causes have been entertained in federal courts. Without disparaging the availability of the remedy by taxpayer’s action to restrain unconstitutional acts which result in direct pecuniary injury, we reiterate what the Court said of a federal statute as equally true when a state Act is assailed: “The party who invokes the power must be able to show not only that the statute is invalid but that he has sustained or is immediately in danger of sustaining some direct injury as a result of its enforcement, and not merely that he suffers in some indefinite way in common with people generally.”
It is true that this Court found a justiciable controversy in Everson v. Board of Education,330 U.S. 1 ,67 S.Ct. 504 ,91 L.Ed. 711 [ (1947), a suit by a district taxpayer against a township board of education]. But Everson showed a measurable appropriation or disbursement of school-district funds occasioned solely by the activities complained of. This complaint does not....
[B]ecause our own jurisdiction is cast in terms of “case or controversy,” we cannot accept as the basis for review, nor as the basis for conclusive disposition of an issue of federal law without review, any procedure which does not constitute such.
The taxpayer’s action can meet this test, but only when it is a good-faith pocketbook action. It is apparent that the grievance which it is sought to litigate here is not a direct dollars-and-cents injury but is a religious difference. If appellants established the requisite special injury necessary to a taxpayer’s case or controversy, it would not matter that their dominant inducement to action was more religious than mercenary. It is not a question of motivation but of possession of the requisite financial interest that is, or is threatened to be, injured by the unconstitutional conduct. We find no such direct and particular financial interest here. If the Act may give rise to a legal case or controversy on some behalf, the appellants cannot obtain a decision from this Court by a feigned issue of taxation.
Doremus v. Bd. of Educ.,
Doremus cannot simply be dismissed as a state-taxpayer case. To be sure, the challenged statute in Doremus was a state statute, but that just states the nature of the constitutional claim against the local school board: enforcement of an unconstitutional state statute. The defendant was a New Jersey borough school board, and one of the two plaintiffs discussed by the Supreme Court is only described as having alleged that he was a taxpayer of the defendant borough. Id. at 433,
There is no allegation that this [Bible-reading] activity is supported by any separate tax or paid for from any particular appropriation or that it adds any sum whatever to the cost of conducting the school. No information is given as to what kind of taxes are paid by appellants and there is no averment that the Bible reading increases any tax they do pay or that as taxpayers they are, will, or possibly can be out of pocket because of it.
This court ruled similarly in a case that also clearly applies to municipal taxpayer standing. Hawley v. City of Cleveland,
In such a situation, a taxpayer asserts nothing more than a claim that the municipality must follow the law. The Supreme Court, however, has repeatedly held that “Art. Ill requirements of standing are not satisfied by ‘the abstract injury in nonobservance of the Constitution asserted by ... citizens.’ ” Valley Forge Christian Coll. v. Ams. United for Separation of Church and State, Inc.,
Finally, requiring municipal taxpayers to establish at least some diminution of the public fisc is fully consistent with the distinction between municipal taxpayers and state and federal taxpayers. For federal and state taxpayers to have standing, they must show more than just government action that depletes the treasury and thus creates the possibility of future taxation. See DaimlerChrysler,
A number of the cases cited by the majority as rejecting the requirement that the municipal fisc be depleted instead merely hold that a plaintiff need not show that the plaintiffs taxes must be affected. See Koenick,
Indeed, the District of Columbia Circuit reasoned that even though municipal taxpayers need not “demonstrate that their taxes will be reduced as a result of a favorable judgment,” they must still show
The federal courts have jurisdiction only when plaintiffs will get something by winning beyond the satisfaction that the government is complying with the law, and (absent congressional grants of standing) only when the plaintiffs rely upon legal principles that protect their interests. These fundamental principles keep the courts from constituting themselves as supervising review boards to decide in the abstract the constitutionality of all government actions. Under these principles, plaintiffs lack standing either as employees or as municipal taxpayers. The district court therefore does not have jurisdiction to address the substantive Establishment Clause issues in this case.
I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the plaintiffs lack individual standing as teachers.
. I recognize that the Supreme Court relied in part on Doremus in deciding that state taxpayer suits are subject to the same standing requirements as federal taxpayer suits. DaimlerChrysler v. Cuno,
Moreover, it would make little sense to read DaimlerChrysler, a case that limited state taxpayer standing, to have implicitly undone previously applicable limits on municipal taxpayer standing. Indeed, the Court in DaimlerChrysler rejected an argument by the plaintiff in that case, who was making a Commerce Clause challenge to a state tax credit for DaimlerChrysler, that “the award of a credit to DaimlerChrysler reduced [state distributions to local governments] and thus depleted the funds of local governments to which Respondents pay taxes.’ ” The Court rejected the argument by saying that such depletion was conjectural, and made no suggestion that such depletion was not required.
. In stating three requirements for prudential standing, the majority appears to identify being within the “zone of interests” as an independent, generally applicable requirement for prudential standing. Maj. Op. 206. The majority’s analysis does not reach the “zone of interests” test, however, and the brief discussion of the role of the "zone of interests” test is therefore not necessary to the court’s holding. For a critique of such an expansive view of the role of the “zone of interests” test, see Smith v. Jefferson Cnty. Bd.. of Sch. Comm’rs,