Timоthy H. COOPER et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. James S. RAPP et al., Defendants-Appellees.
No. 17-3068
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
Filed July 25, 2017
699 F. App‘x 328
Leave to Amend
The district did not abuse its discretion by denying Herndon leave to amend. Herndon‘s request to join a second plaintiff is governed by
Motion for Reconsideration
In order to prevail on his motion for reconsideration, Herndon must “demonstrate a palpable defect” in the underlying proceeding and also “show that a different disposition of the case must result from a correction thereof.” W.D. Mic. Local Civ. R. 7.4(a). The motion may nоt be used to relitigate the underlying case. See id. However, in his motion for reconsideration, Herndon merely reasserts his Eighth Amendment arguments. Because the granting of summary judgment to the defendants on Herndon‘s Eighth Amendment claims was proper, and the denial of leave to amend does not show an abuse of discretion, we cannot say that the district court abused its discretion by refusing to reconsider its previous judgment.
Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.
Ambrose Moses, III, Law Office, Columbus, OH, for Plaintiffs-Appellants
George D. Jonson, Lisa M. Zaring, Montgomery, Rennie & Jonson, Cincinnati, OH, for Defendants-Appellees
Before: SUHRHEINRICH, GILMAN, and McKEAGUE, Circuit Judges.
OPINION
RONALD LEE GILMAN, Circuit Judge.
This appeal involves sanctions imposed by Ohio state-court Judge James S. Rapp while presiding over a class-action lawsuit. After Judge Rapp granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants in that
I. BACKGROUND
A. Factual background
Cooper, a small-business owner, discovered in July 2011 that a cognovit judgment had been entered against him in Wyandot County, Ohio as a result of loan-default proceedings initiated by Commercial Savings Bank. The complaint alleges that the bank regularly sought cognovit judgments against its сustomers who were in default on their loans. Moses subsequently filed a class-action suit in the Wyandot County Court of Common Pleas on behalf of Cooper and all those similarly situated, alleging that defendants Commercial Savings Bank, bank counsel Linden Back and Sean Martin, and Charles Bartholomew (identified as the “confessing attorney” under the relevant statutory provision) had “misused and abused the cognovit judgment process under
Judge Rapp presided over this state-court litigation and, in June 2014, granted summary judgment in favor of all the defendants. The defendants subsequently moved for sanctions against Cooper and Moses. After conducting a sanctions hear-
When Moses fаiled to comply with these nonmonetary sanctions, he was ordered to appear before Judge Rapp in March 2016 to show cause why he should not be punished for civil contempt for noncompliance. At the conclusion of the hearing, Judge Rapp postponed the imposition of the order for nonmonetary sanctions for 60 days, but also issued an order requiring Moses to surrender to the county sheriff on May 16, 2016 for a period of incarceration until such time as he complied with the court‘s order. Moses avoided incarceration by complying with the order and posted a notice of his admonishment and apology letter on his firm‘s website.
Cooper and Moses claim that Judge Rapp‘s decisions and conduct in granting summary judgment in favor of thе defendants and in imposing sanctions were racially motivated. They allege that, when Moses spoke during the class-action proceedings, Judge Rapp made facial expressions and displayed body language that “expressed and communicated the message that Judge Rapp had very negative feelings towards and was biased against ... Moses because of his race.” Judge Rapp allegedly did not make similar facial expressions or display negative body language when Caucasian counsel for Commercial Savings Bank spoke.
In addition, Cooper and Moses assert that Judge Rapp‘s prejudice as a Caucasian is part of the systemic racial bias in Ohio‘s court system, as detailed by the Ohio Supreme Court‘s Commission on Raсial Fairness. The report notes that most Ohio judges are Caucasian, grew up in predominately Caucasian neighborhoods, and have had limited interaction with minorities. It concludes that “[j]udges are human, and prejudices, perceptions, and stereotypes are not lost with the elevation to the bench.” Cooper and Moses argue that, because Judge Rapp sеrved as a government official in a predominately Caucasian county for the majority of his career, he is racially biased. Finally, they assert that Ohio‘s long history of de jure and de facto racial discrimination, as evidenced by the state‘s Black Codes, proves that “racial bias and the perception of racial bias are a statistical fact” in Ohio‘s legal system. This “statistical fact,” according to Cooper and Moses, justifies the rebuttable presumption that racial bias influenced Judge Rapp‘s “individual and official conduct, actions, and decisions” relating to Moses.
B. Procedural background
In April 2016, Cooper and Moses filed suit against Judge Rapp and the Wyandot County Court of Common Pleas in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. The complaint alleges that the defendаnts’ racially discriminatory conduct during the state-court proceedings violated the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, Ninth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, as well as
Cooper and Moses did not state these alleged violations as individual counts, instead requesting “declaratory judgment and other relief” that consisted of (1) an order declaring that the actions of state defendants (who are not parties to this
As part of their request for relief, Cooper and Moses also sought an order enjoining the March 2016 sanctions hearing and the imposition of Judge Rapp‘s order that Moses surrender himself to the sheriff in May 2016. We note, however, that the requests for these specific injunctions were moot by the time the district court entered its judgment.
Judge Rapp and the Wyandot County Court of Common Pleas subsequently filed a motion to dismiss all of these claims under
II. ANALYSIS
A. Standard of review
Challenges to subject-matter jurisdiction pursuant to
B. Claims against Judge Rapp
The district court held that the dismissal of Cooper‘s and Moses‘s claims agаinst Judge Rapp was justified under both
The Suрreme Court has established that “generally, a judge is immune from a suit for money damages.” Mireles v. Waco, 502 U.S. 9, 9, 112 S.Ct. 286, 116 L.Ed.2d 9 (1991) (per curiam); see also Bright v. Gallia County, 753 F.3d 639, 648-49 (6th Cir. 2014) (recognizing that “the passage of
Judicial immunity is therefore overcome in only two circumstances: (1) when a judge performs “nonjudicial actions, i.e., actions not taken in the judge‘s judicial capacity,” and (2) when a judge‘s actions, “though judicial in nature,” are “taken in the complete absence of all jurisdiction.” Mireles, 502 U.S. at 11-12, 112 S.Ct. 286 (emphasis omitted). Cooper and Moses do nоt allege that Judge Rapp acted in “complete absence of all jurisdiction,” nor could they make any plausible argument to that effect. See id.; see also Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349, 356-57, 98 S.Ct. 1099, 55 L.Ed.2d 331 (1978) (recognizing that “the scope of the judge‘s jurisdiction must be construed broadly where the issue is the immunity of the judge,” and that “[a] judge will not be deprived of immunity because the action he took was in error, was done maliciously, or wаs in excess of his authority“) (internal quotation marks omitted). We therefore focus on only the first exception to judicial immunity and discuss whether Judge Rapp‘s actions were judicial.
We employ a functional analysis to decide whether Judge Rapp acted in a nonjudicial capacity, “meaning that [we] must determine whether the actions are truly judicial acts or ‘acts that simрly happen to have been done by judges.‘” Mann v. Conlin, 22 F.3d 100, 103-04 (6th Cir. 1994) (quoting Morrison v. Lipscomb, 877 F.2d 463, 465 (6th Cir. 1989)). In doing so, we focus on “the nature of the act itself, i.e., whether it is a function normally performed by a judge,” and “the expectations of the parties, i.e., whether they dealt with the judge in his judicial capacity.” Stump, 435 U.S. at 362, 98 S.Ct. 1099 (emphases omitted). Finally, “[t]he application of judicial immunity is simple and non-controversial when applied to ‘parаdigmatic judicial acts,’ or ... acts involved in resolving disputes between parties who have invoked the jurisdiction of the court.” Barrett v. Harrington, 130 F.3d 246, 255 (6th Cir. 1997) (quoting Forrester v. White, 484 U.S. 219, 227, 108 S.Ct. 538, 98 L.Ed.2d 555 (1988)).
Judge Rapp‘s actions—granting motions for summary judgment, conducting a sanctions hearing, imposing sanctions, and ordering Moses to comply with those sanctions—are paradigmatically judicial. Even assuming that Judge Rapp‘s facial expressions and body language indicated that he was racially biased (as opposed to simply an indication of his disagreement with Moses‘s arguments), our conclusion remains the same. The district court aptly noted that “the function of Judge Rapp‘s conduct must be the primary consideration—not the conduct itself.” Cooper v. Rapp, No. 2:16-CV-00163, 2016 WL 7337521, at *7 (S.D. Ohio Dec. 19, 2016) (emphasis in original); see also Mann, 22 F.3d at 102-04 (holding that a judge‘s actions in scheduling hearings, im-
2. Claim for declaratory relief
The district court also held that Cooper and Moses were not entitled to declaratory relief against Judge Rapp. On appeal, Cooper and Moses correctly point out that a 1996 amendment to
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage ... subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States ... to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other prоper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer‘s judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable.
But “determining whether the declaratory relief is available [under
Judge Rapp was not an adversary оf Cooper or Moses in the state-court proceedings, which challenged the implementation of Ohio‘s cognovit-judgment statute by Commercial Savings Bank. Nor was he acting as the enforcer or administrator of that statute. Instead, Judge Rapp acted as a disinterested judicial adjudicator, bound to decide the issues before him according to the law. See In re Justices of Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, 695 F.2d 17, 22 (1st Cir. 1982). Under these circumstances, Judge Rapp is not amenable to a suit for declaratory relief under
3. Claim for injunctive relief
Finally, Cooper and Moses sought injunctive relief against Judge Rapp. Cooper and Moses do not directly challenge the district court‘s denial of such relief оn appeal, instead mentioning their request for injunctions only in passing throughout their briefs. They have therefore likely waived any challenge to this holding. See McPherson v. Kelsey, 125 F.3d 989, 995-96 (6th Cir. 1997) (holding that “[i]ssues adverted to in a perfunctory manner, unaccompanied by some effort at developed argumentation, are deemed waived,” and that “[i]t is not sufficient for a party to mention a possible argument in the most skeletal way, leaving the court to ... put flesh on its bones“) (quoting Citizens Awareness Network, Inc. v. United States Nuclear Regulatory Comm‘n, 59 F.3d 284, 293-94 (1st Cir. 1995)).
In any event, suits for injunctive relief against judicial officers are barred “unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable.”
4. Dismissal under Rule 12(b)(1)
Because Judge Rapp is entitled to judicial immunity on Cooper‘s and Moses‘s claims, we affirm the district court‘s dismissal under
C. Claims against the Wyandot County Court of Common Pleas
Cooper and Moses similarly fail to address with any specificity the district court‘s dismissal of their claims against the Wyandot County Court of Common Pleas. But even if Cooper and Moses did not waive their right to appeal this issue, the court correctly concluded that the Wyandot County Court of Common Pleas “is not a proper party, because it lacks an ‘independent legal existence’ and thus is incapable of being sued.” Cooper v. Rapp, No. 2:16-CV-00163, 2016 WL 7337521, at *8 (S.D. Ohio Dec. 19, 2016) (quoting Leisure v. Franklin Cty. Court of Common Pleas, No. 2:07-cv-817, 2008 WL 4239005, at *4 (S.D. Ohio Sept. 8, 2008)).
The Ohio Supreme Court has recognized that “[a] court is ... a place in which justice is judicially administered.” State ex rel. Cleveland Mun. Court v. Cleveland City Council, 34 Ohio St.2d 120, 296 N.E.2d 544, 546 (1973) (quoting Todd v. United States, 158 U.S. 278, 284, 15 S.Ct. 889, 39 L.Ed. 982 (1895)). It “is not sui juris,” so “[a]bsent express statutory authority, a court can neither sue nor be sued in its own right.” Id. Cooper and Moses do not point to any statute allowing them to bring suit against the Wyandot County Court of Common Pleas. The dis-
III. CONCLUSION
For all of the reasons set forth above, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.