Baldwin v. Daniels

Fifth Circuit

Baldwin v. Daniels

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

DecidedMay 29, 2001

Docket00-60125

StatusPublished

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Baldwin v. Daniels, (5th Cir. 2001).

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Opinion

Revised May 29, 2001

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS For the Fifth Circuit

___________________________

No. 00-60125 ___________________________

TERESA BALDWIN,

Plaintiff /Appellant,

VERSUS

FRANKIE DANIELS, Individually and in his Official Capacity,

Defendant / Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi

May 17, 2001

Before FARRIS*, JOLLY, and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Plaintiff, Teresa Baldwin, appeals from a take nothing judgment in her case against defendant

Sheriff Frankie Daniels under Section 1983 alleging due process and First Amendment violations

stemming from Daniels’ refusal to accept bonds written by Baldwin without notice or hearing.

Finding that Baldwin has no constitutionally protected liberty or property interest in having bonds

* Circuit Judge of the Ninth Circuit, sitting by designation. written by her accepted at the Pontotoc County Jail, we affirm the judgment of the district court on

Baldwin’s due process claims. We vacate the district court’s judgment on the First Amendment claim

and remand for further proceedings.

I.

Prior to the events which gave rise to this litigation, Teresa Baldwin worked as a soliciting

bond agent for Calvery Bail Bonding Service from Corinth, Mississippi, and its owner, a professional

bail agent, Cleat Calvery. Baldwin was and still is licensed to write bonds by the Mississippi

Department of Insurance as required by Mississippi state law. Baldwin maintained her office and

conducted most of her business in Pontotoc County, although she did occasionally write bonds in

other counties.

In December 1997, defendant Frankie Daniels became Sheriff of Pontotoc County. He

questioned the propriety of Baldwin writing bail bonds while her husband Mark was a constable.

After Daniels received an opinion from the Mississippi Attorney General that Baldwin could write

bonds as long as her husband was not involved in her business, Daniels allowed Baldwin to continue

writing bonds. On April 1, 1998, Daniels implemented a rotation system for bail bonding at the jail

as a method to reduce fights among bondsmen and to spread the work out between the approved

bondsmen. Under the new system, even if a prisoner requested a specific bondsman, the request was

not honored and the next bond agent on the list was given the work. Baldwin was one of three

approved agents on the rotation. Baldwin objected to the rotation policy to Sheriff Daniels.

On April 4, 1998, Baldwin was asked by a former client to write a bail bond so that one of

his incarcerated employees could be released from jail. Baldwin explained the rotation system to the

client and told him that she could only bond when her turn on the rotation came up regardless of the

request for her. The client was not satisfied with this policy and called Sheriff Daniels to complain. Baldwin was told that she could write the bond for Litton, but later Daniels told Baldwin that if she

wrote the bond for Litton it would be the last bond she wrote at the Pontotoc County Jail. Baldwin

did not write the bond.

Shortly thereafter, the sheriff again revised his bail bonding policy and a new list of approved

bail bondsmen was posted. Baldwin was no longer on the approved list as of mid-April 1998. From

April 1998 to December 1999, Baldwin was prohibited from writing bonds at the Pontotoc County

Jail. When a new sheriff entered office in December 1999, Baldwin began writing bonds again.

Baldwin filed suit in May 1998 against Sheriff Daniels in his official and individual capacities

alleging violations of her constitutional rights arising from the above described actions. Specifically,

Baldwin claimed violations of her right to procedural due process and First Amendment retaliation

for her complaints against Sheriff Daniels’ bonding policies. The case was tried before a jury in

January 2000. At the close of Baldwin’s case in chief, Daniels moved for judgment as a matter of law

on the due process claims on the basis that there was no showing that Daniels had violated a clearly

protected right . Holding that there was no clearly recognizable constitutional right to write bail

bonds, the district court granted judgment as a matter of law in favor of Sheriff Daniels on the

grounds that he was entitled to qualified immunity on Baldwin’s due process claim against him in his

individual capacity. Without motion by the defendant, the district court also granted judgment as a

matter of law on the First Amendment claim on the basis that Baldwin’s speech, objecting t the o

implementation of the rotation bonding system, was not protected because it was not uttered to a

third person before Sheriff Daniels prohibited Baldwin from writing bonds in Pontotoc County. The

district court also concluded that the due process claim against Daniels in his official capacity would

be decided by the jury “and the issue for this jury to decide is whether the action of the sheriff in

suspending Mrs. Baldwin’s bond writing privileges was arbitrary and capricious.” The jury was instructed that Baldwin’s interest in her bail bonding business and in the profits

of that business and her license as a soliciting agent constituted liberty and property interests under

the Fourteenth Amendment which could not be taken in an arbitrary and capricious manner without

due process of law. The jury was further instructed that the sheriff had great discretion to approve

or not approve bonds and that the sheriff should not act in an arbitrary and capricious fashion and

should be able to articulate a legitimate reason for the action. The jury found for the defendant.

This appeal followed. Baldwin argues that the district court erred in granting judgment as a

matter of law in favor of Daniels on her First Amendment retaliation claim and her due process claim

against Daniels in his individual capacity. Baldwin also contends that the district court erred in

requiring her to prove that Daniels acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner as an element of her

procedural due process claim against Daniels in his official capacity.

II.

Baldwin’s first argument on appeal is that the district court erred in granting judgment as a

matter of law to Daniels on the ground that her speech, objecting to the implementation of the

rotation bonding system, was not protected because it was not uttered to a third person before Sheriff

Daniels prohibited her from writing bail bonds in Pontotoc County. Baldwin is correct. The First

Amendment does not require that the statement be published to a third party, only that the statement

be the basis for the deprivation of the government benefit. Blackburn v. City of Marshall, 42 F.3d

925, 934 (5th Cir. 1995). Baldwin’s First Amendment retaliation claim should have been submitted

to the jury for a decision on the merits, requiring us to remand this claim for further proceedings.

Daniels’ argument that the jury could have found that Baldwin’s complaint was not the

motivating factor behind his decision to revoke her bond writing privileges is not insubstantial. We

note that the jury found that Sheriff Daniels was not arbitrary and capricious in his actions in their verdict on Baldwin’s due process claim. However, based on the record before us, we are not able

to conclude that the issues necessary for a decision on the First Amendment issue were clearly

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