Blackwell v. City of St. Louis

778 S.W.2d 711, 1989 Mo. App. LEXIS 1184, 1989 WL 91362
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedAugust 15, 1989
DocketNo. 55600
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 778 S.W.2d 711 (Blackwell v. City of St. Louis) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Blackwell v. City of St. Louis, 778 S.W.2d 711, 1989 Mo. App. LEXIS 1184, 1989 WL 91362 (Mo. Ct. App. 1989).

Opinion

SATZ, Judge.

This case comes before this Court for the second time. The facts, in more detail, may be found in the Court’s first opinion. Blackwell v. City of St. Louis, 726 S.W.2d 760 (Mo.App.1987).

In the present case, plaintiff, Donald Blackwell, a fire fighter employed by the defendant City of St. Louis (City), appeals from a denial of his motion for partial summary judgment and from a grant of summary judgment against him and in favor of the defendant City and defendant William Duffe (Duffe), the City’s Director of Personnel. We affirm the trial court’s judgment.

In support of his appeal, plaintiff has filed a legal file of 248 pages. Neither plaintiff nor defendants, however, have expressly designated the specific evidence submitted to the trial court in the summary judgment proceeding in that court. Plaintiff, apparently, did “support ... [his] motion” for summary judgment in the trial court by “referpng] the Court to his brief ..., the pleadings ..., and the Court’s file On this matter.” Defendants made no designation at all in support of their motion. It is not our function to sift through the material now furnished us to determine what evidence the trial court used to reach its judgment.

The less precise the record is, the greater the difficulty in properly resolving the issues. In a number of prior opinions, this Court has outlined the proper method for designating the record for summary judgment in the trial court and, in turn, on appeal. E.g. Johnson v. Johnson, 764 S.W.2d 711, 713 (Mo.App.1989). Having said this, we take the present record as we find it.

At the time of the incidents in question, plaintiff was a veteran fire fighter who held the position of Battalion Chief in the City’s Fire Department and also served as president of Local 73 of the St. Louis Fire Fighters, AFL-CIO. In his capacity as union president, plaintiff attended an October 1984 meeting of the City’s Board of Alder[713]*713men at which a proposal to increase the fire fighters’ pension was defeated, when an attempt to override the Mayor’s veto failed.

Following the vote on the proposal, plaintiff was approached by members of the news media, who interviewed him for his reaction. Subsequently, two newspaper articles about the meeting included comments, purportedly made by plaintiff, regarding Alderman James Shrewsbury, an opponent of the pension proposal. An article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch quoted plaintiff as saying, “I’m sure the Fire Fighters will be acting in preventing his [Shrewsbury’s] election.” Several days later, an article in the South Side Journal quoted plaintiff as saying the Union would “be active in preventing his [Shrewsbury’s] re-election.”

According to the briefs, the City’s Director of Public Safety, Thomas Nash (Nash), filed charges against plaintiff. Plaintiff was subpoenaed to appear before and was questioned by defendant Duffe, the City’s Director of- Personnel, as part of an investigation by Duffe. Plaintiff was represented by counsel. Subsequently, plaintiff appeared at a hearing before the City’s Civil Service Commission (Commission). Again, plaintiff was represented by counsel. The Commission rendered its decision based upon written Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law.

The Commission found as “fact” that: plaintiff did state to the press “that St. Louis Fire Fighters would work to prevent the re-election of Alderman James Shrews-bury”; this “statement constituted a threat of active political participation by the Fire Fighters during Alderman Shrewsbury’s re-election campaign;” plaintiff “was in a position, by virtue of his office, to influence or coerce subordinate Fire Fighters to further political acts”; and these “threats could be construed as a warning to other public officials of possible political retribution by Fire Fighters should [these] officials take a position contrary to the desires of the Fire Fighters.” The Commission concluded that plaintiff’s “public threat against ... Shrewsbury” is “conduct and speech by a Battalion Chief” prohibited by § 19, Article XVIII of the City’s Charter and Rule XV, § 3(b) of the Commission’s Civil Service Rules, each of which provides:

No person holding a position in the classified service shall use his official authority or influence to coerce the political action of any person or body, or to interfere with any election, or shall take an active part in a political campaign.... But nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit or prevent any such person ... from expressing privately his opinions on all political questions....

The Commission ordered that plaintiff be suspended without pay for 28 days.

Plaintiff then filed a four-count petition in the circuit court joining, as defendants, the City, Duffe, Nash and the individual members of the Commission. In Count I of his petition, plaintiff sought review of the Commission’s decision pursuant to our Administrative Procedure Act (APA), Chap. 536 RSMo 1978. By agreement, this Count was submitted separately to the circuit court. The court reversed the Commission’s order, concluding “the findings and decision of said Commission are unsupported by competent and substantial evidence upon the whole record.” On appeal, this Court affirmed, holding there was no substantial evidence that plaintiff actually coerced others or actively engaged in political activity. Blackwell, supra, at 763. According to defendants’ brief, plaintiff was awarded back pay as a result of prevailing on Count I.

Plaintiff continued to prosecute his § 1983 action, Count III, against defendants Duffe and the City.1 In this action, plaintiff alleges the Commission and Duffe, [714]*714under color of law and pursuant to official policy, “intentionally” took actions against plaintiff “in retaliation against Plaintiff” for exercising his First Amendment rights, and those actions “deprived Plaintiff of his right to freedom of speech on matters of public concern_” More generally, plaintiff alleges the Commission and Duffe “in promulgating, maintaining and enforcing [the Charter and Commission Rules] against Plaintiff and other classified employees, and in suspending Plaintiff for 28 days ... are intentionally violating, interfering with, and chilling the exercise of the [First Amendment] rights of Plaintiff and other classified employees_” In their joint answer, the City and Duffe denied these allegations and alleged several affirmative defenses: election of remedies, estoppel, and, as to Duffe, official (qualified) immunity.

Defendants then filed a joint motion for summary judgment, and plaintiff filed a motion for a partial summary judgment against the City on the issue of liability. The circuit court granted defendants’ motion and, having done so, found plaintiff’s motion to be moot. Plaintiff's appeal followed.

Defendants raise several procedural issues, each of which, they argue, must be resolved in their favor, making a decision on the merits of plaintiff’s appeal unnecessary. We dispose of those issues first.

Relying on James v. City of Jennings, 785 S.W.2d 188, 190 (Mo.App.1987), defendants contend the trial court lacked jurisdiction to hear plaintiff’s § 1983 claim, plaintiff’s Count III, because, at the time plaintiff filed this claim, he had not exhausted his administrative remedy, plaintiff’s Count I.

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Bluebook (online)
778 S.W.2d 711, 1989 Mo. App. LEXIS 1184, 1989 WL 91362, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/blackwell-v-city-of-st-louis-moctapp-1989.