Gunnels v. City of Brownfield

153 S.W.3d 452, 2004 Tex. App. LEXIS 654, 2003 WL 22769318
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 21, 2004
Docket07-02-0121-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 153 S.W.3d 452 (Gunnels v. City of Brownfield) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gunnels v. City of Brownfield, 153 S.W.3d 452, 2004 Tex. App. LEXIS 654, 2003 WL 22769318 (Tex. Ct. App. 2004).

Opinions

OPINION

JAMES T. CAMPBELL, Justice.

Appellant Mary Lee Hudspeth Gunnels challenges a take-nothing summary judgment granted in favor of appellees, the City of Brownfield, Richard Curtis Fletcher, and Earl Elrod, on her claims for malicious prosecution and violation of her constitutional rights based on two criminal prosecutions for violations of City of Brownfield ordinances. We will affirm the judgment.

The events giving rise to this appeal began on September 5, 1995, when Brownfield city manager Fletcher attended a high school football game. On leaving the game, he found a flyer on his car windshield advertising the sale of homecoming mums. The advertisement, which was placed on many cars in the stadium parking lot, was for “Mary Lee’s located at 1415 Broadway” in Brownfield. It contained prices, good from September 8 through September 12, for several styles of mums and related products. Fletcher gave the advertisement to city inspector Elrod and related the circumstances in which he found the document.

In response, Elrod confirmed that appellant resided at 1415 Broadway, and executed two criminal complaints. The first alleged she “knowingly and intentionally distributed circulars or handbills upon the streets of the city” in violation of a city ordinance. The second alleged she “knowingly and intentionally operated a flower shop in an R-l, single family dwelling district,” in violation of the city’s zoning ordinance. Fletcher notarized each of the complaints.

The charge of distributing handbills was tried to a municipal court jury on November 14, 1995 and appellant was acquitted. The first trial in the zoning violation case ended in a hung jury, and appellant was acquitted on retrial. The following month, appellant filed her petition in this case, pro se, naming the City of Brownfield, and Elrod and Fletcher in their individual and official capacities, as defendants. The petition generally alleged claims for malicious prosecution based on the conduct of Elrod and Fletcher. Other than naming the City as a defendant, the petition did not expressly assert any claims against it. On March 1, 1996, each of the defendants specially excepted to the petition alleging it failed to state a cause of action and asserted general denials. The City filed a [457]*457motion for summary judgment on May 26 on the basis of sovereign immunity.

Appellant amended her petition to allege the prosecutions were motivated by her exercise of first amendment rights and sought recovery for deprivation of her civil rights under Title 42, Section 1983 of the United States Code. In September 1998, appellees filed a document entitled “supplement” to the City’s motion for summary judgment. It added Elrod and Fletcher as movants and asserted that Section 101.106 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code (Vernon Pamph.2008), gave them the benefit of the City’s immunity, that they had immunity for reporting violations of the law, and enjoyed prosecutorial immunity. Also, appellant took a nonsuit on her malicious prosecution claim against, the City.

In an amended answer filed October 26, 2000, Elrod and Fletcher raised the affirmative defenses of official immunity, qualified immunity, sovereign immunity, “absolute immunity,” and prosecutorial' immunity. The same day, all three ap-pellees filed a “Second Supplemental Motion for Summary Judgment” in which they asserted no-evidence grounds under Rule of Civil Procedure 166a(i), and traditional grounds on the basis of immunity. Elrod and Fletcher filed a third document at the same time, entitled a supplement to the “defendants’ second supplemental motion for summary judgment.” It reasserted their no-evidence and immunity grounds.

Appellant responded to the outstanding motions for summary judgment on May 17, 2001. After a hearing the following August, the trial court found each defendant was entitled to final summary judgment on all claims. The court expressly stated the grant of summary judgment for the City was not based on sovereign immunity. The judgment on appeal here, a corrected final judgment, was signed on January 23, 2002.

ISSUES

Appellant presents four issues for our consideration: (1) a challenge to the affidavits Elrod and Fletcher submitted as part of them summary judgment evidence; (2) that the court erred in holding there were no genuine questions of fact on her malicious prosecution claims; (3) that it erred in holding there were no genuine questions of fact on her federal claims under Title 42, Section 1983 of the United States Code; and (4) that the court’s judgment cannot be supported on the basis of immunity.

The City has submitted a brief presenting three arguments supporting summary judgment for it on appellant’s Section 1983 claims. Elrod and Fletcher have filed a joint brief arguing the record establishes there are no genuine questions of fact on appellant’s malicious prosecution claims or her Section 1983 claims. They also argue the judgment is supportable on the basis of official immunity and qualified immunity-

STANDARD OF REVIEW

The standards we must apply in reviewing a summary judgment are so well established that a detailed recitation of those standards is unnecessary here. It is sufficient to note that a movant bears the burden to establish that there are no genuine issues of material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Nixon v. Mr. Property Management Co., 690 S.W.2d at 546, 548 (Tex.1985). We must take evidence favorable to the non-movant as true and indulge in every reasonable inference in favor of the non-movant. Id.

Rule of Civil Procedure 166a(i) allows a party to seek summary judgment on the [458]*458basis that there is no evidence supporting an essential element of a claim or defense on which the opposing party has the burden of proof. Because a no-evidenee summary judgment is essentially the same as a pretrial directed verdict, we apply the same legal sufficiency standard to both. King Ranch, Inc. v. Chapman, 46 Tex.Sup.Ct.J. 1093 (2003). The proper inquiry is whether the non-movant produced any probative evidence to raise a material fact issue. There is no evidence when (a) there is a complete absence of evidence of a vital fact, (b) the court is barred by rules of law or of evidence from giving weight to the only evidence offered to prove a vital fact, (c) the evidence offered to prove a vital fact is no more than a mere scintilla, or (d) the evidence conclusively establishes the opposite of the vital fact. Id. If the non-movant presents more than a scintilla of probative evidence to raise a genuine material fact issue, summary judgment should not have been granted. Kindred v. Con/Chem, Inc., 650 S.W.2d 61, 63 (Tex.1983). More than a scintilla of evidence exists when the evidence rises to a level such that reasonable and fair-minded people could differ in their conclusions. Id.

COMMON LAW MALICIOUS PROSECUTION

We begin with appellant’s second issue, which assigns error to the trial court’s finding that Elrod and Fletcher were entitled to summary judgment on her claims for malicious prosecution. The parties agree that the opinion in Richey v. Brookshire Grocery Co., 952 S.W.2d 515 (Tex.1997), correctly sets out the elements of a claim for malicious prosecution.

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Gunnels v. City of Brownfield
153 S.W.3d 452 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2004)

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Bluebook (online)
153 S.W.3d 452, 2004 Tex. App. LEXIS 654, 2003 WL 22769318, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gunnels-v-city-of-brownfield-texapp-2004.