Savage v. City of Springfield

MARC SAVAGE and RANDOLPH BLAKE, Plaintiffs, v. THE CITY OF SPRINGFIELD and SPRINGFIELD FIRE DEPARTMENT, Defendants.

Civil Action No. 18-30164-KAR

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

June 10, 2020

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER REGARDING PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT

(Dkt. No. 65)

ROBERTSON, U.S.M.J.

I. INTRODUCTION

This matter is before the court on a motion by plaintiffs Marc Savage ("Savage") and Randolph Blake (collectively, "Plaintiffs") for leave to file an amended complaint ("Plaintiffs' Motion") (Dkt. No. 65), which is opposed by the defendants, the City of Springfield and the Springfield Fire Department ("SFD") (collectively, "Defendants"). The court heard argument from the parties on May 14, 2020. For the reasons set forth below, the court hereby GRANTS Plaintiffs' Motion in part and DENIES it in part.

II. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs filed their complaint on October 9, 2018 (Dkt. No. 1). In summary, the complaint alleges a long-standing and well-established policy, custom, and practice "of opposing racial equality, enforcing racial subordination, engaging in favoritism towards white firefighters, and retaliating against persons who protest racial discrimination" and purports to be filed on behalf of Plaintiffs and similarly situated minority firefighters (Compl. at 1-2). The defendants filed their answer to the complaint on December 26, 2018 (Dkt. No. 11). In or around December 2018, the parties jointly requested that the case be referred to mediation (Dkt. No. 13). The parties continued to seek a resolution through mediation up to February 13, 2020, when the assigned ADR provider reported that the case should be restored to the court's trial calendar (Dkt. No. 71).

While the parties were participating in mediation, the court entered a pretrial scheduling order pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b)(1) (Dkt. No. 50) which was subsequently extended at the joint request of the parties (Dkt. No. 62). The amended scheduling order provided, among other things, that motions for leave to amend the pleadings to add claims, defenses or parties were to be filed by January 21, 2020 (Dkt. No. 64). Plaintiffs filed their motion, with a proposed amended complaint, on January 21, 2020 (Dkt. No. 65). The proposed first amended complaint would add Mayor Domenic Sarno ("Sarno"), Fire Commissioner Bernard J. Calvi ("Calvi"), and former Fire Commissioner Joseph Conant ("Conant") as parties, add allegations to supply "a clear factual foundation for Plaintiffs' claims," and add Count IX, which is captioned Misuse of Public Funds and asserts a claim that the City's practice of paying individuals who are not in compliance with the City's residency requirement is a violation of Mass. Gen. Laws. Ch. 40, § 5 (Dkt. No. 65-1, ¶¶ 150-157). According to Plaintiffs, the facts supporting Plaintiffs' proposed amended complaint are substantially the same as the facts described in their initial complaint (Dkt. No. 65 at 3). Defendants oppose Plaintiff's Motion insofar as it seeks to add Sarno and Calvi as defendants and to add the claims asserted in Count IX, principally on grounds of futility (Dkt. No. 67 at 1-2).

III. DISCUSSION

1. Standard of Review

A motion to amend a complaint will be treated differently depending on its timing and the context in which it is filed. A plaintiff is permitted to amend a complaint once as a matter of right prior to the filing of a responsive pleading by the defendant. Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a). Thereafter, the permission of the court or the consent of the opposing party is required. The default rule mandates that leave to amend is to be "freely given when justice so requires," id., unless the amendment "would be futile, or reward, inter alia, undue or intended delay." Resolution Trust Corp. v. Gold, 30 F.3d 251, 253 (1st Cir. 1994).

Steir v. Girl Scouts of the USA, 383 F.3d 7, 11-12 (2004) (footnote omitted); see also Somascan, Inc. v. Philips Med. Sys. Nederland, B.V., 714 F.3d 62, 64 (1st Cir. 2013).

"If leave to amend is sought before discovery is complete and neither party has moved for summary judgment, the accuracy of the 'futility' label is gauged by reference to the liberal criteria of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)." Hatch v. Dep't for Children, Youth & Their Families, 274 F.3d 12, 19 (1st Cir. 2001) (citing Glassman v. Computervision Corp., 90 F.3d 617, 623 (1st Cir. 1996)). To survive a motion to dismiss, a "complaint must contain enough factual material to raise a right to relief above the speculative level ... and state a facially plausible legal claim," Guerra-Delgado v. Popular, Inc., 774 F.3d 776, 780 (1st Cir. 2014) (quoting Ocasio-Hernández v. Fortuño-Burset, 640 F.3d 1, 12 (1st Cir. 2011)), "accept[ing] as true all well-pleaded facts in the complaint and draw[ing] all reasonable inferences in the pleader's favor." Id. (citing Tasker v. DHL Ret. Sav. Plan, 621 F.3d 34, 38 (1st Cir. 2010)); see also Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009).

"Amendment of pleadings is largely a matter within the discretion of the district court." Guest-Tek Interactive Entm't Inc. v. Pullen, 731 F. Supp. 2d 80, 92 (D. Mass. 2010) (citing Farkas v. Texas Instruments, Inc., 429 F.2d 849, 851 (1st Cir. 1970)).

2. Futility

a. Count IX

Plaintiffs allege in Count IX of the proposed amended complaint that for the past twenty-five years most members of the SFD's senior leadership did not live in Springfield in violation of the City's residency ordinance, which, according to the proposed amended complaint, provides, in pertinent part, that if a covered City employee is not a City resident, the head of the department in which the employee works "shall forthwith strike the name of the employee from the payroll [and] that person shall cease to be employed by the City" (Dkt. No. 65-1, ¶¶ 151, 153). Although employment of these senior members of the SFD was in violation of the City's residency ordinance, the City paid them five- and six-figure salaries (Dkt. No. 65-1, ¶ 151). Plaintiffs allege that these payments were in violation of Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 40, § 5, which prohibits the expenditure of municipal funds for a purpose that is inconsistent with any general or special law (Dkt. No. 165-1, ¶¶ 152-54). Plaintiffs further allege that, because these members of the SFD's senior leadership who did not live in Springfield were white, their continued employment in violation of the residency ordinance deprived minority residents of employment opportunities in violation of the Equal Protection Clause and of state and federal antidiscrimination laws (Dkt. No. 65-1, ¶ 157). Defendants contend that, as a challenge to the expenditure of municipal funds, Count IX fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted (Dkt. No. 67 at 2, 5-7). This court agrees that the proposed amended complaint does not state a claim upon which relief can be granted in Count IX because Plaintiffs lack standing and because the proposed amended complaint objects to, and seeks recovery based upon, past expenditures of municipal funds for appointment purposes.

Under Massachusetts law, "[t]here is no general jurisdiction to entertain a suit by taxpayers to restrain municipalities from performing wrongful acts." Oliver v. Mattapoisett, 457 N.E.2d 679, 680 (Mass. App. Ct. 1983) (citing Fuller v. Trs. of Deerfield Acad., 147 N.E. 878,879 (Mass. 1925)). Plaintiffs base Count IX, in significant part, on the limits Chapter 40 of the Massachusetts General Laws places on expenditures of municipal funds (Dkt. No. 165-1, ¶¶ 152-54). Chapter 40 includes a remedy for violation of its provisions in § 53, which provides that an equitable petition may be brought by ten or more resident taxpayers asking a court "to determine the lawfulness of expenditures or obligations about to be incurred" by a municipality. Oliver, 457 N.E.2d at 680. "Taxpayers of a municipality cannot make themselves parties to the appointment of every officer or employee of the municipality and thus require the appointing officers to account for their acts to such taxpayers as may volunteer to bring suit. Such rights as taxpayers have are given to them by the expressed provisions of c. 40, § 53, and must of course be exercised in the manner there provided." Povey v. Sch. Comm. of Medford, 127 N.E.2d 925, 926 (Mass. 1955).¹ See also Walcott v. City of Cambridge, 217 N.E.2d 723, 725 (Mass. 1966) (tax payers cannot rely on § 53 to attack an individual's title to municipal office).

First, Plaintiffs' proposed amended complaint fails to state a claim of misuse of public funds under Chapter 40, § 53 because the proposed amended complaint is not filed on behalf of ten taxpayers of the City. Second, by their amended complaint, Plaintiff seek relief related to funds expended in the past. But "[t]his statute is preventative. It is neither anticipatory nor retroactive." Fuller, 147 N.E. at 879; see also Kapinos v. City of Chicopee, 134 N.E.2d 548, 549(Mass. 1956) ("Chapter 40, § 53, only provides that 'ten taxable inhabitants' are entitled to relief in equity if a town or any of its officers or agents are about to incur obligations. This plainly implies that a taxpayers' petition will lie only before such obligations are incurred and not afterwards."); Oliver, 457 N.E.2d at 680 ("Ten or more taxpayers of a town may, by an equitable action, ask a court to determine the lawfulness of expenditures or obligations about to be incurred."). Count IX alleges that the City has paid non-residents in violation of the City's residency ordinance since 1995, has "misappropriated approximately 150 million dollars in payroll expenditures" over the past twenty-five years (Dkt. No. 65-1, ¶ 155), and seeks relief on this basis. Section 53 does not authorize this kind of retrospective challenge to municipal expenditures. Third, in Walcott, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that, even if a proper number of taxpayers joined as plaintiffs, § 53 did not provide a proper...