Snyder v. Collura ( 2016 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 15-1384
ROBERT S. SNYDER,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
SERAFINA COLLURA; RALPH GAUDET; PATRICK POWELL; CITY OF WALTHAM;
Defendants, Appellees,
JEANNETTE A. MCCARTHY; BERNADETTE D. SEWELL;
Defendants.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. Rya W. Zobel, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Kayatta, Stahl, and Barron,
Circuit Judges.
Zaheer A. Samee, with whom Leonard A. Frisoli and Frisoli
Associates, P.C., were on brief, for appellant.
Thomas R. Donohue, with whom Deidre Brennan Regan and
Brody, Hardoon, Perkins & Kesten, LLP, were on brief, for appellee
Serafina Collura.
Bernadette Dunn Sewell, Assistant City Solicitor, City
of Waltham Law Department, for appellees Ralph Gaudet and Patrick
Powell.
Michelle Learned, Assistant City Solicitor, City of
Waltham Law Department, for appellee City of Waltham.
January 27, 2016
KAYATTA, Circuit Judge. In 2009, Robert Snyder sued the
City of Waltham, Massachusetts, ("Waltham") and several of its
officials alleging that their vindictive application of a local
zoning board's authority violated state law as well as the United
States and Massachusetts Constitutions. This opinion marks our
second encounter with Snyder's claims. In 2014 we ruled, on
interlocutory appeal, that two individual defendants were immune
to suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 because Snyder's Equal Protection
claim--the "only preserved federal claim" in the case
--failed because Snyder did not show that the defendants had
treated him differently than any other similarly-situated
individual. Snyder v. Gaudet, 756 F.3d 30, 34–36 (1st Cir. 2014)
("Snyder I"). In this opinion, we now affirm the district court's
dismissal of Snyder's remaining claims and its rejection of his
belated and likely insufficient effort to assert new theories of
recovery.
I. BACKGROUND
Snyder's case has its genesis in his decision to
terminate the employment by his company of then-City Councilor
Serafina Collura, who then turned into an avenging whistle-blower,
goading Waltham to pursue an apparent zoning violation by Snyder.
Id. at 32-33. Further discussion of the facts can be found in our
earlier case. Id.- 3 -
Snyder's original complaint, filed in December 2009 and
still operative, named five counts. Count one alleged that the
defendants conspired to deprive Snyder of his Constitutional
rights. 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1985, 1986. It stated that Snyder's
right to substantive due process and equal protection of law under
the Fourteenth Amendment were "[a]mong" the rights grounding his
section 1983 count, but that it was "not limited to" these
particular rights. Counts two through four alleged various
violations of Massachusetts state law, naming abuse of process,
malicious prosecution, and civil conspiracy. Snyder's fifth count
invoked the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act ("MCRA") to redress
alleged violations of his "state and federal constitutional rights
and liberties." Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b),
the district court set a deadline of December 31, 2010 for any
amendments to the pleadings.
All defendants moved to dismiss the complaint under
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b). They asserted that Snyder's
"§ 1983 claims must be dismissed against Defendants because
[Snyder's] complaint alleges no facts detailing the sine qua non
of a § 1983 action: the violation of a federal right." In support
of that assertion, they directed their argument to the two federal
rights expressly identified in the complaint: substantive due
process and equal protection of the law.
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The filing of the motion to dismiss called upon the court
to determine whether the facts alleged in the complaint "allow[]
the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is
liable." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (citing Bell
Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 556 (2007)). The filing of
that motion also provided Snyder with an opportunity to do what
his complaint need not have done: explain his position on why the
alleged facts supported a finding of liability under the law.
Failure to oppose the motion or to advance an argument in support
of such a finding may well have constituted a waiver of the
argument if the district court had granted the motion and Snyder
then appealed. See, e.g., Butler v. Deutsche Bank Tr. Co. Ams.,
748 F.3d 28, 36 (1st Cir. 2014) (court may find argument waived
when "the argument [the plaintiff] presented in his memorandum in
opposition to the motion to dismiss did not focus on the
[argument]").
Snyder did oppose the motion to dismiss. In so doing,
he stated: "This case is about the gross abuse of power . . . to
injure and harass [the plaintiff] in violation of his
constitutional rights to equal protection of the laws, freedom
from arbitrary searches and seizures, and substantive due
process." This opposition, as spelled out in Snyder's supporting
memorandum describing how these listed federal rights were
violated, succeeded in obtaining a denial of the motion to dismiss.
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And in its denial of Waltham's motion to dismiss Snyder's
section 1983 count, the district court characterized the claim as
one "for denial of substantive due process and equal protection."
After discovery, Waltham, joined by the other named
defendants, moved for summary judgment on "all of the plaintiff's
claims." Snyder opposed that motion, relying on his contention
that the defendants conspired "to abuse and harass the plaintiff
in violation of his rights to substantive due process and equal
protection." The district court's rejection of the immunity
defenses of two municipal officials in ruling on this motion then
became the subject of last year's interlocutory appeal by two
municipal officials. Snyder I, 756 F.3d at 31-32.
In that appeal, for the first time, Snyder articulated
his desire to assert an Eighth Amendment theory in support of his
section 1983 claim, relying on the Amendment's Excessive Fines
Clause. U.S. Const. amend. VIII, cl. 2. We found the claim to be
not "preserved" because Snyder "never presented [it] to the
district court." Snyder I, 756 F.3d at 34. Our opinion further
explained why Snyder's Equal Protection claim failed to offer a
path past the defendants' qualified immunity. Id. at 33–36.
Snyder's state law claims were not directly at issue in the earlier
appeal. Id. at 34 n.2.
After our decision, in the district court, all
defendants renewed their motions for summary judgment on the
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balance of Snyder's complaint. In response, Snyder abandoned as
against all defendants any argument that they violated his right
to equal protection or substantive due process. Instead, in an
attempt to refresh his case, he contended that the facts in his
complaint supported two other theories of section 1983 liability
that had not yet been addressed by any ruling. First, he argued
that his complaint both originally and as proposed to be amended
adequately makes out a First Amendment claim that City officials
"conspired and retaliated against Snyder" as a consequence of
(i) his statements to a state unemployment agency regarding
Collura's performance as an employee and (ii) his decision to sue
Collura's brother based on an unrelated matter in small claims
court. Second, Snyder argued that his complaint, both originally
and as proposed to be amended, adequately makes out a claim that
certain fines the zoning authority sought to collect from him were
not only improperly motivated but were "excessive" under the Eighth
Amendment. As a back-up, Snyder also moved for leave to amend his
complaint to add conclusory assertions that would make express the
First and Eighth Amendment claims that Snyder contends are implied
by the factual averments already contained in the complaint.
The district court denied without elaboration Snyder's
motion to amend as "futile". Snyder v. Collura, No. 09-CV-12055-
RWZ, 2015 WL 758546, at *1 n.1 (D. Mass. Feb. 20, 2015)
(hereinafter, "Snyder II"). It then granted the defendants' motion
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for summary judgment on the remaining claims, effectively treating
Snyder's effort to assert new theories in support of his federal
claims as inadequate. Id. at *2.
II. ANALYSIS
We review a district court's grant of summary judgment
de novo. Martinez v. Petrenko, 792 F.3d 173, 179 (1st Cir. 2015).
The moving party is entitled to summary judgment if it "shows that
there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and [it] is
entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).
A. Count One: The Section 1983 Claim
Snyder's first argument is that the district court erred
in failing to construe the section 1983 claim in his complaint as
raising two theories of constitutional violation not addressed on
the merits by our prior opinion in this case: a violation of his
First Amendment rights and a violation of his Eighth Amendment
right to be free of excessive fines.
Recognizing that a complaint need plead facts and not
necessarily the specific names of the legal theories and causes of
action fairly raised by these facts, Morales-Vallellanes v.
Potter, 339 F.3d 9, 14 (1st Cir. 2003), we nevertheless find in
Snyder's complaint barely a hint of any facts that might support
such theories. The complaint contains no allegation that the
municipal officials retaliated against Snyder because he supplied
information to a state tribunal. While it mentions that a state
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tribunal requested information from Snyder, and denied Collura
benefits, it does not even allege that Collura knew what
information he supplied to the tribunal. It also expressly alleges
that the retaliatory campaign began before the state agency
requested any information. Leaving no room for doubt as to the
motive for the alleged retaliation, the complaint expressly
alleges that the acts of which it complains were "[in] retaliation
for [Collura's] termination of employment." As for the lawsuit
against Collura's brother, the complaint does allege that Waltham
issued a notice of fine on "the very same day" that Snyder
prevailed in a lawsuit against Collura's brother, but makes no
allegation that the latter preceded the former, or was a reason
for the notice. Finally, as for the Eighth Amendment claim, the
complaint mentions "notice" of a "$300" fine for each day a zoning
violation was not abated, but offers no facts suggesting how such
a fine was excessive, or was either paid or still threatened. See
United States v. Bajakajian, 524 U.S. 321, 337 (1998) (gravamen of
Eighth Amendment excessive fines inquiry is whether "the amount of
the forfeiture is grossly disproportional to the gravity of the
defendant's offense").
Even if we were to assume that such vague hints of a
claim were enough to survive a motion to dismiss, the motion to
dismiss stage in this lawsuit has long passed. Snyder has not
done what he needed to do to develop and preserve such arguably
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latent claims. In our prior opinion, we noted that Snyder had not
"preserved" his Eighth Amendment theory. While that holding might
be read narrowly as limited to the immunity issues on interlocutory
review, or as not preclusive of subsequent efforts to revive such
a claim, we make clear now that, to the extent one might arguably
glean these claims from the spare hints in the complaint, Snyder
waited too long to undertake such a recasting of his lawsuit. See
Schneider v. Local 103 I.B.E.W. Health Plan, 442 F.3d 1, 3 (1st
Cir. 2006) (per curiam) ("Even an issue raised in the complaint
but ignored at summary judgment may be deemed waived." (citing
Grenier v. Cyanamid Plastics, Inc., 70 F.3d 667, 678 (1st Cir.
1995))); Torres-Rios v. LPS Labs., Inc., 152 F.3d 11, 16 (1st Cir.
1998) (mere "hint of a possible additional claim" insufficient
"[g]iven the absence of any development of such a claim" as the
suit progressed).
The defendants filed a motion to dismiss the section 1983
claim in whole, and they then later moved for summary judgment
after discovery. Unlike Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8, motions
of this type necessarily call on a plaintiff to tie his allegations
to a tangible theory of recovery. Otherwise, waiver looms. See
Grenier, 70 F.3d at 678; Johnston v. Holiday Inns, Inc., 595 F.2d
890, 894 (1st Cir. 1979) ("It is by now axiomatic that an issue
not presented to the trial court cannot be raised for the first
time on appeal."). In response first to the motion to dismiss and
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then in response to the original motions for summary judgment,
Snyder omitted any mention of the theories that he now urges we
find implicit in the complaint. In short, to the extent that the
complaint left Snyder leeway in picking his legal theories, the
point at which he needed to reveal those theories passed well
before he announced the theories that he now wishes to pursue.
See Torres-Rios, 152 F.3d at 16 ("Given the absence of any
development of such a claim by the time of the Joint Case
Management Memorandum, we join the district court in concluding
that a design defect claim was not raised by the complaint.") To
rule otherwise would be to turn an orderly marshalling of the
reasons for and against dismissal of a claim into a game of whack-
a-mole, with seriatim summary judgment proceedings not ending
until the defendant manages to guess every possible legal theory
upon which a plaintiff might rely to support a claim.
That leaves Snyder's appeal from his request for leave
to amend the complaint. The proposed amendment did not contain
new facts. Rather, it simply served as an alternative vehicle
arguing that he should be able to recast his claims at what would
otherwise be the end of the case. The district court rejected the
effort on the grounds that it was futile. Snyder II, 2015 WL
758546, at *1 n.1. For all the reasons we have already stated, we
agree. We add only that once a court sets a deadline for seeking
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leave to amend,1 the complaint may be modified "only for good
cause." Martinez, 792 F.3d at 180 (citing Fed. R. Civ. P.
16(b)(4)). And "'[g]ood cause' does not typically include a change
of heart on a litigation strategy." Id.; see also Trans-Spec Truck
Serv., Inc. v. Caterpillar Inc., 524 F.3d 315, 327 (1st Cir. 2008)
(a party is "bound by the consequences of its litigation strategy"
and leave is properly denied when it delays moving to amend because
it "thought that it would prevail on the motion to dismiss without
any need to further amend").
B. Counts Two through Five: The State Law Claims
While Snyder rests the bulk of his argument on the
viability of his revised federal theories, his state law claims
were also a victim of the defendants' renewed summary judgment
motion. Snyder II, 2015 WL 758546 at *1-2. Snyder does not
contest the entry of summary judgment on his abuse of process and
malicious prosecution claims, but he does argue that the district
court erred in granting the defendants' motion with respect to his
civil conspiracy claim and his claim under the Massachusetts Civil
Rights Act. We therefore address these arguments in turn.
1 According to the district court's scheduling order, amended
pleadings were due in this case by December 31, 2010. Snyder moved
for leave to make the amendment at issue almost four years later
on December 3, 2014.
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1. Civil Conspiracy Claim
The district court found that Snyder's civil conspiracy
count failed as a matter of law because "[a] claim for civil
conspiracy requires a showing of an underlying tortious act," which
Snyder had failed to make. Id. at *2 (citing Garvin v. Hampden
Cnty. Sheriff's Dep't, No. 3:05-CV-30102-MAP, 2008 WL 877797, at
*8 (D. Mass. Mar. 27, 2008)). Although this is an incomplete
statement of the law, the district court's resolution of the case
is unaffected.
"Massachusetts recognizes two types of civil
conspiracy." Taylor v. Am. Chemistry Council, 576 F.3d 16, 34
(1st Cir. 2009). One, "based on section 876 of the Restatement
[(Second) of Torts], is a form of vicarious liability for the
tortious conduct of others." Id. The plaintiff is thus required
to prove an underlying tort. Id. at 35. The other, drawn from
the common law, amounts to "a very limited cause of action in
Massachusetts" for civil conspiracy based on the defendants'
allegedly unique ability to exert a "'peculiar power of coercion'"
when acting in unison. Jurgens v. Abraham, 616 F. Supp. 1381,
1386 (D. Mass. 1985) (quoting Fleming v. Dane, 22 N.E.2d 609, 611
(Mass. 1939)). Under the latter theory, the "wrong" suffered by
the plaintiff is "in the particular combination of the defendants
rather than in the tortious nature of the underlying conduct."
Kurker v. Hill, 689 N.E.2d 833, 836 (Mass. App. Ct. 1998).
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Collusive behavior among market competitors is a good example of
one of those rare instances in which it is the act of agreeing
that constitutes the wrong. See, e.g., Neustadt v. Emp'rs Liab.
Assurance Corp., 21 N.E.2d 538, 539–41 (Mass. 1939) (discussing
nature of such a conspiracy in the context of claim that insurers
"unlawfully combined with each other").
From the complaint through the 2014 appeal and on into
the second round of summary judgment, Snyder has consistently and
squarely cast his case as being of the first type, which does
require proof of an underlying tort. Snyder alleged, for example,
that the defendants "conspired to retaliate against Snyder and
deny him equal protection of the laws," and that they were engaged
in a "civil conspiracy to commit tortious conduct." Snyder has
thus waived the opportunity to assert the second type of conspiracy
by eschewing such an argument until the instant appeal. See Aetna
Cas. Sur. Co. v. P & B Autobody, 43 F.3d 1546, 1564 (1st Cir. 1994)
(finding the question waived when "[d]espite the fact that the
pleading was sufficient to state a claim of ['coercive'] civil
conspiracy, . . . Count X was tried and the jury was ultimately
instructed on a . . . quite different 'civil conspiracy' cause of
action"). And because, as explained in this opinion, he has no
underlying tort, his conspiracy claim fails.
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2. MCRA Claim
On the last page and one-half of his complaint, Snyder
asserted a claim under the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, Mass.
Gen. Laws ch. 12, §§ 11H, 11I. This claim incorporated all of the
allegations and theories of liability asserted in the federal
claims. They make no reference to any theory of liability based
on notions of either free speech or excessive fines. Nor do they
add any factual allegations that might point to or support any
such theories of liability. Specifically, there is no allegation
that would suggest that any fine imposed was excessive, nor is
there any allegation that the retaliatory campaign alleged was
based on anything other than Collura's firing. Finally, Snyder
raised no such theories in opposing the motion to dismiss, nor did
he otherwise raise them in response to the original motion for
summary judgment until after discovery closed. Accordingly, for
the same reasons that we affirm the dismissal of the federal
claims, we reject as well Snyder's effort to assert state law
versions of those same claims. And the same logic leads us to
reject Snyder's late attempt to assert two other state-law rights:
the right to "impartial interpretation of the laws," Mass. Const.
pt. 1, Art. XXIX, and the right to "access the courts," id. Amend.
XLVIII, pt. 2, § 2 ¶ 3.
Snyder's complaint did, however, fairly raise one state
law theory of liability not incorporated in the section 1983 count.
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His complaint asserts that the conduct of the defendants as
described in the complaint violated a state law right "to own land
and use and enjoy it for his comfort and profit without harassment
and unlawful interference." Apart from its cameo role in the
complaint, this theory was never again discussed by Snyder beyond
brief references in his briefs submitted to us now and in his
opposition to the renewed motion for summary judgment.
In support of this claim on appeal, Snyder does no more
than point, in passing, to a Massachusetts case holding that the
plaintiffs stated an MCRA claim by alleging that a neighborhood
group's threatening and aggressive opposition to the construction
of a tennis court, when the proposed construction violated no
zoning law, impinged upon the plaintiffs' constitutionally-secure
property rights. Bell v. Mazza, 474 N.E.2d 1111 (Mass. 1985); see
also Ayasli v. Armstrong, 780 N.E.2d 926, 941 (Mass. App. Ct. 2002)
(Rapoza, J., dissenting) (noting that in Bell, "the plaintiffs
complied with all relevant regulations and were without fault in
the development of their land." (citing Bell v. Zoning Bd. of
Appeals of Cohasset, 437 N.E.2d 532 (Mass. App. Ct. 1982))). While
we are skeptical that Snyder's complaint could fairly be read to
state such a claim,2 Snyder's wholly inadequate briefing on this
point precludes our review of its merits.
2 In Bell, the Supreme Judicial Court was clear that MCRA
liability did not attend the "pursuit of legal rights" absent
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It is a "settled appellate rule that issues adverted to
in a perfunctory manner, unaccompanied by some effort at developed
argumentation, are deemed waived." United States v. Zannino, 895
F.2d 1, 17 (1st Cir. 1990). As we have noted, "[i]t is not enough
merely to mention a possible argument in the most skeletal way,
leaving the court to do counsel's work, create the ossature for
the argument, and put flesh on its bones." Id. "This rule is
commonly deployed . . . against ancillary arguments tossed
carelessly against the wall in the hope that one might stick."
United States v. Zayas-Ortiz, 808 F.3d 520, 524 n.1 (1st Cir.
2015). Through perfunctory briefing, Snyder has waived this arm
of his complaint.
III. CONCLUSION
Snyder is correct that the facts of this case reflect
poorly on Collura and Waltham. Collura was apparently perfectly
happy to remain silent about Snyder's apparent zoning violations
so long as it suited her personal interest, and then, when her
interests changed, used her influence to ensure that the Town
enforced its ordinances against Snyder as if it were suddenly one
of the more important topics on the City's agenda. Nevertheless,
as we previously explained in our prior opinion in this case, an
"extraordinary circumstances." Bell, 474 N.E.2d at 1115. Our
ruling in Snyder I precludes Snyder from claiming now that Waltham
could not rationally have viewed him at fault under the zoning
laws. Snyder I, 756 F.3d at 35–36.
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attempt to enforce a zoning law in the face of an apparent
violation does not violate the equal protection clause of the U.S.
Constitution absent evidence that other similarly situated
individuals were treated differently. See Snyder I, 756 F.3d at
36. And because Snyder's subsequent efforts to find another legal
basis for striking back either fall short of the mark, or come too
late, we must affirm the entry of summary judgment on all of
Snyder's claims and the denial of his motion for leave to amend.
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