USCA11 Case: 22-10930 Document: 21-1 Date Filed: 12/30/2022 Page: 1 of 5
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 22-10930
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
VANESSA A. PHILLIPS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
MACON BIBB COUNTY GOVERNMENT,
Defendant-Appellee,
MACON BIBB TAX COMMISSIONERS,
Defendant.
____________________
USCA11 Case: 22-10930 Document: 21-1 Date Filed: 12/30/2022 Page: 2 of 5
2 Opinion of the Court 22-10930
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Georgia
D.C. Docket No. 5:21-cv-00355-TES
____________________
Before ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Vanessa Phillips was fired from her job as a residential
appraiser with the Macon-Bibb County Tax Assessor’s Office.
After she was fired, she sued the county pro se, bringing several
claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Due Process
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court
determined that Phillips had failed to state a claim. We agree, and
we affirm the district court’s dismissal of Phillips’s complaint.
I.
On February 3, 2021, a work-related incident occurred
between Phillips and a taxpayer. Over the next two weeks, she was
suspended and then ultimately fired. She filed for unemployment
benefits from the State of Georgia, but her application was denied
because she had been fired for violating her employer’s policies.
Phillips filed a complaint with the EEOC, alleging that she
had been fired because of her race and in retaliation for opposition
to unlawful employment practices. The EEOC declined to further
investigate the claim. Phillips then brought this lawsuit.
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22-10930 Opinion of the Court 3
The county moved to dismiss the complaint, and the district
court found that Phillips had filed an impermissible shotgun
pleading and ordered her to file an amended complaint. She did
so, alleging discrimination on the basis of race, malicious
persecution, malicious prosecution, and violations of due
process—and seeking over $800,000 in damages and reassignment
and reprimand of two county employees. On the county’s motion,
the district court dismissed the amended complaint. The court
reasoned that Phillips had failed “to allege facts that support her
claims for relief” but only offered “legal conclusions couched as
factual allegations.” It then walked through each of Phillips’s
claims, finding them all deficient. Phillips appealed.
II.
We review a dismissal for failure to state a claim de novo,
accepting the complaint’s factual allegations as true. Wildes v.
BitConnect Int’l PLC,
25 F.4th 1341, 1345 (11th Cir. 2022). To
survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must plead “factual
content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that
the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Ashcroft v.
Iqbal,
556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). “Threadbare recitals of the
elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory
statements, do not suffice. . . . [W]e are not bound to accept as true
a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation.”
Id. (quotation
omitted).
Phillips’s Title VII claims are a textbook example of legal
conclusions couched as factual allegations. She asserts that she was
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4 Opinion of the Court 22-10930
“thoughtlessly suspended and terminated” because she is “not
White” and “from a different culture.” But she never provides any
specific allegations that would suggest that she was actually fired
because of her race, and not because of the February 3 incident.
Nor does she allege any facts to suggest that she was fired because
she engaged in a protected activity, as is required to state a Title
VII retaliation claim.1 And as for her Title VII malicious
prosecution claim, no such claim exists, and we—like the district
court—cannot see how to reframe it as a viable claim.2
Phillips’s Due Process claims fare little better. She claims
that she was entitled to notice and a hearing before her
termination. But—as Phillips herself recognizes—an individual is
only entitled to due process before being fired if she has a property
interest in continued employment. See Bd. of Regents of State
Colleges v. Roth,
408 U.S. 564, 576–78 (1972). And state law
determines whether such a property interest exists.
Id. “Under
Georgia law, a public employee has a property interest in
employment when that employee can be fired only for cause.”
1Like the district court, we liberally construe Phillips’s claim for “malicious
persecution” under Title VII as a retaliation claim.
2 Across several of her claims, Phillips appears to advance a theory that the
county allegedly provided false information that led to the denial of her
unemployment benefits. But even if we liberally construe these accusations
of “malicious prosecution,” “defamation,” “vilification,” and “denial of due
process” as advancing a single legal theory, she has still alleged no facts that—
if true—would prove this theory.
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22-10930 Opinion of the Court 5
City of St. Marys v. Brinko,
324 Ga. App. 417, 420 (Ga. Ct. App.
2013) (quotation omitted). If an employee may be fired at will,
then that employee has “no property interest protected by the due
process clause.”
Id. (quotation omitted).
Phillips herself states that “the state of Georgia is an At-Will
employer,” and she does not allege that she had any contractual
protections form being fired at will. Instead, she appears to argue
that she was entitled to due process because the county gave a
reason or “cause” for her termination. But “for cause” refers to a
legal protection, not to whether the employer explained a firing
decision. An employee does not suddenly acquire a property
interest in her employment just because her employer chooses to
explain its reasoning for firing her. Phillips has not alleged facts
suggesting that she had a property interest in her job, and she
therefore failed to state a claim that she was entitled to due process.
Finally, Phillips argues that the county violated her Due
Process rights because she was denied unemployment benefits.
But the county did not deny her unemployment benefits—the
Georgia Department of Labor did. The Georgia Department of
Labor’s absence from this case alone forecloses this claim.
* * *
A federal lawsuit cannot proceed unless the plaintiff alleges
specific facts that would demonstrate that the defendant violated
the law. Because Phillips failed to meet this standard, we AFFIRM
the district court’s dismissal of her complaint.
