Kelly Amber Blunt v. City of Roseville, Mich. ( 2024 )

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
File Name: 24a0414n.06
No. 24-1136
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
FILED
) Oct 22, 2024
KELLY AMBER BLUNT,
) KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk
Plaintiff-Appellant, )
)
v. ON APPEAL FROM THE
)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT
)
CITY OF ROSEVILLE, MICHIGAN, et al., COURT FOR THE EASTERN
)
DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
Defendants, )
)
OPINION
MACOMB COUNTY, MICHIGAN, )
)
Defendant-Appellee. )
Before: GRIFFIN, KETHLEDGE, and BUSH, Circuit Judges.
KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judge. Kelly Blunt alleged that two Roseville police officers
falsely identified her as someone involved in their undercover purchase of heroin at the Victory
Inn Motel in Roseville, Michigan. Based on that misidentification, an assistant county prosecutor
charged Blunt with several drug-related offenses—all of which were dismissed at her preliminary
examination. Blunt later filed this action and, as relevant here, the district court dismissed her suit
against Macomb County for failure to state a claim. We affirm.
We accept as true all factual allegations in Blunt’s complaint. See DiGeronimo Aggregates,
LLC v. Zemla, 763 F.3d 506, 509 (6th Cir. 2014). In June 2020, two Roseville police officers—
Jason Otto and Bridget Lines—arranged to purchase narcotics at the Victory Inn Motel. Working
undercover, Otto followed someone named Dot into Room 430, where Otto asked for “Girl,”
meaning crack cocaine. Dot said they were “out of Girl,” but offered Otto either “Boy,” meaning
heroin, or “Ice,” meaning methamphetamine. Then a white female with tattoos on her arms came
No. 24-1136, Blunt v. City of Roseville, et al.
into the room and said “they were out of Girl but the guys were currently cutting up Boy” in Room
428. Otto agreed to purchase $20 worth of heroin, which someone named Pete brought to him.
Otto and Dot then walked to Room 428, where Otto saw the same woman with tattoos on her arms
packaging heroin and running packages between the two rooms. Otto left the motel with three
grams of heroin. Two days later, officers returned to the motel and arrested Dot and Pete—but the
tattooed woman was not there.
Kelly Blunt—who says she has no tattoos—says that Officers Otto and Lines wrongly
identified her as the tattooed woman involved in the undercover buy at the motel. Based on that
identification, a Macomb County assistant prosecutor charged Blunt with multiple drug-related
offenses. Those charges led to Blunt’s arrest and required her to post bond, but the prosecutor
agreed to dismiss all of those charges at her preliminary hearing.
Blunt alleges that prosecutors knew the officers’ identification of her “was false and
unreliable.” She sued the City of Roseville, its officers Otto and Lines, and Macomb County for
malicious prosecution under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Blunt voluntarily dismissed her claims against the
City defendants, and the district court granted Macomb County’s motion to dismiss for failure to
state a claim.
We review that decision de novo. See Lambert v. Hartman, 517 F.3d 433, 438-39 (6th Cir.
2008). “To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter,
accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S.
662, 678 (2009) (citation omitted). A plaintiff does so when the factual allegations contain “either
direct or inferential allegations respecting all material elements necessary for recovery under a
viable legal theory.” D’Ambrosio v. Marino, 747 F.3d 378, 383 (6th Cir. 2014) (citation omitted).
2
No. 24-1136, Blunt v. City of Roseville, et al.
Here, Blunt seeks to hold the County liable for malicious prosecution based on Assistant
Prosecuting Attorney Todd Schmitz’s decision to authorize a felony complaint charging her based
on false information and without probable cause. Municipal liability arises only for the
government’s own acts—so a plaintiff must allege an official policy or custom that was “the
moving force of the constitutional violation.” Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 694
(1978). And “liability attaches only where the decisionmaker possesses final authority to establish
municipal policy with respect to the action ordered.” Pembaur v. City of Cincinnati, 475 U.S. 469,
481 (1986) (plurality).
Whether an official has final policymaking authority depends on state law. Id. at 483; see
Feliciano v. City of Cleveland, 988 F.2d 649, 655 (6th Cir. 1993). Macomb County is a charter
county in which the elected Prosecuting Attorney appoints subordinate assistant prosecuting
attorneys. See Macomb County Charter, art. VI, § 6.2 (“The head of the department is the elected
prosecuting attorney.”); Mich. Comp. Laws § 49.41 (appointment of assistant prosecuting
attorneys); id. at § 49.42 (duties of assistant prosecuting attorneys).
Blunt makes no attempt to demonstrate that Michigan law vests the County’s assistant
prosecuting attorneys with authority to make final policy for the County. But Blunt does argue
that final policymaking authority can be “delegated by an official who possesses such authority.”
Pembaur, 475 U.S. at 483. And, Blunt contends, “assistant prosecutors were delegated the
authority to make prosecutorial decisions.” Pl’s Br., p. 9. But Blunt conflates the exercise of
prosecutorial discretion in making the charging decision with a delegation of authority to make
final policy for the County. “The fact that a particular official—even a policymaking official—
has discretion in the exercise of particular functions does not, without more, give rise to municipal
liability based on an exercise of that discretion.” Pembaur, 475 U.S. at 481-82. And here Blunt
3
No. 24-1136, Blunt v. City of Roseville, et al.
has not alleged anything “more.” Instead, the complaint is conclusory throughout and lacks any
particular allegations as to why the assistant prosecutor’s decision to charge her was based on
policy—rather than (as in the usual case) the prosecutor’s understanding of the relevant
circumstances and law. The district court was right to dismiss her claim.
Nor do Blunt’s other theories of municipal liability find support in the facts alleged in the
complaint. See Dibrell v. City of Knoxville, 984 F.3d 1156, 1160-61 (6th Cir. 2021). Nowhere in
the complaint do the factual allegations imply that a final policymaker approved or ratified the
assistant prosecutor’s charging decision. See City of St. Louis v. Praprotnik, 485 U.S. 112, 127
(1988) (plurality); see also Feliciano, 988 F.2d at 656. Instead, Blunt herself alleged that the
prosecution agreed to dismiss all the charges at her preliminary examination. And Blunt’s passing
reference to a failure-to-train theory has no application to the County, because the complaint
alleged only that the City of Roseville failed to train its officers.
The district court’s judgment is affirmed.
4