Desjardins v. Willard

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 14-1786
DANA DESJARDINS,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
DONALD WILLARD; MICHAEL REYNOLDS,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE
[Hon. Nancy Torresen, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Lynch, Chief Judge,
Souter, Associate Justice,* and
Selya, Circuit Judge.
John S. Campbell, with whom Campbell & Associates, P.A. was on
brief, for appellant.
Daniel J. Murphy, with whom Bernstein Shur was on brief, for
appellees.
January 23, 2015
*
Hon. David H. Souter, Associate Justice (Ret.) of the
Supreme Court of the United States, sitting by designation.
LYNCH, Chief Judge. What is left of this case after
dismissal of the federal claims involves state law defamation and
false light claims by one town official for the town of Raymond,
Maine, against another town official.1 This case started in state
superior court, and was removed based on federal claims under the
Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. The federal claims were, as we
discuss below, correctly dismissed. The remaining state law claims
under supplemental jurisdiction involve resolution of a potential
conflict between Maine's Anti-SLAPP statute, Me. Rev. Stat.
tit. 14, § 556, and Maine's state constitution, a conflict that is
best resolved by the Maine courts. The foundational federal claims
having been dismissed, we vacate and direct that the remaining
state law claims be remanded to state court. See Camelio v. Am.
Fed'n, 137 F.3d 666, 672 (1st Cir. 1998).
I.
Dana Desjardins alleges that, beginning in late 2012,
defendant Michael Reynolds, a fellow town official, told the
Cumberland County Sheriff's Department that Desjardins had attended
public meetings drunk and driven while intoxicated. Reynolds
allegedly knew, or should have known, that these reports were false
because he also attends these meetings and knows that Desjardins
rarely drinks. Desjardins alleges that these false statements
1
At oral argument, Desjardins voluntarily withdrew his
appeal of the dismissals of similar claims against the Town
Manager, Donald Willard.
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damaged his reputation and caused the Sheriff's Department to red-
flag Desjardins and pull his car over without cause.
In August 2013, Desjardins brought suit in Cumberland
County Superior Court. The heart of this case is Desjardins' state
law claims for defamation and false light invasion of privacy.2 He
also alleged federal claims under § 1983 for violations of the
Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable seizures and a
Fourteenth Amendment Due Process protection of a liberty interest
in avoiding reputational harm. The removal to federal court in
September 2013 was on the basis of these federal claims.
We affirm the dismissal of the federal claims.
Desjardins' Fourth Amendment claim fails because there is no
proximate causation between Reynolds' actions and the allegedly
unconstitutional traffic stop: the most that the complaint
plausibly alleges is that Reynolds requested that the Sheriff's
Department send a deputy to the January 8, 2013 selectboard
meeting, but instead accepted the sheriff's proposed plan to
monitor for erratic driving. See Ocasio-Hernández v. Fortuño-
Burset, 640 F.3d 1, 16 (1st Cir. 2011). Desjardins fails to state
a Fourteenth Amendment Due Process claim because the alleged stigma
from defamatory statements and the resulting harm to tangible
2
Desjardins conceded in the district court that his state
law claims for negligent infliction of emotional distress and
intentional infliction of emotional distress should be dismissed
under Rule 12(b)(6).
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interests, being red-flagged and having his car pulled over,
"'derive from distinct sources.'" Mead v. Independence Ass'n, 684
F.3d 226, 233-34 (1st Cir. 2012) (quoting URI Student Senate v.
Town of Narragansett, 631 F.3d 1, 10 (1st Cir. 2011)) (holding that
to state a Due Process claim based on stigmatization, a party must
allege "stigma-plus" -- "'an adverse effect on some interest more
tangible than reputational harm'" that is "'directly attributable'"
to, and derives from the same source as, the challenged action
(quoting URI, 631 F.3d at 9-10)).
II.
This leaves only the state law claims. Where a federal
court has dismissed the anchoring federal claims over which it has
original jurisdiction, the court "may decline to exercise
supplemental jurisdiction" over the remaining state law claims.
28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3); see also Camelio, 137 F.3d at 672 ("If
. . . the court dismisses the foundational federal claims, it must
reassess its jurisdiction . . . ."). Whether a court should
decline supplemental jurisdiction depends on a "pragmatic and case-
specific evaluation of a variety of considerations," including "the
interests of fairness, judicial economy, convenience, and comity."
Camelio, 137 F.3d at 672.
The district court faced competing considerations as to
retention of jurisdiction that differ somewhat from those now
before us. At the time of its decision, the case still included
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defendant Donald Willard, the state claims against whom the court
found were readily dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6). The district
court implicitly concluded that the interests of fairness, judicial
economy, and convenience at that time weighed in favor of resolving
these state claims. Cf. Camelio, 137 F.3d at 672 (finding relevant
whether "the district court's disposition of some but not all of
the state law claims will materially shorten the time it will take
to resolve the parties' dispute"). On the other hand, the claims
against Reynolds were less readily resolved: The Supreme Judicial
Court of Maine has held that Desjardins' alleged injury, the
"'damages per se' traditionally associated with libel or slander
. . . do not satisfy the actual injury requirement of [Maine's
Anti-SLAPP law]." Schelling v. Lindell, 942 A.2d 1226, 1232 & n.4
(Me. 2008).3 But, as the district court acknowledged, Schelling
may be in tension with Maine's constitutional protections for the
right to judicial remedies and the new approach to Maine's Anti-
SLAPP law announced in Nader v. Maine Democratic Party (Nader I),
41 A.3d 551, 559-63 (Me. 2012).4 The district court acknowledged
3
The district court also found that that Desjardins had
failed to meet his burden of production that he suffered actual
injury in addition to damages per se. For the reasons that follow,
we need not reach Desjardins' arguments on these findings.
4
Nader I overturned prior precedent to avoid an
unconstitutional application of the Anti-SLAPP law in light of the
constitutional guarantee to "a speedy remedy for every wrong
recognized by law as remediable." Nader I, 41 A.3d at 559-63; cf.
id. at 565-66 (Silver, J., concurring) (explaining Anti-SLAPP may
problematically deprive some defamation plaintiffs of their right
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these tensions, but felt it was "constrained" to follow Schelling
and so, in the perceived interests of judicial economy and fairness
to both Willard and Reynolds, the district court exercised its
discretion to resolve the case. Desjardins v. Willard, No. 2:13-
cv-00338-NT, 2014 WL 2815698, at *12-13, 19 (D. Me. June 20, 2014)
(dismissing state law claims against Willard under Rule 12(b)(6)
and state law claims against Reynolds under Maine's Anti-SLAPP
law).
Defendant Willard is no longer part of this case, and so
concerns about fairness to him are no longer implicated. As a
result, the balancing of factors now more closely resembles those
in Camelio, where the court held that the surviving state law
claims should be remanded to state court, from whence they came.
137 F.3d at 672. As in Camelio, the federal claims that formed the
basis for removal here have been dismissed "well before trial," and
the remaining state law claims against Reynolds "raise substantial
questions of state law that are best resolved in state court." Id.
In light of these factors, we hold now -- as we did then -- that
the surviving state law claims should be remanded to state court
where they began. See id. at 672-73; see also Rivera-Díaz v.
Humana Ins. of P.R., Inc., 748 F.3d 387, 392 (1st Cir. 2014) ("The
Supreme Court has made pellucid 'that in the usual case in which
all federal-law claims are eliminated before trial, the balance of
to petition the court for per se damages).
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factors . . . will point toward declining to exercise jurisdiction
over the remaining state-law claims.'" (alteration in original)
(quoting Carnegie-Mellon Univ. v. Cohill, 484 U.S. 343, 350 n.7
(1988))).
We do not reach, and so do not decide, whether the
district court abused its discretion in resolving the state claims
when it did. We find only that, from our vantage point now, the
issues are better resolved by the state courts, where this case
began. In the words of the Supreme Court, "'[n]eedless decisions
of state law should be avoided both as a matter of comity and to
promote justice between the parties, by procuring for them a surer-
footed reading of applicable law.'" Camelio, 137 F.3d at 672
(quoting United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 726
(1966)). This is particularly true of interpretations of state
constitutions.
We affirm the dismissal of the federal claims and all
claims as to Willard, with prejudice. We vacate the dismissal of
Desjardins' state law defamation and false light claims against
Reynolds, and remand with instructions to remand those claims to
state court.
So ordered. No costs are awarded.
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