McCartney v. City of Welcome

Background

Victoria and Shane McCartney, along with Guerrilla Entertainment LLC doing business as Midwest Drone Racing, participated in or sought to participate in the “Going Hog Wild in Martin County” program. They offered the Welcome Historical Society (WHS), a charitable organization that operates a museum, a cement pig statue to be placed at the museum entrance. WHS’s board unanimously accepted the gift in March 2022, after which the plaintiffs spent approximately $2,400 on the statue and its custom artwork.

The plaintiffs later learned that the City of Welcome owned the building occupied by the WHS museum. The City Council decided that it did not want the pig placed there, and WHS told the plaintiffs that they would need to find another location. A letter from a law firm representing the City and WHS stated that the City’s decision was not negotiable and that WHS could not override it. The pig was displayed at the public unveiling and later elsewhere in Martin County, but it was not placed at the WHS museum as the plaintiffs had expected.

Claims and Motion

The plaintiffs asserted three claims against WHS in the amended complaint. Count VII alleged that WHS and the City violated procedural due process by refusing to accept or display the pig without giving the plaintiffs notice or a hearing. The plaintiffs claimed that WHS’s acceptance of the donation created a property interest in the statue’s display. Count VIII alleged breach of contract, and Count IX alleged promissory estoppel based on the plaintiffs’ claim that they spent $2,400 in reliance on WHS’s promise to accept the pig.

WHS moved to dismiss all three claims under Rule 12(b)(6), which allows dismissal when the complaint does not plead enough facts to support a legally valid claim. The court treated the factual allegations in the amended complaint as true but did not accept unsupported legal conclusions.

Procedural Due Process Claim

The court dismissed Count VII. The Fourteenth Amendment’s due-process protections apply to government conduct, not purely private conduct. The court therefore examined whether WHS’s conduct could fairly be treated as government conduct under the state-action doctrine, a legal rule that can make a private entity responsible for constitutional violations in limited circumstances.

The plaintiffs relied on three theories: government coercion, pervasive entwinement, and a symbiotic relationship. The court rejected each theory. It found no plausible allegation that the City threatened WHS with eviction, loss of utilities, termination of a lease, or another adverse consequence if WHS displayed the pig. The court also found no allegations that City officials served on WHS’s board, participated in its daily operations, or jointly planned or coordinated activities with WHS. Finally, the court concluded that the allegations of city ownership of the building and possible payment of utilities showed no sufficiently close or mutually beneficial relationship to treat WHS’s decision as government action.

The court acknowledged that state-action questions can sometimes be inappropriate to resolve at the motion-to-dismiss stage because they may depend on factual development. It nevertheless decided the issue here because the parties had fully briefed it and neither party argued that the court could not decide it at that stage. The court held that the plaintiffs had not plausibly alleged that WHS was a state actor, so the due-process claim had to be dismissed.

State-Law Claims

The court did not decide WHS’s separate arguments concerning the breach-of-contract and promissory-estoppel claims. After dismissing the federal claim, the court exercised its discretion not to decide the remaining state-law claims under the federal statute governing claims related to federal claims. The court stated that Minnesota state court should resolve these state-law claims involving Minnesota parties.

Disposition

Judge Michael J. Davis granted WHS’s Motion to Dismiss. The order dismissed Claims VII, VIII, and IX of the amended complaint with prejudice and directed that judgment be entered.