Kelly v. The City of Mount Vernon

Background

Robert Kelly, proceeding without a lawyer, sued the City of Mount Vernon, the City of Mount Vernon Urban Renewal Agency, Richard Thomas, Lawrence Porcari, Frank Acocella, and the Acocella Law Group P.C. Kelly later voluntarily dismissed the claims against Porcari and the Acocella Defendants. He also voluntarily dismissed his equal-protection claim to the extent it relied on a “class-of-one” theory and his claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The claims remaining before the court were claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for due-process and equal-protection violations; a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) alleging a conspiracy to interfere with his civil rights; and state-law claims for defamation and negligence. Kelly based the claims mainly on defendants’ prosecution of an earlier civil action against him and their alleged failure to defend and indemnify him in that action.

The City Defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which allows dismissal for failure to state a claim. Thomas moved for judgment on the pleadings under Rule 12(c). The court applied the same basic pleading standard to both motions and interpreted Kelly’s filings liberally because he was representing himself.

Statute of limitations

The court held that Kelly’s claims under Sections 1983 and 1985 and his negligence claim were subject to a three-year limitations period. To the extent those claims were based on events occurring before December 12, 2016, the court held that they were time-barred, had been abandoned by Kelly, and were dismissed.

The court also held that Kelly’s defamation claim was subject to a one-year limitations period and was time-barred. Kelly alleged defamatory statements made around the time his employment ended in 2016, and he did not allege statements made after December 12, 2018. The court rejected his request for equitable tolling because he had not shown facts establishing that tolling was warranted. The defamation claim was dismissed.

Constitutional claims

The court interpreted Kelly’s due-process and equal-protection claims as based on defendants’ alleged failure to defend and indemnify him in the earlier action. The court examined Sections 50-44 and 50-45 of the Mount Vernon City Charter.

Section 50-44 states that the City must provide an employee’s defense in certain civil actions but expressly provides that the duty does not arise when the action is brought by or on behalf of the City against the employee. Because the earlier action was brought by the City against Kelly, the court held that the City Charter imposed no duty to defend him in that action.

Section 50-45 provides for indemnification or protection against the amount of a judgment or settlement, subject to the Charter’s conditions. Kelly conceded that no money judgment was entered against him in the earlier action, and he did not allege that he paid a settlement. The court therefore held that his right to indemnification never arose.

Because Kelly could not plead a constitutional due-process violation based on the failure to defend or indemnify him, the court dismissed his due-process claim. The court also dismissed his equal-protection claim. It assumed, without deciding, that Kelly may have adequately alleged different treatment from similarly situated people, but held that the City had a rational basis for withholding defense and indemnity because the Charter created no duty to defend in the City’s own action and no right to indemnification had arisen.

Conspiracy and negligence claims

The court dismissed Kelly’s Section 1985(3) conspiracy claim for two independent reasons. First, Kelly had not established an underlying civil-rights violation based on the failure to defend or indemnify him. Second, the intra-corporate conspiracy doctrine applied. That doctrine generally treats employees and agents of a single municipal entity, acting within the scope of their employment, as legally incapable of conspiring with one another in that capacity.

The court dismissed the negligence claim because Kelly identified no duty that defendants breached. The alleged duties to defend, indemnify, and hold him harmless did not exist under the City Charter on the facts alleged.

Disposition

The court granted the City Defendants’ motion to dismiss and granted Thomas’s motion for judgment on the pleadings. It dismissed the Amended Complaint with prejudice because the court concluded that amendment would be futile. It denied Kelly’s discovery request as moot and stated that it therefore did not need to consider Thomas’s confidential submission. The Clerk was directed to close the case. The court also stated that a June 7, 2021 hearing concerning outstanding legal fees would proceed as scheduled.

Judge Philip M. Halpern signed the memorandum opinion and order on May 14, 2021.