Airday v. The City Of New York

Background

George Airday was a former City Marshal. After then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg did not renew his appointment, Airday sued the City of New York and Keith Schwam under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal civil-rights law that allows claims against people acting under state law.

Airday’s appointment had a stated expiration date of December 20, 2013. During his final term, he was arrested for assault based on a domestic-violence complaint. A protective order required him to surrender all guns in his possession. Police recovered five guns from his safe, but one was unregistered and undisclosed, and Airday in fact possessed a sixth gun that he had not surrendered. The failure to surrender all of the guns led to an additional charge of violating the protective order.

Schwam, then-director of the Marshals Bureau, asked Airday to resign and directed him to stop performing most City Marshal duties. Defendants also asked the New York State Appellate Division to suspend him. Airday later entered a stipulation admitting violations of rules in the City Marshals’ handbook, paid a $7,500 fine, and was allowed to resume working. His term ultimately expired without reappointment, and his badge was reassigned.

Earlier proceedings and motion

The case proceeded through two jury trials. In 2019, a jury found for Airday on his procedural due-process claim and awarded $1 in damages, but the Court granted defendants’ post-trial motion for judgment as a matter of law. In 2020, a second jury found that the defendants violated Airday’s equal-protection rights by suspending him and that Schwam violated those rights by terminating him as a City Marshal. That jury awarded $1,385,160.

The defendants then filed a renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(b). That rule permits a court to set aside a jury verdict when the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, allows only one reasonable conclusion.

Equal-protection claim

The estate defended the verdict primarily on a selective-enforcement theory. To prevail, it had to show that Airday was treated differently from similarly situated City Marshals and that the different treatment was motivated by an improper purpose, such as malice or bad faith.

The Court held that the estate failed to prove malice. The trial evidence showed that Schwam suspended Airday and recommended against reappointment because of Airday’s arrest, his failure to surrender all of his guns, his possession of an unregistered and undisclosed gun, and his failure to cooperate with the Department of Investigations. The Court concluded that Schwam’s stated motivation was compliance with agency objectives, not a malicious or bad-faith intent to injure Airday. The estate presented no evidence of preexisting bad blood or other facts that would support a finding of malice. The Court also found no evidence of then-Mayor Bloomberg’s malicious intent.

The Court separately held that the estate failed to prove the existence of an appropriate comparator. A comparator had to be subject to the same standards and have engaged in misconduct comparable in all material respects. The four City Marshals identified by the estate had engaged in different conduct: one involved improper towing by a subcontractor, another surrendered his gun and did not possess an undisclosed unlicensed gun or fail to cooperate with the investigation, another violated vehicle-seizure and record-keeping rules, and the fourth voluntarily resigned after allegedly using physical force during an eviction. The Court held that none was similarly situated to Airday.

Disposition

Because the estate failed to prove both the required improper motive and treatment different from that of a similarly situated person, the Court held that no reasonable jury could find an equal-protection violation on the evidence presented. The Court therefore granted defendants’ renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law and directed the Clerk of Court to close the motion and the case.

The Court did not need to decide the defendants’ remaining arguments about proximate cause, whether Schwam was a policymaker, qualified immunity, or the proposed form of judgment.