Ronnie Stilwell v. City of Williams

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

RONNIE D. STILWELL; No. 14-15540

COURTNEY STILWELL,

husband and wife, D.C. No. Plaintiffs-Appellants, 3:12-cv-08053-HRH

v.

OPINION

CITY OF WILLIAMS, an Arizona Municipal Corporation; JOSEPH DUFFY, Interim City Manager of the City of Williams; LYDA DUFFY, husband and wife;

RAYMOND GLENN

CORNWELL, former Public Works Director of the City of Williams; ELSIE CORNWELL, husband and wife; BILLY PRUITT; BESSIE PRUITT, husband and wife;

TRACY FULLER; KATHY

FULLER, husband and wife, Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona H. Russel Holland, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted March 14, 2016 San Francisco, California

Filed August 5, 2016

Before: Ferdinand F. Fernandez, Ronald M. Gould, and Michelle T. Friedland, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Friedland; Dissent by Judge Fernandez

SUMMARY *

Civil Rights/Age Discrimination in Employment Act

The panel reversed the district court’s summary judgment and remanded in an action brought by a City of Williams employee who alleged that he was…

dissenting:

I respectfully dissent.

Our quest here is not to search for or to explicate constitutional principles; it is to search for congressional intent. That is to say, Congress can set up a statutory scheme wherein it demonstrates its intent to have that scheme, not 42 U.S.C. § 1983 , apply to claims for enforcement of rights under the statute. See, e.g., Fitzgerald v. Barnstable Sch. Comm., 555 U.S. 246, 252-54 , 129 S.Ct. 788, 793-94 , 172 L.Ed.2d 582 (2009); Middlesex Cty. Sewerage Auth. v. Nat’l Sea Clammers Ass’n, 453 U.S. 1, 13, 20-21 , 101 S.Ct. 2615, 2622-23, 2626-27 , 69 L.Ed.2d 435 (1981). Here our task is to determine whether Congress intended to make the ADEA 1 exclusive in that sense.

We have already said that Congress did just that. Specifically, we have held that “the ADEA precludes the assertion of age discrimination in employment claims, even those seeking to vindicate constitutional rights, under § 1983.” Ahlmeyer v. Nev. Sys. of Higher Educ., 555 F.3d 1051, 1057 (9th Cir. 2009). In that case, lest there be any doubt, we went on to conclude that: “the ADEA is the exclusive remedy for claims of age discrimination in employment, even those claims with their…

Dissent by Judge FERNANDEZ

*1238 OPINION

Plaintiff-Appellant Ronnie Stilwell sued his city employer for retaliation, alleging that he was fired for planning to testify against the City in a lawsuit relating to age discrimination. Stilwell asserted that his termination violated both the First Amendment and the retaliation provision of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”), 29 U.S.C. § 623 (d). The question we must answer is whether the retaliation provision of the ADEA precludes a plaintiff such as Stilwell from bringing a First Amendment retaliation claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 . We hold that it does not.

I.

Stilwell became Superintendent of the Water Department of the City of Williams, Arizona (the “City”), in 1991, and he served in that position until his termination in January 2011. It is the events surrounding his termination that gave rise to the instant lawsuit. 1 Those events began when Stilwell became aware of a lawsuit against the City filed by Carolyn Smith, the City’s former Human Resources Director (the “Smith suit”). Smith alleged that the City retaliated against her in violation of the retaliation provision of the ADEA, after she complained about age…