Association of Cleveland Fire Fighters v. City of Cleveland
26 I.E.R. Cas. (BNA) 1105, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 22670, 502 F.3d 545 (2007)
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Rule of Law:
A municipal residency requirement for public employees does not violate the constitutional right to travel, the Equal Protection Clause, or the Due Process Clause's prohibition on vagueness, even when the ordinance grants the city council discretion to provide exemptions without explicit standards.
Facts:
- The City of Cleveland's Charter § 74(a) requires all city employees to become residents of the city within six months of appointment and remain residents while employed.
- The charter provision allows the City Council, by a majority vote, to grant exemptions from the residency requirement.
- The City Council has granted exemptions to numerous city employees but has denied them to firefighters.
- Firefighter Samuel DeVito informally sought an exemption due to family health problems but was told no exemptions were given or that he would need the City Administration's backing.
- Firefighter Don Posante informally sought an exemption to live with his ill mother-in-law but was told by his councilman that the waiver request would not be supported.
- Firefighter James Sliter, who had been shot by gang members, informally sought an exemption for his family's safety but was told by city officials that he could not be exempted.
Procedural Posture:
- The Association of Cleveland Fire Fighters and several individual firefighters filed a complaint against the City of Cleveland in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.
- The complaint alleged the City's employee residency requirement violated the Equal Protection Clause, the constitutional right to travel, and was void for vagueness.
- The City of Cleveland filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).
- The district court granted the City's motion, dismissing all claims.
- The Fire Fighters, as Appellants, appealed the district court's dismissal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, with the City as Appellee.
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Issue:
Does a municipal ordinance that requires city employees to reside within the city, but allows the city council to grant exemptions without providing explicit standards, violate the constitutional right to travel, the Equal Protection Clause, or the Due Process Clause's prohibition against vague laws?
Opinions:
Majority - McKeague, J.
No. A municipal residency requirement that grants the city council discretionary exemption authority does not violate the right to travel, the Equal Protection Clause, or the Due Process Clause. The Supreme Court has established that there is no constitutional right to be employed by a city while living elsewhere, and such residency requirements are not irrational. The firefighters' 'as-applied' equal protection claim fails because they pleaded as a class of 'fire fighters,' and it is rational for the city to treat firefighters differently than other employees. The ordinance is not unconstitutionally vague because a less stringent standard applies to civil enactments, the primary rule (live in the city) is clear, and granting discretion to a legislative body for exceptions is a practical and acceptable way to handle varied employee needs without risking the arbitrary enforcement the vagueness doctrine is meant to prevent.
Concurring in part and dissenting in part - Moore, J.
Partially Yes. While the facial challenges may fail, the 'as-applied' equal protection claims of the three individual firefighters and the void-for-vagueness challenge should have been allowed to proceed. The majority mischaracterizes the complaint by treating it solely as a class claim; under the 'class of one' doctrine from Olech, the individual firefighters sufficiently alleged they were intentionally and irrationally treated differently from other similarly situated employees. Furthermore, the exemption provision is unconstitutionally vague because it provides no standards whatsoever, which invites arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement by the City Council when it acts in a quasi-judicial capacity to decide individual requests. The city could have feasibly provided general standards to give notice and guide discretion, and its failure to do so violates due process.
Analysis:
This decision reinforces the broad authority of municipalities to impose residency requirements on their employees, following established Supreme Court precedent. The court sets a high pleading standard for 'as-applied' equal protection challenges, suggesting that plaintiffs must clearly frame their claims as individual 'class of one' actions to survive dismissal. The ruling also grants significant deference to legislative bodies in crafting discretionary exemption provisions, signaling that the absence of explicit standards in a civil ordinance is unlikely to render it unconstitutionally vague, especially when the discretion is vested in a policymaking body rather than law enforcement.
