Michael Anderson v. City of Lavergne

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RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
Pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206
ELECTRONIC CITATION: 2004 FED App. 0180P (6th Cir.)
File Name: 04a0180p.06
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
_________________
MICHAEL ANDERSON,
Plaintiff-Appellant/
Cross-Appellee,
v.
CITY OF LAVERGNE,
Defendant-Appellee/
Cross-Appellant,
HOWARD MORRIS,
Individually and in his official
capacity as Chief of Police of
the City of LaVergne,
Defendant.
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Nos. 02-6094/6248
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Tennessee at Nashville.
No. 00-00313—Aleta A. Trauger, District Judge.
Argued: April 28, 2004
Decided and Filed: June 16, 2004
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*The Honorab le S. Arthur Spiegel, Senior United States District
Judge for the Southern District of Ohio, sitting by designation.
Before: COLE and COOK, Circuit Judges; SPIEGEL,
Senior District Judge.*
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COUNSEL
ARGUED: James L. Harris, Nashville, Tennessee, for
Appellant. David Randall Mantooth, LEITNER,
WILLIAMS, DOOLEY & NAPOLITAN, Nashville,
Tennessee, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: James L. Harris,
Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellant. David Randall
Mantooth, LEITNER, WILLIAMS, DOOLEY &
NAPOLITAN, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellee.
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OPINION
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COOK, Circuit Judge. Michael Anderson and the City of
LaVergne cross-appeal from the district court’s grant of
summary judgment in favor of Anderson, and a jury’s award
of damages, on Anderson’s claims brought under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983 alleging the deprivation of his constitutionally
protected right of intimate association. Because reasonable
jurors could conclude only that the City’s policy forbidding
Anderson from dating a higher-ranking colleague rationally
furthered a legitimate governmental interest, we conclude that
the district court should have granted summary judgment for
the City rather than Anderson.
I
In 1999, Anderson, a police officer for the City of
LaVergne, began a romantic relationship with Lisa Lewis, an

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administrative assistant for the police department. Three
months later, Chief of Police Howard Morris ordered
Anderson and Lewis to “cease all contact with each other”
outside of the workplace. Morris issued this order because he
believed that intra-office dating between employees of
different ranks (Lewis outranked Anderson) might lead to
sexual harassment claims against the department.
Despite Morris’s order, Anderson and Lewis continued
their relationship. When Lewis eventually told Anderson she
wanted to end the relationship, a disturbance of some sort
involving Anderson occurred at Lewis’s apartment. The
Davidson County police investigated but did not file any
charges. After the LaVergne Police Department’s Internal
Affairs Division completed its own investigation, Morris
terminated Anderson for failing to follow Morris’s order to
stop seeing Lewis outside of the office. Morris immediately
reconsidered, however, and offered Anderson the option of
resigning without the department placing any negative
information about the incident at Lewis’s apartment in his
employment record. Anderson accepted this offer, resigning
on July 29, 1999.
In April 2000, Anderson filed this suit against the City of
LaVergne and Morris (individually and in his official
capacity), alleging that Morris’s order violated Anderson’s
First and Fourteenth Amendment right of intimate
association, and seeking damages under § 1983. Defendants
moved for summary judgment. The district court granted the
motion with respect to the claims against Morris in his
individual capacity but sua sponte granted summary judgment
in favor of Anderson on his claims against the City and
Morris in his official capacity (the court later dismissed this
claim against Morris as redundant with the claim against the
City). The district court ruled that the policy prohibiting
intra-office dating was not rationally related to a legitimate
government interest because the interest the policy
advanced—avoiding sexual harassment claims—was not a
“police interest.” A jury awarded Anderson $10,283.86 in
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back pay and $5,500 in intangible damages. Both parties
appeal—the City seeking a reversal of the district court’s
denial of its motion for summary judgment, and Anderson
seeking a new trial on the amount of damages.
II
In granting summary judgment for Anderson, the district
court misapplied cases involving expressive speech claims to
Anderson’s intimate association claim. Moreover, the district
court erroneously concluded that the police department’s
policy lacked a rational relationship to a legitimate
government interest. Thus, even though the district court
articulated the correct standard—rational basis—for
reviewing the police department’s policy, it erred in its
application of that standard. We first explain why rational
basis review applies to Anderson’s intimate association claim,
and then discuss why the police department’s prohibition
against intra-office dating satisfies the rational basis test.
A. Intimate Association
The Constitution protects two distinct types of association:
(1) freedom of expressive association, protected by the First
Amendment, and (2) freedom of intimate association, a
privacy interest derived from the Due Process Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment but also related to the First
Amendment. See Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S.
609, 617-18 (1984); Akers v. McGinnis, 352 F.3d 1030, 1035
(6th Cir. 2003); Corrigan v. City of Newaygo, 55 F.3d 1211,
1214–15 (6th Cir. 1995). With respect to expressive
association, the Supreme Court “has recognized a right to
associate for the purpose of engaging in those activities
protected by the First Amendment—speech, assembly,
petition for the redress of grievances, and the exercise of
religion.” Roberts, 468 U.S. at 618. Concerning intimate
association, the Supreme Court “has concluded that choices
to enter into and maintain certain intimate human
relationships must be secured against undue intrusion by the

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State because of the role of such relationships in safeguarding
the individual freedom that is central to our constitutional
scheme.” Id. at 617–18.
The personal relationship at issue in this case does not
involve constitutionally protected expressive activity, and
Anderson does not assert that the City denied his right to
expressive association. Instead, this case involves the City’s
alleged intrusion into Anderson’s personal relationship with
Lewis in violation of his right of intimate association.
The Supreme Court has explained that the right to intimate
association “receives protection as a fundamental element of
personal liberty.” Id. at 618. The kinds of personal
associations entitled to constitutional protection are
characterized by “relative smallness, a high degree of
selectivity in decisions to begin and maintain the affiliation,
and seclusion from others in critical aspects of the
relationship.” Id. at 620. In Board of Directors of Rotary
International v. Rotary Club of Duarte, the Court emphasized
that although the “precise boundaries” of the intimate
association right were unclear, constitutional protection was
not restricted to relationships among family members. 481
U.S. 537, 545 (1987). Instead, the Constitution “protects
those relationships . . . that presuppose ‘deep attachments and
commitments to the necessarily few other individuals with
whom one shares not only a special community of thoughts,
experiences, and beliefs but also distinctly personal aspects of
one’s life.’” Id. (quoting Roberts, 468 U.S. at 619–20).
Therefore, in addition to marriage, courts have recognized
both personal friendships and non-marital romantic
relationships as the types of “highly personal relationships”
within the ambit of intimate associations contemplated by
Roberts. See, e.g., Akers, 352 F.3d 1039–40 (“Personal
friendship is protected as an intimate association.”).
Given these precedents, we find, at least for summary
judgment purposes, that Anderson’s relationship with Lewis
was an “intimate association.” Construing the facts in a light
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most favorable to Anderson, he and Lewis lived together at
some point, were romantically and sexually involved, and
Anderson was monogamous in the relationship. The
relationship therefore involved an attachment to an individual
with whom Anderson shared the “distinctly personal aspects
of [his] life.” Roberts, 468 U.S. at 620.
But the relationship’s status as an “intimate association”
does not end our inquiry. We must next consider whether the
City’s policy prohibiting intra-office dating constituted a
“direct and substantial interference” with Anderson’s intimate
associations. Akers, 352 F.3d at 1040. A “direct and
substantial interference” with intimate associations is subject
to strict scrutiny, while lesser interferences are subject to
rational basis review. Id. As explained in Akers, this court
has developed a general rule that we will find “direct and
substantial” burdens on intimate associations “only where a
large portion of those affected by the rule are absolutely or
largely prevented from [forming intimate associations], or
where those affected by the rule are absolutely or largely
prevented from [forming intimate associations] with a large
portion of the otherwise eligible population of [people with
whom they could form intimate associations].” Id. Because
Anderson continued to enjoy the ability to form intimate
associations with anyone other than fellow police department
employees of differing rank, the department’s policy is
subject to rational basis review.
B. Rational Basis Review
Contrary to the district court’s conclusion, the City’s policy
is rationally related to a legitimate government interest. The
City barred dating relationships between police department
employees of different ranks to promote its interest in
avoiding sexual harassment suits. Such preventive policies
are common among government employers. For example,
this court has upheld policies prohibiting marriage among
municipal employees, Vaughn v. Lawrenceburg Power Sys.,
269 F.3d 703, 712 (6th Cir. 2001), and requiring the transfer

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of one spouse if two employees of the same school marry,
Montgomery v. Carr, 101 F.3d 1117, 1130–31 (6th Cir.
1996).
Moreover, the district court’s proposition that the City’s
rational interest could only be one relating to the substance of
police work (such as security or investigation) lacks legal
support. The case law clearly recognizes that to be rational,
the basis for an employment policy need not relate to the
specific, substantive purpose of the organization but may
concern general employment practices, because such practices
are critical to the organization’s overall functioning. See, e.g.,
Wright v. MetroHealth Med. Ctr., 58 F.3d 1130, 1137–38 (6th
Cir. 1995) (upholding policy requiring transfer of one spouse
as rationally related to legitimate government interests of
avoiding potential conflicts in the workplace and preventing
deterioration of workplace morale); Parks v. City of Warner
Robins, Georgia, 43 F.3d 609, 615 (11th Cir. 1995)
(upholding policy requiring resignation of one spouse as
means of “avoiding conflicts of interests between work-
related and family-related obligations; reducing favoritism or
even the appearance of favoritism; preventing family conflicts
from affecting the workplace; and, by limiting inter-office
dating, decreasing the likelihood of sexual harassment in the
workplace”). Thus, the district court erred in concluding that
the police department’s policy was not reasonably related to
a legitimate government interest. Because its policy satisfies
the rational basis standard, the City did not violate
Anderson’s constitutional rights. The City therefore was
entitled to summary judgment on Anderson’s claims under
§ 1983.
III
For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the district court’s
grant of summary judgment in favor of Anderson, vacate the
damages and attorney’s fee awards, and remand with
instructions to enter judgment for the City on all claims.

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