Victoria Perkins is a deputy sheriff in Panola County, Mississippi. In 2021 or 2022, Perkins was dispatched to a distress call from a citizen of the County who stated that her minor child was with an adult male and that he refused to return the child to her. Perkins arrived on the scene and instructed the male to return the child to the child’s mother. County Supervisor Earl Burdette arrived with the child. As it turned out, Burdette was the child’s grandfather, and his son was the one withholding the child from the child’s mother, who was the legal guardian. Burdette verbally assaulted Perkins in front of her colleague and the child’s mother and said that he would “make her pay.” Perkins’ body-worn camera captured the entire interaction. After this incident, Burdette approached Sheriff Shane Phelps and told him that Perkins had acted inappropriately and should be disciplined. Phelps reviewed Perkins’ body-worn camera footage and concluded that she did nothing warranting punishment.
Prior to this incident, Perkins took leave for a personal health issue. Several of her coworkers voluntarily donated their accrued leave to Perkins so she would receive her regular wages while convalescing. After the incident, the County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to rescind Perkins’ leave, and to garnish her wages to recoup what she was paid. The vote was initiated by Burdette, and all three voting in favor expressed an interest in seeking repayment.
Perkins sued Burdette and other County supervisors in their individual and official capacities for garnishing her wages in violation of her rights under the 14th Amendment. Specifically, she argued that the procedure by which her wages were garnished was insufficient because (1) the Board requested guidance from the Attorney General’s Office about whether to pursue repayment, but voted prior to receiving that guidance; (2) neither Perkins nor her attorneys were notified that the Board would be voting on garnishing her wages; and (3) the Board failed to serve Perkins with a court order entitling it to garnish her wages prior to the garnishment. The County moved to dismiss Perkins’ claims under the doctrine of qualified immunity, which insulates government officials from liability for acts taken in the course of their official duties.
The Court granted the County’s motion immunizing them under the doctrine of qualified immunity, noting that the doctrine can impose unfair burdens on plaintiffs. The reason for this is that under Supreme Court jurisprudence, a plaintiff seeking to overcome a qualified immunity defense must establish that the government official violated his or her constitutional rights in contravention of “clearly established” federal law. Furthermore, “to establish that any supportive precedent was ‘clearly established,’ the plaintiff must be able to cite either a decision from the Supreme Court or a ‘robust consensus of cases of persuasive authority in the courts of appeals.’” This presents a Catch-22 where a plaintiff cannot prevail against government officials unless there is caselaw establishing that their conduct was unlawful, but such caselaw cannot come into being if government officials can successfully get cases dismissed based on a lack of precedent.
The Court declined to dismiss Perkins’ procedural due process claim under the 14th Amendment, because such a claim does not require proof of “clearly established” federal law when government officials are sued in their official capacity. Since Perkins sued the Board and its members in their official capacities, her complaint sufficiently alleged a potential procedural due process violation: “This Court concludes that Perkins’ allegations of procedural irregularities work in tandem with her proof of bias to form a quite viable procedural due process claim against the County. That being the case, this Court is rather strongly inclined, barring unexpected revelations in discovery, to conclude that jurors should determine whether Perkins’ procedural due process rights were violated by Panola County in this case. In arguing otherwise, the County insists that Perkins is unable to establish a loss of ‘property’ in this case, but this Court concludes that her allegations that she lost leave benefits which she had previously been awarded and that she had her wages garnished without due process provide Perkins with a very reasonable argument that she did, in fact, suffer a loss of property in this case. Perkins alleges that the salary which she had worked for was garnished without due process, and, if that salary was not her property, then what exactly was it?” Accordingly, Perkins’ procedural due process claim was permitted to proceed to trial.
Perkins v. Panola County Board of Supervisors, CIVIL ACTION NO. 3:23-CV-00091-MPM-RP, 2024 WL 19952 (N.D. Miss.).