Frederickson v. Landeros

Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant-police detective’s motion for summary judgment asserting that defendant was entitled to qualified immunity in plaintiff’s section 1983 action alleging that defendant denied plaintiff his equal protection rights under class-of-one theory by singling him out for unfavorable treatment that essentially prevented him from registering as sexual offender in different city and otherwise used his official position to harass him out of personal dislike. Record showed that defendant threatened to arrest plaintiff if plaintiff relocated to different city, took steps to prevent defendant’s record from transferring to new city based on defendant’s untrue claim that plaintiff had not relocated to different city and intervened to prevent plaintiff from registering as sexual offender in new city. As such, Dist. Ct. could properly find that there was sufficient evidence to support plaintiff’s allegation that defendant, as state actor, intentionally discriminated against him without any rational basis for said differential treatment by erecting extra-legal barriers designed to prevent plaintiff from complying with sexual offender registration requirements. Moreover, plaintiff was not required to find existence of similarly-situated person, where defendant’s animosity toward plaintiff was readily obvious. (Dissent filed.)