govinfo:USCOURTS-ncwd-1_23-cv-00270-5

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA
ASHEVILLE DIVISION
CIVIL CASE NO. 1:23-cv-00270-MR-WCM

MACKENZIE ELAINE BROWN, )
)
Plaintiff, )
)
vs. ) MEMORANDUM OF
) DECISION AND ORDER
ROBERT JORDAN WARREN, )
et al., )
)
Defendants. )

THIS MATTER is before the Court on the Defendants’ Motion for
Partial Summary Judgment [Doc. 94].
I. PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
This action arises from civil rights violations allegedly suffered by the
Plaintiff after she engaged in speech critical of law enforcement. On
September 14, 2023, the Plaintiff Mackenzie Elaine Brown , proceeding pro
se, filed a Complaint against the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office, Robert
Jordan Warren, Michael Scott Lindsay, Crystal D. Landers, Johnny E.
Duncan, Jr., Bradley R. Reece, Brittany Nicole Maybin, Susan N. Oates, and
Emily Greene Cowan. [Doc. 1]. The Plaintiff filed an Amended Complaint
on May 13, 2024, and the Defendants timely moved to dismiss . [Docs. 37-
_______________________________ )

39]. On Mar ch 31, 2025, the Court accepted the Magistrate Judge’s
Memorandum and Recommendation and dismissed all but three of the
Plaintiff’s claims: (1) a First Amendment retaliation claim against Defendants
Warren, Lindsay, Landers, Reece, and Maybin; (2) a Fourteenth Amendment
equal protection claim against Defendants Warren, Lindsay, Landers,
Reece, Maybin, and Duncan; and (3) a civil conspiracy claim against
Defendants Warren, Lindsay, Landers, Reece, Maybin, and Duncan. [Doc.
58]. On April 1, 2025, the Defendants filed an Answer to the Amended
Complaint. [Doc. 59]. On April 15, 2025, the Plaintiff filed a Motion for
Certification of Interlocutory Appeal of the Court’s March 31, 2025 Order ,
[Doc. 62], and the Court denied that motion on May 14, 2025, [Doc. 70].
On April 2, 2026, the Defendants filed the instant Motion for Partial
Summary Judgment. [Doc. 94]. The Defendants’ Motion requests summary
judgment on all remaining claims except for the First Amendment retaliation
claims against Defendants Warren, Lindsay, and Landers. [Id. at 1]. The
Plaintiff filed a Response on May 8, 2026, [Doc. 102], and the Defendants
filed a Reply on May 15, 2026, [Doc. 103]. On May 29, 2026, the Plaintiff
moved to file a surreply, [Doc. 106], and the Defendants filed a Response in
opposition to the Plaintiff’s motion on June 1, 2026, [Doc. 107]. Having been
fully briefed, this matter is now ripe for disposition.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
Summary judgment shall be granted “if the movant shows that there is
no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to
judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). A factual dispute is
genuine “if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict
for the nonmoving party.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248
(1986). A fact is material only if it might affect the outcome of the suit under
governing law. Id. When ruling on a summary judgment motion, a court
must view the evidence and any inferences from the evidence in the light
most favorable to the nonmoving party. Id. at 255. However, courts “need
not accept as true unwarranted inferences, unreasonable conclusions, or
arguments.” Eastern Shore Mkt. Inc. v. J.D. Assoc s., LLP, 213 F.3d 175,
180 (4th Cir. 2000).
III. FACTUAL BACKGROUND
Viewing the forecast of evidence in the light most favorable to the
Plaintiff, the following is a recitation of the relevant facts.
On October 1, 2021, the Plaintiff , accompanied by her friends Dan
Pearson and Jennifer Seidman, parked in the Henderson County Sheriff’s
Office parking lot with the intention of filing assault charges against the father
of her child in the Magistrate’s Office next door. [Doc. 102-2 at 7; Doc. 95-3

at 2-3]. In the parking lot, there was a Sheriff’s Office patrol car that had
been covered with removable pink film as part of a Sheriff’s Office event .
[Doc. 95-3 at 7]. The Sheriff’s Office had invited the public to write on the
pink patrol car with markers , and there were no visibly posted rules or
restrictions regarding what could be written. [Doc. 102-2 at 8-9].
After the Plaintiff finished filing charges in the Magistrate’s Office, she
returned to the parking lot. [Doc. 95-3 at 4]. The Plaintiff joined Ms. Seidman
in front of the pink patrol car to wait while Mr. Pearson finished a conversation
with a police officer. [Id. at 4-5]. Ms. Seidman was drawing on the pink film
on the patrol car while they waited, and she handed the Plaintiff a Sharpie .
[Id. at 5]. The Plaintiff then used the Sharpie to write “12 SUX”1 on the pink
film. [Id. at 6]. When Mr. Pearson finished his conversation, the Plaintiff, Mr.
Pearson, and Ms. Seidman drove away from the parking lot in the Plaintiff’s
vehicle. [Id. at 9].
Later that afternoon, Defendants Warren and Landers arrived at the
Plaintiff’s house to arrest her for damage to personal property. [Id. at 10-12].
Defendants Warren and Landers pulled the Plaintiff to the roadside , and

1 The Plaintiff previously explained in a pleading in this matter that “‘12’ is slang
terminology for law enforcement and ‘SUX’ is an abbreviation for the word SUCKS.” [Doc.
1 at 10].

Defendant Warren took pictures of the Plaintiff standing handcuffed in front
of the pink patrol car, which had been brought to the Plaintiff’s residence.
[Doc. 102-2 at 34-36; Doc. 102-3 at 2, 4]. Defendant Landers then drove the
Plaintiff in the pink patrol car to the Henderson County Detention Center.
[Doc. 102-3 at 2 , 4]. The Plaintiff perceived the Defendants as physically
aggressive and verbally abusive throughout this encounter. [ Doc. 102-2 at
34-36; Doc. 95-3 at 14].
Once the Plaintiff arrived at the detention facility, the Plaintiff was taken
to the booking area and served with a warrant for her arrest for injury to
personal property amounting to a loss of $500, and her bond was set at
$2000. [Doc. 95-3 at 15-18; Doc. 102 -4 at 21, 28]. After her booking, the
Plaintiff was moved to a cell, and she called Mr. Pearson and asked him to
find a bail bond agent for her. [Doc. 95-3 at 19-20]. Soon after, Defendant
Maybin told the Plaintiff that a bond company was on the way to assist the
Plaintiff. [Doc. 102-2 at 39].
Approximately thirty minutes later , however, Defendant Maybin
informed the Plaintiff that the bond company was “not going to come get [her]
anymore because we told them what you wrote, and they respect us, so they
don’t want to come get you now.” [Id.]. Mr. Pearson found three separate
bond agents who were initially willing to assist the Plaintiff but withdrew that

assistance after calling the detention center and speaking to an officer. [Id.
at 11-12]. Mr. Pearson “personally heard the officer from the jail tell the bail
bond agent not to come get [the Plaintiff] because she had vandalized their
car and did not deserve to get out of jail.” [ Id. at 12]. It was not until after
8:00 p.m., several hours after the Plaintiff arrived at the detention center, that
the Plaintiff was released from custody with the assistance of a fourth bail
bond agent. [ Id.; Doc. 95-3 at 18 ]. While the Plaintiff had been detained,
Defendant Duncan posted the pictures of the Plaintiff standing handcuffed in
front of the pink patrol car on the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office’s
Facebook page. [Doc. 102-3 at 3-4; Doc. 102-5 at 2-3]. The Facebook post
also identified the Plaintiff by name, age, and town of residence, and stated
that she had been arrested, transported in the pink patrol car, and charged
with injury to personal property with bail set at $2000. [Doc. 102-5 at 2].
The next m orning, Defendant Reece, an officer in the Henderson
County Sheriff’s Office Animal Enforcement Unit, conducted a dangerous
dog inspection at the Plaintiff’s home. [Doc. 95-4 at 2, 8]. The Plaintiff had
been subject to such inspections since April 2019, and Defendant Reece had
last inspected the Plaintiff on May 22, 2021. [Doc. 95-4 at 3-7]. The Plaintiff
was home but did not answer Defendant Reece’s knock on her door. [Id. at
12; Doc. 102 -4 at 25 ]. Defendant Reece issued the Plaintiff a $550 fine:

$500 for interfering with the inspection by failing to answer her door, and $50
for lacking dangerous dog signs on two sides of her property. [Doc. 95-4 at
10-12; Doc. 102-4 at 24-25].
Several weeks later, the Plaintiff called the Animal Control office to
request that the fine be withdrawn. [ Doc. 102-2 at 24 -25]. The Plaintiff’s
father was present for the call, and he heard an Animal Control officer tell
the Plaintiff that the $550 fine could be dropped, but “instead they would mark
it as Bella’s (her dog) strike 2, and on strike 3, they would euthanize her.”
[Id. at 25]. The Plaintiff’s father called Defendant Reece later that day, and
Defendant Reece told him that the Plaintiff “would no longer owe animal
enforcement the money, but that [the Plaintiff’s dog] would be marked one
step away from euthanization instead.” [ Id. at 25-26]. The Plaintiff did not
pay the fine, and she subsequently learned that there is no “strike ” system
for dangerous dogs in Henderson County. [Doc. 106-1 at 3].
IV. DISCUSSION
The Defendants have moved for summary judgment on the First
Amendment retaliation claims against Defendants Reece and Maybin, the
Equal Protection claims against all Defendants, and the civil conspiracy
claims against all Defendants. [Doc. 94 at 1].

A. First Amendment Retaliation Claims
“A plaintiff claiming First Amendment retaliation must demonstrate that:
(1) [she] engaged in protected First Amendment activity, (2) the defendants
took some action that adversely affected [h er] First Amendment rights, and
(3) there was a causal relationship between [h er] protected activity and the
defendants’ conduct.” Bhattacharya v. Murray , 93 F.4th 675, 687 –88 (4th
Cir. 2024) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, because the Defendants
concede that the Plaintiff engaged in protected First Amendment activity
when she wrote “12 SUX,” only the adverse action and causation elements
are at issue. [Doc. 95 at 9].
“An adverse action for First Amendment purposes is one that may tend
to chill individuals’ exercise of constitutional rights.” Bhattacharya, 93 F.4th
at 689 (internal quotation marks omitted). “Not all retaliatory conduct tends
to chill First Amendment activity, however, and a plaintiff seeking to recover
for retaliation must show that the defendant's conduct resulted in something
more than a de minimis inconvenience to her exercise of First Amendment
rights.” Constantine v. Rectors & Visitors of George Mason Univ., 411 F.3d
474, 500 (4th Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
“[W]here a public official's alleged retaliation is in the nature of speech, in the
absence of a threat, coercion, or intimidation intimating that punishment,

sanction, or adverse regulatory action will imminently follow, such speech
does not adversely affect a citizen's First Amendment rights, even if
defamatory.” Suarez Corp. Indus. v. McGraw , 202 F.3d 676, 687 (4th Cir.
2000). By contrast, an arrest, seizure, or alteration of the conditions of an
individual’s detention may be sufficiently adverse to deter a person of
ordinary firmness from exercising her First Amendment rights. See, e.g.,
Martin v. Duffy, 858 F.3d 239, 250 (4th Cir. 2017); Tobey v. Jones, 706 F.3d
379, 387 (4th Cir. 2013) . Once a plaintiff has established the existence of
an adverse action, the plaintiff must show that the defendant’s retaliatory
motive was a “but -for” cause of the plaintiff’s injury, “meaning that the
adverse action against the plaintiff would not have been taken absent the
retaliatory motive.” Nieves v. Bartlett, 587 U.S. 391, 399 (2019).
Here, regarding Defendant Reece, the Plaintiff forecasts evidence that,
on the morning after the Plaintiff’s arrest for writing “12 SUX ,” Defendant
Reece conducted a dangerous dog inspection and issued the Plaintiff a $550
fine for interfering with the inspection by failing to answer her door and for
failing to post dangerous dog signs on two sides of her property. [Doc. 102-
2 at 45 -48; Doc. 102 -4 at 6 ]. The Plaintiff has also offered evidence that
Defendant Reece subsequently agreed to withdraw the Plaintiff’s fine but

implicitly threatened the Plaintiff’s dog with an increased risk of euthanasia.2
[Id. at 24-26]. The Plaintiff does not dispute , however, that she had been
subject to dangerous dog inspections since 2019, that she had not posted
the two signs in question,3 or that she was at home during the inspection but
failed to answer her door . [Doc. 102 at 11-14]. Moreover, the Plaintiff
concedes that she never paid the fine at issue and that there is no “strike
system” for dangerous dogs in Henderson County. [ Id. at 14-15; Doc. 106-
1 at 3]. As a result, the plain language of the alleged implicit threat posed no
imminent danger to her dog, and any such threat was, in fact, an empty one.
Based on that forecast of evidence, taken in the light most favorable to the
Plaintiff, no reasonable jury could find facts sufficient to establish the
Plaintiff’s First Amendment retaliation claim against Defendant Reece.
Accordingly, the Court will grant summary judgment in favor of Defendant
Reece as to the First Amendment retaliation claim against him.
As for Defendant Maybin, the Plaintiff’s forecast of evidence includes
testimony that Defendant Maybin told bail bond agents that the Plaintiff did

2 Defendant Reece disputes the factual assertions regard ing any implicit threat . [Doc.
102-2 at 50-52].

3 The Plaintiff does dispute, however, that posting the two signs in question was
necessary for compliance. [Doc. 102 at 12-13].

not deserve to get out of jail because of what the Plaintiff wrote on the police
car, and that Defendant Maybin persuaded the bond agents not to assist the
Plaintiff, resulting in the extension of the Plaintiff’s detention. [Doc. 102-2 at
11-12, 39]; see also [Doc. 37 at 13-14]. Based on that forecast of evidence,
taken in the light most favorable to the Plaintiff, the Court concludes that a
reasonable jury could find sufficient facts to establish each of the elements
of the Plaintiff’s First Amendment retaliation claim against D efendant
Maybin.
The Defendants nevertheless cont end that Defendant Maybin is
entitled to qualified immunity on grounds that Maybin’s conduct did not
violate a clearly established right. [Doc. 95 at 11-12]. “[Q]ualified immunity
protects police officers from liability for ‘bad guesses in gray areas ’ but
permits aggrieved parties to seek damages from them when they
‘transgress[ ] bright lines. ’” Hensley v. Suttles , 167 F. Supp. 3d 753, 761
(W.D.N.C. 2016) (quoting Maciariello v. Sumner , 973 F.2d 295, 298 (4th
Cir.1992)). Here, because the Court has already determined that the
forecast of evidence is sufficient to sustain the Plaintiff’s First Amendment
retaliation claim against Maybin, the Court need only consider whether the
First Amendment right at issue was “clearly established.” See Pearson v.
Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 227 (2009).

It has long been “clearly established” that “the First Amendment
prohibits an officer from retaliating against an individual for speaking critically
of the government.” Trulock v. Freeh , 275 F.3d 391 , 406 (4th Cir. 2001) .
The Fourth Circuit has held that the “bedrock First Amendment principle [ ]
that citizens have a right to voice dissent from government polices ” is a
principle that “transcen ds forums,” such that government officials cannot
suppress or retaliate against an individual for “nondisruptive speech” even in
a nonpublic forum by causing their seizure. Tobey, 706 F.3d at 391. Here,
construing the facts in the light most favorable to the Plaintiff, Defendant
Maybin’s apparent attempt to extend the Plaintiff’s detention in retaliation for
the Plaintiff’s nondisruptive speech is conduct that a reasonable officer would
have clearly recognized as unlawful in the circumstances. See id.
Accordingly, the Court concludes that Defendant Maybin is not entitled
to qualified immunity and will deny summary judgment as to the First
Amendment retaliation claim against Defendant Maybin.
B. Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Claims
“Neither [the Fourth Circuit] nor the Supreme Court has recognized an
equal protection right to be free from retaliation.” Wilcox v. Lyons, 970 F.3d
452, 458 (4th Cir. 2020) . Instead, the Fourth Circuit has “consistently
considered retaliation claims brought under Section 1983 to be more

properly characterized as claims asserting a violation of the First
Amendment.” Id. When a plaintiff’s “equal protection claim is best
characterized as a mere rewording of his First Amendment retaliation claim,”
that claim may be dismissed because it “does not implicate the Equal
Protection Clause.” Martin, 858 F.3d at 252 (quoting Edwards v. City of
Goldsboro, 178 F.3d 231, 250 (4th Cir. 1999)).
Here, the Plaintiff’s equal protection claims merely repackage her First
Amendment retaliation claim s. The Plaintiff alleged that the Defendants
“used” or “contributed to the use of the unequal application of law . . . in
retaliation for her protected speech.” [Doc. 37 at 33]. At summary judgment,
nothing in the Plaintiff’s forecast of evidence provides a tenable alternative
basis for her equal protection claims. Accordingly, the Court concludes that
the Plaintiff’s equal protection claims are duplicative of her First Amendment
retaliation claims and will grant summary judgment in favor of all Defendants
on those claims.4

4 The First Amendment retaliation claim against Defendant Duncan was previously
dismissed, [Doc. 59], and the Court has concluded supra that Defendant Reece is entitled
to summary judgment on the First Amendment retaliation claim agains t him. Therefore,
strictly speaking, the equal protection claims against Defendants Duncan and Reece fail
not because they are duplicative of First Amendment retaliation claims , but rather
because the failure of the First Amendment retaliation claims against them has revealed
that there is no tenable predicate for equal protection claims against them either.

C. Civil Conspiracy
To establish a civil conspiracy under § 1983, a plaintiff must show that
the defendants “acted jointly in concert and that some overt act was done in
furtherance of the conspiracy which resulted in [the plaintiff’s] deprivation of
a constitutional right.” Hinkle v. City of Clarksburg, W.Va., 81 F.3d 416, 421
(4th Cir. 1996) . However, “[u]nder the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine,
‘an agreement between or among agents of the same legal entity, when the
agents act in their official capacities, is not an unlawful conspiracy. ’”
Bhattacharya, 93 F.4th at 699 (quoting Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582 U.S. 120, 137
(2017)). Moreover, a plaintiff cannot skirt the application of this doctrine
merely by suing the defendants in their individual capacities. Buschi v.
Kirven, 775 F.2d 1240, 1252 (4th Cir. 1985) . Instead, a plaintiff may
establish an exception to the doctrine by establishing that “an officer has an
independent personal stake in achieving the corporation’s illegal objective.”
Bhattacharya, 93 F.4th at 699 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Here, all six Defendants were employees of the Henderson County
Sheriff’s Department at the time of the events at issue, and, despite the
Plaintiff’s contentions to the contrary, there is no forecast of evidence that
any of the Defendants had an independent personal stake in arresting or
harassing the Plaintiff. See [Doc. 102 at 25]. Accordingly, the Court

concludes that the intracorporate-conspiracy doctrine bars the Plaintiff’s civil
conspiracy claim s and will grant the Defendants’ motion for summary
judgment as to those claims.
D. Motion for Leave to File Supplemental Brief
Finally, on May 29, 2026, two weeks after the Defendants filed a Reply
in support of the instant motion for summary judgment, the Plaintiff moved
for leave to file a supplemental brief in opposition to the Defendants’ motion
for summary judgment. [Doc. 106]. The Defendants filed a timely Response
in opposition to the Plaintiff’s motion. [Doc. 107]. Because the Court has
considered the Plaintiff’s proposed supplemental brief in ruling herein, the
Court will grant the Plaintiff’s motion.
V. CONCLUSION
The Defendants’ Motion for Partial Summary Judgment is granted as
to the Plaintiff’s Fourteenth Amendment equal protection claims and civil
conspiracy claims against all Defendants, as well as to the First Amendment
retaliation claim against Defendant Reece. The Defendants’ Motion is
denied as to the Plaintiff’s First Amendment retaliation claim against
Defendant Maybin, and the Court concludes that Defendant Maybin is not
entitled to qualified immunity for that claim. This case shall proceed to trial
on the Plaintiff’s remaining First Amendment retaliation claims.

O R D E R
IT IS, THEREFORE, ORDERED that the Defendants’ Motion for Partial
Summary Judgment [Doc. 94] is hereby GRANTED IN PART and DENIED
IN PART. The Motion is GRANTED as to the First Amendment retaliation
claim against Defendant Reece, the Equal Protection claim s against all
Defendants, and the Civil Conspiracy claim s against all Defendants , and
those claims are DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE. The Motion is DENIED
as to the First Amendment retaliation claim against Defendant Maybin. This
case shall proceed to trial on the Plaintiff’s First Amendment retaliation
claims against Defendants Warren, Landers, Lindsay, and Maybin.
IT IS SO ORDERED.

Signed: June 13, 2026

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