Tara Long v. County of Armstrong , 679 F. App'x 221 ( 2017 )


Menu:
  •                                                                  NOT PRECEDENTIAL
    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
    FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
    No. 16-3027
    TARA L. LONG and TODD J. LONG, Administrators of the
    Estate of Tammy E. Long, Deceased,
    Appellants
    v.
    COUNTY OF ARMSTRONG, doing business as Armstrong County Jail;
    DAVID HOGUE
    On Appeal from the United States District Court
    for the Western District of Pennsylvania
    (District Court No. 2-15-cv-01447)
    District Judge: Honorable Mark R. Hornak
    Submitted under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
    on February 9, 2017
    Before: MCKEE, RENDELL, and FUENTES, Circuit Judges
    (Opinion filed: February 14, 2017)
    O P I N I O N*
    RENDELL, Senior Circuit Judge.
    *
    This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7
    does not constitute binding precedent.
    Tammy Long was murdered by an inmate at the Armstrong County Jail (“the
    Jail”) who escaped as a result of allegedly deficient prison policy. The administrators of
    her estate (“the Plaintiffs”) brought this § 1983 suit against Armstrong County and the
    Warden (“the Defendants”) under our state-created danger theory of § 1983 liability. The
    District Court dismissed their complaint for failure to state a claim. For the reasons that
    follow, we will affirm the District Court’s order.
    I. Background
    Long’s killer, Robert Crissman, was incarcerated at Armstrong County Jail
    following a parole violation. Prison officials knew that Crissman had a criminal record
    including convictions for theft, breaking and entering, and use and possession of drugs. It
    is alleged, further, that officials knew that Crissman was addicted to heroin and that he
    was suffering heroin withdrawal during the time of this incarceration. Despite all this, Jail
    officials admitted Crissman to the Jail’s Trustee Program. Inmate “Trustees” work
    various jail operation jobs in civilian clothing, often outside the prison walls, and without
    any direct, physical supervision.
    On the day of Crissman’s escape, he was assigned to tray duty, which required
    him to walk down a hallway and through a set of remote controlled doors to meet a food
    delivery van just outside the confines of the jail. Upon reaching the van, Crissman took
    off running into the woods. He fled to the nearby house of an acquaintance, Terry Slagle.
    Long lived in Slagle’s house. Neither Slagle nor Long knew that Crissman had escaped
    2
    from the Jail. Then, after Slagle left for work, Crissman beat and strangled Long to
    death.1
    The Plaintiffs, who are administrators of Long’s estate, filed this action against
    Armstrong County and Warden David Hogue under 
    42 U.S.C. § 1983
     alleging that
    various deficiencies in the Jail’s policies and decisions with respect to Crissman resulted
    in a violation of Long’s Fourteenth Amendment rights. The District Court dismissed this
    complaint for failure to state a claim,2 and the Plaintiffs appeal.
    II. Discussion3
    This case hinges on whether the Plaintiffs’ allegations pleaded a viable state-
    created danger claim. We begin by restating our framework for analyzing such claims.
    The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not impose an affirmative
    obligation on the state to protect citizens from private conduct. See DeShaney v.
    Winnebago Cty. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 
    489 U.S. 189
    , 195-96 (1989). However, the state-
    created danger theory operates as an exception to this general rule by permitting § 1983
    The County also produced two reports, one from the District Attorney’s office
    1
    and another from a private consulting firm, that outlined numerous deficiencies in prison
    policy that led to Crissman’s escape. For example, the DA’s report noted that the Jail
    lacked a fence and a system to warn residents despite being in a residential area. The
    Plaintiffs incorporated these findings and attached the reports themselves to their
    complaint.
    2
    The Plaintiffs also alleged separate violations of Pennsylvania’s Wrongful Death
    and Survival Acts. Because the District Court dismissed the Plaintiffs’ claim under
    federal law it appropriately declined to exercise jurisdiction over their state law claims.
    See 
    28 U.S.C. § 1367
    (c)(3).
    3
    The District Court had jurisdiction over Long’s § 1983 claim under 
    28 U.S.C. § 1331
     and we have jurisdiction under 
    28 U.S.C. § 1291
    . “We . . . exercise plenary review
    over the order granting the [Defendants’] motion to dismiss.” Polsky v. United States, 
    844 F.3d 170
    , 173 n.3 (3d Cir. 2016) (per curiam).
    3
    liability where: “(1) the harm ultimately caused to the plaintiff was foreseeable and fairly
    direct; (2) the state-actor acted in willful disregard for the plaintiff’s safety; (3) there was
    some relationship between the state and the plaintiff; and (4) the state-actor used his
    authority to create an opportunity for danger that otherwise would not have existed.”
    Phillips v. Cty. of Allegheny, 
    515 F.3d 224
    , 235 (3d Cir. 2008).
    The District Court dismissed the Plaintiffs’ claim under the third element, called
    the foreseeable plaintiff requirement. The relationship under this element must be
    “sufficiently close.” Rivas v. City of Passaic, 
    365 F.3d 181
    , 197 (3d Cir. 2004). It
    “contemplates some contact such that the plaintiff was a foreseeable victim of the
    defendant’s acts in a tort sense” either “individually or as a member of a distinct class.”
    Phillips, 
    515 F.3d at 242
     (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Morse v. Lower
    Merion Sch. Dist., 
    132 F.3d 902
    , 912 (3d Cir. 1997)). Thus, the relationship may exist
    where the defendant had “knowledge that a specific individual has been placed in harm’s
    way” or that the plaintiff “[is] part of an identifiable and discrete class of persons subject
    to the harm the state allegedly has created.” Morse, 
    132 F.3d at 914
    . But “where the state
    actor creates only a threat to the general population,” the plaintiff fails to show the
    sufficiently close relationship required under this element, which is “in keeping with . . .
    the general rule that the state is not obligated to protect its citizens from the random,
    violent acts of private persons.” 
    Id. at 913
    .4
    4
    Because we conclude that the Plaintiffs fail to state a claim under what the
    Plaintiffs characterize as our “modern” state-created danger test, Long Br. 13, we find it
    unnecessary to address the continued viability of our pre-Morse decision in
    Commonwealth Bank & Trust Co. v. Russell, 
    825 F.2d 12
    , 16 (3d Cir. 1987) (rejecting §
    4
    Here, we agree with the District Court that Long was not a foreseeable victim
    under our standard. Long’s relationship to the state not only falls short of being
    “sufficiently close,” it is non-existent. Rivas, 
    365 F.3d at 197
    . There are no allegations
    that the Jail had any contact with Long and, although the Plaintiffs emphasize the
    allegation that Crissman knew Slagle, there are no allegations that Jail officials knew
    about Crissman’s relationship to Slagle let alone that Long lived in Slagle’s house. In
    short, we fail to see how Long was a foreseeable victim under our standard.
    In fact, the Plaintiffs’ allegations here are in stark contrast to the close relationship
    we have found sufficient on other occasions. See L.R. v. Sch. Dist. of Phila., 
    836 F.3d 235
    , 247 (3d. Cir. 2016) (child was foreseeable victim of school’s decision to release
    child to abuser because the child “was a member of the discrete class of kindergarten
    children for whose benefit the School District’s release policy had been instituted”);
    Phillips, 
    515 F.3d at 243
     (murder victims were foreseeable plaintiffs of 911 operators’
    decision to illegally share address information of victims with an admittedly homicidal
    colleague, who then “specifically targeted [one of his victims] for retribution”); Kneipp v.
    Tedder, 
    95 F.3d 1199
    , 1209 (3d Cir. 1996) (woman was foreseeable victim of police
    officer’s decision to let her walk home, visibly intoxicated and in the cold, where the
    police officer shortly before had a personal encounter with her). Unlike the allegations in
    these cases, the Plaintiffs’ allegations have provided nothing that sets Long apart from the
    1983 claim in case where local residents were murdered by an inmate, who escaped due
    to deficient policies at the jail, because “residents in the communities surrounding the jail
    [were] part of the ‘public at large’”) (quoting Martinez v. California, 
    444 U.S. 277
    , 825
    (1980)).
    5
    general population of potential victims that may have been harmed by the Jail’s deficient
    policies.
    The Plaintiffs argue that Long, as a resident “in close proximity” to the jail,5 was
    indeed part of a “limited, discrete class of persons subjected to the potential harm” in
    satisfaction of the test. Long Br. 14. They contend that because the Jail knew about
    Crissman’s drug addiction, criminal history, and risk of flight, it was foreseeable that
    Crissman would flee to a nearby home and use force or even deadly force against the
    inhabitants, whether to aid his escape or secure more drugs. Long Br. 17. This argument,
    however, which goes to the Defendants’ “awareness of risk” that a particular “harm”
    would result from their deficient policy choices, is more appropriately addressed under
    the first element. L.R., 836 F.3d at 245 (quoting Phillips, 
    515 F.3d at 238
    ). Under that
    element, we ask “whether the harm ultimately caused was a foreseeable and a fairly
    direct result of the state’s actions.” 
    Id.
     (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks
    omitted) (quoting Morse, 
    132 F.3d at 908
    ). Even if we were to credit this argument, the
    claim fails the third element.
    That element, which was the basis for the District Court’s ruling, requires
    something more than just a foreseeable “harm”—it requires that the particular victim be a
    “foreseeable plaintiff.” Morse, 
    132 F.3d at 913
    . In this case, even with Long being a
    member of a class of local residents, the Plaintiffs have not alleged facts to show a
    “sufficiently close” relationship between that class of persons and the state. Rivas, 365
    5
    The Plaintiffs allege that Long resided within a quarter-mile of the jail, and
    variously describe the geographic class as those within “an eyeshot from the jail,” Reply
    6, or the “immediate vicinity” of the jail, Reply 8.
    6
    F.3d at 197. As tragic as the events in this case are, we conclude that the Plaintiffs
    allegations fail to satisfy the “foreseeable plaintiff” requirement, Morse, 
    132 F.3d at 913
    ,
    and thus cannot support a § 1983 claim against the Armstrong County Jail.6
    II. Conclusion
    For the reasons stated above, we will affirm the District Court’s order.
    6
    The Plaintiffs also rely on Reed v. Gardner, 
    986 F.2d 1122
     (7th Cir. 1993), an
    out-of-circuit decision that we cited in Morse and that permitted a § 1983 claim brought
    by motorists injured by a drunk driver’s drunk passenger that police allowed to continue
    driving after the driver’s DUI arrest. We are not persuaded by the comparison. We find it
    necessary to note only that we cited Reed merely as “illustrative” of the proposition that
    other courts have held state actors liable for creating a risk to a “definable class of
    persons,” a question we actually did not reach in that case. Morse, 
    132 F.3d at 913
    .
    7