Danielle Washington v. Housing Authority of the City of Columbia ( 2023 )

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PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 21-2059
DANIELLE WASHINGTON, Personal Representative of the Estate of Calvin
Witherspoon Jr.,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
HOUSING AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBIA, a/k/a Columbia Housing
Authority, a/k/a Columbia Housing,
Defendant - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at
Columbia. Joseph F. Anderson, Jr., Senior District Judge. (3:21-cv-00148-JFA)
Argued: October 27, 2022 Decided: January 19, 2023
Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, WYNN, Circuit Judge, and FLOYD, Senior Circuit
Judge.
Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Judge Wynn wrote the opinion, in which
Chief Judge Gregory and Senior Judge Floyd joined.
ARGUED: Richard Allan Hricik, LAW OFFICES OF RICHARD A. HRICIK, Mount
Pleasant, South Carolina, for Appellant. Charles Franklin Turner, Jr., WILLSON JONES
CARTER BAXLEY, P.A., Greenville, South Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF:
Amanda C. Dure, PANGIA LAW GROUP, Washington, D.C., for Appellant.
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WYNN, Circuit Judge:
This case arises out of the death of Calvin Witherspoon, Jr., who died of carbon
monoxide poisoning at his city-owned apartment in Columbia, South Carolina. Plaintiff
Danielle Washington, Witherspoon’s daughter and the personal representative of his estate,
appeals the district court’s dismissal of her complaint against the City of Columbia Housing
Authority (“Housing Authority”) for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be
granted. Because we conclude that Plaintiff has alleged sufficient facts to plead a § 1983
claim against the Housing Authority, we reverse and remand for further proceedings.
I.
We recount the facts as alleged in the complaint, accepting all well-pleaded factual
allegations as true. Owens v. Balt. City State’s Att’ys Off., 767 F.3d 379, 385 (4th Cir.
2014).
On January 17, 2019, Witherspoon died of carbon monoxide poisoning in his
apartment at Allen Benedict Court Apartments, a housing complex owned and maintained
by the City of Columbia Housing Authority. The city police and fire chiefs concluded that
the cause of Witherspoon’s death was a faulty, thirty-year-old furnace that had caused
carbon monoxide to leak into his apartment, as well as several others.
The Housing Authority originally installed the gas-burning furnace in 1990 but had
never regularly inspected, tested, or maintained it. And ultimately, a build-up of debris
caused the furnace’s carbon monoxide venting to stop functioning. The problem went
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undetected because “carbon monoxide detectors [were] missing in all 244 units” of the
complex. J.A. 31. 1
In fact, Witherspoon wasn’t the only person to suffer the consequences that January
night. Another tenant, Derrick Roper, also died from carbon monoxide poisoning, and
several other tenants were hospitalized due to carbon monoxide exposure. Following the
incident, the entire apartment complex was evacuated, and all tenants were relocated.
The police and fire chiefs determined that Witherspoon’s death was entirely
preventable had the Housing Authority performed regular maintenance. Yet they found
that the Housing Authority had performed no preventative maintenance on appliances at
the complex, maintenance reports were inadequate or incomplete, and tenants who lived at
the apartments believed that “if they complained, things would not be fixed.” J.A. 30. The
Housing Authority only had a single inspector for all 2,600 of its housing units. And
ultimately, an inspection of the apartments revealed 869 code violations, ranging from
missing carbon monoxide detectors and faulty smoke detectors to exposed wires and
expired fire extinguishers. The fire chief found that several stoves were leaking natural gas,
presenting a “severe risk for the community and its occupants.” J.A. 31.
The Housing Authority was required by state and local law to install carbon
monoxide detectors in each unit. But none were found in any of the units at Allen Benedict
Court. The Housing Authority itself had recognized before Witherspoon’s death that a
missing carbon monoxide detector was a “life-threatening condition.” J.A. 29. And because
1
Citations to the “J.A.” refer to the parties’ Joint Appendix filed in this appeal.
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of that, in 2017—more than a year before Witherspoon’s death—the Housing Authority
adopted a “Life-Threatening Conditions” policy (“Policy 8-1.C”) for privately owned
properties, requiring that residents immediately install a carbon monoxide detector within
24 hours if one was missing or inoperable. Id. The policy also identified a heating system
with improper venting as a life-threatening condition because it “may cause improper or
dangerous venting of gas.” Id. Yet the Housing Authority “elected not to apply this policy
to its own properties,” including the apartments at Allen Benedict Court. Id. (emphasis
added).
In early 2021, Plaintiff sued the Housing Authority under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging
that the Housing Authority violated Witherspoon’s Fourteenth Amendment substantive-
due-process rights, including his right to bodily integrity. And under Monell v. Department
of Social Services of City of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), she alleged that the Housing
Authority caused this constitutional violation by acting with deliberate indifference
through several policies and customs and by failing to train its employees.
Regarding her Monell claim, Plaintiff alleged that the Housing Authority elected to
apply Policy 8-1.C only to privately owned apartments, rather than to Allen Benedict Court
and the other low-income apartment complexes that the Housing Authority owned.
Additionally, she alleged that the Housing Authority had “an unofficial policy or custom
of willful neglect to the properties it owned by engaging in gross mismanagement of
resources and finances, insufficient budgeting, absence of oversight, and gross neglect of
maintenance, repair and capital improvements in its properties.” J.A. 21. She alleged that
this mismanagement was a conscious choice by the Housing Authority for financial gain:
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it led “the properties [to become] so dangerously unsafe and uninhabitable that they became
eligible for federal grants.” Id. Lastly, Plaintiff alleged that the Housing Authority’s
inadequate training and supervision of its employees regarding compliance with applicable
housing laws led to the violation of Witherspoon’s constitutional rights.
In response, the Housing Authority filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a
claim, arguing that Plaintiff failed to allege conduct that was so arbitrary and egregious as
to shock the conscience and therefore amount to a constitutional violation. Additionally,
the Housing Authority contended that there was no causal nexus between its policies and
the alleged constitutional violation.
The district court agreed, concluding that Plaintiff’s allegations failed to show a
constitutional violation because the Housing Authority’s actions amounted to, at most, only
negligence, rather than deliberate indifference. The court also concluded that Plaintiff
failed to plead sufficient facts to establish causation because she “failed to allege facts
showing the alleged deficiencies made Witherspoon’s death bound to happen rather than
merely likely to happen.” Washington v. Hous. Auth. of City of Columbia, No. 3:21-cv-
00148-JFA, 2021 WL 3886595, at *7 (D.S.C. Aug. 31, 2021). Plaintiff timely appealed.
II.
On appeal, we review de novo a district court’s dismissal of a complaint for failure
to state a claim. Starbuck v. Williamsburg James City Cnty. Sch. Bd., 28 F.4th 529, 532
(4th Cir. 2022). In conducting this review, we accept all factual allegations as true and draw
all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff. Singer v. Reali, 883 F.3d 425, 437 (4th
Cir. 2018).
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“[T]o survive a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), a complaint need only allege
facts which, if true, ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Owens, 767 F.3d
at 403 (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)). As such, “[t]he recitation of
facts need not be particularly detailed, and the chance of success need not be particularly
high.” Id. (citing Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678; Bell Atl. Corp v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570
(2006)). And a plaintiff fails to meet this standard “only when he offers ‘labels and
conclusions’ or formulaically recites the elements of his § 1983 cause of action.” Id.
(quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678).
III.
“When a § 1983 claim is asserted against a municipality,” as here, 2 we must answer
two questions: “(1) whether plaintiff’s harm was caused by a constitutional violation, and
(2) if so, whether the city is responsible for that violation.” Covenant Media of S.C., L.L.C.
v. City of N. Charleston, 493 F.3d 421, 436 (4th Cir. 2007) (quoting Collins v. City of
Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115, 120 (1992)). We consider these questions in turn.
A.
To prove a violation of substantive-due-process rights under the Fourteenth
Amendment, a plaintiff must show that a defendant’s behavior was “so egregious, so
2
The Columbia Housing Authority is authorized by S.C. Code Ann. § 31-3-10 et
seq., and “was created by and for the City of Columbia . . . for the purpose of providing
decent, safe and sanitary housing to the low and moderate-income residents of the City of
Columbia.” J.A. 20. As a local governing body, the Housing Authority can be sued for
monetary, declaratory, or injunctive relief for depriving a plaintiff of constitutional or civil
rights. See Monell, 436 U.S. at 690; Hayes v. Poe Homes Hous. Project Mgmt., 931 F.2d
886 (4th Cir. 1991) (unpublished table decision).
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outrageous, that it may fairly be said to shock the contemporary conscience.” Dean ex rel.
Harkness v. McKinney, 976 F.3d 407, 413 (4th Cir. 2020) (quoting Terrell v. Larson, 396
F.3d 975, 978 (8th Cir. 2005)), cert. denied, 141 S. Ct. 2800 (2021). To be conscience
shocking, a defendant’s behavior must lack “any reasonable justification in the service of
a legitimate governmental objective.” County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 846
(1998).
Although “the measure of what is conscience shocking is no calibrated yard stick,”
it does “‘poin[t] the way.’” Id. at 847 (quoting Johnson v. Glick, 481 F.2d 1028, 1033 (2d
Cir. 1973)). And to that end, the Supreme Court has “described a ‘culpability spectrum’
along which behavior may support a substantive due process claim.” Dean, 976 F.3d at
414 (quoting Lewis, 523 U.S. at 848–49).
On one end of the spectrum is “conduct intended to injure [that is] in some way
unjustifiable by any government interest.” Lewis, 523 U.S. at 849. Such conduct most
likely rises to the conscience-shocking level. Id. On the other end is “negligently inflicted
harm [which] is categorically beneath the threshold of constitutional due process” conduct.
Id.; see also DeShaney v. Winnebago Cnty. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 202 (1989)
(“[T]he Fourteenth Amendment . . . does not transform every tort committed by a state
actor into a constitutional violation.”).
But conduct falling in between those two poles—deliberate-indifference conduct
which is more than negligence but less than intentional harm—presents a closer call.
“[D]eliberate indifference is ‘an intermediate level of culpability’ that can, if proven, also
establish a due process violation.” Dean, 976 F.3d at 415 (citing Lewis, 523 U.S. at 848–
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49). Ultimately, the applicable standard of culpability for a substantive-due-process
claim—either “intent to harm” or “deliberate indifference”—depends on “an exact analysis
of [the] context and circumstances” of the case. Id. at 414; see also Lewis, 523 U.S. at 850(“Rules of due process are not . . . subject to mechanical application in unfamiliar
territory.”).
Neither party disputes that deliberate indifference is the appropriate standard of
culpability here, and we agree. The deliberate-indifference standard “is sensibly employed
only when actual deliberation is practical,” Dean, 976 F.3d at 415 (quoting Lewis, 523 U.S.
at 851), so we must consider whether officials had time to “reflect on [their] actions,” id.(quoting Browder v. City of Albuquerque, 787 F.3d 1076, 1082 (10th Cir. 2015)). We only
employ this standard of culpability where the official has the “luxury . . . of having time to
make unhurried judgments, upon the chance for repeated reflection, largely uncomplicated
by the pulls of competing obligations. When such extended opportunities to do better are
teamed with protracted failure even to care, indifference is truly shocking.” Id. (quoting
Lewis, 523 U.S. at 853).
Still, as the Sixth Circuit has noted, time alone may not “transform any reckless
action from a tort to conscience-shocking behavior simply because the government actor
had time to appreciate any risk of harm.” Guertin v. Michigan, 912 F.3d 907, 924 (6th Cir.
2019) (quoting Range v. Douglas, 763 F.3d 573, 590 (6th Cir. 2014)). And other factors,
of course, could also be relevant to whether a defendant’s conduct is conscience-shocking,
such as “the type of harm” and “the level of risk of the harm occurring.” Id. (quoting Range,
763 F.3d at 591).
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Here, deliberate indifference is the correct standard to measure the Housing
Authority’s conduct. Unlike cases involving emergency, split-second decisions, Plaintiff
alleges years of choices by the Housing Authority that led to the tragic circumstances of
this case. For example, throughout Witherspoon’s tenancy at Allen Benedict Court, where
he lived from 2012 until his death in 2019, the Housing Authority received requests from
tenants to repair conditions at the apartments—and we might infer a steady stream of
serious requests, too, based on the amount of code violations discovered after
Witherspoon’s death. Yet the Housing Authority chose not to respond to these complaints,
or at most took only half-measures to resolve them.
Additionally, the Housing Authority adopted a specific policy in 2017 to ensure that
missing carbon monoxide detectors, which it considered to be “life-threatening
conditions,” were installed in some (privately owned) properties. J.A. 29. But two years
later—and with time to reflect that such “life-threatening conditions” from carbon
monoxide threatened all of its properties—the Housing Authority had chosen not to apply
the same policy to its own housing. Thus, the facts alleged show there was ample time to
deliberate and reflect on those choices. Accordingly, deliberate indifference is the correct
standard to apply here.
Next, we consider whether the Housing Authority’s alleged conduct constitutes
deliberate indifference to Witherspoon’s life and safety. To prove deliberate indifference,
a plaintiff must show “that the [defendant] subjectively recognized a substantial risk of
harm and that his actions were inappropriate in light of the risk.” Dean, 976 F.3d at 416.
“A defendant’s subjective knowledge of the risk may be inferred from circumstantial
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evidence.” Id. A plaintiff may also show subjective knowledge in a due-process claim
“from the very fact that the risk was obvious.” Parrish ex rel. Lee v. Cleveland, 372 F.3d
294, 303 (4th Cir. 2004) (quoting Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 842 (1994)); see also
Porter v. Clarke, 923 F.3d 348, 361 (4th Cir. 2019) (“A plaintiff may satisfy this standard
by ‘prov[ing] by circumstantial evidence that a risk was so obvious that it had to have been
known.’” (quoting Makdessi v. Fields, 789 F.3d 126, 136 (4th Cir. 2015))), as amended
(May 6, 2019).
The Housing Authority argues that Plaintiff failed to allege that the Housing
Authority recognized the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. Specifically, the Housing
Authority posits that without prior knowledge of past complaints relating to carbon
monoxide leaks or other similar dangerous conditions, it could not have known the danger
here. Response Br. at 5 (“[Plaintiff’s] Amended Complaint fails to allege or show that [the
Housing Authority] had any prior knowledge of the specific carbon monoxide toxicity nor
that any such incident regarding carbon monoxide resulted in any prior injury.”). We
disagree because our decision in Dean ex rel. Harkness v. McKinney dispels the Housing
Authority’s argument that a prior incident is necessary to show knowledge of a risk.
In Dean, this Court held that a reasonable jury could conclude that a police officer
acted with deliberate indifference when he accidentally struck a woman with his police
vehicle while speeding, causing her to sustain severe injuries. Dean, 976 F.3d at 412, 416.
Our decision turned on the evidence of the officer’s conduct on the night of the accident,
rather than evidence of any prior driving complaints or incidents. See id. at 416–17. The
evidence showed that, on the night of the accident, the officer “knew that he was no longer
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responding to an emergency” and “understood that department policy and state law
required that he deactivate his emergency lights and siren and follow the speed limit.” Id.
at 416. Yet with several minutes to deliberate on his actions, the officer continued to drive
his vehicle more than thirty miles per hour over the speed limit “on a dark, curved road . . .
without his emergency lights and siren.” Id. This behavior, we held, was enough to be
conscience shocking. Id. at 417.
Likewise here. Plaintiff has alleged enough facts at this early stage to establish that
the Housing Authority recognized the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning and acted
inappropriately in light of that risk.
To start, we note the unique nature of the risk in this case. Carbon monoxide is
dangerous because “it is colorless, odorless and tasteless,” hence why it is often called the
“silent killer.” J.A. 25. Its initial symptoms “appear like the flu,” and include unremarkable
symptoms like headache and fatigue. J.A. 26 n.2. Ultimately, carbon monoxide can be
lethal.
These allegations inevitably raise the question of whether the risk of not installing
carbon monoxide detectors is so obvious that we could infer the Housing Authority’s
subjective knowledge in this case. But no such inference is required here because Plaintiff
has plausibly alleged that, by enacting Policy 8-1.C, the Housing Authority expressly
acknowledged that a “[m]issing or inoperable carbon monoxide detector” or a gas heating
system with improper chimney venting constitute “life-threatening conditions.” J.A. 29.
That allegation shows that the Housing Authority subjectively understood that these risks
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applied not only to the residents of privately owned apartments covered by the policy, but
also to the tenants of apartments like Allen Benedict Court.
Similarly, in Castro v. County of Los Angeles, the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc,
found substantial evidence that a county subjectively understood that its jail-cell design
might lead to a constitutional violation. 833 F.3d 1060, 1076 (9th Cir. 2016) (en banc).
There, the county had adopted by reference into its housing code several provisions from
the state building code, which specifically required monitoring systems in sobering cells.
Id. at 1077. And the station manual for the county jail further mandated that sobering cells
allow for visual supervision. Id. When a pretrial detainee was attacked in a cell missing
those features, the court found the adoption of those provisions demonstrated subjective
knowledge: the county’s “affirmative adoption of regulations aimed at mitigating the risk
of serious injury to individuals housed in sobering cells” was proof that it knew the risk of
harm to the plaintiff. Id.The facts, as alleged here, look no different. By affirmatively adopting regulations
recognizing the life-threatening danger of missing carbon monoxide detectors, the Housing
Authority demonstrated that it knew the risk of harm that Witherspoon faced.
Additionally, the Housing Authority acknowledged in Policy 8-1.C the risk of
failing to maintain the venting system of a gas-burning furnace. Plaintiff alleged that, at
Allen Benedict Court, the Housing Authority did not “promptly and fully investigate[] and
remed[y] . . . [r]equests for repairs and maintenance, especially as to anything related to
the gas furnaces and venting.” J.A. 28 (emphasis added). The events of January 17, 2019,
demonstrate that these problems were not corrected. So the allegation that the Housing
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Authority received complaints about the furnace, but failed to act on them, leads to an
inference that the Housing Authority had subjective knowledge of a grave risk. That is,
either the Housing Authority did investigate the complaints, in which we might infer that
its employee saw the debris build-up and chose to do nothing; or it refused to inspect the
furnace entirely, in which case it chose to be willfully blind to a serious risk of harm. That,
too, plausibly alleges deliberate indifference. See Makdessi, 789 F.3d at 133–34 (holding
that a defendant will not avoid liability if he “refused to verify ‘underlying facts that he
strongly suspected to be true’ [or] ‘declined to confirm inferences of risk that he strongly
suspected to exist’” (quoting Brice v. Va. Beach Corr. Ctr., 58 F.3d 101, 105 (4th Cir.
1995))).
Taken to its logical conclusion, the Housing Authority’s argument would amount to
a “one free death” card. Cf. Doe v. Fairfax Cnty. Sch. Bd., 10 F.4th 406, 412 (4th Cir. 2021)
(Wynn, J., concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc) (rejecting the notion that schools
faced with lawsuits related to sexual assaults get “one free rape”). That’s because, where a
landlord fails to install carbon monoxide detectors or inspect a furnace, the most likely way
they will discover any dangerous emissions will be a person’s very serious illness or death.
As the Seventh Circuit has noted, “[t]hat no one in the past [was harmed] simply shows
that [the defendant] was fortunate, not that it wasn’t deliberately indifferent.” Woodward
v. Corr. Med. Servs. of Ill., Inc., 368 F.3d 917, 929 (7th Cir. 2004) (stating that the
defendant “does not get a ‘one free suicide’ pass”). We reject such a theory here, where the
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Housing Authority’s conduct virtually ensured it would have no knowledge of dangerous
emissions from its furnaces until it was too late. 3
Next, we find that Plaintiff has also sufficiently pleaded that the Housing Authority
acted inappropriately in light of this risk. Specifically, the Housing Authority failed to
install a single carbon monoxide detector at Witherspoon’s 244-unit complex. It provided
no preventative maintenance of appliances. Instead, through its policies and practices, the
Housing Authority ensured that its property fell into a state of disrepair. Its repair request
system was so inadequate and incomplete that tenants believed that “if they complained,
things would not be fixed.” J.A. 30. And even if tenants were to complain, the Housing
Authority chose to understaff its maintenance personnel and inspectors, leaving its
employees ill-equipped to provide adequate maintenance. Indeed, the Housing Authority
had only a single inspector for 2,600 housing units.
All of these actions together gave rise to a potentially grave threat that could harm
the hundreds of low-income families that lived at Allen Benedict Court. And it did.
Ultimately, the entire complex was evacuated after two men died and several others were
sent to the hospital.
3
The Housing Authority passingly states at the end of its brief that Plaintiff’s
allegations resemble a “state-created danger” claim. Response Br. at 24. But it posits that
any such claim should be disposed of based on the same argument it already raises—
namely, that the Housing Authority did not have subjective knowledge of a specific risk.
For the reasons already stated, we disagree that Plaintiff did not adequately plead subjective
knowledge. Furthermore, we don’t read the Housing Authority to be arguing whether
Plaintiff’s claims are actionable at all under DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department
of Social Services, 489 U.S. at 197. To the extent it raises that issue, we find Plaintiff’s
allegations sufficient at this stage.
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Critically, too, Plaintiff alleged this policy of willful neglect in the apartment’s
maintenance was a conscious choice by the Housing Authority. By engaging in a pattern
of mismanagement and poor maintenance, the Housing Authority allegedly hoped to allow
its properties to become “so dangerously unsafe and uninhabitable that they became
eligible for federal grants,” such as the HOPE VI grant. J.A. 21–22. On five different
occasions, the Housing Authority applied for such federal grants in efforts “to find funds
for the demolition and revitalization of the Allen Benedict Court Apartments.” J.A. 23.
Such blatant disregard for tenant safety in order to obtain federal funding, if proven to be
true, would be conscience shocking, as it lacks any “reasonable justification in the service
of a legitimate governmental objective.” Lewis, 523 U.S. at 846; see also Guertin, 912 F.3d
at 926 (holding, in the context of the Flint, Michigan, water crisis, that “jealously guarding
the public’s purse cannot, under any circumstances, justify the yearlong contamination of
an entire community”).
At bottom, the facts alleged in this case shock the conscience: a public housing
authority’s deliberate indifference to a risk of harm that threatened numerous families
living in low-income housing. What is more, two men died because of that indifference,
several more were hospitalized, and an entire community was evacuated. Substantive due
process exists as the “last line of defense” against such official abuses of power that are so
arbitrary as to shock the conscience of the court. Hall v. Tawney, 621 F.2d 607, 613 (4th
Cir. 1980).
These grave facts are surely even more egregious than those in Dean—accordingly,
we find that Plaintiff’s complaint sufficiently alleges that the Housing Authority acted with
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deliberate indifference to Witherspoon’s bodily integrity, thereby violating his substantive-
due-process rights.
B.
We next examine whether Plaintiff has pleaded facts adequate to show that this
constitutional violation is attributable to the Housing Authority. To hold a municipality
responsible for a constitutional violation under Monell, a plaintiff must show that the
municipality’s policies were “the ‘moving force’ behind a deprivation of federal rights.”
Carter v. Morris, 164 F.3d 215, 218 (4th Cir. 1999) (quoting Monell, 436 U.S. at 694).
This requires a plaintiff to “demonstrate a direct causal link between the municipal action
and the deprivation of federal rights.” Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs of Bryan Cnty. v. Brown, 520
U.S. 397, 404 (1997). “[T]he municipality itself, through one of its policies or customs,”
must “cause[] the constitutional violation; municipal liability cannot be premised on
respondeat superior or vicarious liability.” Buffington v. Baltimore County, 913 F.2d 113,
122 (4th Cir. 1990); see also Estate of Jones v. City of Martinsburg, 961 F.3d 661, 672 (4th
Cir. 2020), as amended (June 10, 2020). Accordingly, a “rigorous” causation standard
“must be applied to ensure that the municipality is not held liable solely for the actions of
its employee[s].” Carter, 164 F.3d at 218 (quoting Brown, 520 U.S. at 405).
Establishing causation requires a plaintiff to first identify a specific deficiency in a
policy. See Spell v. McDaniel, 824 F.2d 1380, 1390 (4th Cir. 1987). “[S]cattershot”
allegations of “past generalized bad [municipal] behavior” causing “future generalized bad
[municipal] behavior” are insufficient to establish causation. Carter, 164 F.3d at 218–19;
see Spell, 824 F.2d at 1390 (requiring “a specific deficiency rather than general laxness or
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ineffectiveness”); see also Buffington, 913 F.2d at 122 (“It will not ‘suffice to prove that
an injury or accident could have been avoided if an officer had had better or more training,
sufficient to equip him to avoid the particular injury-causing conduct.’” (quoting City of
Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 391 (1989))). In other words, a plaintiff must identify a
“specific deficiency” and establish that deficiency’s causal connection to “the specific
violation.” Carter, 164 F.3d at 218 (quoting Spell, 824 F.2d at 1390).
The Housing Authority asserts that Plaintiff fails to “adhere to the specificity
require[ment]” for causation under Monell. Response Br. at 10. In particular, the Housing
Authority claims that Plaintiff “wad[es] into collateral accusations of marginally related
incidents and ‘splatter-paint[s] a picture of scattered violations’ in the effort to plead the
requisite threshold for a specific harm to a specific individual.” Id. at 11 (quoting Carter,
164 F.3d at 219).
We disagree with the Housing Authority’s assessment. Although Plaintiff’s
complaint does contain allegations that the Housing Authority has violated state and local
law and incurred hundreds of housing code violations, it also identifies specific policies
that are distinct from those “scattered violations.” Plaintiff’s complaint alleged that the
Housing Authority elected to apply Policy 8-1.C only to privately owned apartments,
understaffed its inspectors and personnel, operated a non-uniform repair system, adopted a
“custom of willful neglect” to obtain federal grants, J.A. 21, and failed to train and
supervise its employees in complying with applicable housing laws. These are specific
deficiencies in the Housing Authority’s procedures, practices, and training programs,
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which go further than allegations of “past generalized bad [municipal] behavior.” Carter,
164 F.3d at 219.
Nonetheless, identifying a specific deficiency in a policy is not enough to impose
municipal liability; a plaintiff must also establish “a sufficiently close causal link” between
that deficiency and the constitutional injury. Spell, 824 F.2d at 1390. A plaintiff must show
that the deficiency is “closely related to the injury complained of” and “that the injury
would have been avoided ‘under a program that was not deficient in the identified
respect.’” Gordon v. Kidd, 971 F.2d 1087, 1097 (4th Cir. 1992) (quoting Harris, 489 U.S.
at 391), as amended (July 7, 1992). In other words, a plaintiff must assess whether a
correction of the deficiency would have averted the specific violation. See Buffington, 913
F.2d at 122–23.
This Court’s decision in Owens v. Baltimore City State’s Attorneys Office is
instructive. See Owens, 767 F.3d at 402–04. In that case, the plaintiff alleged that the
Baltimore City Police Department violated his constitutional rights by maintaining a
custom of “condoning its officers’ conduct in ‘knowingly, consciously, and repeatedly
with[holding] and suppress[ing]’ exculpatory evidence.” See id. at 402. To support his
claim, the plaintiff alleged that “reported and unreported cases” and “numerous ‘successful
motions’” evidenced the police department’s custom of suppressing exculpatory evidence.
Id. at 403. This Court held that these allegations were sufficient to survive a motion to
dismiss. Id. at 404. In reaching this conclusion, we emphasized that a litigant must do
“more” than allege “a municipality’s adherence to an impermissible custom.” Id. at 403.
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And there, “[the plaintiff] ha[d] done more”—he “alleged facts . . . which, if true, would
buttress his legal conclusion.” Id.Like Owens, Plaintiff “has done more” than allege the mere existence of an
“impermissible” municipal custom. Id. Rather, Plaintiff has alleged “brief, but non-
conclusory, allegations” containing facts “which, if true, would buttress h[er] legal
conclusion.” Id. Accepting all well-pleaded factual allegations as true, Plaintiff’s complaint
sufficiently alleges that the constitutional injury—Witherspoon’s death by carbon
monoxide poisoning resulting from a faulty furnace—“would have been avoided ‘under a
program that was not deficient in the identified respect[s].’” Gordon, 971 F.2d at 1097(quoting Harris, 489 U.S. at 391).
Had the Housing Authority elected to apply Policy 8-1.C to Allen Benedict Court,
a missing carbon monoxide detector and a faulty furnace would have been considered life-
threatening conditions requiring immediate attention within twenty-four hours. It’s
plausible, then, that these particular “life-threatening conditions” would have been
remedied: Witherspoon’s detector would have sounded the alarm on the night of January
17, 2019, or the gas-burning furnace would have safely vented the carbon monoxide out of
his apartment. In either case, Witherspoon’s death “would have been” averted. Id. at 1097.
Similarly, if the Housing Authority had properly staffed inspectors and personnel,
operated a uniform repair system, and trained and supervised its employees to comply with
applicable housing laws, it is plausible that its employees would have been well-equipped
to fix the maintenance issues at the apartments. In fact, Plaintiff alleged that at least one
Housing Authority employee complained that he was not trained about carbon monoxide
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detector requirements. Thus, it appears plausible that had he and other employees been
appropriately trained, they would have known to install carbon monoxide detectors, as was
required by state and local law. Under such a program, Witherspoon would have had the
benefit of a carbon monoxide detector in his apartment, and many of the leaking, gas-
burning appliances in Allen Benedict Court would have been repaired.
In sum, at this early stage, Plaintiff has alleged sufficient facts to establish that the
Housing Authority’s policies and customs were the moving force behind the constitutional
injury.
IV.
For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiff’s
complaint. We remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
REVERSED AND REMANDED
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