Saldivar v. Racine

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 15-1448
ELBA SALDIVAR,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
DANIEL RACINE; THE CITY OF FALL RIVER,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. Nathaniel M. Gorton, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Kayatta, Stahl, and Barron,
Circuit Judges.
Edward J. McCormick, III, with whom McCormick & Maitland was
on brief, for appellant.
Andrew J. Gambaccini, with whom Reardon, Joyce & Akerson,
P.C. was on brief, for appellee Daniel Racine.
Gary P. Howayeck, Office of the Corporation Counsel, City of
Fall River, for appellee the City of Fall River.
March 25, 2016
BARRON, Circuit Judge. Elba Saldivar appeals the
dismissal of her federal civil rights and state law negligence
claims against the City of Fall River, Massachusetts, and Fall
River Police Chief Daniel Racine. The District Court dismissed
those claims pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)
for failure to state a claim. We affirm.
I.
The allegations set forth in Saldivar's complaint1 are
very disturbing. As we are reviewing a dismissal for failure to
state a claim, we accept the complaint's factual allegations as
true and draw all reasonable inferences from those facts in favor
of Saldivar. See Gargano v. Liberty Int'l Underwriters, Inc., 572
F.3d 45, 48 (1st Cir. 2009). So read, the complaint offers the
following account.
In early June 2011, Elba Saldivar, a resident of Fall
River, contacted the Fall River Police Department and reported
that her child had been harassed at school. The Police Department
assigned Officer Anthony Pridgen to investigate the incident.
Pridgen arrived at Saldivar's apartment in his marked
police cruiser and in full uniform and told Saldivar he needed to
question her as part of his investigation. Saldivar allowed
Pridgen into her apartment.
1 The operative complaint in this case is the Second Amended
Complaint.
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Upon entering the apartment, Pridgen pulled out his
service handgun and pointed it at Saldivar. He then grabbed
Saldivar and assaulted, battered, and raped her. He told Saldivar
he would kill her and her children if she reported the assault.
Despite Pridgen's threats, Saldivar reported the assault
to the Police Department, and the Department conducted an
investigation. The investigation uncovered security camera
footage at Saldivar's housing complex that showed a police cruiser
parked next to one of the buildings in that complex and Pridgen
entering and leaving that building. A subsequent search of
Pridgen's police locker led to the seizure of various items,
including two condoms and two packages of "Extenze" tablets.
Pridgen resigned from his job as a Fall River police
officer on June 28, 2011. In September of that same year, the
Bristol County, Massachusetts, District Attorney's office informed
Saldivar that it would not prosecute Pridgen.
The complaint also sets forth the following allegations
concerning how Pridgen had been disciplined by the Police
Department on various occasions prior to the alleged assault.2 In
2The operative complaint lists, without elaboration, eleven
disciplinary actions taken against Pridgen. The defendants asked
the District Court to consider the disciplinary record itself, on
the ground that the record is central to Saldivar's claims. The
District Court appears to have done so. Because Saldivar does not
object to the District Court's having considered the disciplinary
record and discusses that record in her brief as if it were a part
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February 2007, he was suspended for thirty days -- a punishment
later reduced to a written warning and training -- for failing to
abide by Department policy in handling a domestic violence call.3
A few months later, in October 2007, Pridgen was suspended for
five days without pay for violating the Department's sick leave
policy. And, according to his disciplinary record, in January
2011, he was suspended for a day for violating the "[r]oll
call/[leave benefit] policy." Pridgen was also reprimanded seven
times between September 2003 and June 2011 for "[f]ailure to log
& submit [e]vidence [f]orm," "attention to duty," "absence from
duty/late," "cruiser accident," "pursuit policy," "tardiness," and
"reports."
Pridgen's final disciplinary action came in June of
2011, shortly after the alleged rape and assault. At that time,
he was suspended for five days without pay for allowing his license
to carry his service handgun to lapse for five years.4
of her complaint, we, too, consider the record as part of the
complaint.
3 Pridgen was charged with "fail[ing] to adequately obtain
pertinent information regarding the ongoing domestic situation and
the presence of firearms," "fail[ing] to properly search for and
seize potential firearms to alleviate the threat of serious
violence," "fail[ing] to give the victim . . . adequate notice of
her rights by handing and reading her a copy of the Fall River
Police Department's Domestic Violence Rights form," and
"clear[ing] the call, [k]nowing a domestic violence report was not
completed."
4 Saldivar obtained Pridgen's disciplinary record after she
filed this suit and before she filed the operative complaint, when
the District Court ordered the defendants "to produce forthwith
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Saldivar brought suit against Pridgen, Fall River Chief
of Police Daniel Racine, and the City of Fall River for (1) assault
and battery by Pridgen; (2) violation of the Massachusetts Civil
Rights Act by Pridgen and the City; (3) violation of 42
U.S.C. § 1983 by all defendants, and (4) negligent hiring,
training, and supervision by the City.
Pridgen never entered an appearance in this case, and
the District Court granted default judgment of $600,000 to Saldivar
on her claims against him. Racine and the City then moved to
dismiss all of Saldivar's claims against them for failure to state
a claim. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). The District Court granted
those motions and dismissed the complaint. See Saldivar v.
Pridgen, 91 F. Supp. 3d 134 (D. Mass. 2015).
Saldivar appeals the dismissal of her § 1983 claim
against Racine, her § 1983 claim against the City, and her
negligent hiring, training, and supervision claim against the
City.5
II.
We review the District Court's dismissal for failure to
state a claim de novo, and we may affirm "on any ground made
manifest by the record." Decotiis v. Whittemore, 635 F.3d 22, 28
the entire disciplinary record of Officer Pridgen to the
Plaintiff."
5 Saldivar does not appeal the dismissal of her claim against
the City for violation of the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act.
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(1st Cir. 2011) (quoting Roman-Cancel v. United States, 613 F.3d
37, 41 (1st Cir. 2010)).
To survive a motion to dismiss, Saldivar's complaint
"must contain sufficient factual matter . . . to 'state a claim to
relief that is plausible on its face.'" Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556
U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S.
544, 570 (2007)). In evaluating whether a complaint states a
plausible claim, we "perform [a] two-step analysis." Cardigan
Mtn. Sch. v. N.H. Ins. Co., 787 F.3d 82, 84 (1st Cir. 2015). At
the first step, we "distinguish the complaint's factual
allegations (which must be accepted as true) from its conclusory
legal allegations (which need not be credited)." Id. (quoting
García-Catalán v. United States, 734 F.3d 100, 103 (1st Cir.
2013)). At step two, we must "determine whether the factual
allegations are sufficient to support the reasonable inference
that the defendant is liable." Id. (quoting García-Catalán, 734
F.3d at 103) (internal quotation marks omitted).
This standard is "not akin to a 'probability
requirement,' but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that
a defendant has acted unlawfully." Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (quoting
Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556). "Applying the plausibility standard is
'a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw
on its judicial experience and common sense.'" Decotiis, 635 F.3d
at 29 (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679).
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A.
We begin with Saldivar's § 1983 claim against Racine.
Section 1983 provides a cause of action when an individual, acting
under color of state law, deprives a person of constitutional
rights. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
Saldivar's complaint does not allege that Racine
directly deprived her of such rights. But Saldivar is correct
that a supervisory official like Racine may be held liable
under § 1983 for the unconstitutional behavior of a subordinate
like Pridgen. Of course, a supervisor is not liable under § 1983
for the actions of a subordinate on a respondeat superior theory.
See Maldonado-Denis v. Castillo-Rodriguez, 23 F.3d 576, 581 (1st
Cir. 1994). Rather, the supervisor is liable for the subordinate's
actions if the subordinate's behavior led to a constitutional
violation and if "the supervisor's action or inaction was
affirmatively linked to that behavior in the sense that it could
be characterized as supervisory encouragement, condonation or
acquiescence or gross negligence amounting to deliberate
indifference." Estate of Bennett v. Wainwright, 548 F.3d 155,
176-77 (1st Cir. 2008) (brackets omitted) (quoting Pineda v.
Toomey, 533 F.3d 50, 54 (1st Cir. 2008)).
The District Court dismissed Saldivar's claim against
Racine on the ground that Saldivar had failed to plausibly allege
that Racine was deliberately indifferent. The District Court
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explained that it reached that conclusion because the complaint
failed to allege facts that would plausibly show that Racine had
the requisite notice of the risk that Pridgen would assault
Saldivar. See Saldivar, 91 F. Supp. 3d at 137-38.
Our precedent requires that same conclusion. In order
for a police supervisor to be deemed "deliberately indifferent,"
the supervisor must have "actual or constructive knowledge" of a
"grave risk of harm" posed by the subordinate and fail to take
"easily available measures to address the risk." Camilo-Robles v.
Hoyos, 151 F.3d 1, 6-7 (1st Cir. 1998). The complaint does allege
that Pridgen had a number of disciplinary violations prior to the
alleged assault and rape. Those violations do not, however,
include any that would indicate that Pridgen had any propensity
for violence or for any other sufficiently related conduct. This
absence renders speculative any inference that one might otherwise
arguably draw that any officer who would commit such an offense
likely had a record that would suffice to give such an indication.
Nor does Saldivar contend otherwise. The significance
she attributes to the lengthy record of violations appears to be
that they indicate that Pridgen "had a propensity for not following
police regulations" and thus might not follow police regulations
in the future. But, under our precedents, being alert to that
possibility is not sufficient to make the supervisor liable for
the harm caused by Pridgen on which Saldivar's § 1983 claim is
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based.6 Thus, the complaint's recitation of Pridgen's past
disciplinary violations does not show that it was plausible that
Racine had notice that Pridgen posed a grave risk of harm.
Saldivar does contend that the fact that Pridgen did not
have an active firearm license was sufficient -- at least given
his past violations -- to put Racine on the requisite notice. "As
it is a crime in Massachusetts to carry a firearm without a
license," Saldivar argues, "it is . . . foreseeable that an
individual who carries a handgun without a license, will use it in
the commission of a crime." But, based on the precedents that we
have cited, we cannot say that the fact that Pridgen did not have
a license for his gun makes it plausible that Racine was on notice
6 See Febus-Rodriguez v. Betancourt-Lebron, 14 F.3d 87, 93
(1st Cir. 1994) (concluding, on a motion for summary judgment,
that five complaints levied against a police officer did not
provide a superior officer with "the requisite notice" to support
a claim of deliberate indifference for the assault of an arrestee
where "[t]he five previous complaints stemmed from incidents
completely unrelated to the present one" and thus "could not have
alerted [the supervisor] to the fact that [the officer] had a
propensity to assault citizens"); see also Ramírez-Lluveras v.
Rivera-Merced, 759 F.3d 10, 21 (1st Cir. 2014) (holding, on a
motion for summary judgment, that an officer's seven instances of
misconduct over a nearly fourteen-year period, including a
complaint of assault on a motorcyclist in 2004, were "not
sufficient to put supervisors on notice that he presented
a . . . 'grave risk' of shooting an arrestee"); cf. Gutierrez-
Rodriguez v. Cartagena, 882 F.2d 553, 563-64 (1st Cir. 1989)
(upholding a jury verdict finding a supervisor liable under § 1983
for a policeman's shooting car passengers while on duty where that
supervisor had knowledge, due to thirteen citizen complaints, of
the policeman's frequently brutal behavior, and yet took no action
concerning those complaints).
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that there was a "grave risk" that the Officer would use the weapon
to commit a violent crime -- or would otherwise engage in violent
conduct -- while on duty.7
We recognize that we are reviewing a dismissal of a
complaint and thus that the plaintiff need not prove her
allegations. At this early stage in the litigation, she need only
make the kind of allegations that would suffice under the standard
set forth in Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662. Indeed, as we have noted,
seemingly all of our analogous § 1983 supervisory liability cases
have been resolved at summary judgment, or at other later stages
of the litigation. Nonetheless, under the Iqbal standard, the
complaint must set forth facts that make the § 1983 claim
plausible. Id. at 678. And, here, we do not believe the facts
that have been set forth suffice to make it plausible that the
supervisor -- Racine -- is liable under § 1983 for the horrific
conduct by Officer Pridgen that is alleged.
7 In connection with her negligence claim, Saldivar does make
an argument regarding the Massachusetts gun licensing process. We
address that argument below, in discussing Saldivar's negligence
claim. Although Saldivar does not make this argument in support
of her § 1983 claim, were we to consider the argument in evaluating
that claim, our decision would not change. Similarly, in
connection with her negligence claim, Saldivar references the
complaint's allegations regarding the condoms and Extenze tablets
found in Pridgen's locker and argues that those allegations make
that claim plausible. She does not, however, make any argument
that those allegations make her § 1983 claims plausible, and we
conclude that those allegations also would not change our
conclusion.
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B.
Saldivar also appeals the dismissal of her § 1983 claim
against the City for the harm she suffered from the assault by
Officer Pridgen. She relies for this claim on Monell v. Dep't of
Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658 (1978).
Monell held that although a municipality may not be held
liable under a theory of respondeat superior for an employee's
constitutional violation, it may be held liable when "execution of
[the municipality's] policy or custom . . . inflicts the injury"
and is the "moving force" behind the employee's constitutional
violation. Id. at 694. "Official municipal policy includes,"
among other things, "the acts of [the municipality's] policymaking
officials." Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51, 61 (2011); see also
Pembaur v. City of Cincinnati, 475 U.S. 469, 480 (1986) (holding
that government policy or custom may be established by "a single
decision by municipal policymakers under appropriate
circumstances").
Saldivar argues that she has stated a plausible Monell
claim because her complaint alleges that Racine was acting as a
final policymaker for the City when he made decisions regarding
Pridgen's retention, supervision, and training in response to
Pridgen's disciplinary violations. But even assuming that the
allegation that Racine is a final policymaker is plausible, that
allegation is not enough. A City is liable under Monell for the
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acts of a final policymaker only if those acts constitute
deliberate indifference. See Connick, 563 U.S. at 61; Young v.
City of Providence, 404 F.3d 4, 26 (1st Cir. 2005). And so here,
too, Saldivar's § 1983 claim may survive the motion to dismiss
only if the complaint plausibly alleges that Racine was
deliberately indifferent to the grave risk of harm that Pridgen
posed. But that claim is not plausible for the reasons we have
just given regarding the limited allegations contained in the
complaint. And thus here, too, we agree with the District Court
that the claim cannot go forward.8
C.
Finally, Saldivar appeals the dismissal of her
negligence claim against the City, which is brought under the
Massachusetts Tort Claims Act, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 258. See id.
§ 2 ("Public employers shall be liable for injury or loss of
property or personal injury or death caused by the negligent or
wrongful act or omission of any public employee while acting within
the scope of his office or employment, in the same manner and to
the same extent as a private individual under like
circumstances . . . ."). To state a negligence claim under
Massachusetts law, a plaintiff must allege that (1) the defendant
8
Because we conclude that Saldivar's § 1983 claims are not
plausible as alleged, we need not address the defendants' arguments
that Racine is entitled to qualified immunity or that Pridgen was
not acting under color of state law when he assaulted Saldivar.
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owed the plaintiff a duty of reasonable care; (2) the defendant
breached that duty; (3) damage resulted; and (4) the defendant's
breach caused that damage. See Jupin v. Kask, 849 N.E.2d 829,
834-35 (Mass. 2006). In addition, under Massachusetts law, a
determination "[w]hether negligent conduct is the proximate cause
of an injury depends . . . on whether the injury to the plaintiff
was a foreseeable result of the defendant's negligent conduct."
Kent v. Commonwealth, 771 N.E.2d 770, 777 (Mass. 2002).
Saldivar argues that Racine breached a duty to her by
not properly training Pridgen, not requiring him to be directly
supervised, and by not terminating his employment, notwithstanding
his lengthy record of disciplinary violations. Assuming the
complaint plausibly alleges that Racine was negligent in his
response to those violations, the question remains whether that
negligence was a proximate cause of the harm to Saldivar.
Massachusetts law is admittedly sparse with respect to
what constitutes a foreseeable result in circumstances directly
analogous to those present here. But, as a general matter, the
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has held that where the kind
of harm alleged is violent, the violent nature of that harm must
be a reasonably foreseeable result of the defendant's negligence
in order for that defendant to be liable for that harm.9 Moreover,
9 See Carey v. New Yorker of Worcester, Inc., 245 N.E.2d 420,
454 (Mass. 1969) ("The specific kind of harm need not be
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in cases in which a plaintiff alleges that an employer is liable
under a theory of negligent supervision for the intentional tort
of an employee, Massachusetts courts have required that the
employer have known, or at least should have known, that the
employee might harm someone in the same general manner in which
the employee is alleged to have harmed the plaintiff.10
foreseeable as long as it was foreseeable that there would be harm
from the act which constituted the negligence, provided it was
foreseeable that there would be violence toward others."); see
also Flood v. Southland Corp., 616 N.E.2d 1068, 1075-76 (Mass.
1993) ("A jury would be warranted in such circumstances in
determining that a risk of harm, the stabbing of someone, was
reasonably foreseeable. The way in which the stabbing occurred
and the fact that the plaintiff might be the one to be harmed need
not have been reasonably foreseeable." (citation omitted)).
10 See, e.g., Foley v. Bos. Hous. Auth., 555 N.E.2d 234, 236-
37 (Mass. 1990) (holding that a jury could not find that it was
foreseeable to the employer that an employee might attack the
plaintiff (a fellow employee) where "[t]here [was] no showing in
the record of threats by employees, or a pattern of incidents
involving employees, that reasonably would put the [employer] on
notice that [the plaintiff] could be the target of an attack by a[
fellow] employee"); Foster v. The Loft, Inc., 526 N.E.2d 1309,
1311-13 (Mass. App. Ct. 1988) (holding that a jury could find that
the assault was foreseeable where a customer alleged that he had
been assaulted by the defendant's employee and that the defendant
knew that the employee had a criminal record but did not take
further action to determine whether that record would compromise
the safety of customers and where the environment in which the
employee worked posed a high potential for violence); Beal v.
Broadard, 19 Mass. L. Rptr. 114, 2005 WL 1009632, at *4-5 (Mass.
Sup. Ct. 2005) (holding that a jury could find that an alleged
sexual assault perpetrated by a church's "ministerial servant" was
foreseeable to an elder of that church, where that elder had
knowledge of the perpetrator's "prior incidents of sexual
dangerousness," but that a jury could not find that the assault
was foreseeable to the church's state chapter, where "[t]he record
contain[ed] not a scintilla of evidence that anyone ever informed
[that defendant] of [the perpetrator's] purported sexual
dangerousness prior to the alleged instances of abuse").
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Given the state of Massachusetts law, Saldivar's
allegations regarding Pridgen's past disciplinary violations are
not enough to plausibly allege that the harm in this case was
reasonably foreseeable to Racine. As we have explained, none of
those violations appears to have involved violent behavior, nor
does Saldivar allege that they reflect violent incidents. And so
we conclude that the City is right that Pridgen's prior
disciplinary violations are not sufficient to make out a plausible
claim that Racine reasonably foresaw that the limited nature of
his response to those violations would cause "the same general
kind of harm" alleged here. See Jupin, 849 N.E.2d at 837 n.8.
The complaint does include other facts that, in
conjunction with the disciplinary record, Saldivar argues put
Racine on notice of the risk that Saldivar would engage in conduct
that would cause the same general kind of harm alleged in this
case. The complaint alleges that Pridgen had two condoms and two
packages of Extenze tablets in his police locker and that Pridgen
had let his firearm license lapse for five years. The condoms and
Extenze tablets, Saldivar argues in her brief, raise the question
whether the Police Department knew that Pridgen had those items in
his locker and whether there was any Department prohibition on
those items being at the station. As for the gun, Saldivar argues
that it is reasonably foreseeable that someone with an unregistered
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gun would "use it in the commission of a crime," as Pridgen did
here.
But the complaint does not allege that Racine knew that
Pridgen had condoms and Extenze tablets in his locker or that he
was prohibited by Department policy from having them there. And
we do not believe that the allegations in the complaint regarding
the mere presence of those items -- absent any other facts that
might illuminate their significance -- suffice to make it plausible
that it was reasonably foreseeable to Racine that Pridgen would
engage in violent conduct. That is true even if we consider them
in connection with the complaint's other allegations, as the
disciplinary record does not reveal violations for conduct of the
"same general kind of harm" alleged here. See id. at 837 n.8.
Nor, for reasons we have explained in addressing Saldivar's § 1983
claims, is it plausible that Racine's constructive knowledge of
Pridgen's failure to keep his gun license up-to-date made it
reasonably foreseeable that Pridgen would engage in such conduct.
Saldivar does make the additional contention in her
brief that "license to carry in Massachusetts is discretionary and
is issued only to those citizens deemed not to be a threat to
society or who might use it in the commission of a crime." The
suggestion -- though Saldivar does not develop the argument --
appears to be that Racine should have known of Pridgen's violent
tendencies, as those violent tendencies would have been identified
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had Racine made sure that Pridgen's gun license was up-to-date.
But Saldivar did not include in her complaint the facts she now
wants us to "note[]" regarding the workings of the Massachusetts
licensing process for firearms.11 And because the complaint we
have before us does not state any facts about how the licensing
process works, the complaint necessarily fails to state facts that
would suggest that the process would have identified, in
particular, Pridgen's violent tendencies. For these reasons, we
conclude that Saldivar's negligence claim, as pled, is too
speculative to survive a motion to dismiss.
III.
We end by emphasizing that to survive a motion to dismiss
a claim must merely be "plausible on its face." Iqbal, 556 U.S.
at 678. Moreover, we have said that in cases "in which a material
part of the information needed is likely to be within the
defendant's control," "'some latitude may be appropriate' in
applying the plausibility standard." García-Catalán, 734 F.3d at
104 (quoting Menard v. CSX Transp., Inc., 698 F.3d 40, 45 (1st
Cir. 2012)). In such cases, we have said that "it is reasonable
to expect that 'modest discovery may provide the missing link'
11
The defendants, for their part, contend without citation
that the "licensure . . . would amount to nothing more than the
ministerial task of a renewal application."
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that will allow the appellant to go to trial on her claim." Id.(quoting Menard, 698 F.3d at 45).
But the missing link that is common to the claims at
issue in the case before us has not been alleged "upon information
and belief," as it was in Menard, see 698 F.3d at 44 & n.5, and is
not plausible simply by appeal to common sense, as in García-
Catalán, see 734 F.3d at 103. Here, the gap between the
allegations in the complaint and a plausible claim is wider than
it was in those cases. Importantly, Saldivar was allowed modest
discovery before she filed her amended complaint, namely access to
Pridgen's disciplinary record, upon which Saldivar's allegations
are based. There is no indication from that record, however, that
any of the violations involved violent conduct.
Simply put, the complaint alleges conduct by a member of
the City police force that is shocking. But the complaint seeks
to hold the officer's supervisor and the City liable. Absent more
facts than the complaint contains, we cannot discern a plausible
claim for doing so under § 1983 or under the law of negligence in
Massachusetts. Accordingly, the decision of the District Court
dismissing Saldivar's complaint is affirmed.
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