White v. Lemacks

[PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
FILED
________________________
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 98-9513 08/10/99
________________________ THOMAS K. KAHN
CLERK
D.C. Docket No. 1:98-cv-2063-CAM
PHYLLIS WHITE, acting as Administrator for the Estate of
Jean Danison, WILLIAM ROSTAD,
acting as Administrator for the Estate of
Jean Danison,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
versus
BILL LEMACKS, individually and in his official
capacity as former Sheriff of Clayton County, Georgia,
STANLEY TUGGLE, individually and in
his official capacities as Sheriff and Deputy Sheriff of
Clayton County, Georgia, CLAYTON COUNTY, GEORGIA,
Defendants-Appellees.
__________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Georgia
_________________________
(August 10, 1999)
Before CARNES, Circuit Judge, HILL, Senior Circuit Judge, and HOEVELER*,
Senior District Judge.
CARNES, Circuit Judge:
Plaintiffs William Rostad, acting as administrator for the estate of Jean
Danison, and Phyllis White appeal the district court’s dismissal of their 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983 complaint against the defendants, who are Clayton County Sheriff Billy
Lemacks, Deputy Sheriff Stanley Tuggle, and Clayton County, Georgia. The
district court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief
may be granted. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the district court’s
judgment.
I. BACKGROUND
A. FACTS
According to the amended complaint, White and Danison were nurses in the
employ of Prison Health Services, Inc., which was under contract to provide
medical services to the inmate population at the Clayton County Jail. As a
condition of their job, and while performing their nursing duties at the jail, they
were required to be in close contact with inmates and their freedom of movement
and ability to flee or otherwise protect themselves were limited. Although they had
*
The Honorable William M. Hoeveler, Senior United States District Judge for the
Southern District of Florida, sitting by designation.
2
received assurances from agents of the defendants that adequate security measures
would be in place to protect them from injury, in fact, inadequate steps were taken
to protect them.
On July 23, 1996, while carrying out their nursing duties in the jail
infirmary, White and Danison were attacked and brutally beaten by an inmate who
was being held on aggravated assault charges. During the attack, White’s head
was slammed repeatedly against the floor while the inmate threatened to kill her.
She was physically beaten about the head and body. Danison, too, was physically
beaten by the inmate. At the time of the attack, one deputy sheriff had been
assigned for White and Danison’s protection, but that deputy was easily subdued.
The attack continued until additional law enforcement personnel responded and the
inmate was restrained.
B. PROCEDURAL HISTORY
In their initial complaint, plaintiffs brought claims against Sheriff Lemacks
and Deputy Sheriff Tuggle in their individual and official capacities, and against
Clayton County, Georgia, for substantive due process violations under both the
Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The complaint
also alleged violations of Georgia law and sought punitive damages.
Defendants responded with a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim
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upon which relief could be granted under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).
Their motion argued that the defendants did not owe plaintiffs a duty to protect
them from a third party and did not have a constitutional obligation to provide a
safe workplace. It also asserted that all of the defendants had qualified immunity,
sovereign immunity, or official immunity, and that the request for punitive
damages should be dismissed. Plaintiffs filed a motion to amend, attaching the
proposed amended complaint. The amended complaint alleged additional facts,
and it dropped the Fifth Amendment substantive due process claims and the
Georgia law claims. The district court granted the plaintiffs’ motion to amend the
complaint, but also granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss the remaining claims
for failure to state a claim. The plaintiffs appeal the dismissal of their Fourteenth
Amendment substantive due process claims.
II. DISCUSSION
We review de novo the district court’s dismissal of a complaint for failure to
state a claim upon which relief could be granted. See Republic of Panama v. BCCI
Holdings (Luxembourg) S.A., 119 F.3d 935, 948 (11th Cir. 1997). When
considering a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, a court must accept the allegations
in the complaint as true, construing them in the light most favorable to the
plaintiffs. See Roberts v. Florida Power & Light Co., 146 F.3d 1305, 1307 (11th
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Cir. 1998), cert. denied, 119 S. Ct. 1027 (1999). We have done that in setting out
the facts, above. A Rule 12(b)(6) motion should be granted only if it appears
beyond doubt that the plaintiffs can prove no set of facts in support of their
allegations which would entitle them to relief. See id.We are bound to follow prior panel decisions, except where they have been
overruled either by an en banc decision of this Court or a decision of the Supreme
Court. See, e.g., United States v. Steele, 147 F.3d 1316, 1317-18 (11th Cir. 1998)
(en banc); United States v. Hogan, 986 F.2d 1364, 1369 (11th Cir. 1993). This case
involves the second part of that exception.
In Cornelius v. Town of Highland Lake, 880 F.2d 348 (11th Cir. 1989), we
said that state and local government entities could be held liable for substantive
due process violations for their failure to protect victims from harm caused by third
parties where the state had a “special relationship” with the victim, or where the
state, through its affirmative acts, put the victim in “special danger” of harm. Our
holding in Cornelius is best described against the specific facts of that case.
Plaintiff Harriet Cornelius was working at the Highland Lake town hall as the
Town Clerk when she was abducted at knife point by two prison inmates and
forced to accompany them for three days, during which time they terrorized her
with threats of physical violence. The inmates were in the vicinity of town hall
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because the Town of Highland Lake had requested the Alabama Department of
Corrections to provide inmate work squads to the town for maintenance and public
works purposes. Despite the Department’s policy that only nonviolent, “minimum
custody” property offenders could be assigned to the work squads, one of the
attackers approved for the Highland Lake assignment was serving a long sentence
for armed robbery and had a history of violent crime. The tools provided to the
inmates for their work included axes, picks, machetes, knives, and saws. An
unarmed town employee supervised the inmates during their work, see Cornelius,
880 F.2d at 349-50, but the measures employed to protect Cornelius and others
who worked at the town hall were clearly inadequate to ensure their safety.
Cornelius brought a suit under § 1983 against the Town of Highland Lake,
its Mayor, a member of the City Council, and officials of the Department of
Corrections, alleging a violation of her substantive due process rights. She claimed
that the inmates were able to abduct her only because of the officials’ gross
negligence and deliberate indifference to her rights. See id. at 351. The district
court granted summary judgment for the defendants, but this Court reversed.
Surveying prior cases, we concluded that government officials could be held liable
under a substantive due process theory for injuries caused by third parties if there
was a “special relationship” between the government and the victim, or if the
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government created a “special danger” to the victim that resulted in her injuries.
See id. at 352-55 (citing Wright v. City of Ozark, 715 F.2d 1513 (11th Cir. 1983)
for the special relationship doctrine, and Jones v. Phyfer, 761 F.2d 642 (11th Cir.
1985) for the special danger doctrine). We concluded in Cornelius that there were
genuine issues of material fact, both as to whether a special relationship existed
between Cornelius and the town officials and as to whether she faced a special
danger from the work squad inmates, see id. at 355-59, which is to say that if she
could prove the facts asserted, Cornelius would establish that her substantive due
process rights had been violated by the government agencies.
In the special relationship analysis, we noted that “if Mrs. Cornelius wished
to continue serving as the town clerk, she had to work in the environment created
by the town officials; one that included routine exposure to prison inmates around
the town hall.” Id. at 355. We viewed the employment relationship between
Cornelius and the town as a special relationship giving rise to a substantive due
process duty on the part of the state to protect her from harm.
Under the special danger portion of the analysis, we observed “that the town
and prison officials affirmatively acted together in bringing the inmates into the
community of Highland Lake via the work squad program.” Id. at 357. Moreover,
there was evidence indicating that: (1) the town officials assigned to supervise the
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prisoners had no training in handling prisoners; (2) the defendants allowed the
prisoners access to tools and weapons; and (3) the inmates were often unsupervised
and free to roam. See id. at 357-58. That was enough, we thought, to implicate
substantive due process under the “special danger” analysis.
Likewise, in this case, working around inmates was a necessary part of the
plaintiffs’ job,1 and they have alleged that these governmental defendants failed to
take adequate measures to protect them from the inmates and were deliberately
indifferent to their safety. Accordingly, if Cornelius is still good law, these
plaintiffs probably have pleaded a valid substantive due process claim. But
Cornelius is not the last word on the subject.
Less than three years after our Cornelius decision, the Supreme Court in
Collins v. City of Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115, 127, 112 S. Ct. 1061, 1069
(1992), unanimously rejected as “unprecedented” a claim that a government
employer had a federal constitutional obligation to provide its employees (as
distinguished from individuals such as prisoners whom it had deprived of their
1
Strictly speaking, the plaintiffs were not employees of the County, but were employees
of a corporation under contract with the county to provide nursing services to the jail.
Nevertheless, they were required as a condition of their employment to work in the jail
infirmary, and the parties have treated this situation as equivalent to the plaintiffs having an
employment relationship with the County itself. Because doing so does not affect the outcome,
and, if anything, favors the plaintiffs who lose this appeal anyway, we will treat these plaintiffs
as if they had been employed directly by the County.
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liberty) with certain minimal levels of safety and security in the workplace. In that
case, an employee of the City of Harker Heights sanitation department died of
asphyxia after entering a manhole to unstop a sewer line. His widow brought a §
1983 action alleging that under the Fourteenth Amendment, her husband “had a
constitutional right to be free from unreasonable risks of harm to his body, mind
and emotions and a constitutional right to be protected from the city of Harker
Heights’ custom and policy of deliberate indifference toward the safety of its
employees.” Collins, 503 U.S. at 117, 112 S. Ct. at 1064. Her complaint stated
that the city had violated that constitutional right by “following a custom and
policy of not training its employees about the dangers of working in sewer lines
and manholes, not providing safety equipment at jobsites, and not providing safety
warnings.” Id.The Supreme Court read Collins’ claim as advancing two theories. First,
that “the Federal Constitution imposes a duty on the city to provide its employees
with minimal levels of safety and security in the workplace[.]” Id. at 126, 112 S.
Ct. at 1069. Second, that “the city’s ‘deliberate indifference’ to [her husband’s]
safety was arbitrary government action that must ‘shock the conscience’ of federal
judges.” Id.In rejecting those two theories, the Court emphasized that consensual
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employment relationships are different from custodial relationships, which arise
from incarceration and other involuntary confinement. It indicated that where non-
custodial relationships are involved, the government can be held liable under the
substantive due process clause only where an official’s act or omission is
“arbitrary[] or conscience shocking,” id. at 128, 112 S. Ct. at 1070, an indication
that was confirmed in County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, __, 118 S. Ct.
1708, 1717 (1998). The Collins Court held that the city’s alleged failure to train or
warn its employees about known risks was not arbitrary or conscience shocking in
the constitutional sense. 503 U.S. at 128-29, 112 S. Ct. 1070. The Court explained
its reasoning as follows:
Our refusal to characterize the city’s alleged omission in this case as
arbitrary in a constitutional sense rests on the presumption that the
administration of government programs is based on a rational
decisionmaking process that takes account of competing social, political,
and economic forces. Decisions concerning the allocation of resources
to individual programs, such as sewer maintenance, and to particular
aspects of those programs, such as the training and compensation of
employees, involve a host of policy choices that must be made by locally
elected representatives, rather than by federal judges interpreting the
basic charter of Government for the entire country. The Due Process
Clause is not a guarantee against incorrect or ill-advised personnel
decisions. Nor does it guarantee municipal employees a workplace that
is free of unreasonable risks of harm.
Id. (internal quotations and citations omitted).
After Collins, it appears the only relationships that automatically give rise to
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a governmental duty to protect individuals from harm by third parties under the
substantive due process clause are custodial relationships, such as those which
arise from the incarceration of prisoners or other forms of involuntary confinement
through which the government deprives individuals of their liberty and thus of
their ability to take care of themselves. Collins makes it clear that the fact a
government employee would risk losing her job if she did not submit to unsafe job
conditions does not convert a voluntary employment relationship into a custodial
relationship, and therefore does not entitle the employee to constitutional
protection from workplace hazards, one of which can be harm caused by third
parties. As the Court put it, the Due Process Clause does not guarantee government
employees “a workplace that is free of unreasonable risks of harm.” Collins, 503
U.S. at 129, 112 S. Ct. at 1070.
Thus, Collins directly conflicts with and overrules the part of Cornelius
holding that a government employment relationship, in and of itself, is a “special
relationship” giving rise to a constitutional duty to protect individuals from harm
by third parties. As a result, the part of Cornelius adopting, or perpetuating, a
“special relationship” doctrine that guarantees government employees
constitutional protection from unreasonable risks of harm in the workplace is no
longer good law.
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That is not the only part of Cornelius felled by Collins. The “special danger”
doctrine employed in Cornelius has been supplanted as well. Under Collins,
government officials violate the substantive due process rights of a person not in
custody only by conduct “that can properly be characterized as arbitrary, or
conscience shocking, in a constitutional sense.” Collins, 503 U.S. at 128, 112 S.
Ct. at 1070. See also Lewis, 523 U.S. at __, 118 S. Ct. at 1717 (citing Collins).
That standard is somewhat amorphous, but the Collins opinion does provide some
guidance for applying it.
The opinion reminds us, for example, that the Supreme Court has been
“reluctant to expand the concept of substantive due process,” and that judicial self-
restraint requires courts to exercise the utmost care in this area. See Collins, 503
U.S. at 125, 112 S. Ct. at 1068. More specifically, we are told in the Collins
opinion that when governmental action or inaction reflects policy decisions about
resource allocation (as is often the case), those decisions are better made “by
locally elected representatives, rather than by federal judges interpreting the basic
charter of Government for the entire country.” Id. at 128-29, 112 S. Ct. at 1070. In
other words, when someone not in custody is harmed because not enough
resources were devoted to their safety and protection, that harm will seldom, if
ever, be cognizable under the Due Process Clause. Finally, we have the reasoning
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and holding in Collins that the city’s breach of its duty to provide a safe work
environment is not arbitrary or conscience -shocking in a constitutional sense, but
instead is “analogous to a fairly typical state-law tort claim.” Id. at 128, 112 S. Ct.
at 1070.
In determining whether the conduct alleged in Cornelius or in this case was
“arbitrary or conscience shocking” under Collins, it is important to note that none
of the plaintiffs in Collins, Cornelius, or this case alleged that the state intended to
harm them or their relatives, but only that the state had been, at most, deliberately
indifferent to their safety. Although Lewis leaves open the possibility that
deliberate indifference on the part of the state will “shock the conscience” in some
circumstances, see 523 U.S. at __, 118 S. Ct. at 1718-20, it is clear after Collins
that such indifference in the context of routine decisions about employee or
workplace safety cannot carry a plaintiff’s case across that high threshold.
As it was in Collins, so it was in Cornelius, and so it is in this case. The
decisions to be made by government and its officials were materially identical in
all three cases. In Cornelius, the question was whether to provide additional
supervision or other protection to employees when prison inmates are working
around the job site; in Collins, the question was whether to provide better training
and other safeguards to city employees working in hazardous conditions; and, in
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this case, the question was whether to provide more guards or other safeguards for
the protection of nurses working in the jail infirmary. All three questions involved
resource-allocation choices better resolved by locally elected representatives than
by federal judges. And although all three claims have been dressed up in
substantive due process clothing, the naked truth is that they are actually
“analogous to [] fairly typical state-law tort claim[s]” that the government or its
agents “breached its duty of care . . . by failing to provide a safe work
environment.” Collins, 503 U.S. at 128, 112 S. Ct. at 1070. All three cases should
have the same result, and the Supreme Court in Collins has dictated what that
result must be.
To summarize, the “special relationship” and “special danger” doctrines
applied in our decision in Cornelius are no longer good law, having been
superseded by the standard employed by the Supreme Court in Collins. Under
Collins, state and local government officials violate the substantive due process
rights of individuals not in custody only when those officials cause harm by
engaging in conduct that is “arbitrary, or conscience shocking, in a constitutional
sense,” and that standard is to be narrowly interpreted and applied. While
deliberate indifference to the safety of government employees in the workplace
may constitute a tort under state law, it does not rise to the level of a substantive
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due process violation under the federal Constitution.
One last item of business remains. In the seven years since Collins, we
have questioned at least five times whether Cornelius retains any viability after
Collins. See Mitchell v. Duval County Sch. Bd., 107 F.3d 837, 838-39 & n.3 (11th
Cir. 1997) (“[T]here is some question whether Cornelius’s special danger theory of
liability remains good law” because “Cornelius may not have survived [Collins].”);
Hamilton v. Cannon, 80 F.3d 1525, 1531 n.6 (11th Cir. 1996) (“Cornelius’ viability
is questionable in light of the Supreme Court’s subsequent decision in [Collins].”);
Lovins v. Lee, 53 F.3d 1208, 1211 (11th Cir. 1995) (“[T]here is considerable doubt
about whether [Cornelius] survives the Supreme Court’s subsequent Collins
decision.”); Wooten v. Campbell, 49 F.3d 696, 700 n.4 (11th Cir. 1995) (“There is
some question whether this court’s holding in Cornelius survive[s] the Supreme
Court’s decision in [Collins].”); Wright v. Lovin, 32 F.3d 538, 541 n.1 (11th Cir.
1994) (“[T]here is some doubt whether our holding in Cornelius has survived the
Supreme Court’s recent holding in [Collins].”). In the face of the obvious, it seems
we have never quite been able to say goodbye to Cornelius, always avoiding the
question of whether it has actually left the realm of living precedent in the wake of
Collins. We avoided the question in each of the cited cases by factually
distinguishing Cornelius in one way or another, and concluding that, even if
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Cornelius were still good law, the result in the case would be the same, i.e.,
judgment against the plaintiff.
Enough is enough. Like a favorite uncle who has passed away in the parlor,
Cornelius needs to be interred. We do so now. Recognizing that it was dealt a
fatal blow by Collins, we pronounce Cornelius dead and buried. The law on
substantive due process when a citizen who is not in custody claims that a
governmental unit, agency, or official has caused her harm is supplied by the
Collins decision, which occupies the field to the exclusion of anything we said
about such cases in Cornelius. See also Lewis, 523 U.S. at __, 118 S. Ct. at 1717.
III. CONCLUSION
The district court was correct in granting the defendants’ motion to dismiss
for failure to state a claim, because the plaintiffs failed to allege a violation of
substantive due process.
AFFIRMED.
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