Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-11-07001/USCOURTS-caDC-11-07001-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 21, 2011 Decided July 17, 2012

No. 11-7001

ALEXANDRIA MCGAUGHEY,

APPELLANT

v.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:07-cv-01498)

Bruce V. Spiva argued the cause for appellant. With him 

on the briefs were Catherine A. Bendor and Susan L. 

Tiedemann.

Martina E. Vandenberg was on the brief for amicus 

curiae D.C. Rape Crisis Center, et al. in support of appellant.

Mary L. Wilson, Senior Assistant Attorney General, 

Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, 

argued the cause for appellees. With her on the brief were 

Irvin B. Nathan, Attorney General, Todd S. Kim, Solicitor 

General, and Donna M. Murasky, Deputy Solicitor General.

USCA Case #11-7001 Document #1383997 Filed: 07/17/2012 Page 1 of 9
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James P. Gleason Jr. and Robert W. Goodson entered 

appearances. 

Before: SENTELLE, Chief Judge, GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge, 

and SILBERMAN, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH.

GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: Alexandria McGaughey claims 

the Metropolitan police were negligent in the way they 

responded to her fears that she was sexually assaulted. The 

district court granted summary judgment against her claims 

on the ground that the police owed her no duty of care. For 

the reasons set forth below, we affirm the judgment of the 

district court. 

I

Because the case arises on appeal from summary 

judgment, the district court had of course entered no findings 

of fact. Therefore, the following recitation is taken from the 

complaint of the plaintiff and does not represent any 

conclusion concerning the truth or accuracy of any part. 

While at a party in the early morning hours of December 

9, 2006, McGaughey, then a nineteen-year-old college 

student, became separated from her friends. When they 

eventually found her, she was disoriented and looked 

disheveled. Soon she began vomiting and lapsed in and out of 

consciousness. Greatly concerned for McGaughey’s wellbeing, her friends immediately took her to the emergency 

room at Howard University Hospital (HUH) and told the 

doctor and nurse on call that they feared she had been 

drugged and raped. The doctor refused to examine 

McGaughey until she was coherent and told her friends to 

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bring her back to the hospital after she had gotten some sleep. 

Her friends took her home.

McGaughey awoke later that morning in pain and with no 

memory of the events of the previous night. When told by a

friend what had happened, McGaughey and her friend

returned to the emergency room at HUH and informed the

nurse about the suspected drugging and rape. The hospital

summoned the Metropolitan police. When an officer arrived 

he spoke with McGaughey and her friend. Following police 

protocols, the officer then called a detective in the Sexual 

Assault Unit of the Metropolitan Police Department who, 

after speaking with McGaughey on the phone, determined 

that no further investigation was warranted and that there was 

no reason for the hospital to conduct the forensic exam that 

the police typically use to collect evidence of a sexual assault.

A word of explanation about this exam is needed. In 

conjunction with HUH and the D.C. Rape Crisis Center, the 

Metropolitan Police Department created a Sexual Assault 

Nurse Examiners (SANE) Program that provides for police

training of hospital personnel in how to administer a forensic 

exam to collect and preserve evidence to aid police 

investigation of sexual assaults. See Metropolitan Police 

Department Special Order, Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners 

Program (Apr. 2, 2001). SANE procedures provide that when 

the police determine that a sexual assault has likely occurred, 

they ask the victim to undergo a forensic exam at the hospital. 

If the victim agrees, the police provide the nurse with the

information needed to conduct the exam and, if necessary, an 

evidence collection kit. After the exam is completed, the 

police pick up the evidence and deliver it to the crime lab.

After the police left the hospital, McGaughey’s sister

arrived. Upon learning what had happened, she called the 911

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operator. Following a long wait and a second 911 call, two 

other police officers arrived. They spoke with McGaughey, 

then called the Sexual Assault Unit, only to have another 

detective decide that the police would neither ask the hospital 

to collect evidence from McGaughey nor conduct an

investigation of the alleged rape. McGaughey and her sister 

then spoke to a doctor and another nurse, this one specially 

trained in the collection of evidence from sexual assault 

victims. Both said they could not perform a forensic exam

without police authorization, but the doctor did perform a 

physical examination of McGaughey, test her for pregnancy, 

and prescribe medications.

Frustrated with her experience at HUH, McGaughey 

went to the emergency room at George Washington 

University Hospital (GWUH) seeking someone who would 

conduct a forensic exam. She told a nurse there that she had 

been drugged and raped but that HUH would not administer a 

forensic exam. The nurse called the police who told her that 

McGaughey’s case was closed and that she could not receive 

the police-sponsored forensic exam. Eventually, McGaughey 

was treated by a physician and a medical resident at GWUH, 

but neither collected any evidence.

McGaughey sued the District of Columbia, HUH, 

GWUH, and individual doctors at both hospitals. Against the 

District she lodged three claims, each sounding in negligence: 

that the police failed to take reasonable steps to investigate 

her allegations of a sexual assault; that the District was 

negligent in the way it went about hiring, training, and 

supervising police personnel who investigate sexual assaults; 

and that the police were negligent in preventing the hospitals 

from giving her a forensic exam. McGaughey sought 

compensatory and punitive damages for her physical and 

emotional injuries and the lost opportunity to identify and 

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prosecute her assailant. She also sought an injunction 

requiring the Metropolitan police to investigate her sexual 

assault and to handle other sexual assault cases correctly 

going forward.

The district court had supplemental jurisdiction over 

McGaughey’s common law claims under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a) 

because her claim that HUH violated the Emergency Medical 

Treatment and Active Labor Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1395dd et seq., 

is part of the same case or controversy. The court granted the 

District summary judgment against McGaughey on all three 

negligence claims, holding each barred by the public duty 

doctrine. McGaughey v. District of Columbia, 734 F. Supp. 2d

14, 20-21 (D.D.C. 2010). That decision is now before us on 

appeal. McGaughey’s claims against the hospitals and doctors 

remain pending below and are not relevant to the issues 

presented here. We have jurisdiction over this appeal under 

28 U.S.C. § 1291, and apply the common law of the District 

of Columbia to McGaughey’s negligence claims, see Bird v. 

Lewis & Clark College, 303 F.3d 1015, 1023 (9th Cir. 2002).

We review a district court’s entry of summary judgment de 

novo. We will affirm the district court if, viewing all the 

evidence in the light most favorable to McGaughey, “there is 

no genuine issue as to any material fact and . . . the moving 

party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” McCready v. 

Nicholson, 465 F.3d 1, 7 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (quoting FED. R.

CIV. P. 56(c)).

II

Although McGaughey has preserved each of her 

negligence claims on appeal, she has not vigorously pressed 

two of them before us. For good reason. Her claims that the 

police negligently failed to investigate her sexual assault and 

that the District was negligent in the way it hired, trained, and 

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supervised police in how to investigate sexual assaults are 

clearly precluded by the public duty doctrine.

The public duty doctrine has long protected 

municipalities from negligence claims because it establishes 

that “[t]he duty to provide public services is owed to the 

public at large,” not to any specific individual. Warren v. 

District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1, 3 (D.C. 1981) (en banc). 

The rationale is straightforward: Courts and juries are illequipped to review legislative and executive decisions about 

how to allocate limited municipal resources to best protect the 

public. See Morgan v. District of Columbia, 468 A.2d 1306, 

1311 (D.C. 1983). And because police must often make splitsecond decisions in the face of uncertainty and danger, the 

doctrine recognizes they need broad discretion to act without 

fear that a jury will second-guess their judgment with the 

20/20 vision of hindsight. Id. If the police owed an 

enforceable duty to each person, then “every complaint —

whether real, imagined, or frivolous — would raise the 

spectre of civil liability for failure to respond.” Id. The 

doctrine, however, is no license for carelessness. There are 

sufficient mechanisms to control the behavior of errant police, 

including internal disciplinary procedures and criminal 

prosecution. Id. at 1312. We agree with the district court that 

McGaughey’s first two claims run headlong into the public 

duty doctrine. McGaughey, 734 F. Supp. 2d at 20-21. It is 

clear under D.C. law that the duty to investigate crime is 

owed to the public, not to any specific person. Nichol v. 

District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1, 3 (D.C. 1981) (en banc). 

Similar reasoning bars McGaughey’s claim that failures in 

hiring, training, and supervising resulted in a negligent 

investigation. As the police have no duty to investigate any 

particular crime, they certainly have no enforceable duty 

arising from their management of the personnel who 

investigate the crime. 

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McGaughey’s claim that the police breached a duty to her 

by preventing the hospitals from giving her a forensic exam is 

not so easily resolved under the public duty doctrine because 

it is unclear whether the police are shielded from liability 

when they take affirmative acts that allegedly cause harm.

Compare District of Columbia v. Evans, 644 A.2d 1008, 1017 

n.8 (D.C. 1994), with Miller v. District of Columbia, 841 A.2d 

1244, 1248 (D.C. 2004), Allison Gas Turbine v. District of 

Columbia, 642 A.2d 841, 844-45 (D.C. 1994), and Warren, 

444 A.2d at 3. But we need not wade into that dispute because 

it is clear from the record that the police did not prevent the 

hospitals from giving McGaughey a forensic exam. A 

plaintiff claiming negligence must prove not only that the 

defendant owed her a duty of care that was breached but that 

the breach proximately caused her injury. Wash. Metro. Area 

Transit Auth. v. Barksdale-Showell, 965 A.2d 16, 24 (D.C. 

2009). Failure to show proximate cause is fatal to a 

negligence claim. Id.

The factual allegations support McGaughey’s claim that 

the police told the hospitals not to conduct the policesponsored forensic exam. Pl.’s Stmt. of Material Facts in Opp. 

to Defs.’ Mots. for Summ. J. ¶¶ 92 (alleging the police told 

HUH “there would be no sexual kit done”), 99 (alleging the 

police told HUH that McGaughey was not a SANE patient), 

110 (alleging the police told GWUH that McGaughey could 

not receive a SANE kit). But McGaughey concedes that 

nothing the police said or did kept the hospitals from 

conducting a functionally identical forensic exam on their 

own. The hospitals could have performed such an exam using 

equipment readily available in their emergency rooms, 

equipment that was not there as part of the SANE program.

Id. ¶ 201 (explaining that “[e]ven if a hospital does not stock a 

sexual assault ‘kit’ or otherwise have one at its disposal, a 

[forensic exam] can be performed with materials readily 

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available in a hospital emergency room”). And there is no 

quarrel that the hospitals did not need police authorization to 

conduct their own exam with their own equipment. Id. ¶¶ 158, 

160. Indeed, at oral argument, McGaughey’s counsel argued 

that “the hospital should have done it [i.e., administered a 

forensic exam] regardless of what the police said.” Oral Arg. 

Tr. 21:23-24. This was the same theory that McGaughey 

pressed before the district court: The hospitals had an 

independent obligation to perform their own forensic exam 

quite apart from what the police may have decided should be 

done with the police-sponsored exam. See Pl.’s Stmt. of 

Material Facts in Opp. to Defs.’ Mots. for Summ. J. ¶¶ 218, 

224 (explaining that the national standard of care requires 

hospitals to perform forensic exams even if the police have 

not authorized one). Because the hospitals could have 

administered their own forensic exam regardless of what the 

police said, McGaughey’s argument fails because she cannot

show the police caused the harm alleged. 

McGaughey argues that her concession does not end the 

causation inquiry. Even though the police had no authority to 

stop the hospitals from conducting their own exams, 

McGaughey alleges that they acted as if they did and that the 

hospitals complied with that command. Appellant’s Br. 31; 

Oral Arg. Tr. 18:6-8. Once again, we need not examine the 

implications of that theory because nothing the police said or 

did can reasonably be construed to be a command that the 

hospitals could not use their own equipment to conduct a 

forensic exam on McGaughey. 

The hospitals had their own authority, independent of the 

police, to decide whether to give McGaughey a forensic 

exam. McGaughey did not receive an exam because of the 

exercise of that authority and not because of anything that can 

be laid at the feet of the police. 

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III

For the foregoing reasons, the district court’s grant of 

summary judgment in favor of the District is

Affirmed.

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