Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_15-cv-00321/USCOURTS-azd-2_15-cv-00321-2/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Civil Rights Act

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WO 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

Lorraine Patterson, 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

Arizona Department of Economic Security, 

et al., 

Defendants.

No. CV-15-00321-PHX-NVW

ORDER 

 Before the court is the Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 26) jointly filed by the City of 

Mesa (“the City”), the Mesa Police Department, and Frank Milstead (collectively, 

“Defendants”). The Motion will be granted. 

I. BACKGROUND 

 Plaintiff filed suit in February 2015, seeking damages for violations of her 

constitutional rights allegedly suffered during her daughter’s state court dependency 

proceedings. (Doc. 1.) Plaintiff’s latest Amended Complaint, submitted on May 29, 

2015, alleges six causes of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against more than a dozen 

different defendants. (Doc. 17.) 

 In count five, which is pleaded against all Defendants, Plaintiff asserts that after a 

guardianship petition was filed as to her daughter in February 2013, she contacted the 

Mesa Police Department in an attempt to obtain the “return of her minor child.” (Doc. 

17-2 at 27.) Plaintiff alleges that the “varied response and statements Plaintiff received 

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from the police officers . . . shows a pattern of no policy established . . . and a callous 

indifference as to the return of underage children as minors, until the legal the [sic] age of 

18 and the constitutional rights of parents requesting such.” (Id.) According to the 

Amended Complaint, “no policy was created or followed” regarding the protection of 

parental rights over minor children. (Id.) Elsewhere in the same claim, however, 

Plaintiff asserts that “Mesa has established policies that have a callous indifference to the 

rights of parents and lead to unwarranted dependencies.” (Id. at 27-28.) The closest 

Plaintiff comes to identifying these policies is the following: 

The unwritten policy of acting with a callous deliberate indifference to the 

rights of children and parents with whom The City of Mesa agents can 

regularly be expected to come into contact by failing and/or refusing to 

implement a practice of regular and adequate training and/or supervision, 

and/or by failing to train and/or supervise its officers, agents, employees 

and state actors, in providing and ensuring compliance with the 

constitutional protections guaranteed to individuals, including those under 

the Fourteenth Amendments, as to returning a minor under the age of 18 to 

the care and control of their parent and when performing actions related to 

child abuse, intra agency protocol , domestic violence and therefore leading 

to an unwarranted dependencies. 

(Id. at 32.) 

 The Amended Complaint’s sixth cause of action is pleaded only against Milstead, 

the former chief of the Mesa Police Department, and Gregory McKay, who is not a party 

to the pending Motion. (Id. at 33.) Plaintiff’s allegations are somewhat rambling and 

difficult to understand, but the essence of her complaint seems to be that Milstead failed 

to protect Plaintiff’s constitutional right to familial association despite knowledge that 

those rights were being violated by other defendants. (Id. at 34-36; Doc. 17-3 at 1-2.) 

Although it is not entirely clear, Plaintiff may also be alleging that Milstead “failed to 

intercede” to provide protection against the boyfriend of Plaintiff’s other daughter, who 

initiated the guardianship proceedings. (See Doc. 17-2 at 34.) 

 Defendants now move to dismiss on the grounds that Plaintiff has failed to state a 

claim upon which relief can be granted. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). 

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II. LEGAL STANDARD

 When considering a motion to dismiss, a court evaluates the legal sufficiency of 

the plaintiff’s pleadings. Dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil 

Procedure can be based on “the lack of a cognizable legal theory” or “the absence of 

sufficient facts alleged under a cognizable legal theory.” Balistreri v. Pacifica Police 

Dep’t, 901 F.2d 696, 699 (9th Cir. 1990). To avoid dismissal, a complaint need include 

“only enough facts to state a claim for relief that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atlantic 

Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). 

 On a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), all allegations of material fact are 

assumed to be true and construed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. 

Cousins v. Lockyer, 568 F.3d 1063, 1067 (9th Cir. 2009). However, the principle that a 

court accepts as true all of the allegations in a complaint does not apply to legal 

conclusions or conclusory factual allegations. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 566 U.S. 662, 678 

(2009). Further, “[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by 

mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.” Id. “A claim has facial plausibility when 

the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference 

that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. “The plausibility standard is 

not akin to a ‘probability requirement,’ but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a 

defendant has acted unlawfully.” Id. To show that the plaintiff is entitled to relief, the 

complaint must permit the court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct. 

Id. If the plaintiff’s pleadings fall short of this standard, dismissal is appropriate. 

III. ANALYSIS 

A. Mesa Police Department 

 The Mesa Police Department “is not a jural entity subject to suit” in its own name. 

See Gotbaum v. City of Phoenix, 617 F. Supp. 2d 878, 885-87 (D. Ariz. 2008). All 

claims against the Mesa Police Department must therefore be dismissed. 

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B. City of Mesa 

 Although § 1983 establishes liability for any “person” who deprives a plaintiff of 

her rights, a municipality such as the City can be held liable under § 1983 in limited 

circumstances. On this theory of municipal liability, named after the Supreme Court’s 

decision in Monell v. Department of Social Services of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), a 

“municipality cannot be held liable under a respondeat superior theory.” Fogel v. 

Collins, 531 F.3d 824, 834 (9th Cir. 2008). “Instead, Congress intended to hold 

municipalities liable only when action pursuant to official municipal policy of some 

nature caused a constitutional tort. The ‘official policy’ requirement was intended to 

distinguish acts of the municipality from acts of employees of the municipality, and 

thereby make clear that municipal liability is limited to action for which the municipality 

is actually responsible.” Christie v. Iopa, 176 F.3d 1231, 1235 (9th Cir. 1999) (emphasis 

in original) (citation and some internal quotation marks omitted). 

 “In order to establish liability for governmental entities under Monell, a plaintiff 

must prove ‘(1) that [the plaintiff] possessed a constitutional right of which [s]he was 

deprived; (2) that the municipality had a policy; (3) that this policy amounts to deliberate 

indifference to the plaintiff’s constitutional right; and, (4) that the policy is the moving 

force behind the constitutional violation.’” Dougherty v. City of Covina, 654 F.3d 892, 

900 (9th Cir. 2011) (alterations in original). “For purposes of liability under Monell, a 

‘policy’ is ‘a deliberate choice to follow a course of action . . . made from among various 

alternatives by the official or officials responsible for establishing final policy with 

respect to the subject matter in question.’ A municipality is also liable if a policymaking 

official delegates his or her discretionary authority to a subordinate, and the subordinate 

uses that discretion.” Fogel, 531 F.3d at 834 (ellipsis in original) (citation omitted). In 

addition, a plaintiff may establish liability by proving “the existence of a widespread 

practice that . . . is so permanent and well settled as to constitute a ‘custom or usage’ with 

the force of law.” Gillette v. Delmore, 979 F.2d 1342, 1349 (9th Cir. 1992) (per curiam) 

(ellipsis in original). “Failure to train may amount to a policy of ‘deliberate indifference,’ 

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if the need to train was obvious and the failure to do so made a violation of constitutional 

rights likely. . . . Mere negligence in training or supervision, however, does not give rise 

to a Monell claim.” Dougherty, 654 F.3d at 900. 

 Plaintiff has not stated an adequate Monell claim. As an initial matter, the 

Amended Complaint is internally inconsistent as to whether the City has adopted any 

policies at all. Plaintiff simultaneously alleges that the City maintained no policy 

regarding “the return of underage children” and that the “established customs and 

practices of the City of Mesa . . . were the moving force . . . of the violations of Plaintiff’s 

constitutional rights.” (Doc. 17-2 at 32.) This defect is not fatal, however. Liberally 

construing the Amended Complaint, as the court is required to do with pro se litigants, it 

appears Plaintiff has alleged that the City has a “policy” of failing to train its employees 

to respect and protect parents’ rights to the custody and control of their minor children. 

Still, this bare assertion is insufficient. The Amended Complaint does not explain how 

the City’s “need to train was obvious,” which policymaking official ignored this obvious 

need, or in exactly what ways the City’s training was inadequate. Nor does it causally 

connect the failure to train with the actions of any specific City employees who allegedly 

deprived Plaintiff of her constitutional rights. Plaintiff has offered nothing but legal 

conclusions, bereft of any factual support. Under Rule 12(b)(6), such pleading does not 

state a claim. 

C. Frank Milstead 

 To prevail on a § 1983 claim, “a plaintiff must show that ‘(1) acts by the 

defendants (2) under color of state law (3) deprived [him] of federal rights, privileges or 

immunities [and] (4) caused [him] damage.’” Thornton v. City of St. Helens, 425 F.3d 

1158, 1163-64 (9th Cir. 2005) (alterations in original). “Section 1983 is not itself a 

source of substantive rights, but merely provides a method for vindicating federal rights 

elsewhere conferred. Accordingly, the conduct complained of must have deprived the 

plaintiff of some right, privilege or immunity protected by the Constitution or laws of the 

United States.” Id. at 1164 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). 

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 Here, Plaintiff has not stated a § 1983 claim against Milstead. Assuming without 

deciding that other defendants violated Plaintiff’s constitutional rights during the 

dependency proceedings, it is those defendants, not Milstead, who have deprived her of 

federal rights, privileges, or immunities. Plaintiff has not alleged—nor could she—that 

Milstead personally was under an obligation to ensure that every member of the Mesa 

city government, as well as each Arizona state worker, perform his job in a way that 

avoids infringing on Plaintiff’s constitutional rights. Milstead’s decision to “turn a blind 

eye” (Doc. 17-2 at 35) to other government workers’ misconduct is therefore not 

cognizable under § 1983, especially when alleged in the perfunctory, undetailed manner 

of the Amended Complaint. See OSU Student Alliance v. Ray, 699 F.3d 1053, 1069 (9th 

Cir. 2012) (“[E]ach government official, his or her title notwithstanding, is only liable for 

his or her own misconduct.” (alteration in original)). Where a defendant is not alleged to 

be the cause of a plaintiff’s alleged injury, a § 1983 cause of action must be dismissed. 

 To the extent Plaintiff seeks damages for Milstead’s failure to protect her from 

other private actors, such as the boyfriend who initiated the state court dependency 

proceedings, the Amended Complaint has failed to state a claim. The Due Process 

Clause “is phrased as a limitation on the State’s power to act, not as a guarantee of certain 

minimal levels of safety and security. It forbids the State itself to deprive individuals of 

life, liberty, or property without ‘due process of law,’ but its language cannot fairly be 

extended to impose an affirmative obligation on the State to ensure that those interests do 

not come to harm through other means.” DeShaney v. Winnebago Cnty. Dep’t of Soc. 

Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 195 (1989). Accordingly, Plaintiff cannot recover on the theory 

that Milstead failed to shield Plaintiff’s liberty interests from non-governmental actors. 

The fifth and sixth causes of action in Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint do not satisfy Rule 

12(b)(6). 

The court screened Plaintiff’s complaint three times before permitting it to be 

served (Doc. 3, 7, 13), and it appears there is little, if anything, she could include in a 

further amended complaint to address the deficiencies identified in this Order. 

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Nevertheless, because she is proceeding in propria persona, the court will allow Plaintiff 

twenty-one days in which to submit an amended complaint that states a claim upon which 

relief can be granted. If Plaintiff’s amended complaint fails to satisfy Rule 12(b)(6), no 

further leave to amend will be granted. 

 IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 26) is 

granted. 

 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Plaintiff may file by September 2, 2015, an 

amended complaint that states a claim upon which relief can be granted. If by that date 

Plaintiff has not submitted an amended complaint, the Clerk shall terminate this case as 

against Defendants City of Mesa, the Mesa Police Department, and Frank Milstead. 

 Dated this 12th day of August, 2015. 

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