Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-almd-1_10-cv-00034/USCOURTS-almd-1_10-cv-00034-0/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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The Motion to Dismiss (Doc. #3), which was filed on January 12, 2010, before the filing 1

of the Amended Complaint, is due to be DENIED as moot.

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF ALABAMA 

SOUTHERN DIVISION 

TEDI THOMAS WILLIAMS, )

 )

Plaintiff, )

 )

v. ) CIVIL ACTION NO. 1:10cv34-WHA-SRW

 ) (WO)

GWINETT WILLIAMS, et al., )

 )

Defendants. )

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

I. INTRODUCTION

This cause is before the court on a Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint

(Doc. # 16) filed by Defendants Gwinett Williams, Eva Love, Richard Moss, and “Deputy Lynn”

(collectively “Defendants”) on January 26, 2010. 

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Plaintiff Tedi Williams (“Plaintiff”) filed her original Complaint in the Circuit Court of

Coffee County Alabama on December 11, 2009. Defendants removed the case to federal court,

and filed a motion to dismiss on January 12, 2010 (Doc. # 3, 4). Plaintiff subsequently filed an

Amended Complaint on January 19, 2010 alleging that Defendants, in their individual capacities,

violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution by holding her

in confinement after a state court judge dismissed her criminal charges (Doc. # 11). Defendants

then filed this Motion to Dismiss the Amended Complaint. For reasons to be discussed, the

Motion to Dismiss is due to be GRANTED, with leave to amend.

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II. MOTION TO DISMISS STANDARD

The court accepts the plaintiff's allegations as true, Hishon v. King & Spalding, 467 U.S.

69, 73 (1984), and construes the complaint in the plaintiff's favor, Duke v. Cleland, 5 F.3d 1399,

1402 (11th Cir. 1993). In analyzing the sufficiency of pleading, the court is guided by a twoprong approach: one, the court is not bound to accept conclusory statements of the elements of a

cause of action and, two, where there are well-pleaded factual allegations, a court should assume

their veracity and then determine whether they plausibly give rise to entitlement to relief. See 

Ashcroft v. Iqbal, _ U.S. _, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949-50 (2009). “[A] plaintiff's obligation to

provide the ‘grounds’ of his ‘entitle[ment] to relief’ requires more than labels and conclusions,

and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Bell Atlantic Corp.

v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). Id. (citation omitted). To survive a motion to dismiss, a

complaint need not contain “detailed factual allegations,” but instead the complaint must contain

“only enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Id. at 570. The factual

allegations “must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Id. at 555. 

The Eleventh Circuit, moreover, “imposes a heightened pleading requirement in section

1983 claims against individuals and plaintiffs cannot rely on ‘vague or conclusory’ allegations.” 

Epps v. Watson, 492 F.3d 1240, 1242 (11th Cir. 2007); see also GJR Invs., Inc. v. County of

Escambia, 132 F.3d 1359, 1367 (11th Cir. 1998) (“Some factual detail in the pleadings is

necessary to the adjudication of § 1983 claims. This is particularly true in cases involving

qualified immunity, where we must determine whether a defendant’s actions violated a clearly

Case 1:10-cv-00034-WHA-SRW Document 21 Filed 03/05/10 Page 2 of 11
 In Leatherman v. Tarrant County Narcotics Intelligence & Coordination Unit, 507 U.S. 2

163 (1993), the Supreme Court ruled that heightened pleading was not to be applied in civil

rights cases against municipalities, because municipalities were not entitled to immunity. The

Supreme Court did not, however, address the propriety of the application of heightened pleading

in civil rights cases under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 when the defendant is not a municipality. PostLeatherman, the Eleventh Circuit has continued to apply a heightened pleading standard for

section 1983 claims against individuals. See Epps, 492 F.3d at 1242 & n.2. 

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established right.”). In such cases, the complaint must allege the relevant facts “with sufficient 2

specificity.” Fullman v. Graddick, 739 F.2d 553, 560 (11th Cir. 1984). 

III. FACTS

The allegations of Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint are as follows:

Plaintiff was incarcerated at the Coffee County Jail on a felony charge on December 11,

2007. On that day, a state court judge issued a written nolle prosequi order that entitled Plaintiff

to be released from jail. Despite this order, Plaintiff was held in jail until January 22, 2008, when

her attorney informed the jail that she should have been released on December 11, 2007. 

Plaintiff was released from jail on January 22, 2008, and was told by an unnamed jail employee

that a mistake had been made and that she should have been released on December 11, 2008, the

day the state court judge issued the nolle prosequi order. From December 11, 2007 to January

22, 2008, Plaintiff “repeatedly reported” to the Defendants that she should have been released on

December 11, 2007. Plaintiff alleges that she was unlawfully detained and imprisoned in

violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. 

IV. DISCUSSION

A. Fourth Amendment Claim

Defendants argue that Plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment claim must be dismissed because

the Fourteenth Amendment, rather than the Fourth Amendment, governs Plaintiff’s section 1983

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claim. The court agrees. Claims brought by pretrial detainees who remain in custody after the

arrest is completed are governed by the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause. See West v.

Tillman, 496 F.3d 1321, 1327 (11th Cir. 2007); Cannon v. Macon County, 1 F.3d 1558, 1562-63

(11th Cir. 1993); Douthit v. Jones, 619 F.2d 527, 532 (5th Cir. 1980). The allegations of

Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint indicate that she was a pretrial detainee being held on a felony

charge when the Defendants allegedly violated her constitutional rights by unlawfully detaining

her after she was entitled to be released. The Fourteenth Amendment governs this claim, and the

Defendants’ motion to dismiss Plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment claim is due to be GRANTED. 

B. Fourteenth Amendment Claim 

Defendants argue that qualified immunity requires the dismissal of Plaintiff’s Fourteenth

Amendment claim.

Qualified immunity “insulates government agents from personal liability for money

damages for actions taken in good faith pursuant to their discretionary authority.” Greason v.

Kemp, 891 F.2d 829, 833 (11th Cir. 1990) (citing Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818

(1982). “The purpose of this immunity is to allow government officials to carry out their

discretionary duties without the fear of personal liability or harassing litigation, protecting from

suit all but the plainly incompetent or one who is knowingly violating the federal law.” Lee v.

Ferraro, 284 F.3d 1188, 1194 (11th Cir. 2002) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). 

The basic premise of the doctrine is for immunity to harbor government officials from liability

unless their conduct violated “clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a

reasonable person would have known.” Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818.

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To determine whether a government agent is eligible for qualified immunity, a three-part

analysis, guided by Eleventh Circuit and Supreme Court precedent, is appropriate. See Vinyard

v. Wilson, 311 F.3d 1340, 1346-47 (11th Cir. 2002). First, the government official must show

that he was engaged in a “discretionary function” when he committed the allegedly unlawful acts.

Holloman v. Harland, 370 F.3d 1252, 1263-64 (11th Cir. 2004). If the official satisfies the

discretionary function threshold, “the burden shifts to the plaintiff to show that qualified

immunity is not appropriate.” Lee, 284 F.3d at 1194 (citation omitted). The plaintiff must

satisfy the two-prong test prescribed by the Supreme Court in Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194

(2001); she must show: (1) the defendant violated a constitutional right, and (2) this right was

clearly established at the time of the violation. 533 U.S. at 201. A right is “clearly established”

if “it would be clear to a reasonable [official] that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he

confronted.” Id. at 202. The Supreme Court has recently recognized that “judges of the district

courts and the courts of appeals should be permitted to exercise their sound discretion in deciding

which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed first in light of

the circumstances in the particular case at hand.” Pearson v. Callahan, 129 S. Ct. 808, 818

(2009). 

1. Discretionary Authority

Plaintiff argues that Defendants are not entitled to qualified immunity because they were

not acting within their discretionary authority when they committed the allegedly unlawful acts. 

Plaintiff appears to argue that because Defendants allegedly violated a clearly established

constitutional right by detaining people in jail without reason, they were not performing a

discretionary function. Plaintiff’s argument is unavailing. 

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In determining whether an officer’s acts were discretionary, courts consider whether his

acts were “of a type that fell within his job responsibilities.” Holloman v. Harland, 370 F.3d

1252, 1265 (11th Cir. 2004). The court asks “whether the government employee was (a)

performing a legitimate job-related function (that is, pursuing a job-related goal), (b) through

means that were within his power to utilize.” Id. at 1265-66 (citation omitted). “[T]he inquiry is

not whether it was within the defendant’s authority to commit the allegedly illegal act.” Harbert

Int’l, Inc. v. James, 157 F.3d 1271, 1282 (11th Cir. 1998) (quotation marks and citation omitted). 

Rather, the essence of the inquiry is whether the “act complained of, if done for a proper purpose,

would be within, or reasonably related to, the outer perimeter of an official’s discretionary

duties.” Id. at 1282. 

Here, the inquiry is not whether the Defendants had the discretionary authority to illegally

detain Plaintiff, but rather whether holding and releasing prisoners is reasonably related to the

discretionary authority of jail administrators and jailers. Holding and releasing prisoners is

within the scope of the discretionary authority of jail administrators and jailers. Accordingly, the

court concludes that the Defendants’ act of detaining Plaintiff was within their discretionary

authority. 

2. Violation of a Constitutional Right

Plaintiff claims that her over-detention resulted in a violation of her Fourteenth

Amendment due process right to be free from continued detention after the state should have

known that she was entitled to release. To establish this violation, Plaintiff must show that

Defendants acted with deliberate indifference to her due process rights. West v. Tillman, 496

F.3d 1321, 1327 (11th Cir. 2007) (citing Cannon v. Macon County, 1 F.3d 1558, 1563 (11th Cir.

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1993)). Deliberate indifference is more than mere human error; Plaintiff must show that

Defendants had “(1) subjective knowledge of a risk of serious harm; [and] (2) disregard[ed] . . .

that risk; (3) by conduct that is more than mere negligence.” West, 496 F.3d at 1327 (internal

quotation marks and citation omitted) (alteration in original). The deliberate indifference

standard is “a difficult burden for a plaintiff to meet.” Id. (citing Popham v. City of Talladega,

908 F.2d 1561, 1563 (11th Cir. 1990)).

Defendants argue the Amended Complaint should be dismissed because it fails to allege

Defendants were subjectively aware of Plaintiff’s entitlement to be released. Defendants point

out that the Amended Complaint does not allege that a release order was ever written or that the

Defendants were given a copy of the nolle prosequi order prior to Plaintiff’s release on January

22, 2008. The only fact that Plaintiff provides in the Amended Complaint to establish

Defendants’ subjective knowledge of her over-detention is that she “repeatedly reported to the

defendants” that she was entitled to be released, and the Defendants did not release her despite

her protests.

The disposition of this motion to dismiss is guided by the Eleventh Circuit’s decision in

West v. Tillman, 496 F.3d 1321 (11th Cir. 2007). In that case, two pretrial detainees remained

incarcerated for 23 days and 58 days respectively following court orders to release them. Id. at

1325-26. The source of the delay was the jail staff’s failure to properly enter the release orders

into the jail’s computer system and to properly deliver “jail cards” to the docket department to

accomplish the release. Id. One of the plaintiff prisoners complained in writing to a defendant

prison worker about his alleged over-detention in the prison, although he did not offer specific

details of the communications or copies of the complaints. Id. at 1328. The Eleventh Circuit

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affirmed summary judgment in favor of defendant county jail employees on the basis of qualified

immunity because they were not deliberately indifferent to plaintiff prisoners’ due process right

to timely release, and thus did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. In particular, the Eleventh

Circuit held that the Defendants, by failing to process the release information and failing to

follow up on the plaintiff prisoner’s complaints, were at most negligent in failing to carry out

their responsibilities. Id. at 1327-28. 

Tillman thus instructs that merely receiving a plaintiff prisoner’s release order and

erroneously processing that order is insufficient to state a Fourteenth Amendment over-detention

claim, even if the plaintiff makes general protests of the over-detention to the defendants. In

light of Tillman, the court agrees with the Defendants that the current allegations of the Amended

Complaint fail to allege Defendants acted with deliberate indifference, and thus fail to state a

Fourteenth Amendment claim. The Amended Complaint does not allege the Defendants received

the nolle prosequi order, and fails to provide any detail regarding the content, date, and frequency

of Plaintiff’s complaints to the various Defendants. The only allegation in the Amended

Complaint regarding Defendants’ subjective knowledge of Plaintiff’s over-detention is that she

“repeatedly reported to the defendants” that she was entitled to be released. This allegation, at

most, constitutes negligence in failing to investigate Plaintiff’s complaint, and is insufficient to

state an over-detention claim under the Fourteenth Amendment. See Tillman, 496 F.3d at 1328;

Cannon,1 F.3d at 1562 (“Arresting officers and those responsible for maintaining custody of

detainees are not constitutionally required ‘to investigate independently every claim of

innocence. . . .’”) (citing Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 146 (1979)). Thus, the Defendants’

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 The court’s granting of Defendant’s motion to dismiss is based solely on the face of the 3

Amended Complaint. Having concluded that the facial allegations of the Amended Complaint

fail to state a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, the court does not need to consider

Defendants’ argument that a copy of the state court judge’s nolle prosequi order and a copy of

the fax cover sheet sent to the jail by Plaintiff’s attorney both “demonstrate conclusively” that

Defendants did not receive notice of Plaintiff’s over-detention.

The court also does not need to consider whether the particular right at issue is clearly

established. See Case v. Eslinger, 555 F.3d 1317, 1328 (11th Cir. 2009) (“Absent evidence that a

constitutional violation occurred, we need not consider whether the alleged violation was clearly

established.”). 

 

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Motion to Dismiss the Amended Complaint as to the Fourteenth Amendment claim is due to be

GRANTED. 

3

The court does conclude, however, that Plaintiff should be afforded an opportunity to

replead her Fourteenth Amendment claim. While Tillman teaches that deliberate indifference in

the context of an over-detention claim is a difficult standard for a plaintiff to meet, that case was

decided on a motion for summary judgment, after discovery indicated there was no genuine issue

of material fact regarding Defendants’ deliberate indifference. Tillman also does not stand for

the proposition that a jailer may ignore all complaints made by plaintiff prisoners and always act

in a constitutionally permissible manner. To the contrary, “after the lapse of a certain amount of

time, continued detention in the face of repeated protests will deprive the accused of liberty

without due process.” Cannon, 1 F.3d at 1562 (citing Baker, 443 U.S. at 145); Douthit v. Jones,

619 F.2d 527, 532 (11th Cir. 1980) (“Detention of a prisoner thirty days beyond the expiration of

his sentence in the absence of a facially valid court order or warrant constitutes a deprivation of

due process.”); Goebert v. Lee County, 510 F.3d 1312, 1328 (11th Cir. 2007) (“Choosing to

deliberately disregard, without any investigation or inquiry, everything any inmate says amounts

to willful blindness.”); Armstrong v. Squadrito, 152 F.3d 564, 580 (7th Cir. 1998) (concluding

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that plaintiff’s “repeated and increasingly strenuous complaints should have provided the guards

with sufficient knowledge to suspect improper confinement and take additional action.”). 

Accordingly, Plaintiff will be afforded an opportunity to replead her Fourteenth 

Amendment claim. Should she choose to do so, Plaintiff must allege more than mere mistakes or

clerical errors but rather facts showing a willingness to ignore clear indicia of her over-detention. 

Furthermore, in the context of a § 1983 claim against multiple defendants, a complaint must

allege facts as to each separate defendant sufficient to “state a claim to (§ 1983) relief that is

plausible on its face,” as to that defendant. A blanket allegation referring to “the Defendants”

collectively is not sufficient. Such allegations might include details regarding the content of her

complaints, how frequently they were made, to whom they were made and when, the Defendant’s

response, if any, to those complaints, and the presence or absence of any procedural protections

afforded to prisoner complaints. 

If Plaintiff chooses to file another amended complaint, the amended complaint must be

complete unto itself and may not adopt by reference any prior complaint or portion thereof, nor

shall it restate claims which have been dismissed with prejudice. In addition, should Plaintiff

choose to file an amended complaint, she should keep in mind that she must make her allegations

within the strictures of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. 

V. CONCLUSION

For the reasons discussed, it is hereby ORDERED as follows:

1. The Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint (Doc. #16) is GRANTED as

to the Fourth Amendment claim, and that claim is dismissed with prejudice. 

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2. The Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint (Doc. #16) is GRANTED as to

the Fourteenth Amendment claim, and that claim is dismissed without prejudice. Plaintiff will

be given until March 19, 2010 to file an amended complaint in conformance with this

Memorandum Opinion and Order.

3. The Motion to Dismiss (Doc. #3), filed on January 12, 2010, before the filing of the

Amended Complaint, is DENIED as moot.

 Done this 5th day of March, 2010.

/s/ W. Harold Albritton 

W. HAROLD ALBRITTON

SENIOR UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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