Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-04-03244/USCOURTS-ca8-04-03244-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Frank Kofka
Appellant
Kenneth Harold Swipies
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 04-3244

___________

Kenneth Harold Swipies, *

*

Appellee, * 

* Appeal from the United States 

v. * District Court for the Northern 

* District of Iowa.

Frank Kofka, *

*

Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: May 11, 2005

Filed: August 12, 2005

___________

Before MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, MURPHY, and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

___________

MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judge. 

Kenneth Swipies sued Woodbury County, Iowa, Deputy Sheriff Frank Kofka

under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violating his fourteenth amendment rights to substantive

and procedural due process. The jury found in favor of Deputy Kofka with respect

to the substantive due process claim. As to the procedural due process claim,

however, it found for Mr. Swipies and awarded him $1 in nominal damages and

$30,000 in punitive damages. Deputy Kofka appeals. He argues that the district

court should have entered judgment as a matter of law in his favor with respect to the

existence of a liberty interest, the sufficiency of the process afforded to Mr. Swipies,

and the propriety of the punitive damages award. In the alternative, Deputy Kofka

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argues that the district court should have granted his motion for a new trial because

it erroneously failed to give a jury instruction that he requested. We conclude that

Mr. Swipies had a protected liberty interest that was violated, and that Deputy

Kofka's jury instruction was properly refused. We also hold, however, that

Mr. Swipies is not entitled to punitive damages.

I

Deputy Kofka was serving warrants when he saw Kendra Swipies,

Mr. Swipies's twelve-year-old daughter, with Tina Swipies, Mr. Swipies's wife at the

time (not Kendra's mother), and James Stark, a man whom Deputy Kofka knew to be

facing sexual abuse charges, near Mr. Swipies's house. Deputy Kofka knew Kendra

and Mr. Swipies because he was a friend of Kendra's mother, Mr. Swipies's ex-wife,

Dawn Ebert. Shortly before Deputy Kofka spotted Kendra, she had come to her

father's house for the start of a two-week, court-ordered visitation. Seeing Kendra in

Mr. Stark's presence prompted Deputy Kofka to telephone a county attorney and ask

him if he (Deputy Kofka) could perform an emergency removal of Kendra. The

attorney responded that Deputy Kofka could remove Kendra from her father's custody

if Deputy Kofka could articulate the bases for his decision to do so. Following this

conversation, Deputy Kofka drove to Mr. Swipies's house and, in Mr. Swipies's

presence, removed Kendra. After taking Kendra from Mr. Swipies's residence,

Deputy Kofka phoned his supervisor and asked him to call the county attorney's

office and the Iowa Department of Human Services to tell them that he had removed

Kendra. Deputy Kofka did not call the juvenile court or ask his supervisor to do so.

And he returned Kendra to her mother, the custodial parent, without informing

Mr. Swipies that he had done so.

II. 

Deputy Kofka argues that the district court should have entered judgment as

a matter of law in his favor with regard to the due process claim because he did not

infringe on a constitutionally protected liberty interest. The heart of Mr. Swipies's

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procedural due process claim is that he was deprived of a post-removal hearing

because Deputy Kofka did not follow the procedures outlined in Iowa Code § 232.79.

That statute requires a police officer who removes a child to inform the juvenile court

of the emergency removal immediately so that the court can make arrangements for

the child's welfare. Deputy Kofka asserts that the Constitution did not guarantee

Mr. Swipies any procedure because it did not protect his right, as a non-custodial

parent, to visit with his daughter. 

Judgment as a matter of law is appropriate when "[t]here is no legally sufficient

evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury to find for [the non-moving] party on [an]

issue." Fed. R. Civ. P. 50. We review a district court's post-verdict denial of a

motion for judgment as a matter of law de novo, though we view the evidence in the

light most favorable to the jury's verdict. Voeltz v. Arctic Cat, Inc., 406 F.3d 1047,

1050 (8th Cir. 2005). Here the parties agree upon the facts relevant to this appeal,

and those facts are supported by the evidence presented at trial.

The due process clause of the fourteenth amendment says, in relevant part, that

no state shall "deprive any person of ... liberty ... without due process of law." U.S.

Const. amend. XIV, § 1. To establish a procedural due process violation under this

provision, a plaintiff must first show that the state infringed on a cognizable liberty

interest. Cf. Clark v. Kansas City Mo. Sch. Dist., 375 F.3d 698, 701 (8th Cir. 2004).

As a general matter, parents have a liberty interest in the "care, custody, and

management of their children." Manzano v. South Dakota Dep't of Soc. Svcs.,

60 F.3d 505, 509-10 (8th Cir. 1995). That said, in the past we have hedged on the

question of whether non-custodial parents possess such an interest, and we have

noted that the interest is subject to a de minimis exception: "Although we have

recognized the possibility that visitation and placement decisions may be subject to

due process scrutiny, as such decisions may infringe upon a parent's interest in the

'care, custody, and management of [his or her] child,' we have not yet found a case

where the right to visitation was infringed in a manner that rose to the level of a

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constitutional violation." Zakrzewski v. Fox, 87 F.3d 1011, 1014 (8th Cir. 1996)

(quoting Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 753 (1982)) (additional citation and

quotations omitted).

Deputy Kofka draws on both strands of this statement from Zakrzewski. He

contends that the Constitution did not protect Mr. Swipies's right to visit his daughter

and that even if Mr. Swipies had a cognizable right to visitation, any infringement

was so brief as not to be actionable. To support this second point further, he

analogizes the present case to Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Reg'l

Planning Agency, 535 U.S. 302 (2002). The Supreme Court concluded in that case

that a temporary moratorium on real estate development did not constitute a

categorical taking under the fifth amendment's takings clause. Id. at 320-21.

We reject Deputy Kofka's initial argument and conclude that Mr. Swipies had

a protected liberty interest. Though in Zakrzewski we did not rule on the question of

whether a non-custodial parent has a liberty interest in the care, custody, and

management of his or her child, we held in an earlier appeal in this case that

Mr. Swipies possessed such an interest. Swipies v. Kofka, 348 F.3d 701, 703-04 (8th

Cir. 2003). We are bound to follow this holding. It is not only the law of the case,

see, e.g., Popp Telecom, Inc. v. American Sharecom, Inc., 361 F.3d 482, 490 (8th Cir.

2004), but the law of the circuit, i.e., a decision of another panel which only the court

en banc may overturn, see United States v. Bordeaux, 400 F.3d 548, 554 (8th Cir.

2005). 

Even if our decision were not controlled by our previous holding, we would

reach the same conclusion. If a state court affords a non-custodial parent visitation

rights, we believe that the parent possesses, at least in some form, the liberty interest

recognized in Manzano. A parent with visitation rights takes part in raising the child

by making decisions about care, custody, and management during the period of the

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visitation, and thus he or she has the sort of parental role that deserves to be protected

as a liberty interest.

To the extent that a de minimis exception attaches to this liberty interest, it does

not apply to this case because Kendra was scheduled to be with Mr. Swipies for two

weeks, and not just a few days, as in Zakrzewski, 87 F.3d at 1012-13. Relatedly, we

are not persuaded by Deputy Kofka's analogy to Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council.

That case did not create a generally applicable de minimis principle, but instead held

that a temporary moratorium on real estate development was not a certain kind of

taking. Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, 535 U.S. at 320-21. We do not see how

this holding translates into anything useful in the context of the due process clause,

for we know of no reason to think that a period of deprivation is too short to be

cognizable for purposes of the due process clause just because the same period is too

short to be cognizable for purposes of the takings clause.

III. 

Deputy Kofka argues as well that the court erred in denying his motion for

judgment as a matter of law because Mr. Swipies received all of the process that he

was due at a hearing following the removal. Mr. Swipies filed a motion to hold his

wife in contempt in the state court that presided over the divorce proceedings and that

retained jurisdiction over related matters. The claim related to his wife's role in the

removal. The judge held a hearing on this claim seventeen days after Deputy Kofka

removed Kendra. Mr. Swipies, Deputy Kofka, and Ms. Ebert testified at this hearing,

and Mr. Swipies, who represented himself, had an opportunity to cross-examine

Deputy Kofka and Ms. Ebert. The judge decided not to hold Ms. Ebert in contempt

for her role in the removal. 

To establish a procedural due process violation, a plaintiff need not only show

a protected interest, but must also show that he or she was deprived of that interest

without sufficient process, i.e., without due process. Clark, 375 F.3d at 701. The due

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process clause ensures every individual subject to a deprivation "the opportunity to

be heard at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner." Mathews v. Eldridge,

424 U.S. 319, 333 (1976) (quoting Armstrong v. Manzo, 380 U.S. 545, 552 (1965)).

The circumstances of the deprivation dictate what procedures are necessary to satisfy

this guarantee. Mathews, 424 U.S. at 333-34. In the context of child removal cases,

the "meaningful time" and "meaningful manner" assurances impose a duty on the

state to hold a hearing promptly after the removal. See Whisman v. Rinehart,

119 F.3d 1303, 1310-11 (8th Cir. 1997).

Deputy Kofka maintains that the contempt hearing satisfied the requirements

of the due process clause. He emphasizes that Mr. Swipies's interest was slight,

because he was not the custodial parent, and that Mr. Swipies had a chance to present

his side of the story and cross-examine Ms. Ebert and Deputy Kofka. Under the

circumstances, he argues, nothing more was required. 

We hold that Mr. Swipies did not receive all of the process to which he was

entitled. Mr. Swipies was deprived of the opportunity to be heard at a meaningful

time because the hearing occurred seventeen days after the removal. In Whisman, we

decided, based on the facts of the case, that a hearing held seventeen days after a

removal was not prompt enough for the purposes of the due process clause. Id. We

reach the same conclusion here. The relative tardiness of this hearing is evident when

one recognizes that it occurred after Mr. Swipies's two-week visitation period would

have ended had it not been cut short by the removal. We do not believe, moreover,

that the fact that Whisman involved a custodial parent's rights counsels a different

outcome. Allowing the state to hold the hearing at a later date would lessen its

administrative burden, but even a non-custodial parent's rights are sufficiently

important to justify the greater burden of an earlier hearing. See generally Mathews,

424 U.S. at 335. For, as the court said in Jordan v. Jackson, 15 F.3d 333, 343 (4th

Cir. 1994), "[t]he bonds between a parent and child are, in a word, sacrosanct." To

put the matter otherwise, if seven days is too long for a car owner to wait for a postAppellate Case: 04-3244 Page: 6 Date Filed: 08/12/2005 Entry ID: 1939807
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deprivation hearing after his or her car has been towed and impounded, Coleman v.

Watt, 40 F.3d 255, 260-61 (8th Cir. 1994), as a matter of law, a parent should not

have to wait seventeen days after his or her child has been removed for a hearing. 

IV. 

Deputy Kofka contends that the district court erred when it denied his motion

for a new trial, which was based on the court's refusal to give a jury instruction on

good faith as to the procedural due process claim. Deputy Kofka asked the court to

instruct the jury on the good-faith defense contained in Iowa Code § 232.79(3). This

subsection provides, "[a]ny person ... acting in good faith in the removal or keeping

of a child pursuant to this section ... shall have immunity from any civil or criminal

liability that might otherwise be incurred or imposed as the result of such removal or

keeping." The judge instructed the jury on good faith as to the substantive due

process claim (which focused on the propriety of the decision to remove Kendra), but

refused to instruct it on good faith as to the procedural due process claim. 

If a district court improperly instructs a jury, a new trial may be appropriate.

See McKay v. WilTel Communication Sys., Inc., 87 F.3d 970, 976 (8th Cir. 1996); see

Fed. R. Civ. P. 59. We review jury instructions for an abuse of discretion. Sanders

v. May Dep't Stores Co., 315 F.3d 940, 946 (8th Cir. 2003), cert. denied, 539 U.S.

942 (2003). The touchstone of our review is whether the instructions, "taken as a

whole, fairly and adequately represent the evidence and applicable law in light of the

issues presented to the jury in a particular case." Brown v. Sandals Resorts Int'l,

284 F.3d 949, 953 (8th Cir. 2002) (internal quotations omitted). Reversal for a new

trial is appropriate only if there was an error that affected a substantial right of the

moving party. Sanders, 315 F.3d at 946.

Deputy Kofka insists that the Iowa statute provides a good-faith defense for

actions following removal, and not just for the removal itself. Thus, he asserts, by not

instructing the jury on good faith as to post-removal activities, the district court

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presented an inaccurate picture of the law relevant to the procedural due process

claim. 

The district court did not err by failing to give the good-faith instruction

because the supremacy clause prohibits § 232.79(3) from playing either of the two

possible roles that Deputy Kofka seeks to assign to it. See U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2.

One possibility is that Deputy Kofka sees the good-faith provision as, quite

straightforwardly, a defense to liability under § 1983. In other words, he might

believe that § 232.79(3) immunizes a good-faith defendant who would otherwise be

liable under § 1983 for depriving an individual of a purely federal right. See

42 U.S.C. § 1983. This argument is of course untenable. The Supreme Court has

concluded that the supremacy clause bars state laws from shielding defendants from

liability under § 1983. Martinez v. California, 444 U.S. 277, 284 & 284 n.8 (1980).

The other possibility, closely related to the first, is that Deputy Kofka thinks that

Mr. Swipies's procedural due process rights spring from the state statute so that the

federal claim will be defeated if the state law claim fails. This argument is also

unsupportable: a state statute cannot dictate what procedural protections must attend

a liberty interest – even a stated-created one – as this is the sole province of federal

law. Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 540-41 (1985). (To be

clear, the state statute does not create the liberty interest here.) As the instruction

would have misrepresented the applicable law, the district court did not err by

refusing to give it. 

We think it appropriate at this point to note that while the jury instructions

were not defective for lack of the good-faith instruction, they were flawed for another

reason: they indicated that Mr. Swipies was entitled to judgment in his favor on the

procedural due process § 1983 claim if he proved that Deputy Kofka had violated

§ 232.79 of the Iowa Code. To prevail under § 1983, a plaintiff must show that one

of his or her federal rights has been violated. See, e.g., Scheeler v. City of St. Cloud,

402 F.3d 826, 830 (8th Cir. 2005). Violation of a state statutory provision necessarily

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establishes a procedural due process violation only if the statutory provision requires

the same process as federal law, and no more. Section 232.79 and the due process

clause, however, are not coextensive. For example, the due process clause does not

require a police officer to take a removed child to a place designated by court rules,

see § 232.79(2), as this is not necessary for providing a parent with notice and a

meaningful opportunity to be heard. Because the Iowa Code and the due process

clause are not coterminous, Deputy Kofka did not violate the due process clause (and

by extension, § 1983) simply by neglecting to follow the Iowa Code word for word,

and the jury should not have been instructed otherwise. To reiterate, as we have

repeatedly held, a defendant is liable under § 1983 only if he or she has deprived the

plaintiff of a federal right. 

All of this said, we will not correct the error because of our view of the proper

role of courts in an adversarial system. Deputy Kofka did not challenge the abovedescribed aspect of the jury instructions before the district court, thus triggering plain

error review, Fed. R. Civ. P. 52(d)(2); Littrell v. Franklin, 388 F.3d 578, 586-87 (8th

Cir. 2004); see United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725 (1983), and he did not raise the

matter on appeal. What is more, he did not adopt the argument when, at oral

argument, we pointed out that the case appeared to have been submitted to the jury

on an improper theory. He did little more than acknowledge that no one had noticed

this problem. Though we can correct plain errors sua sponte, see Silber v. United

States, 370 U.S. 717, 718 (1962), the amount of inaction in this case is too much for

us to brook. To correct the error, we would have to notice sua sponte that the district

court did not act sua sponte to provide a jury instruction that the defendant should

have provided, and then we would have to remedy the problem in the face of the

defendant's relative indifference to it. We have an adversarial system of justice, not

an inquisitorial one, and to proceed along the path described above would be to blur

the line between the two systems. We decline to do so. 

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V. 

Deputy Kofka finally argues that the district court erred when it denied his

motion for judgment as a matter of law as to the availability of punitive damages.

Deputy Kofka knowingly deviated from § 232.79(2). This subsection obligates an

officer who has removed a child to bring the child to a place designated by court

rules, make a reasonable effort to inform the parent or guardian (presumably from

whom the child was taken) of the whereabouts of the child, immediately orally inform

the juvenile court of the emergency removal and the circumstances surrounding it,

and provide a written version of the information orally conveyed to the court. Iowa

Stat. § 232.79(2). Deputy Kofka admits that he did not do any of these things. 

Punitive damages may be assessed in a § 1983 case when a "defendant's

conduct is shown to be motivated by evil motive or intent, or when it involves

reckless or callous indifference to the federally protected rights of others." Smith v.

Wade, 461 U.S. 30, 56 (1983). In Kolstad v. American Dental Ass'n, 527 U.S. 526,

534-539 (1999), the Court offered guidance on the meaning of this standard.

(Though Kolstad discusses the punitive damages provision for Title VII claims,

42 U.S.C. § 1981a(b)(1), we believe that the discussion applies to § 1983 because

Congress modeled § 1981a(b)(1) on Smith's discussion of punitive damages under

§ 1983. Kolstad, 527 U.S. at 535-36; Iacobucci v. Boulter, 193 F.3d 14, 25-26, 26

n.7 (1st Cir. 1999).) The Court pointed out that the standard is subjective and, to

prove reckless indifference, requires evidence that the defendant acted "in the face

of a perceived risk that [his or her] actions [would] violate federal law." Kolstad,

527 U.S. at 536.

Deputy Kofka argues that punitive damages are not warranted in this case

because "[t]here was no evidence ... from which a jury could conclude that [he] knew

he may be violating federal law." Unsurprisingly, Mr. Swipies does not think that the

court erred in denying the motion for judgment as a matter of law. Mr. Swipies

asserts that Deputy Kofka's insouciance toward the requirements of state law and his

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friendship with Ms. Ebert establish that he was recklessly indifferent to Mr. Swipies's

due process rights.

We hold that there was no legally sufficient evidentiary basis on which a

reasonable jury could have found for Mr. Swipies as to punitive damages. No

evidence adduced at trial showed that Deputy Kofka acted in the face of a perceived

risk that his post-removal actions violated federal law. 

The fact that Deputy Kofka recognized that he was violating state law has no

bearing on whether he knew that he was violating, or might be violating, federal law;

all state law is not coterminous with federal law – there would be little need for it if

it were. As for Deputy Kofka's friendship with Ms. Ebert, it is of no value to

Mr. Swipies. As we have said, a plaintiff can establish that punitive damages are

appropriate by proving either that the defendant acted with ill will or that the

defendant was recklessly indifferent to the plaintiff's federal rights. Smith, 461 U.S.

at 56. Mr. Swipies rested his argument entirely on the reckless indifference theory,

and the court instructed the jury on this theory, to the exclusion of ill will. To

establish that punitive damages were appropriate on the basis of reckless indifference,

Mr. Swipies needed to show that Deputy Kofka knew that he was violating

Mr. Swipies's federal rights or recognized that he might be doing so. See Kolstad,

527 U.S. at 536. The fact that Deputy Kofka had a friendship with Ms. Ebert

demonstrates nothing at all about Deputy Kofka's knowledge of Mr. Swipies's federal

rights. Deputy Kofka was entitled to judgment as a matter of law as to the availability

of punitive damages.

Why would a jury, presumably composed of reasonable people, reach an

unreasonable result? The answer can be found in the jury instructions. One of the

instructions reads, "[i]f you find the conduct of the defendant was recklessly and

callously indifferent to the plaintiff's rights to have the Iowa Code followed when his

daughter was removed, you may award punitive damages." This is an incorrect

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statement of law because federal law is what counts, not the Iowa Code: as pointed

out earlier, the Iowa Code does not mimic federal law; it requires more in some

regards. But if it were a correct statement of law, the jury's verdict would be

reasonable in light of the evidence introduced at trial.

VI. 

For the reasons given above, we affirm the jury's finding that Mr. Swipies's

procedural due process rights were violated, but vacate the award of punitive

damages. 

______________________________

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