Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-89-02313/USCOURTS-ca10-89-02313-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Bernice D. Coriz
Appellant
Orlando Coriz
Appellant
Orlando Coriz Jr.
Appellant
Carlos Guillen
Appellee
Arthur Martinez
Appellee

Document Text:

PUBLISH 

FILED 

United States Court of AppeaJs 

Tenth Circuit 

OCT 16 1990 

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT R.OBERT L. HOECKER 

ORLANDO CORIZ, JR., by and through) 

next friends ORLANDO CORIZ and ) 

BERNICE D. CORIZ, ) 

Plaintiffs-Appellants, 

v. 

ARTHUR MARTINEZ and CARLOS 

GUILLEN, in their individual 

capacities only, 

Defendants-Appellees. 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

No. 89-2313 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW MEXICO 

(D.C. NO. 88-0979M) 

Clerk 

John B. Roesler, Smith & Roesler, P.C., Santa Fe, New Mexico, 

Attorney for Plaintiffs-Appellants. 

Daniel H. Friedman, Simons, Cuddy & Friedman, Santa Fe, New 

Mexico, Attorney for Defendants-Appellees. 

Before ANDERSON, BARRETT, Circuit Judges, and CHRISTENSEN,* 

District Judge. 

ANDERSON, Circuit Judge. 

Plaintiff-appellant Orlando Coriz Jr. appeals a summary judgment entered against him on his procedural due process claim on 

the grounds that the defendants were qualifiedly immune. We 

affirm. 

* The Honorable A. Sherman Christensen, Senior Judge, United 

States District Court for the District of Utah, sitting by 

designation. 

Appellate Case: 89-2313 Document: 01019311229 Date Filed: 10/16/1990 Page: 1 
In the fall of 1987, defendant Guillen, an aide to defendant 

Martinez, a gym teacher at Espanola Valley High School, threw 

Coriz to the floor in an effort to maintain discipline. Coriz 

suffered a broken arm and filed suit under 42 u.s.c. § 1983, 

alleging, inter alia, that his right to procedural due process had 

been violated because he had no adequate post-deprivation remedy. 1 

The district court granted defendants' motion for summary judgment 

on this claim, finding that they were qualifiedly immune because 

the inadequacy of Coriz's post-deprivation remedy was not clearly 

established. 

In a situation such as this, "where the State is truly unable 

to anticipate and prevent a random deprivation of a liberty interest," Zinermon v. Burch, 110 S. Ct. 975, 987 (1990), "postdeprivation tort remedies are all the process that is due, simply because 

they are the only remedies the State could be expected to 

provide," id. at 985. "[A]n unauthorized intentional deprivation 

1 Coriz's substantive due process and other claims were tried 

to a jury, which found against him. 

The defendants contend that the adverse verdict on the 

substantive due process claim "moots" Coriz's procedural due 

process claim. We disagree. There are 

three categories of corporal punishment. Punishments 

that do not exceed the traditional common law standard 

of reasonableness are not actionable; punishments that 

exceed the common law standard without adequate state 

remedies violate procedural due process rights; and, 

finally, punishments that are so grossly excessive as to 

be shocking to the conscience violate substantive due 

process rights, without regard to the adequacy of state 

remedies. 

Garcia by Garcia v. Miera, 817 F.2d 650, 656 (lOth Cir. 1987), 

cert. denied, 485 U.S. 959 (1988). The jury's decision that the 

punishment in this case did not reach the third level in no way 

foreclosed a finding that the punishment reached the second level. 

-2-

Appellate Case: 89-2313 Document: 01019311229 Date Filed: 10/16/1990 Page: 2 
. . . by a state employee does not constitute a violation of the 

procedural requirements of the Due Process Clause of the 

Fourteenth Amendment if a meaningful postdeprivation remedy for 

the loss is available." Hudson v. Palmer, 468 u.s. 517, 533 

(1984). 

"[G]overnment officials performing discretionary functions[] 

generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as 

their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or 

constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have 

known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 u.s. 800, 818 (1982). "[O]nce 

a defendant raises a qualified immunity defense the plaintiff assumes the burden of showing that the defendant has violated 

clearly established law." Hannula v. City of Lakewood, 907 F.2d 

129, 131 (lOth Cir. 1990). 

Coriz has failed to show that it was clearly established that 

New Mexico did not provide an adequate post-deprivation remedy. 

As this court noted in Garcia by Garcia v. Miera, 817 F.2d 650, 

656 (lOth Cir. 1987), cert. denied, 485 U.S. 959 (1988), federal 

judges in New Mexico had split on the question of whether the 

state provided adequate post-deprivation remedies for students 

whose procedural due process rights were allegedly violated by 

. . hm 2 excess~ve pun~s ent. 

2 Coriz, quoting our statement in Garcia that "conflict is 

relevant to the Harlow inquiry, but not controlling," 817 F.2d at 

658, contends that the district erred by relying solely upon this 

split within New Mexico in concluding that the law was not clearly 

established. The Garcia rule only applies to interjurisdictional 

conflicts. See Lum v. Jensen, 876 F.2d 1385, 1389 (9th Cir. 

1989), cert. denied, 110 S. Ct. 867 (1990). When there is 

conflict within a jurisdiction, it cannot be doubted that the law 

there is not clearly established. 

-3-

Appellate Case: 89-2313 Document: 01019311229 Date Filed: 10/16/1990 Page: 3 
Coriz argues that the Harlow inquiry into whether the law was 

clearly established should apply only to the defendants' acts, not 

to the adequacy of the remedies available to redress those acts. 

We concede that this is an unusual application of qualified immunity, but we conclude that the district court applied the law 

correctly. 3 The right Coriz claims the defendants violated is not 

simply to be free from random, unauthorized deprivations of 

liberty, but to be free from such deprivations in the absence of 

adequate post-deprivation remedies. See Paratt v. Taylor, 451 

u.s. 527, 537 (1981) ("Nothing in [the Fourteenth] Amendment 

protects against all deprivations of life, liberty or property by 

the State. The Fourteenth Amendment protects only against 

deprivations 'without due process of law.'"); see also Hudson v. 

Palmer, 468 u.s. at 533 ("the state's action is not complete until 

and unless it provides or refuses to provide a suitable postdeprivation remedy"). Because of the uncertain state of the law, the 

defendants' "actions could reasonably have been thought consistent 

with the right[] they are alleged to have violated." Anderson v. 

Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 638 (1987). 

The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. 

3 The district court also could have certified to the New 

Mexico Supreme Court the question of whether Coriz had a state-law 

remedy. If the answer was affirmative, Coriz's claim would fail, 

for the absence of an adequate post-deprivation remedy is an 

element of his claim. 

-4-

Appellate Case: 89-2313 Document: 01019311229 Date Filed: 10/16/1990 Page: 4