United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

November 25, 2013

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 13-20057

THE ESTATE OF C.A., A MINOR CHILD DECEASED; VINCENT 

AGWUOKE, individually and on behalf of the heirs of C.A.; CELESTINA 

AGWUOKE, individually and on behalf of the heirs of C.A., 

 Plaintiffs - Appellants

v.

PAUL CASTRO, Principal of the Westside High School, individually and in 

his official capacity; VANESSA CORONADO, Individually and in her official 

capacity; JOHN DOE COMPANY; RWS ARCHITECTS, INCORPORATED, 

doing business as RWS Architecture; CBM ENGINEERS, INCORPORATED, 

doing business as CBM Engineering; BRICKER & CANNADY, 

INCORPORATED, formerly known as Willis, Bricker, & Cannady, 

Incorporated; GILBANE DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, doing business as 

Gilband Properties, Incorporated; GP HOUSTON, L.L.C.; THE JOHN DOE 

COMPANY, 

 Defendants – Appellees

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Texas

USDC No. 4:10-CV-531

Before STEWART, Chief Judge, and DeMOSS and CLEMENT, Circuit 

Judges.

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PER CURIAM:*

C.A., a high school student, drowned in 2008 after a pool-based science 

experiment. The Estate of C.A., and Vincent and Celestina Agwuoke, 

individually and on behalf of the heirs of C.A. (collectively, “the Agwuokes”) 

sued the school district and school employees under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for 

violation of C.A.’s Fourteenth Amendment right to life. After granting the 

school employees summary judgment based on qualified immunity, the 

district court granted the district summary judgment. The court concluded 

that (1) C.A.’s constitutional rights were not violated because the Fifth 

Circuit does not recognize state-created danger claims, and (2) even if a 

“state-created danger” theory applied, the plaintiffs could not establish that 

the state was reckless. We AFFIRM.

FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

In 2008, C.A. was a senior at Westside High School in the Houston 

Independent School District (“the district” or “HISD”). On April 10, 2008, 

C.A. drowned in the deep end of the school swimming pool where students 

were playing after concluding a physics experiment. 

At the time of his death, C.A. was a student in a Physics I class taught 

by Vanessa Coronado. In March 2008, Coronado assigned her class a project 

requiring them to build boats from only cardboard and duct tape in order to 

teach them about buoyancy. Coronado got the idea for the experiment from 

another physics teacher, Troy Gillespie, and students at the school had 

performed the buoyancy experiment for several years. Although the official 

rules of the experiment instructed students to stay in the shallow end of the 

* Pursuant to 5th Cir. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not 

be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5th 

Cir. R. 47.5.4.

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pool and to enter the water only while performing the experiment, the 

Agwuokes alleged that the official rules were historically not followed. They 

claim that Coronado had problems with students during past experiments, 

and that they often ignored her admonitions to avoid the deep end of the pool. 

C.A.’s class performed the buoyancy experiment on April 10, 2008. The 

Agwuokes acknowledge that before commencing the experiment, Coronado 

instructed the students to be in the pool only while testing their team’s boat 

and to stay out of the deep end. But after the boat testing was completed 

students remained in the pool during cleanup and engaged in “horseplay.” 

Although the school’s swimming coach (Coach Sikkema) was present during 

the experiment, he went back to his office after the experiments concluded 

and did not stay to supervise the cleanup. After Coronado may or may not 

have given them permission—a disputed fact issue—students began jumping 

and diving into the deep end of the swimming pool. Video footage shows that 

C.A. and a group of other students jumped into the water. As the other 

students swam to the other end of the pool, they were unaware that C.A. 

sank to the bottom and did not reach the shallow end. 

Minutes later, a student on the school’s swim team informed Sikkema 

that she noticed something in the pool. After realizing it was a body, 

Coronado and the student dove and retrieved C.A. Sikkema instructed 

someone to get the school nurse and later to dial 911. Despite the paramedics’ 

attempts to resuscitate C.A., the attending physician at Hermann Memorial 

City Medical Center pronounced C.A. dead. 

On February 19, 2010, the Agwuokes filed a complaint in the Southern 

District of Texas. The Agwuokes alleged that they had previously informed 

the school that C.A. did not know how to swim. In response to an athletic 

participation form submitted in August 2005, they claim to have provided 

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HISD with instructions that C.A. should not dive or swim in the school pool. 

After limited discovery, the individual-capacity defendants (Coronado and 

Principal Paul Castro) moved for summary judgment. On September 6, 2011, 

the district court granted their motion for summary judgment based on 

qualified immunity. On April 13, 2012, after all other defendants settled or 

were otherwise dismissed, HISD filed for summary judgment, which the 

district court granted on January 16, 2013. 

The Agwuokes appeal both summary judgment orders and the final 

judgment entered against them. According to the Agwuokes, C.A.’s death 

“occurred (1) despite HISD and the individual-capacity defendants’ 

awareness of the obvious dangers posed by the unsupervised use of a 

swimming pool; and (2) regardless of the fact that HISD was informed that 

C.A. should not be allowed to participate in swimming or diving activities.” 

The Agwuokes claim also that “once C.A was in the dangerous situation and 

sunk to the bottom of the pool, Defendants’ deliberate indifference caused 

him to stay there for several minutes drowning to death.” 

 

STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review the grant of summary judgment de novo, applying the same 

standards as the district court. Albemarle Corp. v. United Steel Workers ex 

rel. AOWU Local 103, 703 F.3d 821, 824 (5th Cir. 2013). Summary judgment 

is appropriate when the evidence indicates there is no genuine issue of 

material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. 

10 Ring Precision, Inc. v. Jones, 722 F.3d 711, 717 (5th Cir. 2013); Fed. R. 

Civ. P. 56(a). “We view the evidence and draw reasonable inferences in the 

light most favorable to the non-movant.” Maddox v. Townsend & Sons, Inc., 

639 F.3d 214, 216 (5th Cir. 2011).

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DISCUSSION

The Agwuokes challenge the district court’s dismissal of its claims 

against the individual defendants based on qualified immunity, and its 

dismissal of its claims against the district based on the fact that this court 

does not recognize the state-created danger theory of liability. 

I. Individual Defendants’ Qualified Immunity

State actors sued in their individual capacity under § 1983 are entitled 

to qualified immunity “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). 

“Qualified immunity gives government officials breathing room to make 

reasonable but mistaken judgments about open legal questions.” Ashcroft v. 

al-Kidd, 131 S. Ct. 2074, 2085 (2011). “When properly applied, it protects all 

but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.” Id. 

(internal quotations marks omitted). After a defendant invokes qualified 

immunity, the burden shifts to the plaintiff to demonstrate the 

inapplicability of the defense. Crostley v. Lamar Cnty., 717 F.3d 410, 422 

(5th Cir. 2013). We apply a two-pronged test in evaluating the applicability 

of the defense. The plaintiff “[f]irst . . . must claim that the defendants 

committed a constitutional violation under current law. Second, he must 

claim that the defendants’ actions were objectively unreasonable in light of 

the law that was clearly established at the time of the actions complained of.” 

Id. We may consider these prongs in any order. Pearson v. Callahan, 555 

U.S. 223, 236 (2009). 

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We hold that, for qualified immunity purposes, the Agwuokes failed to 

identify a constitutional violation. Even if they did, their arguments would 

fail under the qualified immunity test’s second requirement that the 

constitutional violation be “clearly established.” 

A. Constitutional Violation 

The Agwuokes argue that the individual-capacity defendants caused

C.A. to be subjected to a violation of his right to life through their deliberately 

indifferent conduct. 

While it is true that the “right to life” exists, a plaintiff seeking to 

defeat qualified immunity cannot state the alleged constitutional right so 

broadly. See Brown v. Glossip, 878 F.2d 871, 874 (5th Cir. 1989) (“In 

overcoming the qualified immunity defense, it is not enough for the plaintiff 

to allege that the government official violated a clearly established right in 

the generalized sense for that ‘would . . . convert the rule of qualified 

immunity . . . into a rule of virtually unqualified liability simply by alleging 

the violation of extremely abstract rights.’”). Even assuming the individual 

defendants caused C.A. “to be subjected” to a loss of life, this would not make 

out a cognizable constitutional violation without more particularized 

authority prohibiting defendants’ conduct. 

The Agwuokes do not allege a purposeful or intentional action by 

defendants against C.A., and despite their insistence that they are not 

alleging negligence, gross negligence, or defendants’ “failure to protect,” the 

lines of authority the district court identified and addressed in its opinion 

control in cases with C.A.’s facts. Insofar as individual defendants’ actions 

violated school or city policies and ordinances, “[v]iolation of a state statute is 

not actionable under § 1983.” E.g., San Jacinto Sav. & Loan v. Kacal, 928 

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F.2d 697, 701 n.4 (5th Cir. 1991); Bush v. Viterna, 795 F.2d 1203, 1209 (5th 

Cir. 1986) (“[T]he enforcement of state law is the job of the states, and the 

federal civil rights statute may not be used to bootstrap alleged violations of 

state law into federal claims.”). Nor, as the district court found, did the 

Houston ordinances or HISD policies on pool safety create individual 

entitlements that would be protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Town 

of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748, 765–66 (2005). 

We hold that the Agwuokes failed to identify a constitutional violation 

for qualified immunity purposes. 

 

B. Clearly Established

When applying the second prong of the qualified immunity test, after 

identifying the constitutional right, we examine whether its “contours . . . are 

sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood that 

what he is doing violates that right.” al-Kidd, 131 S. Ct. at 2083 (internal 

alterations and quotation marks omitted). “To answer that question in the 

affirmative, we must be able to point to controlling authority—or a robust 

consensus of persuasive authority—that defines the contours of the right in 

question with a high degree of particularity.” Morgan v. Swanson, 659 F.3d 

359, 371–72 (5th Cir. 2011) (en banc) (internal quotation marks and footnote 

omitted). While “[w]e do not require a case directly on point . . . existing 

precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond 

debate.” al-Kidd, 131 S. Ct. at 2083. The Supreme Court has “repeatedly 

told courts . . . not to define clearly established law at a high level of 

generality” because a “general proposition . . . is of little help in determining 

whether the violative nature of particular conduct is clearly established.” Id. 

at 2084. An official “does not lose qualified immunity merely because a 

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certain right is clearly established in the abstract. . . . Qualified immunity 

should not be denied unless the law is clear in the more particularized sense 

that reasonable officials should be on notice that their conduct is unlawful.” 

Kinney v. Weaver, 367 F.3d 337, 350 (5th Cir. 2004) (internal quotation 

marks omitted). 

In addition to the Agwuokes’ failure to make out a cognizable 

constitutional violation, Castro and Coronado are entitled to qualified 

immunity because the right at issue was not clearly established. The 

Agwuokes claim that the individual defendants did more than fail to protect 

C.A. from the inherent dangers of swimming pool: they planned and approved

a school project that placed students in a dangerous environment, and did so 

in a manner that disregarded reasonable and legally required safety 

measures. They conclude that if “a school official uses his or her extensive 

power to structure (or approve) curriculum in a way that is deliberately 

indifferent to a serious risk of harm to the students legally required to attend 

that school, and thereby proximately cause the death of a student, 

constitutional liability is appropriate.”

Applying this case’s facts to the standard set forth in al-Kidd and 

Kinney, the Agwuokes would need to demonstrate that reasonable teachers 

and school officials were on notice that designing and executing a high school 

science experiment involving a pool violated the constitutional right to life of 

any student that may drown. The Agwuokes do not identify “controlling 

authority—or a robust consensus of persuasive authority—that defines the 

contours of the right in question with a high degree of particularity.” 

Morgan, 659 F.3d at 371–72 (internal quotation marks omitted). Instead, 

they note merely that C.A. had a “right to life” under the Fourteenth 

Amendment, which the individual defendants allegedly violated through 

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their deliberately indifferent conduct. This falls short of the requirement to 

show “defendants’ actions were objectively unreasonable in light of the law 

that was clearly established at the time of the actions complained of.” 

Crostley, 717 F.3d at 422.

We hold that, even assuming a constitutional violation, the individual 

defendants were not on notice that their conduct violated a clearly 

established constitutional right because no case has found a violation under 

similar facts.1 The district court’s dismissal of the claims against the 

individual defendants is affirmed.

II. Liability of the HISD

With respect to the school district’s liability, the Agwuokes claim the 

district court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of HISD because 

it “improperly concluded that the state-created danger theory is not viable in 

this Circuit.” This was error, they argue, because although this circuit has

never adopted the theory, it also has never rejected its viability. We affirm 

the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the school district, 

and decline the Agwuokes’ invitation to use this case to adopt the statecreated danger theory as the law in this circuit.

The state-created danger theory of liability derives from the Supreme 

Court’s opinion in DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social 

Services, 489 U.S. 189 (1989). In DeShaney, the Court held that the 

1 To the contrary, federal courts have upheld the qualified immunity of individual 

defendants involved in the planning and supervision of students’ water activities. 

DeAnzona v. City & Cnty. of Denver, 222 F.3d 1229, 1235 (10th Cir. 2000); Slade v. Bd. of 

Sch. Dirs. of the City of Milwaukee, 871 F. Supp. 2d 829, 833 (E.D. Wis. 2012), aff'd sub 

nom. Slade v. Bd. of Sch. Dirs. of City of Milwaukee, 702 F.3d 1027 (7th Cir. 2012); Tobin v. 

Washington, No. C06-5630RJB, 2007 WL 3275073, at *7 (W.D. Wash. Nov. 5, 2007), aff'd, 

327 F. App'x 747 (9th Cir. 2009).

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Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause was meant “to protect the 

people from the State, not to ensure that the State protected them from each 

other.” Id. at 196. Since DeShaney, courts have read into its language the 

possibility of liability for state-created dangers: 

While the State may have been aware of the dangers that 

[plaintiff] faced . . . , it played no part in their creation, nor did it 

do anything to render him any more vulnerable to them. . . . [I]t 

placed him in no worse position than that in which he would have 

been had it not acted at all.

Id. at 201 (emphasis added).

The Agwuokes ask this court to use this case to expressly adopt the 

state-created danger theory of liability, claiming it “is a natural extension of 

both the text and purpose of Section 1983 and of Supreme Court precedent. 

And this is the appropriate case to adopt it.” But “this Court has consistently 

refused to adopt the state-created danger theory.” Dixon v. Alcorn Cnty. Sch. 

Dist., 499 F. App'x 364, 366 & n.2 (5th Cir. 2012) (citing Doe ex rel. Magee v. 

Covington Cnty. Sch. Dist. ex. rel. Keys, 675 F.3d 849, 865 (5th Cir. 2012); 

Kovacic v. Villarreal, 628 F.3d 209, 214 (5th Cir. 2010)); see also Whitley v. 

Hanna, 726 F.3d 631, 639 n.5 (5th Cir. 2013). 

Contrary to the Agwuokes’ assertion, the district court did not hold that 

the state-created danger doctrine was “not viable” in the Fifth Circuit. 

Rather, it evaluated the doctrine, noted that the circuit has yet to adopt the 

theory, and concluded that “the present case would not appear to provide the 

right vehicle for the Fifth Circuit to adopt the state-created danger doctrine” 

because “[t]he plaintiffs would fail to satisfy one or more of the necessary 

elements suggested in Covington.” We agree.

Even assuming this court recognized the theory of liability, the 

Agwuokes failed to raise a question of material fact on each element of a 

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§ 1983 claim against HISD premised on the state-created danger theory of 

liability.

In Dixon, this court outlined the elements of a state-created danger 

claim:

Specifically, a plaintiff would have to show (1) that the 

environment created by the state actor is dangerous, (2) the state 

actor must know it is dangerous (deliberate indifference), and (3) 

the state actor must have used its authority to create an 

opportunity that would not otherwise have existed for the third 

party’s crime to occur.

499 F. App’x at 366–67. In addition, the “state-created danger theory is 

inapposite without a known victim.” Id. (internal marks omitted) (citing 

Covington, 675 F.3d at 865; Rios v. City of Del Rio, 444 F.3d 417, 424 (5th 

Cir. 2006)).

Even assuming that the district’s customs and policies created a 

dangerous environment that would not otherwise have existed and to which 

it was deliberately indifferent, it cannot be said that HISD was deliberately 

indifferent with respect to “a known victim.” As the district court held, “[t]he 

record shows that the plaintiff cannot show a basis to support the inference 

that HISD knowingly created a risk that C.A. would drown, as opposed to 

creating a general risk for students who could not swim or could not swim 

well.” As we held in Dixon, “the state-created danger theory requires a 

known victim, and the fact that a school’s policy or procedure presents a risk 

of harm to students in general is inadequate to satisfy this requirement.” 499 

F. App’x at 368; see also Covington, 675 at 866 (“At most, the Does allege that 

the school was aware of some general deficiencies in the check-out policy. 

They do not allege that the school knew about an immediate danger to Jane’s 

safety, nor can the court infer such knowledge from the pleadings. Without 

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such allegations, even if we were to embrace the state-created danger theory, 

the claim would necessarily fail.”).

The Agwuokes argue that they “have produced evidence that HISD 

increased the risk to C.A. specifically and that it knew (or but for its willful 

blindness would have known) that it was doing so” because “HISD had 

specific information from C.A.’s parents that he should not be allowed to 

participate in any activities in the water.” But the dangers of a swimming 

pool apply to anyone who either cannot swim or cannot swim well, and even 

assuming the Agwuokes can establish deliberate indifference from a school 

teacher’s failure to account for an athletic participation form submitted three 

years prior, it cannot be said that the experiment’s dangers were unique to 

C.A.2

The Agwuokes fail to establish that C.A. was a known victim, and thus 

do not make out a prima facie case under the state-created danger theory of 

liability. As a result, we follow the lead of the en banc court in Covington and

“decline to use this . . . opportunity to adopt the state-created danger theory 

2 Because this circuit has not adopted the state-created danger theory, the contours 

of the “known victim” requirement are not well developed. In Rios, the court stated: “There 

is no allegation that any alleged action or failure to act on the part of [the officer] was taken 

by him with the actual purpose or intention of causing injury to anyone, much less [the 

victim].” Rios, 444 F.3d at 423. Similarly, here there is no allegation that Castro, 

Coronado, or the district acted with the intent to injure anyone, much less C.A. In Saenz v. 

Heldenfels Bros., Inc., 183 F.3d 389 (5th Cir. 1999), this court found state-created danger

inapplicable where police officers allowed a drunk truck driver to continue driving and 

eventually injure someone in a collision. The court stated: “Unlike the deputy in Ross, 

Gonzalez was neither aware of an immediate danger facing a known victim, nor did he use 

his authority to prevent the appellants from receiving aid. This ‘state-created danger’ 

theory is inapposite without a known victim.” Id. at 391–92 (emphasis added). The case 

the Saenz court was distinguishing was Ross v. United States, 910 F.2d 1422 (7th Cir. 

1990), where “the Seventh Circuit held that a deputy sheriff committed a constitutional tort 

by ordering qualified bystanders not to rescue a drowning boy.” Saenz, 183 F.3d at 391. 

Ross’s facts are clearly distinguishable, and it cannot be said that C.A. was a “known 

victim” when defendants failed to comply with pool safety regulations or designed their 

physics experiment. 

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in this case because the allegations would not support such a theory.” 675 

F.3d at 865.

CONCLUSION

We AFFIRM the district court’s dismissals of the Agwuokes’ claims 

against the individual defendants and the school district.

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