2002 Decisions

Opinions of the United

States Court of Appeals

for the Third Circuit

3-13-2002

Pahler v. Wilkes-Barre

Precedential or Non-Precedential:

Docket 1-2275

Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_2002

This decision is brought to you for free and open access by the Opinions of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit at Villanova

University School of Law Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in 2002 Decisions by an authorized administrator of Villanova

University School of Law Digital Repository. For more information, please contact Benjamin.Carlson@law.villanova.edu.

Recommended Citation

"Pahler v. Wilkes-Barre" (2002). 2002 Decisions. Paper 170.

http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_2002/170
 

NOT PRECEDENTIAL 

 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT 

 

 No. 01-2275 

 

 CHARLES M. PAHLER, 

 Appellant 

 v. 

 CITY OF WILKES-BARRE; THOMAS D. McGROARTY, 

 individually and as Mayor of the City of Wilkes-Barre; 

 WILLIAM J. BARRETT, individually and as Chief of 

 Police in the City of Wilkes-Barre 

 

 On Appeal from the United States District Court 

 for the Middle District of Pennsylvania 

 (D.C. Civil No. 00-cv-01143) 

 District Judge: Hon. William J. Nealon 

 

 Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a) 

 February 7, 2002 

 Before: SLOVITER, AMBRO, Circuit Judges, and SHADUR, District 

Judge 

 

 (Filed: March 12, 2002) 

 

 OPINION OF THE COURT 

SLOVITER, Circuit Judge. 

 

 Charles Pahler appeals from the District Court's dismissal of his 

complaint 

brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C.  1983 against the City of Wilkes-Barre 

("City"), its 

Mayor, Thomas D. McGroarty ("McGroarty"), and its Chief of Police, William 

Barrett 

("Barrett"), alleging a violation of the substantive due process component 

of the 

Fourteenth Amendment. Pahler, a City police officer, was ordered to 

participate in a drug 

raid during which he sustained severe injuries from a buckshot from a 

shotgun of a fellow 
police officer who neglected to set the safety mechanism on the shotgun. 

The officer who 

discharged the shotgun was a member of the Emergency Services Unit ("ESU") 

of the 

Police Department, but the ESU was not used in the raid. 

 Pahler claims that defendants violated his Fourteenth Amendment right 

to due 

process by requiring him to participate in a high risk drug raid with 

officers who were not 

adequately trained and by failing to use the ESU despite the fact that it 

comprises 

"officers who volunteered their candidacy, were then specially selected as 

members of the 

ESU, and were then to be specially and continually trained to manage 

highly dangerous 

incidents of violence arising in the City." App. at 3. Pahler was not a 

member of the 

ESU and his duties predominantly consisted of patrolling a specific 

geographical area in a 

marked Department vehicle. 

 Pahler's claim implicates two distinct legal theories: the "statecreated danger" 

theory and the "failure to train" theory. Pahler now challenges the 

District Court's 

decision, arguing (1) that the District Court committed error by not 

accepting as true the 

factual allegations in the complaint and (2) that the District Court erred 

by concluding 

Pahler failed to plead a cause of action under a "failure to train" 

theory. 

 For the reasons that follow, we will now affirm. 

 I. 

 In dismissing Pahler's complaint, the District Court held that 

"state-created 

danger" substantive due process claims are "inapplicable to law 

enforcement personnel 

who are injured during the course of their employment." App. at 61 

(citing Collins v. 

City of Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115 (1992); Rutherford v. City of Newport 

News, 919 

F. Supp. 885 (E.D. Va. 1996), aff'd, 107 F.3d 867 (4th Cir. 1997); Hartman 

v. Bachert, 

880 F. Supp. 342 (E.D. Pa. 1995)). The District Court also concluded that 

even if the 

"state-created danger" theory were applicable to Pahler's claims, 

defendants' alleged 

failure to use the ESU to conduct a raid on a suspected drug dealer's 

residence was not 

"'deliberatively indifferent' behavior that shocks the conscience 

constituting a substantive 

due process violation." App. at 62. Finally, the District Court 

determined that even if 

Pahler's "state-created danger" theory is found to apply to law 

enforcement officers who 
suffered employment-related injuries, McGroarty and Barrett are entitled 

to the defense of 

qualified immunity. App. at 63. 

 The District Court also dismissed Pahler's Fourteenth Amendment 

substantive due 

process "failure to train" claim. The court held that Pahler "has neither 

identified the 

specific training the [C]ity should have offered which would have 

prevented his injury, 

nor has he established that such training was not provided." App. at 65. 

In addition, the 

District Court noted that Pahler's complaint appears to support the view 

that the 

individual who engaged in the injurious act has been trained in the use of 

shotgun, but 

merely neglected to set the safety device. According to the District 

Court, such conduct 

does not rise to the level of a constitutional violation. App. at 65 

(citing County of 

Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 849 (1998) ("opining that 'liability 

for negligently 

inflicted harm is categorically beneath the threshold of constitutional 

due process'")). 

 II. 

 This court's review of a district court order dismissing a complaint 

pursuant to 

Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be 

granted is plenary and 

we apply the same test as the District Court. See Doug Grant, Inc. v. 

Greate Bay Casino 

Corp., 232 F.3d 173, 183 (3d Cir. 2000). Although our standard of review 

requires us to 

"accept as true all factual allegations in the complaint, we need not 

accept as true 

'unsupported conclusions and unwarranted inferences.'" Id. at 183-84 

(quoting City of 

Pittsburgh v. W. Penn Power Co., 147 F.3d 256, 263 n.13 (3d Cir. 1998)). 

 A. State-Created Danger 

 Generally, the state has no affirmative obligation to protect its 

citizens from the 

violent acts of private individuals. One of the exceptions to this 

general principle is the 

"state-created danger" theory of liability, which we adopted in Kneipp v. 

Tedder, 95 F.3d 

1199 (3d Cir. 1996). We applied the four-part test articulated in Mark v. 

Borough of 

Hatboro, 51 F.3d 1137 (3d Cir. 1995), which holds a state actor liable if: 

 (1) the harm ultimately caused was foreseeable and 

fairly 

 direct; (2) the state actor acted in willful disregard for the 

 safety of the plaintiff; (3) there existed some relationship 

 between the state and the plaintiff; (4) the state actors used 

 their authority to create an opportunity that otherwise would 

 not have existed for the third party's crime to occur. 
Kneipp, 95 F.3d at 1208 (quoting Mark, 51 F.3d at 1152). 

 Thereafter, in County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833 (1998), 

the Supreme 

Court analyzed the overarching framework of substantive due process. We 

held in Miller 

v. City of Philadelphia, 174 F.3d 368, 375 (3d Cir. 1999), that Lewis 

requires a court, in 

all substantive due process cases, to determine if the state actor's 

behavior shocks the 

conscience. The precise degree of wrongfulness to reach the "conscienceshocking" level 

depends upon the circumstances of a particular case. 

 In this case, the District Court held that the second factor of the 

Kneipp test has 

been modified by the "shock the conscience" standard, and what rises to 

that level will 

ultimately depend on the factual scenario of the case at hand. We agree. 

Accordingly, a 

plaintiff seeking to recover under a "state-created danger" theory must 

show that the actor 

acted with a willful disregard for or deliberate indifference to 

plaintiff's safety that rises 

to the level of shocking the conscience. 

 The District Court stated that regardless of the degree of 

culpability that should be 

applied, the state-created danger theory arising out of the substantive 

due process clause 

of the Fourteenth Amendment does not apply to the plaintiff while 

functioning as a police 

officer. App. at 63. The court also stated that "[e]ven if the state 

created danger theory 

could be applied to police officers, the conduct of the defendants would 

not support a 

finding that shocks the conscience." App. at 63. Because we agree with 

the latter, we 

need not decide whether the "state-created danger" theory applies to a 

police officer. 

Failure to utilize the ESU to raid a suspected drug-dealer's residence can 

hardly be 

described as "deliberately indifferent" behavior that shocks the 

conscience constituting a 

substantive due process violation. As the Supreme Court has stated, 

"[t]he Due Process 

Clause 'is not a guarantee against incorrect or ill-advised personnel 

decisions.'" Collins 

v. City of Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115, 129 (1992) (quoting Bishop v. 

Wood, 426 U.S. 

341, 350 (1976)). 

 Pahler argues that the District Court acted inappropriately in 

deciding that the 

defendants' actions did not constitute deliberately indifferent behavior 

that shocks the 
conscience because of the lack of an established record. He hypothesizes 

that discovery 

could reveal that the defendants deliberately chose not to utilize the ESU 

because they did 

not want to allocate the additional funds necessary to deploy the ESU. In 

Collins, the 

Supreme Court cautioned: 

 Decisions concerning the allocation of resources to 

individual 

 programs, . . . and to particular aspects of those programs, 

 such as the training . . . of employees, involve a host of 

policy 

 choices that must be made by locally elected representatives, 

 rather than by federal judges interpreting the basic charter of 

 Government for the entire country. 

503 U.S. at 128-29. Moreover, we note that Pahler's injury was not caused 

by the 

dangers of the drug raid but by the negligence of a fellow police officer. 

Accepting all of 

the allegations of the complaint, we agree with the District Court that 

nothing suggests 

that defendants acted with indifference that shocks the conscience. 

Accordingly, 

Pahler's substantive due process claim under the "state-created danger" 

theory must fail. 

 B. Failure to Train 

 Pahler's second claim is based on the defendants' alleged failure to 

train. A 

municipality may be held constitutionally liable under  1983 for failing 

to properly train 

its officers. See City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 387 (1989); 

Reitz v. County of 

Bucks, 125 F.3d 139, 145 (3d Cir. 1997). However, inadequate police 

training may serve 

as the basis for  1983 liability only where the failure to train "amounts 

to deliberate 

indifference to the rights of persons with whom the police come into 

contact." City of 

Canton, 489 U.S. at 388. Additionally, "adequately trained officers 

occasionally make 

mistakes; the fact that they do says little about the training program or 

the legal basis for 

holding the city liable." Id. at 391. 

 "[S]tringent standards of culpability and causation must be applied" 

when an 

injury is caused by an employee rather than the municipality. Reitz, 125 

F.3d at 145. 

Thus, "[a] plaintiff pressing a  1983 claim must identify a failure to 

provide specific 

training that has a causal nexus with their injuries and must demonstrate 

that the absence 

of that specific training can reasonably be said to reflect a deliberate 

indifference to 
whether the alleged constitutional deprivations occurred." Id. 

 Pahler has not pled any of the necessary elements to state a claim 

upon which 

liability may be imposed against the defendants under the failure to train 

theory. In fact, 

Pahler stated in his complaint that the officer who engaged in the 

injurious act merely 

neglected to set the safety device. Simply put, Pahler makes no 

allegation that establishes 

his injuries were cased by the defendants' deliberately indifferent 

failure to train the 

City's officers. As unfortunate as the mistake was, such a mistake cannot 

form the basis 

of  1983 claim for "failure to train." 

 III. 

 Because we find that District Court did not err in dismissing 

Pahler's  1983 

claim, we will affirm the judgment of the District Court. 

__________________________ 

TO THE CLERK: 

 Please file the foregoing opinion. 

 /s/ Dolores K. Sloviter 

 Circuit Judge