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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS

DALLAS DIVISION

MEGAN NORDYKE, et al.,

Plaintiffs, 

v.

CITY OF DALLAS, et al.,

Defendants. 

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Civil Action No. 3:22-CV-1183-X

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Before the Court is Defendant Dallas County’s (the “County”) motion to 

dismiss. (Doc. 60). Having reviewed the motion, the applicable law, and Plaintiffs 

Megan Nordyke and Lilianna Godinez’s second amended complaint, the Court 

concludes that they failed to plausibly allege their claims. Therefore, the Court 

GRANTS the County’s motion to dismiss (Doc. 60) and DISMISSES WITH 

PREJUDICE this action. 

I. Background

Plaintiffs bring claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 arising from alleged 

deprivations of their constitutional rights during a protest following George Floyd’s 

death. On May 30, 2020, Megan Nordyke attended protests throughout Dallas as a 

legal observer to ensure that various governmental entities did not infringe the 

protestors’ rights and partook in the protests herself.1 She wielded a sign that read 

1 Doc. 56-1 at 4–5. 

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on one side, “I am not the only LAWYER here” and, on the other, “The eyes of 

JUSTICE are watching.”2 

As she marched through the streets of Dallas, flashing her sign at various 

Dallas Police Department (“DPD”) officers, she noticed that a large DPD van had 

begun to make its way into the middle of the protestors.3 Nordyke alleges that this 

movement by the DPD was an intentional action to provoke an encounter that could 

serve as a pretext for arrests.4 As Nordyke continued to protest next to the DPD 

officers who exited the police van, the officers began to use riot shields to push back 

the protestors and began to fire pepper bullets into the crowd and at Nordyke’s feet.5 

After retreating to the city hall, Nordyke took a seat on the steps, and, after some 

time, a DPD officer arrested her for allegedly refusing to get out of the way.6 Around 

this time, DPD officers also arrested Godinez, allegedly without probable cause.7 

After both were placed in a paddy wagon, Nordyke and Godinez allege that 

they began to accrue major injuries as they were denied basic human needs while 

sitting in a hot, dark, and cramped paddy wagon without any precautions to protect 

them from transmission of COVID-19.8 Plaintiffs allege that they suffered 

2 Id.

3 Id. at 5. 

4 Id. 

5 Id. at 6. 

6 Id. at 6–7. 

7 Id. at 7.

8 Id. at 7–8. 

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dehydration after being denied water by the officers.9 Later at the Dallas County 

Jail, Plaintiffs allege that the officers continued to deprive them of their basic human 

needs and ridiculed them for asking for help.10 

Plaintiffs initially brought six causes of action against the City of Dallas, the 

Dallas County Sheriff’s Office, and Dallas County.11 All three defendants moved to 

dismiss the Plaintiffs’ claims against them.12 The Court granted the motion to 

dismiss but allowed the plaintiffs to file a second amended complaint as to the County 

only.13 

Plaintiffs filed a second amended complaint against the County alleging that 

it violated Plaintiffs’ Fourteenth Amendment rights to substantive due process by (1) 

denying them basic human needs through their conditions of confinement, and (2) 

failing to discipline the jail personnel.14 The County moved to dismiss the Plaintiffs’ 

second amended complaint for failure to state a claim.15 The motion is ripe for this 

Court’s consideration. 

9 Id. at 8. 

10 Id. at 9. 

11 Doc. 1. 

12 Docs. 19, 20. 

13 Doc. 36.

14 Doc. 56-1. 

15 Doc. 60. 

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II. Legal Standard

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8 requires a pleading to state “a short and plain 

statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.”16 The pleading 

standard does not require detailed factual allegations, but “[t]hreadbare recitals of a 

cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.”17 For a 

complaint to survive a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), it “must contain 

sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible 

on its face.”18 A claim is facially plausible when the plaintiff pleads factual content 

that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for 

the misconduct alleged.19 For purposes of a motion to dismiss, courts must accept all 

well-pleaded facts as true and construe the complaint in the light most favorable to 

the plaintiff.20 “In other words, a motion to dismiss an action for failure to state a 

16 Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). 

17 Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). 

18 Id. (cleaned up).

19 Id. 

20 Muhammad v. Dallas Cnty. Cmty. Supervision & Corrs. Dep’t., 479 F.3d 377, 379 (5th 

Cir. 2007). 

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claim admits the facts alleged in the complaint, but challenges plaintiff’s rights to 

relief based upon those facts.”21 

III. Analysis

The County moves to dismiss both of the Plaintiffs’ claims. The Court 

addresses each in turn. 

A. Conditions of Confinement

In its prior order, the Court explained that the Plaintiffs failed to plead 

sufficient facts to demonstrate that the officers’ actions constitute a policy or custom 

of the County.22 It informed the Plaintiffs that they needed to plead specific facts 

relating to an identifiable policy or customary practice of the County that was 

constitutionally defective.23 The Court gave the Plaintiffs an opportunity to cure the 

deficiencies, but their second amended complaint still fails to plausibly allege a 

constitutionally defective policy or practice.24 

Constitutional challenges by pretrial detainees may be brought as an attack 

on a condition of confinement.25 To prove an unconstitutional condition of 

confinement, a plaintiff must prove: (1) a rule or restriction or the existence of an 

identifiable intended condition or practice, (2) which was not reasonably related to a 

legitimate governmental objective, and (3) which caused the violation of the 

21 Ramming v. U.S., 281 F.3d 158, 161–62 (5th Cir. 2001). 

22 Doc. 36 at 9. 

23 Id. at 11. 

24 Id. at 15; Doc. 56-1. 

25 Duvall v. Dallas Cnty., Tex., 631 F.3d 203, 206 (5th Cir. 2011). 

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detainee’s constitutional rights.26 Regarding the first element, “[a] condition is 

usually the manifestation of an explicit policy or restriction,” but in some cases, it 

“may reflect an unstated or de facto policy, as evidenced by a pattern of acts or 

omissions sufficiently extended or pervasive . . . to prove an intended condition or 

practice.”27 Put differently, even though a government may not expressly subject 

detainees to inhumane conditions of confinement, its intent to do so may be presumed 

when it incarcerates detainees in the face of such known conditions and practices.28 

But “[p]roving a pattern is a heavy burden, one that has rarely been met in our 

caselaw.”29 

The Plaintiffs’ second amended complaint fails to provide factual allegations 

sufficient for the Court to infer that the County has a de facto policy to deny pretrial 

detainees basic human needs. In support of their allegations, the Plaintiffs contend 

that they, along with other protestors detained with them, were denied clean water, 

given inedible food, denied medical care, and unreasonably exposed to COVID-19.30 

26 Estate of Henson v. Wichita Cnty., Tex., 795 F.3d 456, 468 (5th Cir. 2015) (cleaned up). 

27 Shepherd v. Dallas Cnty., 591 F.3d 445, 452 (5th Cir. 2009) (cleaned up). 

28 Duvall, 631 F.3d at 207. 

29 Shepherd, 591 F.3d at 452. 

30 Doc. 56-1 at 9–11. 

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But the County contends that the alleged unlawful conditions are not actionable 

conditions-of-confinement claims.31 

A pervasive pattern of serious deficiencies in providing for detainees’ basic 

human needs might prove constitutional insufficiency.32 But the acts or omissions 

have to be “serious, extensive[,] and extended.”33 Here, the conditions alleged by the 

Plaintiffs are not extensive or extended enough to constitute a pattern of serious 

deficiencies.34 Importantly, the Plaintiffs allege that they were denied water and 

medical attention on demand, not that they were denied them for extended periods 

of time.35 Likewise, the Plaintiffs admit that they were detained for around twentyfour hours, not extensively.36 And importantly, although the Plaintiffs allege that 

they were denied medical attention and were unreasonably exposed to COVID-19, 

they do not allege that they had any serious medical conditions or that they actually 

contracted COVID-19 from the jail.37 

Deprivations of basic human needs were serious and extensive enough to 

establish a de facto policy in cases like Duvall and Shepherd. In Duvall, the detainee 

contracted a serious infection in a jail that had a “bizarrely high incidence” of the 

infection, twenty times higher than comparable jails, that the municipality knew 

31 Doc. 60 at 19–23. 

32 Id. at 208. 

33 Id. 

34 See Doc. 56-1 at 9–13. 

35 Id. 

36 Id. at 11. 

37 Id. at 9–13. 

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about for at least three years prior to his detention.38 And in Shepherd, the detainee 

suffered a stroke in jail after he was denied medical treatment for seven weeks even 

though the municipality knew that he had chronic hypertension and repeatedly 

denied him medicine.39 

Here, the allegations simply do not rise to the level necessary to establish that 

the County had a de facto policy which caused a violation of the Plaintiffs’ 

constitutional rights. Accordingly, this claim cannot survive a motion to dismiss. 

B. Failure to Discipline

Failure to discipline is not a common claim.40 To establish a failure to 

discipline claim, Plaintiffs must show (1) the County failed to discipline its employees, 

(2) that failure amounted to deliberate indifference, and (3) the failure to discipline 

directly caused the constitutional violation in question.41 Here, the Court cannot 

reasonably infer, based on the allegations in Plaintiffs’ second amended complaint, 

that the County failed to discipline its employees which directly caused a 

constitutional violation. 

At most, Plaintiffs allege that the County failed to discipline any of the officers 

working at the Dallas County Jail throughout the George Floyd protests who violated 

the constitutional rights of protestors.42 But Plaintiffs cannot vaguely allege that the 

38 631 F.3d at 208. 

39 Shepherd, 591 F.3d at 449–50.

40 Hunter v. City of Houston, 564 F. Supp. 3d 517, 529 (S.D. Tex. 2021). 

41 Deville v. Marcantel, 567 F.3d 156, 171 (5th Cir. 2009). 

42 Doc. 56-1 at 16. 

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County has not disciplined officers for constitutional violations without some factual 

allegations that detail how the County failed to discipline officers. For instance, 

Plaintiffs needed to allege which officers were involved, what constitutional violations 

they should have been disciplined for, and how that failure to discipline caused the 

misconduct at issue in the present case.43 There is simply not enough for the Court 

to draw reasonable inferences here. Because the Plaintiffs failed to sufficiently allege 

that the County failed to discipline its employees for constitutional violations, the 

Court DISMISSES Plaintiffs’ failure-to-discipline claim. 

IV. Conclusion

For the reasons explained above, the Court GRANTS the County’s motion to 

dismiss and DISMISSES WITH PREJUDICE this case. 

IT IS SO ORDERED this 15th day of May, 2024. 

 

________________________________ 

BRANTLEY STARR

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

43 See Monacelli v. City of Dallas, No. 3:21-CV-02649-L (BT), 2023 WL 6563410, at *9 (N.D. 

Tex. Sept. 1, 2023) (Rutherford, M.J.), report and recommendation adopted, No. 3:21-CV-2649-L, 2023 

WL 6370753 (N.D. Tex. Sept. 29, 2023) (Lindsay, J.) (explaining that alleging only two prior instances 

of protests with similar constitutional violations failed to plausibly state a claim for failure to discipline 

or failure to train); Jean v. City of Dallas, Tex., No. 3:18-CV-2862-M, 2019 WL 7195308, at *6 (N.D. 

Tex. Aug. 12, 2019) (Ramirez, M.J.), report and recommendation adopted, No. 3:18-CV-2862-M, 2019 

WL 7187104 (N.D. Tex. Dec. 23, 2019) (Lynn, J.) (alleging three specific instances where officers were 

not disciplined for similar misconduct was insufficient).

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