PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

_____________

No. 16-2821

_____________

KENNETH MANN, 

as parents and co plenary guardians of 

the estate of SHELDON MANN, an 

incapacitated person, and in their own right; 

ROSE MANN, as parents and co plenary 

guardians of the estate of SHELDON MANN, 

an incapacitated person, and in their own right,

 Appellants

v.

PALMERTON AREA SCHOOL DISTRICT;

CHRISTOPHER WALKOWIAK, individually and in his 

official capacity as a football coach

_______

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. Civil No. 3-14-cv-00068)

District Judge: Hon. A. Richard Caputo

______________

Argued April 27, 2017

______________
2

Before: MCKEE, VANASKIE, and RENDELL, Circuit 

Judges

(Opinion Filed: September 22, 2017)

Howard J. Bashman, Esq. [Argued]

Law Offices of Howard J. Bashman

2300 Computer Avenue

Suite G-22

Willow Grove, PA 19090

Larry E. Bendesky, Esq.

Adam J. Pantano, Esq.

Robert W. Zimmerman, Esq.

Saltz Mongeluzzi Barrett & Bendesky

1650 Market Street

One Liberty Place, 52nd Floor

Philadelphia, PA 19103

Counsel for Appellant Kenneth Mann, Rose Mann

Thomas A. Specht, Esq. [Argued]

Robin B. Snyder, Esq.

Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin

P.O. Box 3118

Scranton, PA 18505

Counsel for Appellees Palmerton Area School District and 

Christopher Walkowiak

________________
3

OPINION OF THE COURT

________________

VANASKIE, Circuit Judge

In November of 2011 Sheldon Mann, a football 

player for the Palmerton Area School District, experienced a 

hard hit during a practice session. While some players thought 

that Sheldon may have been exhibiting concussion-like 

symptoms, he was sent back into the practice session by his 

Coach, Appellee Chris Walkowiak. After being returned to 

practice, Sheldon suffered another violent collision and was 

removed from the practice field. He would later be diagnosed 

with a traumatic brain injury. In bringing a lawsuit against 

Palmerton Area and Walkowiak, Sheldon’s parents asserted 

that by requiring Sheldon to continue to practice after 

sustaining the first substantial blow, Walkowiak had violated 

Sheldon’s constitutional right to bodily integrity under a statecreated danger theory of liability. Also, Palmerton Area, the 

Manns alleged, was accountable under Monell v. Department 

of Social Services of City of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978). 

The District Court ruled in favor of Walkowiak and Palmerton 

Area on summary judgment, finding that, while there was 

ample evidence to suggest that Walkowiak was culpable under 

a state-created danger theory of liability, a constitutional right 

to protection in the context presented here was not clearly 

established in 2011. Accordingly, the District Court granted 

Walkowiak qualified immunity and dismissed him from the 

lawsuit on that basis. As to Palmerton Area, the District Court 

found that the Manns had failed to present evidence sufficient 

to warrant a jury trial on the question of whether the school 

district had a custom or policy that caused a violation of 
4

Sheldon’s constitutional rights. Accordingly, the District 

Court entered judgment in favor of Palmerton Area.

We agree with the District Court’s conclusions 

pertaining to the claims against the football coach:

Walkowiak’s alleged conduct, if proven at trial, would be

sufficient to support a jury verdict in favor of Mann on his 

state-created danger claim, but the right in question—to be free 

from deliberate exposure to a traumatic brain injury after 

exhibiting signs of a concussion in the context of a violent 

contact sport—was not clearly established in 2011. 

Accordingly, the District Court correctly ruled that Coach 

Walkowiak was entitled to qualified immunity. We also agree 

with the District Court that the Manns did not present sufficient 

evidence to warrant a jury trial on the Monell claim against 

Palmerton Area. We will therefore affirm the District Court’s 

grant of summary judgment. 

I.

Sheldon Mann was a student at Palmerton Area High 

School and had participated in its football program starting in 

July of 2008. Beginning in 2006, Walkowiak was a team coach

and in 2011 was promoted to Head Coach. After being named 

Head Coach, Walkowiak received concussion and safety 

training at DeSales University. Because of this training he was 

aware of the signs and symptoms of a concussion.

On November 1, 2011, Sheldon, then a 17 year-old 

senior, was participating in practice and sustained a hard hit to 

his upper body area while playing the outside linebacker 

position as part of the “scout” team against the varsity starting 
5

team.

1

 Walkowiak claims he did not see the hit, but did 

observe Sheldon “rolling” his shoulder. (JA 509.) Walkowiak 

testified at his deposition that he asked Sheldon if “he was all 

right,” to which Sheldon replied, “I’m fine,” and Sheldon 

continued to participate in the practice session.

2

 (Id.) 

 1

 The role of a “scout” team in football practice is to play the 

role of the opposing team for the school’s next game, with the 

starting team running plays against anticipated formation of the 

opposing team. In this case, Sheldon was playing against the 

Palmerton Area’s starting offensive team as they prepared for 

their upcoming game against Northern Lehigh High School.

2

 Walkowiak indicated that the first hit may have produced 

something like a shoulder “stinger,” which he acknowledged 

can be “a symptom of [a concussion], depending on where you 

were hit.” (JA 1592, 1599). According to the University of 

Rochester Medical Center online “Health Encyclopedia:”

Stingers occur when the shoulder and head go in 

opposite directions, the head is moved quickly to 

one side, or the area above the collarbone is hit. 

The injury occurs when a spinal nerve in the neck 

is compressed as the head accelerates backward 

and the neck is forced toward the affected side. 

Stingers may also be caused when the head 

accelerates sideways, away from the shoulder, 

which overstretches the nerves in the neck and 

shoulder region. 
6

In multiple depositions, Sheldon’s teammates 

testified that they believed Sheldon was suffering from a 

concussion after this hit and were surprised that he was allowed 

to continue to practice. One teammate even testified that it was 

one of the “bigger hits” he had ever seen. (JA 1657.) Another 

teammate testified that after the first hit, Sheldon looked as 

though he was dizzy and was stumbling around the field, 

symptoms that this teammate believed to be associated with a 

concussion. And while not explicitly stating that they believed 

that Sheldon Mann was suffering from a concussion, other 

coaches testified that they were aware of the symptoms of a 

concussion and that standard procedure was to remove a 

student suffering from concussion-like symptoms from 

practice and have him seen by a trainer. 

Approximately twenty plays after Walkowiak 

observed Sheldon rolling his shoulder, Sheldon sustained a 

second hard hit to the upper body area. Walkowiak walked 

over to Sheldon to ascertain his condition. Sheldon told 

Walkowiak that “it was the hardest hit he received in playing 

football.” (JA 550). After this second hit, Sheldon was 

removed from the practice field. Practice ended about 10 

minutes later, and Walkowiak then accompanied Sheldon to 

the trainer’s room. 

At the time of this incident, Palmerton Area had in 

place a series of policies and procedures outlined in its 2011-

2012 Athletic Handbook. The Handbook required that any 

player suffering from injury or illness be excluded from 

 

University of Rochester Medical Center, Health Encyclopedia, 

Put a Stop to Nerve Injuries Called Stingers (2017), 

https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?c

ontenttypeid=1&contentid=2817 (last visited Aug. 24, 2017).
7

participation in the sport until cleared by a physician, and

explicitly stated that a student suspected to be injured must be 

removed from play and sent to the athletic trainer.

As a result of the violent hits Sheldon sustained on 

November 1, 2011, he suffered a traumatic brain injury and his 

parents have been appointed his guardians. The Manns 

brought this lawsuit, asserting that Palmerton Area and 

Walkowiak (together “Appellees”) had deprived Sheldon of 

this constitutionally-protected right to bodily integrity. 

Specifically, they argued that Sheldon’s constitutional rights 

were violated as a result of Walkowiak’s exercise of authority 

in telling Sheldon to continue participating in football practice

after sustaining a hit and exhibiting signs of a concussion. 

Plaintiffs also claimed that Sheldon’s constitutional rights were 

violated as a result of Palmerton Area’s failure to assure that 

injured student-athletes were medically cleared to resume 

participation in the sport, failure to enforce and enact proper 

concussion policies, and failure to train the coaches on a safety 

protocol for head injuries. The parties engaged in discovery,

and on February 1, 2016, Appellees moved for summary 

judgment, arguing that there was insufficient evidence to 

establish a state-created danger claim against Walkowiak and 

a municipal liability claim against Palmerton Area.

Walkowiak also asserted a right to qualified immunity. On 

June 2, 2016, the District Court granted summary judgment in 

favor of defendants Walkowiak and Palmerton Area. This 

appeal followed.

II.

The District Court possessed subject–matter 

jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§1331 and 1343. We 

exercise jurisdiction over this appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 
8

§1291. Our review of an order granting summary judgment is 

plenary. Curley v. Klem, 298 F.3d 271, 276 (3d Cir. 2002).

Summary judgment is appropriate when “the pleadings, 

depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, 

together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no 

genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party 

is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” Wright v. 

Corning, 679 F.3d 101, 105 (3d Cir. 2012) (quoting Orsatti v. 

N.J. State Police, 71 F.3d 480, 482 (3d Cir. 1995)). 

III.

State actors sued in their individual capacity under 

Section 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). 

When a qualified immunity defense is asserted, a court must 

determine (1) whether the facts alleged by the plaintiff make 

out a violation of a constitutional right, and (2) whether that 

right was clearly established at the time of the injury. Yarris v. 

Cty. of Del., 465 F.3d 129, 140-41 (3d Cir. 2006) (internal 

citation omitted). In this case, the District Court determined 

that the first prong of the qualified immunity inquiry was 

satisfied: the Manns had presented sufficient evidence to 

warrant a jury trial on the question of whether Walkowiak had 

violated Sheldon’s constitutional rights. It is to this part of the 

qualified immunity test that we first turn our attention.

A.

The Manns’ state-created danger claim derives from 

the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause, which 

provides that “[n]o state shall . . . deprive any person of life, 
9

liberty, or property without due process of law[.]” U.S. Const. 

amend XIV, § 1. We have recognized a successful statecreated danger claim when a plaintiff pleads that 

(1) the harm ultimately caused [by the state 

actor’s conduct] was foreseeable and fairly 

direct; (2) a state actor acted with a degree of 

culpability that shocks the conscience; (3) a

relationship between the state and the plaintiff 

existed such that the plaintiff was a foreseeable 

victim of the defendant's acts, or a member of a 

discrete class of persons subjected to the 

potential harm brought about by the state's 

actions, as opposed to a member of the public in 

general; and (4) a state actor affirmatively used 

his or her authority in a way that created a danger 

to the citizen or that rendered the citizen more 

vulnerable to danger than had the state not acted 

at all.

Bright v. Westmoreland Cty., 443 F.3d 276, 281 (3d Cir. 2006)

(internal quotation marks and footnotes omitted). 

The first element of a state-created danger claim 

requires plaintiffs to establish that the harm sustained as a 

result of the defendant’s conduct was “foreseeable and fairly 

direct.” Phillips v. Cty. of Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 235 (3d 

Cir. 2008). More specifically, this “require[s] a plaintiff to 

allege an awareness on the part of the state actors that rises to 

[the] level of actual knowledge or an awareness of risk that is 

sufficiently concrete to put the actors on notice of the harm.” 

Id. at 238. 
10

In his deposition, Walkowiak testified that he was 

aware of the symptoms of a concussion and had been trained 

in how to identify one. Walkowiak also testified that he was 

trained to err on the side of caution when it came to removing 

players who may be suffering concussion-like symptoms. 

After Sheldon experienced the first hit, Walkowiak admitted 

that Sheldon’s hit could have been characterized as a “stinger” 

and that this could be a symptom of a concussion. (JA 1592; 

1599).

The District Court held that this evidence would be 

sufficient to support a jury finding that “Sheldon’s injury was 

a ‘foreseeable and fairly direct’ harm” of being allowed to 

continue to practice after sustaining the first big hit. Mann v. 

Palmerton Area Sch. Dist., 189 F. Supp. 3d 467, 475 (M.D. Pa. 

2016). We agree.

The District Court also held that the Manns had 

satisfied the second element of the state-created danger test—

that Walkowiak acted with a degree of culpability that shocked 

the conscience. We have observed that “[t]he exact degree of 

wrongfulness necessary to reach the ‘conscience-shocking’ 

level depends upon the circumstances of a particular case.” 

Estate of Smith v. Marasco, 430 F.3d 140, 153 (3d Cir. 2005) 

(quoting Miller v. City of Philadelphia, 174 F.3d 368, 375 (3d

Cir. 1999)). If the circumstances are highly pressurized, it is 

necessary to show intentional harm by the state actor; however, 

if the state actor has the benefit of deliberation, then all the 

plaintiff needs to show is deliberate indifference. Id. 

Moreover, in cases “involving something less urgent than a 

‘split-second’ decision but more urgent than an ‘unhurried 

judgment,’” the relevant inquiry is whether the state actor 

“consciously disregarded a great risk of harm,” with the 

possibility that “actual knowledge of the risk may not be 
11

necessary where the risk is ‘obvious.’” Sanford v. Stiles, 456 

F.3d 298, 310 (3d Cir. 2006). 

The District Court correctly concluded that there was 

no indication that this was a highly pressurized environment 

for which a showing of intent to harm would be necessary. 

Instead, the Manns only needed to prove deliberate 

indifference to the safety of a player in the circumstances 

presented here to satisfy the conscience-shocking element of 

their claim. (JA 12). 

In Walkowiak’s deposition testimony, he stated that 

he observed Sheldon as exhibiting the signs of a possible 

“stinger,” a term that he acknowledged is associated with a 

concussion. He also testified, however, that he assumed the hit 

was not a substantial one because he did not actually see it. 

Contradicting Walkowiak’s testimony is the testimony of an 

assistant coach, who, although absent from practice the day 

that Sheldon was injured, stated that Walkowiak told him that 

Sheldon experienced two hard hits. Walkowiak’s boss, 

Athletic Director Andrew Remsing, also testified that 

Walkowiak could be considered to have failed to follow school 

policy for injuries by allowing Sheldon to remain if he was 

suffering concussive symptoms. Finally, the Manns presented 

testimony through other players that after Sheldon was first hit, 

Walkowiak instructed him to continue practicing. Although 

Walkowiak disclaimed knowledge of the first big hit, the 

Manns adduced sufficient evidence to call this disclaimer into 

doubt. Thus, for the purposes of the summary judgment ruling, 

it was appropriate to infer that Walkowiak was aware that 

Sheldon had sustained a substantial blow and exhibited signs 

consistent with having sustained a concussion. Under these 

circumstances, a jury could find that, by failing to remove 

Sheldon from play and requiring him to continue to practice, 
12

Walkowiak was deliberately indifferent to the risk posed by 

sustaining a second substantial blow to the head. 

To establish the third element of a state-created 

danger claim the Manns were required to prove that “a 

relationship between the state and [Sheldon] existed such that 

[Sheldon] was a foreseeable victim of the defendant’s acts.” 

Sanford, 456 F.3d at 304. This element was not challenged by 

Appellees. The bar for proving this element is not terribly 

high, as we have previously held that a relationship can exist 

where a plaintiff is a member of a group that is subject to 

potential harm brought about by the state’s actions. Philips v. 

Cty. of Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 242 (3d Cir. 2008). It is clear 

that a student-athlete stands in such a relationship with the 

coaching staff.

The final element of a state-created danger claim 

requires a showing that Walkowiak affirmatively used his 

authority in a way that created a danger to Sheldon or rendered 

him more vulnerable to danger. Bright, 443 F.3d at 281. The

parties dispute whether Walkowiak took an affirmative act that 

put Sheldon in danger or made him more vulnerable to risk, but 

we find the District Court again to be correct in assessing that 

a reasonable juror could find this element of Sheldon’s claim 

was also satisfied. If a jury concluded that Walkowiak was 

aware of the first blow to Sheldon’s head and observed signs 

of a concussion, the jury could conclude that Walkowiak used 

his authority in a way that rendered Sheldon more vulnerable 

to harm by sending him back into the practice session.

In summary, we hold that there exists a relationship 

between a student-athlete and coach at a state-sponsored 

school such that the coach may be held liable where the coach 

requires a player, showing signs of a concussion, to continue 
13

to be exposed to violent hits. Stated otherwise, we hold that an 

injured student-athlete participating in a contact sport has a 

constitutional right to be protected from further harm, and that 

a state actor violates this right when the injured student-athlete 

is required to be exposed to a risk of harm by continuing to 

practice or compete. We now turn to the difficult question of 

whether this right was clearly established in November of 

2011.

B.

Clearly established law for purposes of qualified 

immunity means that 

[t]he contours of the right must be sufficiently 

clear that a reasonable official would understand 

that what he is doing violates that right. This is 

not to say that an official action is protected by 

qualified immunity unless the very action in 

question has previously been held unlawful, but 

it is to say that in the light of pre-existing law the

unlawfulness must be apparent.

Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 615 (1999). In addressing the 

clearly established prong of the qualified immunity inquiry, we 

must define the right allegedly violated at the appropriate level

of specificity. Sharp v. Johnson, 669 F.3d 144, 159 (3d Cir.

2012) (internal quotations omitted). As we explained in Spady 

v. Bethlehem Area School District, 800 F.3d 633, 638 (3d Cir. 

2015), we must “frame the right at issue in a more 

particularized, and hence more relevant, sense, in light of the 

case’s specific context, not as a broad general proposition.”

(Internal quotations omitted.)
14

In Spady, a child suffered “dry drowning” after 

participating in a mandatory swim class run by the gym 

teacher. Id. at 635. We granted qualified immunity to the gym 

teacher, concluding that a child did not have a clearly 

established right to dry-drowning intervention protocols while 

participating in gym class. Id. at 641. In arriving at this 

conclusion, we observed that the dangers of dry drowning were

not so well known and obvious that a swim teacher should be 

expected to take extra precautions to guard against this rare 

phenomenon. Id. 

In this case, the specific context is a football player

fully clothed in protective gear, including a helmet, who 

experiences a violent blow, shows signs of a concussion, and 

is required to continue to engage in the same activity that 

caused the first substantial hit. We are aware of no appellate 

case decided prior to November of 2011 that held that a coach 

violates the student’s constitutional rights by requiring the 

student to continue to play in these circumstances. 

Our conclusion in Spady rested on the fact that 

“courts that have found colorable constitutional violations in 

school-athletic settings did so where state actors engaged in 

patently egregious and intentional misconduct.” 800 F.3d at 

641. Compare Neal ex rel. Neal v. Fulton Cty. Bd. of Educ.

229 F.3d 1069, 1076 (11th Cir. 2000) (holding that a student 

athlete had made out “a violation of his right under the 

Fourteenth Amendment to be free from excessive corporal 

punishment,” after being hit with a blunt object by his coach)

and Johnson v. Newburgh Enlarged Sch. Dist., 239 F.3d 246, 

252 (2d Cir. 2001) (no qualified immunity where gym teacher 

picked up a student by his throat and rammed his head into 

bleachers and a fuse box); with Davis v. Carter, 555 F.3d 979, 

984 (11th Cir. 2009) (no constitutional violation stemming 
15

from student-athlete's death after rigorous football practice). 

No case has been called to our attention where a state-created 

danger was established after a student-athlete was required to 

continue to compete after sustaining a substantial hit, the 

results of which were observed by the coach and could 

potentially signal a head injury, yet where the student-athlete 

told the coach that he was fine to continue to play, all of which 

is the evidence in this case. And while not binding, we

similarly held as recently as 2013 in a non-precedential opinion 

that a cheerleader who suffered a serious injury due to a 

coach’s decision to try out a new stunt without proper 

protective matting in place, did not violate a clearly established 

right held by the athlete. See Hinterberger v. Iroquois Sch. 

Dist., 548 F. App'x 50, 54 (3d Cir. 2013).

The Manns rely heavily on L.R. v. School District of 

Philadelphia, 836 F.3d 235 (3d Cir. 2016). That case 

presented the question of whether a kindergarten teacher who 

released a student to a stranger who then sexually abused the 

child was entitled to qualified immunity. Id. at 239-240. We

reasoned that the teacher was not entitled to qualified immunity

because the right in question—“an individual’s right not to be 

removed from a safe environment and placed into one in which 

it is clear that harm is likely to occur, particularly when the 

individual may, due to youth or other factors, be especially 

vulnerable to the risk of harm”—was clearly established at the 

time of the incident. Id. at 249. The Manns maintain that this 

same right is at issue in the case at hand. And while L.R. dealt 

with an incident that occurred in January of 2013, we relied on 

precedent that predated November of 2011. Specifically, L.R. 

relied heavily on our 1996 decision in Kneipp v. Tedder, 95 

F.3d 1199 (3d Cir. 1996), which involved a police officer 
16

abandoning a plainly inebriated woman on her walk home who 

then passed out and suffered a serious injury. Id. at 1203.

Kneipp and L.R. are not dispositive here. L.R. 

established liability based on the fact that the risk of harm to 

the child would be patently obvious to any adult in that 

situation. Allowing a kindergartener to leave the classroom

with a stranger plainly exposed the vulnerable kindergartener 

to a substantial risk of grievous harm. Similarly, Kneipp dealt 

with a similarly vulnerable woman who was so inebriated that 

she could not even stand or follow simple instructions. Not 

only did the police officer detain her and send her male 

companion away, but the officer himself then abandoned her 

so that she had to walk home alone. Id. at 1201-03. Again, the 

risk of harm in abandoning someone who is clearly exhibiting 

signs of a physical impairment like severe inebriation 

demonstrates such deliberate indifference to the unsafe 

situation created by the state actor that imposing liability on the 

state actor is appropriate.

By way of contrast, in November of 2011 it was not 

so plainly obvious that requiring a student-athlete, fully clothed 

in protective gear, to continue to participate in practice after 

sustaining a violent hit and exhibiting concussion symptoms 

implicated the student athlete’s constitutional rights. The 

touchstone of qualified immunity analysis is whether there was 

“sufficient precedent at the time of action, factually similar to 

the plaintiff's allegations, to put [the] defendant on notice that 

his or her conduct is constitutionally prohibited.” Mammaro v. 

New Jersey Div. of Child Prot. & Permanency, 814 F.3d 164, 

169 (3d Cir. 2016) (quoting McLaughlin v. Watson, 271 F.3d 

566, 572 (3d Cir. 2001)). We look first to the Supreme Court’s 

cases. Even if support is lacking there, a “robust consensus of 

cases of persuasive authority in the Court[s] of Appeals could 
17

clearly establish a right for purposes of qualified immunity.” 

L.R., 836 F.3d at 248 (quoting Mammaro, 814 F.3d at 169)).

Here, no case from this Court or any of our sister Courts of 

Appeals, let alone a Supreme Court case, has applied the 

principles we elucidated in L.R. and Kneipp to the school 

athletic context. We therefore agree with the District Court 

that the right at issue here was not clearly established in

November of 2011.

“When properly applied, [qualified immunity] 

protects ‘all but the plainly incompetent or those who 

knowingly violate the law.’” Ashcroft v. Al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 

731, 743 (2011) (quoting Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341 

(1986)). Given the state of the law in 2011, it cannot be said 

that Walkowiak was “plainly incompetent” in sending Sheldon 

in to continue to practice after he saw Sheldon rolling his 

shoulder and being told by Sheldon, “I’m fine.” (JA 509). Nor 

is there any basis for concluding that he knowingly violated 

Sheldon’s constitutional rights. Accordingly, we will affirm 

the District Court’s qualified immunity ruling.

IV.

Finally, we must address the Manns’ Monell claim 

against Palmerton Area. Local governments, such as school 

districts, cannot be held liable under §1983 for the acts of their

employees. Instead, local governments may be found liable 

under §1983 for “their own illegal acts.” Connick v. 

Thompson, 563 U.S. 51, 60 (2011). A municipality is liable 

under §1983 when a plaintiff can demonstrate that the 

municipality itself, through the implementation of a municipal 

policy or custom, causes a constitutional violation. 
18

The Manns argue that coaches were not adequately 

trained on concussion recognition and protection, and had they 

been, Sheldon may not have suffered his severe injury. 

Specifically, they argue that the school's generic handbook for 

dealing with injured student-athletes failed to provide a 

protocol for dealing specifically with concussions. They 

submit national news articles from 2011 that reported on the 

risk of concussions in football as well as manuals from 

neighboring school districts that had implemented concussion 

policies as of November 2011. They also rely on Thomas v. 

Cumberland County, 749 F.3d 217, 219 (3d Cir. 2014), in 

which we assessed the significance of an expert’s report 

establishing the need for training corrections officers to 

address and avoid inmate–on–inmate violence. We held that 

because the evidence showed that the municipality failed to 

train its employees to handle recurring acts of violence, the 

District Court should not have precluded the factual issues 

from going to a jury. Id. at 225-26. Unlike Thomas, the Manns 

cite no evidence that would suggest deliberate indifference to

a pattern of recurring injuries. See Berg v. County of 

Al1egheny, 219 F.3d 261, 276 (3d Cir. 2000) (“Failure to . . . 

train municipal employees can ordinarily be considered 

deliberate indifference only where the failure has caused a 

pattern of violations”). “Without notice that a course of 

training is deficient in a particular respect, decisionmakers can 

hardly be said to have deliberately chosen a training program 

that will cause violations of constitutional rights.” Connick,

563 U.S. at 62. 

In this case there is no evidence of a pattern of 

recurring head injuries in the Palmerton Area football program. 

Nor is there evidence that Walkowiak or any other member of 

the coaching staff deliberately exposed injured players to the 
19

continuing risk of harm that playing football poses. In the 

context of the Monell claim, it is also significant that the 

Pennsylvania General Assembly did not pass legislation that 

mandated training for coaches to prevent concussions until 

November 9, 2011, and the legislation did not even go into 

effect until July of 2012. See Safety in Youth Sports Act, 24 

Pa. Cons. Stat. §§ 5321–5323. Under these circumstances

there is no basis for concluding that a policy or custom of 

Palmerton Area or its failure to provide more intense 

concussion training to its coaches caused a violation of 

Sheldon’s constitutional rights. 

V.

For the foregoing reasons we will affirm the District 

Court’s order, entered June 2, 2016, granting summary 

judgment in favor of Walkowiak and Palmerton Area.