Opinion ID: 170450
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Assaults by Government Officials in Other Contexts

Text: The question remains, then, what exactly are the contours of substantive due process claims premised on physical assault by ordinary government actors? The Supreme Court has suggested, albeit in dictum, that a constitutional right might exist to be free from assault committed by state officials . . . outside of a custodial setting. United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259, 272 n. 7, 117 S.Ct. 1219, 137 L.Ed.2d 432 (1997). But when we step outside the excessive force paradigm, we still must ask, what is it about the attack that transcends the boundaries of an ordinary tort law? Where do we draw the line? Cases outside the custodial context from several other circuits are helpful in answering these questions. Two cases decided by the Eleventh Circuit, for example, stand for the proposition that an unprovoked attack by a public official does not, by itself, automatically translate into a substantive due process violation. In the first case, Skinner v. City of Miami, 62 F.3d 344, 346 (11th Cir.1995), a firefighter sued his colleagues under § 1983 for violating his substantive due process rights by hazing him in an especially degrading and humiliating fashion. The court held this conduct did not constitute a violation of Skinner's substantive due process rights, although it was enough to state a claim under a state law tort. Id. at 347-48. The court rejected application of the circuit's excessive force cases, finding them unpersuasive because they involved a special relationship between the attacker and the victim. Id. at 348 (The cases [Skinner] relies on arose in the custodial setting and are inapposite.). In the other Eleventh Circuit case, a college instructor physically attacked an adult student. Dacosta v. Nwachukwa, 304 F.3d 1045, 1047 (11th Cir.2002). Several fellow students restrained the attacker until police arrived and arrested him for criminal battery. Relying on Skinner, the court concluded the instructor's conduct, malicious as it may have been, did not violate the student's substantive due process rights, only her state law right to be free from battery. Id. at 1048-49. And again, the court dismissed the excessive force cases as inapplicable. Id. (The cases [plaintiff] cites as authority for her substantive due process claim involve excessive force used by law enforcement officers, and are not applicable to the instant case.). The inquiry is thus in what circumstances will a physical assault transcend ordinary state tort law and rise to the level of a constitutional tort. A Seventh Circuit case involving an assault in the employment setting fleshes out the appropriate shocking the conscience standard. In Wudtke v. Davel, 128 F.3d 1057, 1059 (7th Cir.1997), a teacher complained that the superintendent for the public school district where she worked abused his authority to extort sexual favors from her: He threatened that he would not assign her a classroom aide to alleviate her workload [she taught special education classes], that he would prevent the District from hiring [her husband], and that he would refuse to approve the renewal of her provisional special education license (without which she would lose her job) if she did not engage in sexual acts with him. Id. The court concluded the teacher's allegations stated a § 1983 substantive due process claim precisely because the superintendent's authority over the teacher enabled his ability to assault her. Id. at 1063. These cases help us draw the line in assault cases outside a custodial or law enforcement setting. An assaultstanding alonedoes not suffice to make out a constitutional substantive due process claim. But an assault under a stated threat, a threat the victim knows an assaulting government official has the authority to carry out, can separate the ordinary common law tort from the substantive due process claim. The combination of serious physical abuse and the assaulting official's use of official authority to force the victim to submit can shock the conscience. The superintendent in Wudtke succeeded in forcing the teacher to cooperate only because he threatened retaliation, retaliation fully within his power to enforce. In cases like Wudtke, we recognize the same two interrelated characteristics that define our excessive force cases. First, government bestowed certain discretionary powers on the superintendent (classroom resources allocation, hiring decisions, and teaching license renewal). Second, relying on these powers, the superintendent sexually assaulted the teacher. We see, in other words, governmental powers employed to facilitate the harm inflicted. And such an abuse of authority can, in an individual case, shock our conscience if sufficiently severe.