Opinion ID: 1232748
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Okin's Equal Protection Claims

Text: Okin alleges that, by their failure to apply the law equally on the basis of gender and their failure to discharge their duties in a non-discriminatory manner, defendants violated her equal protection rights. Her claim is that, although the defendant police departments' stated policy was that domestic violence incidents were to receive the same police attention as other criminal incidents, their unspoken policy and practice was to treat complaints of domestic violence towards women differently. Proof that discriminatory intent was a motivating factor is required to show a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. See Arlington Heights v. Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 265-66, 97 S.Ct. 555, 50 L.Ed.2d 450 (1977). In Eagleston v. Guido, 41 F.3d 865 (2d Cir.1994), a directed verdict case, we announced a standard for equal protection claims in the domestic violence context, writing that a directed verdict is appropriate unless the plaintiff adduces evidence sufficient to sustain the inference that there is a policy or a practice of affording less protection to victims of domestic violence than to other victims of violence in comparable circumstances, that discrimination against one sex was a motivating factor, and that the policy or practice was the proximate cause of plaintiff's injury. Id. at 878. In Eagleston, a woman contacted the police ten times to report harassment and threats by her sporadically estranged husband; the two had orders of protection against each other. Id. at 868. On only one occasion was he arrested. Eventually, the woman was stabbed by the husband 30 or more times with a carving knife, following an argument. Id. Her complaint charged that defendant, County of Suffolk, acting through its police department, condoned a pattern [or] practice of affording inadequate protection, or no protection at all, to women who have complained of having been abused by their husbands or others with whom they have a close relationship. Id. at 868 (alteration in original). As Judge Jacobs wrote Accepting Mrs. Eagleston's account as true, her testimony showed at most ... that a few police officers failed to perform their jobs well. Her testimony does not evidence a department-wide practice of disparate treatment for domestic disputes. Even on the level of anecdote, Mrs. Eagleston's account is fully consistent with a responsive police department dealing on an incident-by-incident basis with an ambiguous series of events. Eagleston, 41 F.3d at 876. As the district court noted here, under Eagleston, domestic violence plaintiffs must adduce some evidence that officers responded differently to [non-domestic] types of complaints in order to prevail on an equal protection claim. Okin, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75881, at , 2006 WL 2997296, at . To prevail, Okin would have to demonstrate that her complaints of domestic violence were treated differently than other, similar complaints of violence, because of her gender. Although, pursuant to Eagleston, 41 F.3d at 878, Okin must sustain the inference that victims of comparable non -domestic violence were afforded more protection, she does not attempt to show that police officers responded with more competence, say, or a higher rate of arrest, to complaints of violence that were not domestic in nature. As the district court put it, [s]he relies exclusively on her own story  which, while heartrending, does not get her where Eagleston says she must go. Okin, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75881, at , 2006 WL 2997296, at . Okin asks us to repudiate Eagleston, arguing that repeated deviations from the mandatory arrest statute and from corresponding police department policy, even with respect to only one female domestic violence victim, could be grounds for an inference of gender bias, that is, that a woman who is a victim of domestic violence should not need to prove that a police department afforded her less protection than it did victims of non-domestic violence in comparable circumstances. We decline, however, to revisit Eagleston. Any equal protection claim is grounded on a comparison between the treatment the state gives similarly situated individuals. Okin could have attempted to show that she and other women were discriminated against by defendant police departments but, although defendants produced in discovery police reports concerning domestic violence response in Cornwall, Okin has not attempted to demonstrate discrimination by a comparison based upon these. Failing that, at the very least she has to show that it was her gender, and not some other characteristic, that motivated the treatment she received. She might be able to do this if she had compared evidence of the manner in which defendant police departments responded to comparable non-domestic violence incidents, with the manner in which they responded to domestic violence at her house, but again she does not attempt such a comparison. We therefore hold that the district court correctly concluded that Okin failed to raise a genuine and material dispute of fact concerning whether defendants denied her equal protection of the law, and we affirm that part of the district court's order which granted, as to all moving defendants, summary judgment on Okin's claim for violation of her right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.