Opinion ID: 2975587
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Melissa Barber’s Standing

Text: Plaintiff Melissa Barber challenges the dismissal of her claim for lack of standing. In its dismissal, the district court relied on Claybrook v. Birchwell, 199 F.3d 350, 357 (6th Cir. 2000), which held that a § 1983 claim is “entirely personal to the direct victim of the alleged constitutional tort.” Claybrook examined whether relatives or dependents of a constitutional-tort victim could bring claims for “emotional distress, loss of a loved one, or any other consequent collateral injuries allegedly suffered personally by the victim’s family members.” Id. (citations omitted). Her claim is different, Barber argues, because her injuries are not caused by her husband’s injury; rather, the state’s disclosure enabled the prisoners to learn her personal information, which the prisoners then used to inflict injuries directly upon her. This fails to defeat Claybrook’s rule, however, because the alleged constitutional tort in this case is the state’s release of her husband’s private information. See Kallstrom, 136 F.3d at 1059. Barber cannot point to an affirmative act committed by the government which violated her constitutional rights. Although she can trace her injury to the government’s release of her husband’s information, this does not render her a direct victim for purposes of bringing a § 1983 claim. Because Melissa Barber’s information was not released by the state, the state did not violate her constitutional rights, and she therefore cannot proceed under § 1983. Her rejoinder—that the state-created-danger doctrine cures this deficiency—is unavailing. The state-created-danger doctrine does not create a constitutional right that Barber may employ in a § 1983 action; instead, it permits plaintiffs who have suffered constitutional harms inflicted by third parties who were facilitated by the government’s affirmative acts to satisfy the state-action requirement of § 1983. The doctrine does not confer standing on anyone injured as a result of the government’s violation of another person’s rights, no matter how interrelated the harms suffered. We affirm the district court’s dismissal of Melissa Barber’s § 1983 claim.