Opinion ID: 2975587
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Defendants Lowery and Sibert

Text: Plaintiffs also challenge the district court’s finding that Lowery and Sibert are entitled to qualified immunity. We review such a determination de novo. Holloway v. Brush, 220 F.3d 767, 772 (6th Cir. 2000).
Qualified immunity involves a two-fold inquiry: First, “[t]aken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, do the facts alleged show the officer’s conduct violated a constitutional right? . . . [T]he next, sequential step is to ask whether the right was clearly established.” Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201 (2001). Section 1983 actions also involve a two-part analysis: As with the qualified immunity inquiry, the plaintiff must suffer a deprivation of a federal constitutional or statutory right. In addition, that violation must be caused by a person acting under the color of state law. Harbin-Bey v. Rutter, 420 F.3d 571, 575 (6th Cir. 2005). “The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not impose upon the state an affirmative duty to protect its citizens against private acts of violence, but rather, places limitations on affirmative state action that denies life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Kallstrom v. City of Columbus, 136 F.3d 1055, 1065 (6th Cir. 1998). That is, the Fourteenth Amendment does not (in the ordinary case) provide private citizens a right investigation materials. Dist. Ct. Mem. Op. and Order at 3 (Dec. 2, 2004). We decline to resolve this ambiguity because the nature of FOIA’s application to prisoner requests does not change the outcome of the absolute immunity analysis. Because the plaintiffs cannot show that Jackson was acting as a “FOIA Coordinator” as they contend, his actions were judicial, not administrative, and whether FOIA applies matters not. No. 05-2014 Barber, et al. v. Overton, et al. Page 5 to be free from prisoner abuse if those prisoners are not acting under the color of state law.5 Since Lowery and Sibert did not themselves threaten the plaintiffs or subject them to acts of violence, they would not normally be liable under § 1983. However, in Kallstrom we noted an exception: A section 1983 plaintiff could circumvent the state action requirement if he demonstrated that the state created a special danger. Thus the state created danger doctrine, on which plaintiffs heavily rely, is properly understood as a caveat to the color of state law requirement. “In other words, while the state does not shoulder an affirmative duty to protect its citizens from acts of violence, it may not cause or greatly increase the risk of harm to its citizens without due process of law through its affirmative acts.” Kallstrom, 136 F.3d at 1066. As indicated by Kallstrom, state created danger is not predicated upon but-for causation; rather it is more akin to the notion of proximate causation. Our cases have spoken in terms of “creating risk” or “greatly increasing risk,” rather than in terms of “causing harm.” Thus, we have developed a three-part test: “an affirmative act that creates or increases the risk, a special danger to the victim as distinguished from the public at large, and the requisite degree of state culpability.” McQueen v. Beecher Comty. Schs., 433 F.3d 460, 464 (6th Cir. 2006). As to the first part, we have noted that the increase in risk must be substantial. See, e.g., Summar v. Bennett, 157 F.3d 1054, 1059 n.2 (6th Cir. 1998). As to the third, the requisite culpability in this circumstance, i.e. one that “provide[d] opportunity for reflection and unhurried judgments,” McQueen, 433 F.3d at 469, is deliberate indifference. Because of the majority of the Supreme Court’s insistence on addressing qualified immunity at the outset, Saucier, 533 U.S. at 200, we apply the following analysis in a case that invokes both qualified immunity and a § 1983 action predicated on the state created danger doctrine: First, identify the constitutional right and determine whether it has been violated. Second, determine whether that right was, at the time the violation occurred, clearly established. Third, determine whether the actor violating the right was acting under color of state law, that is, whether the state actor created or greatly increased a danger that was specific to the plaintiffs and did so with deliberate indifference. Because we conclude that no constitutional violation occurred, we will omit the second and third steps.
First we must determine whether the states are required, by the Constitution, to keep plaintiffs’ social security numbers and dates of birth private. Plaintiffs rely on Kallstrom, claiming that the state’s release of this private information exposed them to a serious risk of bodily harm or death at the hands of the informationally-empowered prisoners. This risk, they argue, implicates their liberty interest in personal security under the substantive component of the due process clause. A cursory examination of Kallstrom, however, indicates that that case did not define a right that would entitle plaintiffs to relief here. In Kallstrom, the plaintiffs were City of Columbus police officers involved in an undercover investigation of “the Short North Posse, a violent gang in the Short North area of Columbus, Ohio.” Kallstrom, 136 F.3d at 1059. Forty-one of the gang members were prosecuted and the plaintiffs, three undercover police officers, testified at their trials. On request, the City of Columbus deliberately released the plaintiffs’ personnel files to the attorney of several gang members in accordance with the city’s written policy. These files included: the officers’ addresses and phone numbers; the names, addresses, and phone numbers of immediate family members; the names and addresses of personal references; the 5 Prisoners might, for example, act under color of state law when they are performing services on behalf of the prison. No. 05-2014 Barber, et al. v. Overton, et al. Page 6 officers’ banking institutions and corresponding account information, including account balances; their social security numbers; responses to questions regarding their personal life asked during the course of polygraph examinations; and copies of their drivers’ licenses, including pictures and home addresses. Id. The district judge granted a temporary restraining order prohibiting release of the files, but refused to enter a permanent injunction when it concluded that this circuit had “‘steadfastly refused to recognize a general constitutionally-protected right to privacy that would shield an individual from government release of personal information about the individual.’” Id. at 1060 (quoting Dist. Ct. Op. at 4). The officers appealed. This court canvassed the law regarding the substantive due process right to privacy. It noted that this right was bifurcated, including not only the right to be free of state interference when making decisions of important and intimate personal matters, see, e.g., Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), but also the right to avoid state disclosure of highly personal matters, see, e.g., Whalen v. Roe, 429 U.S. 589, 598-600 (1977). In this circuit, this latter privacy right to nondisclosure (the only right relevant here), has been construed narrowly, J.P. v. DeSanti, 653 F.2d 1080, 1091 (6th Cir. 1981), only protecting citizens from disclosure when the circumstances implicate “personal rights that can be deemed fundamental or implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” Id. at 1090 (citations and quotation marks omitted). It is here that the Kallstrom court broke new ground. It held that the officers’ privacy interest implicated an important liberty interest; to wit, an interest in preserving their and their families’ personal security and bodily integrity. That is, it held that the released information was sensitive enough to put their lives at risk. This liberty interest was implicated for two reasons: (1) the gang members had a propensity for violence and intimidation and (2) those members were likely to seek revenge. However, the court explicitly limited its holding: [T]he district court found that the City’s release of the plaintiffs-appellants’ addresses, phone numbers, and driver’s licenses to defense counsel . . . as well as their family members’ names, addresses, and phone numbers, created a serious risk to the personal safety of the plaintiffs and those relatives named in the files. . . . The district court did not make any explicit findings with respect to whether disclosure of the remaining personal information contained in the officers’ personnel files – results of the polygraph tests, social security numbers, and financial account information – put the officers at substantial risk of serious bodily harm. On remand, the district court should consider the extent to which the release of this information jeopardized the officers’ personal security, and whether the threat, if any, implicated the officers’ constitutionally protected interests in privacy and bodily integrity. Id. at 1063, 1063 n.2 (emphasis added). We note also, as far as our research can divine, that this combination of privacy right violation and state created danger claim is virtually unique among courts of appeals.6 In addition, the disclosure here only provided a means of acquiring the kind of 6 No other circuit has explicitly held that a breach of a plaintiff’s right to privacy could implicate a claim predicated on a state created danger theory. See, e.g., Frances-Colon v. Ramirez, 107 F.3d 62 (1st Cir. 1997) (baby mishandled and injured during delivery at municipal hospital); Dwares v. City of New York, 985 F.2d 94 (2d Cir. 1993) (protestor attacked and beaten by skinheads who were enabled by police); Kneipp v. Tedder, 95 F.3d 1199 (3d Cir. 1996) (drunken pedestrian suffered debilitating brain injury during fall after police declined to arrest her for public intoxication); Pinder v. Johnson, 54 F.3d 1169 (4th Cir. 1995) (plaintiff’s children killed in a fire set by her boyfriend); Johnson v. Dallas Indep. Sch. Dist., 38 F.3d 198 (5th Cir. 1994) (high school student killed by a nonstudent); Stevens v. Umsted, 131 F.3d 697 (7th Cir. 1997) (disabled student sexually assaulted by another student); S.S. ex rel. Jervis v. No. 05-2014 Barber, et al. v. Overton, et al. Page 7 sensitive information directly disclosed in Kallstrom; acquiring the sensitive information required an additional wrongful act by the prisoners. We belabor the discussion of Kallstrom to emphasize what it did not do: It did not create a broad right protecting plaintiffs’ personal information. Rather, Kallstrom created a narrowly tailored right, limited to circumstances where the information disclosed was particularly sensitive and the persons to whom it was disclosed were particularly dangerous vis-a-vis the plaintiffs. We cannot conclude that social security numbers and birth dates are tantamount to the sensitive information disclosed in Kallstrom. The court’s careful footnote in that case, instructing the district court on remand, should put that to rest. If mere disclosure of social security numbers were sufficient then there was no need for the remand. In addition, Kallstrom did not restrict any private information from disclosure to anyone in any circumstances, but rather only certain restricted information when the plaintiffs had a reason to fear retaliation from persons to whom it was disclosed. In light of our narrow reading of the substantive due process right to non-disclosure privacy, we conclude that the release of the social security numbers was not sensitive enough nor the threat of retaliation apparent enough to warrant constitutional protection here.7 First, scary though it may be, the diligent miscreant who wishes to exact vengeance can locate a person with limited information. Plaintiffs’ names, general whereabouts (near the IMAX facility), and approximate ages were already known to these prisoners. While the social security numbers and birth dates might have pinpointed the residence of a particular plaintiff, there are other methods of learning where persons reside; several hours in a car or several telephone calls might well provide the very same information. Voter registration records, county property records, and a plethora of other publically available sources exist through which persons can discover the residency of an individual and prisoners’ accomplices have as ready access to them as any other citizen. The plaintiffs do not allege that this information allowed the prisoners to discover information that they would have been unable to otherwise. Therefore, this information does not rise to the level of sensitivity we found constitutionally significant in Kallstrom.8 Second, while there is can be no doubt that plaintiffs have a dangerous job, their relationship to the prisoners is not defined by the clear animosity apparent in Kallstrom where the plaintiffs had McMullen, 225 F.3d 960 (8th Cir. 2000) (child sodomized by pedophile); L.W. v. Grubbs, 974 F.2d 119 (9th Cir. 1992) (nurse at prison raped by an inmate); Armijo ex rel. Chavez v. Wagon Mound Pub. Schs., 159 F.3d 1253 (10th Cir. 1998) (special education student at public school committed suicide); Wyke v. Polk County Sch. Bd., 129 F.3d 560 (11th Cir. 1997) (plaintiff’s son committed suicide); but see Hart v. City of Little Rock, 432 F.3d 801 (8th Cir. 2005) (in a case factually similar to Kallstrom, the court assumed, without deciding, that plaintiffs constitutional right to privacy was violated but denied relief because the state actor did not possess the requisite culpability for a § 1983 claim). 7 The dissent criticizes us for holding, “as a matter of law,” “that social security numbers [ ] are not sufficiently sensitive,” Cole Op., post at 13. That is not our holding as that question is not before us. Rather, our holding concerns the interplay between both the sensitivity of the information and the threat of retaliation. We express no opinion whether either of these factors, taken alone, would distinguish Kallstrom. 8 On remand from Kallstrom, several news organizations intervened in an attempt to require the City of Columbus to turn over certain information from the officers’ personnel records for an investigation the news organizations were conducting. Therefore, the district court was asked to determine which specific pieces of information implicated the Constitution. Recognizing the propriety of our holding in Kallstrom, it noted that “[a]ddresses are part of the public domain. Anyone with an individual’s name and either Internet access or the initiative to visit a local government office can scan county property records, court records, or voter registration records for such information as an individual’s address, the exact location of his or her residence, and even a floor plan of the home. The Supreme Court has found that ‘the interests in privacy fade when the information involved already appears on the public record.’ In this case, plaintiffs have voluntarily revealed their own identities. For instance, plaintiffs initiated this lawsuit in their own names and describe their profession in the pleadings as ‘undercover narcotics officers.’” Kallstrom v. City of Columbus, 165 F. Supp. 2d 686, 695 (S.D.Oh. 2001) (quoting Cox Broad. Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U.S. 469, 494-95 (1975)). No. 05-2014 Barber, et al. v. Overton, et al. Page 8 gone undercover, infiltrated a violent gang, and testified against them at trial. While we do not condone nor indicate that we consider in any way prudent the release of the information to these prisoners, we also must remember that the right we created in Kallstrom was exceeding narrow. The relationship here is not sufficiently analogous. Finally, [o]ur opinion does not mean that we attach little significance to the right of privacy, or that there is no constitutional right to nondisclosure of private information. . . . Our opinion simply holds that not all rights of privacy or interests in nondisclosure of private information are of constitutional dimension, so as to require balancing government action against individual privacy. As with the disclosure in Paul v. Davis, [424 U.S. 693 (1976),] protection of appellants' privacy rights here must be left to the states or the legislative process. DeSanti, 653 F.2d at 1090-91. Since we find that no right was violated, we need not engage in the weighing analysis laid out in DeSanti, 653 F.3d at 1090-91, and its progeny.