Opinion ID: 797642
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Substantive Due Process and State-Created Danger

Text: 10 The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that [n]o State shall ... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1. The Supreme Court has long recognized that the Due Process Clause is more than a guarantee of procedural fairness and cover[s] a substantive sphere as well, `barring certain government actions regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement them.' County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 840, 118 S.Ct. 1708, 140 L.Ed.2d 1043 (1998) (quoting Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 331, 106 S.Ct. 662, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986)). The reach of substantive due process is limited, however, and it protects against only the most serious of governmental wrongs. The Court has emphasized that because guideposts for responsible decisionmaking in this uncharted area are scarce and open-ended, courts should be reluctant to expand the concept of substantive due process. Collins v. City of Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115, 125, 112 S.Ct. 1061, 117 L.Ed.2d 261 (1992). 11 When a plaintiff complains of abusive executive action, substantive due process is violated only when [the conduct] `can properly be characterized as arbitrary, or conscience shocking, in a constitutional sense.' Lewis, 523 U.S. at 847, 118 S.Ct. 1708 (quoting Collins, 503 U.S. at 128, 112 S.Ct. 1061). Though the meaning of the term conscience shocking is necessarily indeterminate, the Lewis court provided some guidance for lower courts to follow. Negligent acts, for example, are insufficient to trigger a substantive due process violation. Id. at 849, 118 S.Ct. 1708 ([L]iability for negligently inflicted harm is categorically beneath the threshold of constitutional due process.). Conversely, conduct intended to cause injury is, of course, most likely to violate due process. Id. For conduct within the middle range of something more than negligence but `less than intentional conduct, such as recklessness or gross negligence,' the inquiry is more difficult and requires a searching inquiry into the facts and circumstances of the particular case in light of the right asserted. Id. at 849-50, 118 S.Ct. 1708 (quoting Daniels, 474 U.S. at 331, 106 S.Ct. 662); see also id. at 850, 118 S.Ct. 1708 (Deliberate indifference that shocks in one environment may not be so patently egregious in another.). 12 While it is clear that individuals have a substantive due process right to be free from state-occasioned bodily harm, it is equally clear that the Constitution does not, as a general matter, impose upon state officials a duty of care to protect individuals from any and all private harms. DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dep't of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 196-97, 109 S.Ct. 998, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989) (As a general matter, then, we conclude that a State's failure to protect an individual against private violence simply does not constitute a violation of the Due Process Clause.). The DeShaney court recognized two possible exceptions to this general rule, however. First, the Court stated that the Constitution imposes upon the state a duty of care towards individuals who are in the custody of the state. Id. at 200, 109 S.Ct. 998 ([W]hen the State takes a person into its custody and holds him there against his will, the Constitution imposes upon it a corresponding duty to assume some responsibility for his safety and well-being.). Second, some language from DeShaney has been read to suggest that state officials also have a duty to protect individuals from harm when their actions created or exacerbated a danger to the individual. See id. at 201, 109 S.Ct. 998 (noting that, although the state may have been aware of the dangers faced by the plaintiff, it played no part in their creation, nor did it do anything to render him more vulnerable to them). 13 This latter exception mentioned in DeShaney is often recognized as the primary source 4 for what has been termed the state-created danger theory. A number of courts, including the majority of the federal circuits, have adopted the state-created danger theory of section 1983 liability in one form or another. 5 Prior to the Scanlan decision in the present group of cases, this court had often expressed reluctance to embrace the state-created danger theory, while noting its adoption by other courts. Although this court discussed the theory in no fewer than 11 published decisions prior to Scanlan, 6 it had not formally approved of the theory or applied it to uphold a plaintiff's complaint against pretrial motions or affirm an award of damages. See, e.g., Morin, 309 F.3d at 321 (noting that Fifth Circuit had neither adopted nor rejected the state created danger theory); McKinney, 309 F.3d at 313 (same). This court had, however, recognized and described the essential elements of such a claim for the purpose of demonstrating that the plaintiffs' complaints in particular cases failed to state claims under the theory. In doing so, this court explained that to recover on a state-created danger claim, the plaintiff must show that the harm to the plaintiff resulted because (1) the defendant's actions created or increased the danger to the plaintiff; and (2) the defendant acted with deliberate indifference toward the plaintiff. See, e.g., Morin, 309 F.3d at 321-22; McKinney, 309 F.3d at 313. This court had also stated that the state-created danger theory requires an identifiable victim. See Morin, 309 F.3d at 322-23; Saenz, 183 F.3d at 392.