Opinion ID: 795169
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Jurisprudence on the Standard of Culpability

Text: 29 In assessing the standard of fault in state-created danger cases, we have inquired in the past whether the state actor acted in willful disregard for the safety of the plaintiff. See, e.g., Morse, 132 F.3d at 908 (quoting Kneipp, 95 F.3d at 1208). More recently, largely in consideration of the Supreme Court's decision in Lewis, 523 U.S. at 847-49, 118 S.Ct. 1708, we have acknowledged that the fault inquiry requires asking whether the state official acted with a degree of culpability that shocks the conscience. See, e.g., Bright, 443 F.3d at 281. 30 The Supreme Court decided Lewis nearly two years after we issued our opinion adopting the state-created danger theory in Kneipp. The Court granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among the circuits as to the standard of culpability for due process violations in the context of a police chase. Lewis, 523 U.S. at 839, 118 S.Ct. 1708. The Court held that generally, in a due process challenge to executive action, the threshold question is whether the government officer's actions shock the contemporary conscience. Id. at 847 n. 8, 118 S.Ct. 1708. The Court determined that in the specific context of a high-speed police pursuit, only an intent to harm the plaintiff could shock the conscience. Id. at 854, 118 S.Ct. 1708. However, the Court stated that whether behavior rises to the level of conscience-shocking will depend upon the facts of each individual case. Id. at 850, 118 S.Ct. 1708 (Rules of due process are not ... subject to mechanical application in unfamiliar territory.). 31 The Court suggested that in some instances, conduct involving more than negligence but less than intentional conduct could be shocking in the constitutional sense. Therefore, deliberate indifference, or perhaps gross negligence or recklessness, could be sufficient. Id. at 849-50, 118 S.Ct. 1708. In discussing the importance of context, the Court compared a high-speed chase or a prison riot on one hand with decisions regarding the medical needs of custodial prisoners on the other. Id. at 849-52, 118 S.Ct. 1708. In the latter custodial situation, deliberate indifference to the medical needs of prisoners would likely be sufficient because the state actor could engage in actual deliberation and unhurried judgments. Id. at 851, 853, 118 S.Ct. 1708. In the former situation, where deliberation is impossible, the higher standard of intent to harm would be required. Id. at 854, 118 S.Ct. 1708. Of course, we note that Lewis was not a state-created danger case but rather dealt with substantive due process generally. 32 Following Lewis, we have stated that in substantive due process cases, [t]he exact degree of wrongfulness necessary to reach the conscience-shocking level depends upon the circumstances of a particular case. Miller v. City of Philadelphia, 174 F.3d 368, 375 (3d Cir.1999). And we have had occasion to reflect on the appropriate standard of fault in a number of different settings. Sometimes, an intent to cause harm has been required; other times, deliberate indifference has been sufficient. In Miller, 174 F.3d at 375-76, we first utilized a standard part way between intent to harm and deliberate indifference. In that case, a Department of Human Services social worker believed that two children were victims of domestic abuse, based on reports by daycare personnel, videotape footage of the children's injuries, and statements made by the children themselves. Id. at 371. The children were removed almost immediately from their mother's custody after an order was issued by an on-call emergency judge. Id. After custody was restored, the children's mother filed a substantive due process suit against the social worker, alleging that he had pursued his investigation without probable cause, misrepresented facts to an assistant city solicitor, and induced a children's hospital doctor to perjure himself. Id. 33 We stated that the social worker's actions, leading to the emergency order to separate parent and child, involved less urgency than a high-speed chase but more urgency than a decision involving the medical care of a prisoner. Id. at 375-76. Therefore, we applied a standard of fault between deliberate indifference and purpose to cause harm. Id. at 375. We defined this new standard as gross negligence or arbitrariness that indeed `shocks the conscience.' Id. at 375-76. This standard was created to apply to cases in which no immediate or split-second decision was required, but where officials nonetheless did not have the luxury of true deliberation. As a result, we had articulated three possible standards to determine whether behavior rose to the level of conscience-shocking: 1) deliberate indifference; 2) gross negligence or arbitrariness that indeed `shocks the conscience; and 3) intent to cause harm. We concluded that the middle standard had not been met, relying in part on the fact that there was substantial evidence ... that the children were in danger of abuse. Id. at 377. Like Lewis, Miller was not a state-created danger case, and is therefore distinguishable on that basis. However, given the subsequent incorporation of Miller into our state-created danger case law, we find it highly instructive. 34 In Nicini v. Morra, 212 F.3d 798, 800-01 (3d Cir.2000) (en banc), we reviewed a substantive due process claim brought by a minor against a New Jersey Department of Human Services caseworker who placed him in the equivalent of a foster home. Nicini was clearly very troubled and had apparently made two suicide attempts in the past. Id. at 801. After Nicini was sexually abused by one of the parents in his new foster home placement, he filed suit against the caseworker. He alleged that the caseworker failed to properly investigate the background of the foster parent, and that the caseworker knew or should have known that the placement was inappropriate. 7 Id. at 804. We assessed the caseworker's actions under the deliberate indifference standard, declining to impose the heightened standards utilized in Lewis and Miller. Id. at 811. We explicitly distinguished Miller because the caseworker in Nicini, unlike the social worker in Miller, had time `to make unhurried judgments' in investigating whether to permit the child to remain in the foster care in which he was placed. Id. (quoting Lewis, 523 U.S. at 853, 118 S.Ct. 1708). 35 Roughly two years later, in Ziccardi v. City of Philadelphia, 288 F.3d 57, 58-59 (3d Cir.2002), a plaintiff brought a substantive due process claim against two paramedics, asserting that their careless actions in lifting him from a fall rendered him a quadriplegic. Rather than immobilizing the plaintiff's cervical spine before they moved him from the ground, the paramedics quickly lifted him and allegedly caused his injuries. Id. at 60. 36 We noted that Miller was binding and that the standard of culpability discussed there — a standard more rigorous than deliberate indifference — should apply. Id. at 65. However, we determined that the language in Miller — gross negligence or arbitrariness that indeed `shocks the conscience' — was not intended as a precise articulation. Id. at 65. Specifically, we noted that arbitrariness is a general requirement for substantive due process violations and that gross negligence encompasses a lower level of intent than deliberate indifference. Id. at 66 n. 6. 37 In attempting to elucidate and apply the level of culpability required in Miller, we noted that the case appear[ed] to have demanded proof of something less than knowledge that the harm was practically certain but more than knowledge that there was a substantial risk that the harm would occur. Id. at 66. We formulated the following standard for circumstances where no instantaneous decision is necessary, but where the state actor also does not have the luxury of proceeding in a deliberate fashion: A plaintiff must show that the defendant[] consciously disregarded, not just a substantial risk, but a great risk that serious harm would result. Id. (emphasis added). 8 38 We next decided Estate of Smith v. Marasco, 318 F.3d at 506, or Smith I, in which the plaintiffs explicitly brought a state-created danger claim. As in Ziccardi and Miller, we believed that the situation in Smith I demanded a standard for conscience-shocking behavior that was between deliberate indifference and intent to cause harm. Specifically, we examined the appropriateness of state police officers' decision, inter alia, to activate a Special Emergency Response Team. Id. at 508-09. We determined that the relevant decisions were not made in a hyperpressurized environment. Id. at 508. 39 Not acknowledging Ziccardi, we utilized the articulation earlier formulated in Miller. We reiterated that in situations falling in the grey area between requiring true split-second decisions and allowing relaxed deliberation, liability may be found if an official's conduct exhibits a level of gross negligence or arbitrariness that shocks the conscience. 9 Id. at 509. 40 It was not until we decided Rivas v. City of Passaic, 365 F.3d 181 (3d Cir.2004), that we first explicitly acknowledged the heightened standard in Ziccardi in a state-created danger case. 10 There, we considered a family's claim that two emergency medical technicians exposed a seizure victim to danger by calling the police and reporting that the victim attacked them, but failing to warn the officers that the victim had suffered a seizure. Id. at 185-88. Upon arrival, the police restrained the man, allegedly causing his death. Id. at 200. We echoed the Ziccardi reiteration of Miller, stating at one point that a reasonable jury could conclude that the technicians consciously disregarded a great risk of serious harm to [the victim]. 11 Id. at 196. 41 Finally, in Smith II, 430 F.3d at 153-56, we again considered the elusive fault requirement, though in the context of qualified immunity. We first noted the inherent difficulty in determining whether conduct shocks the conscience. Id. at 153 (quoting Smith I, 318 F.3d at 509; Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390, 428, 113 S.Ct. 853, 122 L.Ed.2d 203 (1993) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (questioning the usefulness of `conscience shocking' as a legal test)). We also stated that [o]ur ... decisions have not clarified this [second] element of the test to any great extent. Id. at 153. For example, we recognized that the definition applied in Smith I was somewhat circular. Id. 42 In addressing the claim before us, we noted and seemed to apply our decision in Ziccardi, and stated in a footnote that the standard articulated there was useful. Id. at 154 n. 10. However, we also stated that the Ziccardi opinion did not deal with the question whether the standard formulated applied to state-created danger claims. Id. at 154. 43