Opinion ID: 4584185
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Substantive Due Process Violation

Text: We agree with and do not restate the district court's reasoning that a jury could find the plaintiffs' substantive due process rights were violated. The defendants argue, as though context does not matter, that Rivera established that the use of basic law enforcement investigative tools cannot ever serve as the affirmative act - 22 - underlying a state-created danger claim. Rivera established no such thing; rather it held only that the use of law enforcement tools in that case did not provide an adequate basis for the statecreated danger claim there. See id. at 37. That was because interviewing and subpoenaing Jennifer Rivera were both necessary steps of the investigation that could not reasonably be avoided and were performed appropriately. See id. Here the claim is not that the defendants should not have contacted Lord at all, but that the manner in which the officers did so -- despite having been warned about Lord's threats of violence and their own acknowledgement that contacting him would increase the risks to Irish and her family -- was wrongful. The defendants next argue that the officers' violations of state law and MSP policy cannot serve as the basis of a statecreated danger claim. That is not the plaintiffs' argument. The plaintiffs' argument is that these violations are, at the very least, relevant to determining the conscience-shocking nature of the defendants' conduct and the qualified immunity inquiry. The plaintiffs' position is well based on our prior opinions of which the defendant officers had notice. Those opinions are described below. The defendants also argue that no jury could find the officers' conduct shocked the conscience. We rely on the district - 23 - court's reasoning as to why that argument fails. See Irish, 436 F. Supp. 3d at 419-24.