Opinion ID: 1925512
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Turner and Davis

Text: Wright asserts that Turner and Davis deprived his wife of her life, without due process of law, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, because they failed to protect her from an intoxicated driver. The Due Process Clause 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. In DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189, 109 S.Ct. 998, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989), the Supreme Court held: [N]othing in the language of the Due Process Clause itself requires the State to protect the life, liberty, or property of its citizens against invasion by private actors. The Clause is phrased as a limitation on the State's power to act, not as a guarantee of certain minimal levels of safety and security.... [I]ts language cannot fairly be extended to impose an affirmative obligation on the State to ensure that [substantive due process] interests do not come to harm through other means. .... [Therefore], as a general matter, ... a State's failure to protect an individual against private violence simply does not constitute a violation of the Due Process Clause. DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 195-97, 109 S.Ct. at 1003. However, the Supreme Court has recognized that state officials may have a duty to protect an individual's substantive due process interests from private acts of violence where a special relationship exists between the state and the victim or between the state and the aggressor. City of Revere v. Massachusetts General Hospital, 463 U.S. 239, 244, 103 S.Ct. 2979, 2983, 77 L.Ed.2d 605 (1983); Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307, 314, 102 S.Ct. 2452, 2457, 73 L.Ed.2d 28 (1982). Generally, the relationships that require a state to protect an individual's substantive due process interests against private violence are ones where the victim or the aggressor is in the State's custody. See Revere, 463 U.S. at 244, 103 S.Ct. at 2983 (Due Process Clause required state to provide medical care to suspects in police custody who had been injured while being apprehended); Youngberg, 457 U.S. at 314, 102 S.Ct. at 2457 (Due Process Clause required state to provide involuntarily committed mental patients with such services as were necessary to ensure their reasonable safety from themselves or others); Cornelius v. Town of Highland Lake, Alabama, 880 F.2d 348 (11th Cir.1989) (Due Process Clause required prison and town officials to protect town clerk from violent criminal assigned to prison work squad at town hall); Wells v. Walker, 852 F.2d 368, 371 (8th Cir.1988), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1012, 109 S.Ct. 1121, 103 L.Ed.2d 184 (1989) (Due Process Clause required state corrections officials to protect a store owner from assault by a released prisoner transported by officials to the victim's store as the closest commercial transportation pick-up point); Nishiyama v. Dickson County, Tennessee, 814 F.2d 277 (6th Cir.1987) (Due Process Clause required sheriff to protect a motorist from violence at the hands of an inmate who stopped a motorist by flashing blue light of patrol car given to the inmate by the sheriff because of inmate's trusty status); Doe v. New York City Department of Social Services, 649 F.2d 134, 141-42 (2d Cir. 1981), after remand, 709 F.2d 782, cert. denied sub nom. Catholic Home Bureau v. Doe, 464 U.S. 864, 104 S.Ct. 195, 78 L.Ed.2d 171 (1983) (Due Process Clause required state to protect children in foster homes from mistreatment at the hands of their foster parents). In DeShaney the Supreme Court determined that a special relationship requiring State protection exists when the state so limits the victim's liberty that he is rendered unable to care for himself. DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 200, 109 S.Ct. at 1005. The Supreme Court reasoned: In the substantive due process analysis, it is the State's affirmative act of restraining the individual's freedom to act on his own behalfthrough incarceration, institutionalization or other similar restraint to personal libertywhich is the `deprivation of liberty' triggering the protections of the Due Process Clause, not its failure to act to protect his liberty interests against harms inflicted by other means. Id. The Supreme Court has also recognized that a state has a duty to protect an individual's substantive due process interests when the individual, as opposed to the general public, faces a special danger at the hands of a private aggressor and the state is aware of this danger. Martinez v. California, 444 U.S. 277, 100 S.Ct. 553, 62 L.Ed.2d 481 (1980) (circumstances did not pose a special danger to the victim not suffered by the general public); see Cornelius, 880 F.2d at 354; Wells, 852 F.2d at 371; Commonwealth Bank & Trust Co. v. Russell, 825 F.2d 12, 14-17 (3d Cir.1987); Nishiyama, 814 F.2d at 277; Ketchum v. Alameda County, 811 F.2d 1243, 1247 (9th Cir.1987); Jones v. Phyfer, 761 F.2d 642 (11th Cir.1985); Fox v. Custis, 712 F.2d 84 (4th Cir.1983); Bowers v. DeVito, 686 F.2d 616, 618 (7th Cir.1982). However, courts have consistently confined their use of the special danger exception to situations where a custodial relationship exists between the state and the aggressor. See Cornelius, 880 F.2d at 354; Wells, 852 F.2d at 371; Nishiyama, 814 F.2d at 277. Where the state merely fails to protect an individual, and no special relationship or special danger exists, the failure may be actionable under a state common law theory, but not under the Due Process Clause. Bowers, 686 F.2d at 618. Thus, even if we assume that Turner and Davis were negligent in failing to arrest Townley before he left the parking lot of the Booby Trap Lounge, mere negligence is not enough to implicate the Due Process Clause. See Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 333, 106 S.Ct. 662, 666, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986). For Wright to maintain a § 1983 action against Turner and Davis, his evidence must establish either that Turner and Davis acted affirmatively to deprive Mrs. Wright of her life or that, by virtue of a special relationship or a special danger, Turner and Davis had a constitutional duty to protect Mrs. Wright from an intoxicated driver. In support of his § 1983 action, Wright presented his affidavit, in which he states that, while attending Townley's preliminary hearing on a homicide charge, deputies Reginald Turner and Quincy Davis ... advised him that they were at Wesley's Booby Trap Lounge on highway 78 when ... Townley come out of ... [the lounge] and started staggering towards his car. He said, They went behind the lounge and waited until [Townley] had gotten in the car and drove up behind him as he was leaving the parking lot. In addition, Wright presented the affidavit of his mother-in-law, Lucille Mullins. Mullins stated that she also was present at Townley's preliminary hearing and that she overheard Turner and Davis tell Wright that they saw ... Townley staggering in the parking lot of the Booby Trap Lounge going to his car, and that [t]hey went over and waited behind the ... [l]ounge ... for him to get in his car and pulled up behind him when he pulled out of the parking lot and went across Highway 78. Mullins further stated that one of [t]he officer[s] concluded by saying that they should have arrested him before he left the parking lot instead of waiting until he got out to the road. Both Davis and Turner testified at their depositions that they did not remember talking with Wright or Mullins at Townley's preliminary hearing and that they never saw, nor told Wright and Mullins that they saw, Townley staggering in the parking lot of the Booby Trap Lounge. This evidence in no way indicates that Turner and Davis acted affirmatively to deprive Mrs. Wright of her life. At most, it indicates that Turner and Davis failed to arrest a driver they knew was intoxicated, and thereby, failed to protect drivers on Highway 78 from an intoxicated driver. Although this conduct may constitute negligence, it does not violate the Due Process Clause. Having determined that Turner and Davis did not violate the Due Process Clause by any affirmative act, we must now determine whether the evidence revealed a special relationship or a special danger requiring Turner and Davis to protect Mrs. Wright from Townley. Because the case law indicates that Wright must establish a custodial relationship between the state and Townley, or between the state and Mrs. Wright, to compel the State to protect Mrs. Wright, and the record indicates that no such relationship existed, we conclude that the state did not have a constitutional duty to protect Mrs. Wright. Accordingly, Turner and Davis cannot be liable under § 1983 for failing to arrest Townley.