Opinion ID: 69353
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Caraway

Text: The allegations against Caraway are twofold. First, Floyd alleges that Caraway “participated in, approved and directed the application for Arrest and Search warrants based upon the assertion of facts he knew to be false, resulting in the false arrest of Plaintiff Cedric Floyd without probable cause . . . .” At the time the applications were filed, Caraway served as the police department’s chief of investigations. Second, Floyd avers that, to date, Caraway has failed to return 10 No. 08-30637 the items seized from his home, even though the district attorney directed that the items be returned. Of particular relevance to this allegation is the fact that Caraway now serves as Kenner’s chief of police and thus presumably controls the release of the items. We first review the allegations with respect to the warrant applications. Floyd does not complain that Caraway himself filed the alleged unlawful affidavit in support of the warrants. Instead, he claims that Caraway, in his capacity as chief investigator, directed and approved the applications filed by Cunningham. This is an alleged Fourth Amendment violation under Franks, as we stated in addressing the claim against Cunningham. “Because vicarious liability is inapplicable to . . . § 1983 suits, a plaintiff must plead that each Government-official defendant, through the official’s own individual actions, has violated the Constitution.” Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1948. Liability under Section 1983 for a supervisor may exist based either on personal involvement in the constitutional deprivation or “a sufficient causal connection between the supervisor’s wrongful conduct and the constitutional violation.” Thompkins v. Belt, 828 F.2d 298, 304 (5th Cir. 1987). We must determine whether Floyd alleged the “factual particulars” necessary to state a valid Fourth Amendment claim against Caraway. See Schultea, 47 F.3d at 1432. The relevant allegation is that Caraway “participated in, approved and directed” the filing of false and misleading affidavits. In analyzing the issue, we turn to the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Iqbal. 129 S. Ct. 1937. There, a Pakistani man detained following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks alleged that former Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller authorized an unconstitutional detention policy. Id. at 1942. To state a cognizable claim, the plaintiff was required to “plead sufficient factual matter to show that petitioners adopted and implemented the detention policies at issue not for a neutral, investigative 11 No. 08-30637 reason but for the purpose of discriminating on account of race, religion, or national origin.” Id. at 1948-49. The Supreme Court described the factual matter contained in the complaint: The complaint contends that petitioners designated respondent a person of high interest on account of his race, religion, or national origin, in contravention of the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution. The complaint alleges that “the [FBI], under the direction of Defendant MUELLER, arrested and detained thousands of Arab Muslim men . . . as part of its investigation of the events of September 11.” It further alleges that “[t]he policy of holding postSeptember-11th detainees in highly restrictive conditions of confinement until they were ‘cleared’ by the FBI was approved by defendants ASHCROFT and MUELLER in discussions in the weeks after September 11, 2001.” Lastly, the complaint posits that petitioners “each knew of, condoned, and willfully and maliciously agreed to subject” respondent to harsh conditions of confinement “as a matter of policy, solely on account of [his] religion, race and/or national origin and for no legitimate penological interest.” The pleading names Ashcroft as the ‘principal architect’ of the policy, and identifies Mueller as “instrumental in [its] adoption, promulgation, and implementation.” Id. at 1944 (citations omitted). After considering these factual particulars, the Court held that the plaintiff had not “nudged his claims . . . across the line from conceivable to plausible.” Id. at 1950-51 (quoting Twombly, 127 S. Ct. at 1974). They were bare assertions, without detail or context. See id. One might speculate, and the plaintiff there apparently did, that the actions and knowledge he alleged were true. See id. It is clear, though, that in the arena of qualified immunity (but surely not solely in this arena), discovery is not the place to determine if one’s speculations might actually be well-founded. Consistent with our holding in Schultea, the pleadings must have sufficient precision and factual detail to reveal that more than guesswork is behind the allegation. Schultea, 47 F.3d at 1434. 12 No. 08-30637 Certainly our precedents have acknowledged that some limited discovery may at times be needed before a ruling on immunity is proper. As an example, we referred to “search cases, [because] probable cause and exigent circumstances will often turn on facts peculiarly within the knowledge of the defendants.” Id. at 1432. In such a case, “if there are conflicts in the allegations regarding the actions taken by the police officers, discovery may be necessary.” Id. The importance of discovery in such a situation is not to allow the plaintiff to discover if his or her pure speculations were true, for pure speculation is not a basis on which pleadings may be filed. Rule 11 requires that any factual statements be supported by evidence known to the pleader, or, when specifically so identified, “will likely have evidentiary support” after discovery. Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b)(3) (emphasis added). There has to be more underlying a complaint than a hope that events happened in a certain way. Instead, in the “short and plain” claim against a public official, “a plaintiff must at least chart a factual path to the defeat of the defendant's immunity, free of conclusion.” Schultea, 47 F.3d at 1430. Once that path has been charted with something more than conclusory statements, limited discovery might be allowed to fill in the remaining detail necessary to comply with Schultea. Id. at 1433-34. Under these standards, Floyd’s allegations against Caraway amount to nothing more than speculation. The conclusory assertion that Caraway “participated in, approved and directed” the filing of false and misleading affidavits is consistent with finding a constitutional violation, but it needed further factual amplification. See Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1949. Floyd might not know everything about what occurred, but the bare allegation does not make it plausible that he knows anything. Unlike his allegations against Cunningham, this bare assertion does not provide any detail about what Caraway, as chief of investigations, did to seek to control Cunningham’s filing of an affidavit. Put 13 No. 08-30637 differently, the conclusion presents nothing more than hope and a prayer for relief. An example of a situation that falls squarely within the kind of case justifying limited discovery is discussed in a recently released but nonprecedential opinion by a panel of this court. Morgan v. Hubert, No. 08-30388, 2009 WL 1884605 (5th Cir. July 1, 2009). In Morgan, a plaintiff who was in protective custody before Hurricane Katrina was transferred to a general prison population following the storm. Id. at . After being beaten and stabbed, the plaintiff filed a Section 1983 suit against the prison warden. Id. The complaint presented sufficient detail to demonstrate a highly plausible allegation of an Eighth Amendment violation. Id. at . The events cited were so clear, the practical effects of such conduct so obvious, that the defendants’ responsibility under Section 1983 for the plaintiff’s harm simply needed the detail that limited discovery would either provide or deny. Id. Unlike in Morgan, Floyd has shown nothing in his complaint to indicate a basic plausibility to the allegation. His Section 1983 claim premised on a Fourth Amendment violation therefore fails. Floyd also alleges that Caraway refused to return Floyd’s seized property. Floyd’s pleadings did not state which constitutional provision Caraway supposedly violated. The district court correctly explained that the allegations possibly fall within the realm of a Fourteenth Amendment due process claim. Even so, the district court ultimately rejected Floyd’s claim after determining that the City of Kenner had procedures in place for Floyd to get his property back, that Floyd had failed to utilize those procedures, and that Floyd had failed to set forth how the procedures available “deprived him of his property rights and/or how the available procedures were inadequate.” The district court’s ruling was consistent with the analysis required under the Parratt/Hudson doctrine. Under the doctrine, the “unauthorized deprivation 14 No. 08-30637 of a plaintiff’s property does not result in a violation of procedural due process rights if the state provides an adequate postdeprivation remedy.” Alexander v. Ieyoub, 62 F.3d 709, 712 (5th Cir. 1995) (citations omitted); see also Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U.S. 113, 128-32 (1990) (discussing the Parratt/Hudson doctrine). In Louisiana, the civil tort of conversion exists to rectify the type of wrong Floyd has alleged. Fuller v. XTO Energy, Inc., 989 So. 2d 298, 302 (La. App. 2d Cir. 2008) (“[A] conversion consists of an act in derogation of a plaintiff’s possessory rights, and any wrongful exercise or assumption of authority over another’s goods . . . .”). Because Louisiana provides a postdeprivation remedy, relief is not available to Floyd under Section 1983. See Alexander, 62 F.3d at 712. Floyd has failed to allege specific facts that constitute a deprivation of either his Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment rights. Consequently, the district court’s dismissal with respect to the claims against Caraway was correct.