Opinion ID: 782741
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Deprivation of Rights

Text: 20 Plaintiff alleges that defendants violated Cartwright's constitutional right to substantive due process by failing to take him into custody. In DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189, 197, 109 S.Ct. 998, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989), the Supreme Court noted that a State's failure to protect an individual against private violence simply does not constitute a violation of the Due Process Clause. The Court in DeShaney held that the defendant social services department was not liable for the injuries a father inflicted on his son, even though the department had a responsibility to prevent child abuse, and had taken temporary custody of the child before returning him to his father. While the Court in DeShaney denied relief, it explained that it was not considering a case where a person suffered injuries either while in state custody or because of state acts that made him more vulnerable to private violence. Id. at 201, 109 S.Ct. 998. Instead, DeShaney involved a situation where a state's involvement placed the victim in no worse position than that in which he would have been had it not acted at all. Id. 21 This Court has recognized both of these exceptions to the general rule announced in DeShaney. Sargi v. Kent City Bd. of Educ., 70 F.3d 907, 910 (6th Cir.1995). See Stemler v. City of Florence, 126 F.3d 856, 867-68 (6th Cir.1997) (holding that an injury suffered while in state custody may be violation of Due Process Clause); Kallstrom v. City of Columbus, 136 F.3d 1055, 1066 (6th Cir.1998) (holding that there may be liability under Due Process Clause where state's affirmative acts either create or increase risk of private violence). Plaintiff asserts that both of these exceptions apply to create liability under the Due Process Clause. 22
23 Plaintiff argues that her claim should be treated under the custodial exception to DeShaney. This Court recently defined custody as the intentional application of physical force and show of authority made with the intent of acquiring physical control. Ewolski v. City of Brunswick, 287 F.3d 492, 506 (6th Cir. 2002). Under that standard, the defendant officers did not take Cartwright into custody. In fact, as in Bukowski, Plaintiff's grievance is that the officers should have taken Cartwright into custody, but did not. See Bukowski, 326 F.3d at 709 n. 1 (noting that the plaintiff cannot argue liability under custodial exception to DeShaney where her argument is that the city harmed her by failing to take her into custody). 24 Plaintiff argues that a special relationship existed between Cartwright and the officers, because the officers had an affirmative duty to help plaintiff, and because such duty was created by state statute. 25
26 The state has a duty to protect a citizen when the State by the affirmative exercise of its power so restrains an individual's liberty that it renders him unable to care for himself, and at the same time fails to provide for his basic human needs. DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 200, 109 S.Ct. 998. 27 The relationship only arises when the state restrains an individual, Sargi, 70 F.3d at 911, and in this case, decedent was never in custody. The defendants did not suspect Cartwright was guilty of wrongdoing; they merely offered to give him a ride. When Cartwright refused to consent to a pat-down search, which the officers requested only when the transfer prisoner was ready to join him in the back seat of the patrol car, the officers and Cartwright parted company. 28 Also, Cartwright's inebriation was not imposed or created by the state. This Court has held that this fact alone requires a finding that the defendants did not owe the decedent an affirmative duty, because there was no special relationship. Sargi, 70 F.3d at 911 (holding that no special relationship existed between the state and a child who died of heart failure on a school bus who was not in custody, and whose condition was not imposed or created by the state); see also Weeks v. Portage County Executive Offices, 235 F.3d 275, 277-78 (6th Cir.2000) (holding that deputy sheriff had no special relationship with an assault victim who approached him, bleeding and staggering, and asked for help; though victim subsequently was beaten to death; officer had no affirmative duty to take decedent into protective custody or call for medical assistance). 29
30 Plaintiff argues that defendants' alleged violation of Section 333.6501 of the Michigan Compiled Laws constitutes proof of a special relationship. The statute provides, in pertinent part: 31 An individual who appears to be incapacitated in a public place shall be taken into protective custody by a law enforcement officer and taken to an approved service program, or to an emergency medical service, or to a transfer facility pursuant to subsection (4) for subsequent transportation to an approved service program or emergency medical service. 32 MICH. COMP. LAWS § 333.6501(1) (2001). 33 This argument fails in light of this Court's opinion in Jones v. Union County, Tennessee, 296 F.3d 417, 430 (6th Cir. 2002), in which we held that a violation of a state statute does not create a liberty interest or property right under the Due Process Clause. Even if the defendants should have taken decedent into custody under state law, their failure to do so does not transform that error into a constitutional wrong.
34 Plaintiff argues, alternatively, that defendants are liable under the state-created danger exception, under which state officials may be found to have violated the substantive due process rights of people not within their custody when their affirmative actions directly increase the vulnerability of citizens to danger or otherwise place citizens in harm's way. Ewolski, 287 F.3d at 509; see also Kallstrom, 136 F.3d at 1066. 35 To show a state-created danger, plaintiff must show: 1) an affirmative act by the state which either created or increased the risk that the plaintiff would be exposed to an act of violence by a third party; 2) a special danger to the plaintiff wherein the state's actions placed the plaintiff specifically at risk, as distinguished from a risk that affects the public at large; and 3) the state knew or should have known that its actions specifically endangered the plaintiff. Kallstrom, 136 F.3d at 1066. 36
37 In Kallstrom, this court held that releasing private information in police officers' personnel files constituted an affirmative act under the state-created danger theory. 136 F.3d at 1067. By contrast, failure to act is not an affirmative act under the state-created danger theory. See, e.g., Sargi, 70 F.3d at 912-13 (failing to provide bus drivers with a plan for managing emergencies, taking seizure victim home without medical intervention, failing to maintain communication devices on a bus, and failing to tell the bus driver of the student's medical condition were not affirmative acts); Gazette, 41 F.3d at 1065 (failing to rescue kidnap victim and lying about the case to the victim's family were not affirmative acts); Reed v. Knox County Dep't of Human Servs., 968 F.Supp. 1212, 1220-22 (S.D.Ohio 1997) (failing to inform family of foster child's violent history, placing child in home, and failing to remove child were not affirmative acts). 38 The facts of this case indicate, at most, a failure to act; they do not rise to the level of affirmative acts which created or increased the risk that the plaintiff would be exposed to an act of violence by a third party. Defendant officers took plaintiff from a place of great danger: the shoulder of a dark, foggy, two-lane highway. They placed him in a place of lesser danger: the parking lot of an open convenience store, where telephones, restrooms, and food and drink were available to him. 39 Plaintiff argues that the convenience store was a place of greater danger, because, she alleges, there was more traffic near the store. No reasonable jury could find that the parking lot was more dangerous than the shoulder of 26 Mile Road. Plaintiff also argues that the police invited Cartwright to a safe place the back seat of the patrol car and then released him at a more dangerous place the convenience store parking lot. This is not the proper comparison. The question is not whether the victim was safer during the state action, but whether he was safer before the state action than he was after it. See DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 201, 109 S.Ct. 998 (That the State once took temporary custody of Joshua does not alter the analysis, for when it returned him to his father's custody, it placed him in no worse position than that in which he would have been in had it not acted at all.). 40 Plaintiff cannot show that defendant officers created or increased the risk that Cartwright would be struck by a vehicle. Defendants did not commit an affirmative act under the state-created danger theory. 41 Because plaintiff has failed to allege facts from which a jury could find that defendants violated Cartwright's due process rights, under both the theory of an affirmative duty to protect him and the theory of a state-created danger, defendants Vandermeulen and Rock, and, by extension, the City, are entitled to qualified immunity. Consequently, plaintiff's claims under § 1983, as well as her state-law claims, must fail.