Opinion ID: 70204
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: We note at this juncture that the Rule 12(b)(6) defense and the qualified immunity defense become intertwined. Under Rule 12(b)(6), the defendants can defeat Wooten's cause of action if her complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). Under the qualified immunity defense, the defendants are immune from liability if Wooten's complaint fails to state a violation of a clearly established statutory or constitutional right[ ] of which a reasonable person would have known. See Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). As the Supreme Court states, [a] necessary concomitant to the determination of whether the constitutional right asserted by a plaintiff is clearly established' at the time the defendant acted is the determination of whether the plaintiff has asserted a violation of a constitutional right at all. Siegert v. Gilley, 500 U.S. 226, 232, 111 S.Ct. 1789, 1793, 114 L.Ed.2d 277 (1991). Accordingly, we must first undertake an examination of Wooten's complaint to determine if she possesses a right subject to a constitutional violation. Id.3 The question we must resolve is whether a substantive due process right is implicated where a public agency is awarded legal custody of a child, but does not control that child's physical custody except to arrange court-ordered visitation with the non-custodial parent. The substantive component of the Due Process Clause protects only those rights which are fundamental. McKinney v. Pate, 20 F.3d 1550, 1556 (11th Cir.1994) (en banc), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 898, 130 L.Ed.2d 783 (1995). Substantive due process rights are created only by the Constitution, not by state laws. Id. A finding that a right 3 Our court has not specifically stated which analysis comes first—the establishment of a violation of a constitutional right or the establishment of a violation of a clearly established' constitutional right (readily analogized to the question: which came first, the chicken or the egg?). There are several cases in our circuit and in other circuits, however, which intimate that the first question to be answered in this analytical framework is whether the plaintiff establishes the violation of a constitutional right. See, e.g., Oladeinde v. City of Birmingham, 963 F.2d 1481, 1485 (11th Cir.1992), cert. denied, -- - U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 1586, 123 L.Ed.2d 153 (1993); Burrell v. Board of Trustees of Georgia Military Colllege, 970 F.2d 785, 792 (11th Cir.1992), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 1814, 123 L.Ed.2d 445 (1993); Sivard v. Pulaski Co., 17 F.3d 185 (7th Cir.1994); Johnston v. City of Houston, 14 F.3d 1056 (5th Cir.1994). merits substantive due process protection means that the right is protected against certain government actions regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement them.'  Id. (quoting Collins v. City of Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115, ----, 112 S.Ct. 1061, 1068, 117 L.Ed.2d 261 (1992) (internal quotations omitted)). Hence, tort law remains largely outside the scope of the substantive due process jurisprudence. McKinney, 20 F.3d at 1556. The district court analogized this case to a foster care situation when it found that Wooten stated a claim for a violation of a constitutional right. This analysis is flawed in one major respect: Daniel was in the physical custody of his natural mother, not in a third-party foster home. Wooten maintained Daniel's clothes, food, and shelter. In a foster care situation, the state places the child, whether voluntarily or not, into the care of persons the state has chosen. These foster families provide for the child's physical needs on behalf of the state. The state exercises control and dominion over the child in a foster care situation and, accordingly, if a child is injured by a foster family, he or she has a section 1983 claim for a violation of a constitutional right. See Taylor by and through Walker v. Ledbetter, 818 F.2d 791 (11th Cir.1987) (en banc), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1065, 109 S.Ct. 1337, 103 L.Ed.2d 808 (1989). The facts of this case are very similar to the facts in DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189, 109 S.Ct. 998, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989). In DeShaney, a minor child was severely beaten by his natural father despite knowledge by state social workers of the father's violent propensities. In rejecting the plaintiff's claims, the Supreme Court held: 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—e.g., food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and reasonable safety—it transgresses the substantive limits on state action set by the Eighth Amendment and the Due Process Clause. The affirmative duty to protect arises not from the State's knowledge of the individual's predicament or from its expressions of intent to help him, but from the limitation which it has imposed on his freedom to act on his own behalf. 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 of 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 interest against harms inflicted by other means. 489 U.S. at 200, 109 S.Ct. at 1005-06 (citations omitted). The Court also noted that nothing in the language of the Due Process Clause itself requires the State to protect the life, liberty, and property of its citizens against invasion by private actors. Id. at 195, 109 S.Ct. at 1003. The purpose of the Due Process Clause is to protect the people from the State, not to ensure that the State protect the people from each other. Id. at 196, 109 S.Ct. at 1003. As a general matter, then, we conclude that a State's failure to protect an individual against private violence simply does not constitute a violation of the Due Process Clause. Id. at 197, 109 S.Ct. at 1004. As in DeShaney, Michael was a private actor. Wooten had physical custody of Daniel and had consented to visits by Michael. Wooten took no legal action to prevent the unsupervised out of office visits nor the overnight visit at Michael's parents' home. R 4-7, Exh. 3 & 4. Wooten signed a case panel review which expressly stated that Michael would be allowed two hour visits away from the office. Id. After initially placing Daniel in Wooten's home, the state's only role was monitoring and arranging for the visitation between Daniel and Michael. Wooten maintained the control and dominion of Daniel and could have petitioned the court for a change in the custody and visitation arrangements if she felt Michael posed a risk to Daniel's well-being. Under these circumstances, allowing a child visitation with a natural parent does not so shock the conscience as to constitute a substantive due process violation. DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 197, 109 S.Ct. at 1004. Wooten contends that the state and her son had a special relationship which imposed an affirmative duty on the state to provide Daniel with protection. See Jones v. Phyfer, 761 F.2d 642 (11th Cir.1985); Cornelius v. Town of Highland Lake, 880 F.2d 348 (11th Cir.1989), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1066, 110 S.Ct. 1784, 108 L.Ed.2d 785 (1990).4 In Cornelius, we held that government officials may be held liable for the deprivation by a third party of a private citizen's due process rights when a special relationship is found to exist between the victim and the third party or between the victim and the government officials. 880 F.2d at 352-53. There is no special relationship here: Daniel was 4 There is some question whether this court's holding in Cornelius survived the Supreme Court's decision in Collins v. City of Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115, 112 S.Ct. 1061, 117 L.Ed.2d 261 (1992), which held that a voluntary employment relationship, standing alone, does not impose a constitutional duty on government employers to provide a reasonably safe work environment. This panel, however, need not rely upon Cornelius in making its decision. in the physical custody of his natural mother when his natural father took him; Daniel did not rely solely upon the state for his physical needs and safety; Wooten had access to the courts if she was displeased with the unsupervised visitation; Wooten could have intervened to stop the unsupervised visitation; and Wooten was able to protect Daniel because she had physical custody of Daniel. As noted earlier, the state's sole responsibility was to monitor and arrange Daniel's visitation with Michael. The Supreme Court has noted that in certain limited circumstances the Constitution imposes upon the state affirmative duties of care and protection with respect to particular individuals. In Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 97 S.Ct. 285, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976), the Court recognized that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment requires the state to provide adequate medical care to incarcerated prisoners. The Court reasoned that because the prisoner is unable by reason of the deprivation of his liberty to care for himself, it is only fair that the state be required to care for him. Id. at 103-104, 97 S.Ct. at 290-91 (quotations omitted). In Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307, 102 S.Ct. 2452, 73 L.Ed.2d 28 (1982), the Court extended the Estelle analysis holding that the substantive component of the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause requires the state to provide involuntarily committed mental patients with such services as are necessary to ensure their reasonable safety' from themselves and others. 457 U.S. at 314-325, 102 S.Ct. at 2457-2463. These cases, however, provide no support for Wooten in the present case. The state did not so restrain Daniel's freedom or hold him against his will to such an extent that a special relationship was created. The affirmative duty to protect arises from the limitation which the state imposes on an individual's freedom to act on his own behalf. The state did not impose any limitation on Daniel's personal liberty or freedom to act. The state placed Daniel in the physical custody of his natural mother and monitored Daniel's visitation with his natural father. The state's obligation did not rise to the level of an affirmative duty to protect because the state did not restrain Daniel's liberty to the extent that it rendered him unable to care for himself. DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 200, 109 S.Ct. at 1005-06. Several circuits have utilized DeShaney to find a distinction between situations where a child is totally dependent upon the state for security needs and situations where the primary responsibility for care remains with a natural parent. See e.g., Maldonado v. Josey, 975 F.2d 727 (10th Cir.1992), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 1266, 122 L.Ed.2d 662 (1993); D.R. by L.R. v. Middle Bucks Area Vocational Tech. School, 972 F.2d 1364 (3rd Cir.1992), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 1045, 122 L.Ed.2d 354 (1993); J.O. v. Alton Community Unit School Dist. 11, 909 F.2d 267 (7th Cir.1990). Each of these cases involved children who were harmed by public school teachers. The plaintiffs in these cases attempted to hold school system officials liable based upon the custodial relationship which existed between the school system and the child, especially in light of state compulsory attendance laws. The courts uniformly held that substantive due process did not furnish the plaintiffs a basis to recover against the school systems because the state had not rendered the children totally dependent upon the state.5 The present case is similarly analogous to DeShaney and the above-referenced cases to warrant our conclusion that Wooten has no claim under substantive due process. In those cases, like here, the children remained in the physical custody of their parents who were free to take steps to protect them from harms perpetrated by other persons. The key inquiry in this case is whether the county caseworkers controlled Daniel's life to such an extent that Wooten could not reasonably be expected to protect him. The answer is that they did not. Accordingly, Wooten's complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted and should have been dismissed.