Opinion ID: 197155
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Soto's Claim as a Representative of Her Children.

Text: 31 In deciding Soto's motion for reconsideration, the district court granted Soto's request to amend her complaint so as to bring a claim as a representative of her children. The court then found that the children's claim was foreclosed by DeShaney, dismissed the claim and denied the motion for reconsideration of the due process claim. 32 Review of denial of a motion for reconsideration is for abuse of discretion. See Air Line Pilots Ass'n v. Precision Valley Aviation, Inc., 26 F.3d 220, 227 (1st Cir.1994). For purposes of this appeal, we consider Soto's complaint, as amended, to determine if the district court committed legal error in holding that Soto, as a representative of her children, failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. See Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx, 496 U.S. 384, 405, 110 S.Ct. 2447, 2460-61, 110 L.Ed.2d 359 (1990) (district court abuses discretion when it makes error of law); cf. Glassman v. Computervision Corp., 90 F.3d 617 (1st Cir.1996)(in reviewing denial of leave to amend complaint, court considers whether complaint as amended would state cognizable claim). 33 Defendants argue, and the district court held, that any claim on behalf of Soto's children is barred by DeShaney, which held that a State's failure to protect an individual against private violence simply does not constitute a violation of the Due Process Clause. 489 U.S. at 197, 109 S.Ct. at 1004. We agree that if Soto's argument were simply that Flores and his brother officers failed to protect her children from Rodriguez, it would clearly fail. See, e.g, Pinder v. Johnson, 54 F.3d 1169 (4th Cir.) (en banc) (rejecting due process claim based upon police failure to protect domestic violence victim), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 530, 133 L.Ed.2d 436 (1995); Balistreri v. Pacifica Police Dep't, 901 F.2d 696 (9th Cir.1988)(same). 34 However, Soto alleges more than a mere failure to protect. She claims, and her claim has support in the record, that Officer Flores visited Rodriguez at home and told him that Soto had been to the police station and wished to jail him. She further alleges that when he did so Flores was fully aware of how Rodriguez would likely react to this information, not only because Flores knew Rodriguez's character well, but also because Flores knew that Rodriguez had threatened to murder her and her family members if she went to the police and attempted to stop his abuse by having him jailed. Soto alleges that Flores misused information that he had obtained in an official capacity, and that this affirmative act rendered her children more vulnerable to the danger posed by Rodriguez and thus led to their deaths. 35 Soto alleges that Flores's conduct violated a duty of constitutional dimension owed to Soto's children. DeShaney clearly establishes that the state does not have a constitutional duty to protect its citizens from private violence. DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 197, 109 S.Ct. at 1004. However, in DeShaney, the Supreme Court also recognized a distinction between the case before it and other cases in which the state created the risk faced by the plaintiff: 36 While the State may have been aware of the dangers that [the plaintiff] faced in the free world, it played no part in their creation, nor did it do anything to render him any more vulnerable to them. [By returning the plaintiff child to his abusive father, the State] placed him in no worse position than that in which he would have been had it not acted at all. 37 Id. at 201, 109 S.Ct. at 1006. The situation here arises from the state actor's affirmative acts, which played a part in creating the danger to the children and rendered them more vulnerable to harm. Soto thus contends that it falls outside the scope of DeShaney, in that it implicates the alternate framework of § 1983 liability wherein a plaintiff alleges that some conduct by an officer directly caused harm to the plaintiff. 6 Pinder, 54 F.3d at 1176 n.  (emphasis in original); see also Dwares v. City of New York, 985 F.2d 94, 99 (2d Cir.1993)([T]hough an allegation simply that police officers had failed to act upon reports of past violence would not implicate the victim's rights under the Due Process Clause, an allegation that the officers in some way had assisted in creating or increasing the danger to the victim would indeed implicate those rights.). 38 Not every negligent, or even willfully reckless, state action that renders a person more vulnerable to danger take[s] on the added character of [a] violation[ ] of the federal Constitution. Monahan v. Dorchester Counseling Ctr., Inc., 961 F.2d 987, 993 (1st Cir.1992). In a creation of risk situation, where the ultimate harm is caused by a third party, courts must be careful to distinguish between conventional torts and constitutional violations, as well as between state inaction and action. See id.; Pinder, 54 F.3d at 1175-78. 39 The scope of any permissible section 1983 action based on a state-created danger theory is a difficult question. See, e.g., Pinder, 54 F.3d at 1175; Monahan, 961 F.2d at 993-94. Because we find that this claim may be resolved on immunity grounds, we choose not to reach this question. 40