Opinion ID: 1896808
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: State Created Danger Theory

Text: Appellants claim that due to the City's solicitation of the Dawson family's participation in the Believe Campaign that the City expressly or impliedly promised to protect them against the type of attack they suffered. They further allege that instead of protecting the Dawsons, the City, through the actions of the BCPD, made the danger presented by the drug dealers greater by identifying the family to the neighborhood as informants of a sort. Thus, appellants allege that the City demonstrated a willful disregard for the safety of the Dawsons and maliciously caused them to be subjected to unconstitutional treatment, resulting in their deaths. The state created danger theory has its origins in language used in DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dept. of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189, 109 S.Ct. 998, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989). In that case, Joshua DeShaney and his mother filed suit against the Winnebago County Department of Social Services (the DSS) alleging federal due process violations because the DSS failed to permanently remove him from his father's custody after allegations of abuse were made. Id. at 191-92, 109 S.Ct. at 1001. In January of 1982, at the time of her divorce from DeShaney's father, the child's step-mother complained to police that the three year-old boy was abused by his father. DSS interviewed the father, but did not pursue the investigation. One year later, in January of 1983, Joshua was admitted to the hospital with bruises and abrasions. The treating physician notified DSS that he suspected child abuse. DSS obtained an order from a Wisconsin juvenile court which placed Joshua in the temporary care of the hospital until a Child Protection Team could make a determination of how best to proceed in Joshua's situation. The protection team determined that there was insufficient evidence to remove Joshua from his father's home and that he should be returned to his father's home with the understanding that his father would comply with certain conditions designed to protect Joshua. Based on the recommendation of the protection team, the juvenile court returned Joshua to the custody of his father. Over the next seven months Joshua was treated in the hospital twice more for abuse and the social worker handling his case recorded signs of abuse during her visits to the father's home in each of those months. In March of 1984, Joshua's father beat him so severely that he went into a coma and required emergency brain surgery. Although five year-old Joshua's life was saved, he was expected to be institutionalized for the rest of his life. Joshua's father was tried and convicted of child abuse. Subsequently, Joshua and his mother brought an action in a federal court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1996), [5] against Winnebago County, the DSS, and individual employees of the DSS alleging a violation of Joshua's Fourteenth Amendment Due Process rights. The trial court granted summary judgment for the defendants and the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed. The late Chief Justice Rehnquist, writing for the Supreme Court, explained why the State actors in Joshua's case could not be held liable under the Due Process Clause for failing to act on Joshua's behalf: 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. It forbids the State itself to deprive individuals of life, liberty, or property without `due process of law,' but its language cannot fairly be extended to impose an affirmative obligation on the State to ensure that those interests do not come to harm through other means. . . . [T]he Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to prevent government `from abusing [its] power, or employing it as an instrument of oppression[.]' . . . Its purpose was to protect the people from the State, not to ensure that the State protected them from each other. The Framers were content to leave the extent of governmental obligation in the latter area to the democratic political processes. Consistent with these principles, our cases have recognized that the Due Process Clauses generally confer no affirmative right to governmental aid, even where such aid may be necessary to secure life, liberty, or property interests of which the government itself may not deprive the individual. . . . If the Due Process Clause does not require the State to provide its citizens with particular protective services, it follows that the State cannot be held liable under the Clause for injuries that could have been averted had it chosen to provide them. 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. DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 195-97, 109 S.Ct. at 1003-04 (citations omitted) (footnote omitted). The Court went on to note, however, that it had recognized limited circumstances where the Due Process Clause required the State to act affirmatively with respect to prisoners and involuntarily committed mental patients. DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 198, 109 S.Ct. at 1004-05 (citing Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 103-04, 97 S.Ct. 285, 290-91, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976) (establishing the federal government's obligation to provide medical care for its prisoners); Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307, 314-25, 102 S.Ct. 2452, 2457-63, 73 L.Ed.2d 28 (1982) (involuntary commitment does not deprive individuals of all substantive due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment)). The Court noted the duty to act affirmatively was only imposed in those situations because the State had taken individuals into custody against their will. Id. at 199-200, 109 S.Ct. at 1005. In Joshua's case, he was not in the State of Wisconsin's custody. He had been returned to his father. While in the process of explaining why the State did not owe Joshua a duty, the Court apparently left open the door for what has become known as the state-created danger theory when it said: While the State may have been aware of the dangers that Joshua 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. DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 201, 109 S.Ct. at 1006 (emphasis added). The state-created danger theory, where applicable, imposes liability on a governmental entity for private acts that if committed by the government would violate constitutionally protected rights, even when no special relationship exists between the governmental entity and the injured person. Kneipp v. Tedder, 95 F.3d 1199, 1205 (3rd Cir.1996). Generally, this sort of claim is limited to situations in which the state increases the risk of harm to its citizens through its own affirmative acts. Kallstrom v. City of Columbus, 136 F.3d 1055, 1066 (6th Cir.1998); Kennedy v. City of Ridgefield, 439 F.3d 1055, 1062 (9th Cir.2006) (stating that there may be a due process violation when the governmental action affirmatively places the plaintiff in a dangerous situation.); Butera v. District of Columbia, 235 F.3d 637, 650 (D.C.Cir. 2001) (Regardless of the conduct at issue, however, the circuits have held that a key requirement for constitutional liability is affirmative conduct by the State to increase or create the danger that results in harm to the individual.); Carlton v. Cleburne County, 93 F.3d 505, 508 (8th Cir. 1996) (finding that the Due Process Clause imposes a duty when the government affirmatively places an individual in danger when the person would not have faced that situation without the state action.). Absent such affirmative conduct by the State to endanger an individual, courts have rejected liability under a state endangerment concept. Butera, 235 F.3d at 650. There are several problems with appellants' assertion of the state-created danger theory here. Initially, and foremost, Maryland has not adopted it as a basis upon which to recover for violations of Maryland's Constitution. [6] Although we have acknowledged that many provisions of the Maryland Constitution are in pari materia with their federal counterparts, we have also emphasized that, simply because a Maryland constitutional provision is in pari materia with a federal one or its federal counterpart, does not mean that the provision will always be interpreted or applied in the same manner as its federal counterpart. Dua v. Comcast Cable of Maryland, Inc., 370 Md. 604, 621, 805 A.2d 1061, 1071 (2002). To date, the General Assembly has not enacted, nor has this Court adopted, the state-created danger theory as a basis for recovery under Article 24 of the Declaration of Rights. We need not decide the issue today. Furthermore, the state-created danger theory, even when recognized by the various Federal Courts of Appeals, has only been discussed in the context of claims brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for alleged violations of an individual's civil rightsrights which are protected by the United States Constitution and federal statutes. The Supreme Court did not make the state-created danger theory applicable to alleged violations of Maryland's, or any state's, constitution. The DeShaney Court stated: A State may, through its courts and legislatures, impose such affirmative duties of care and protection upon its agents as it wishes. But not `all common-law duties owed by government actors were . . . constitutionalized by the Fourteenth Amendment.' 489 U.S. at 202, 109 S.Ct. at 1007 (quoting Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 335, 106 S.Ct. 662, 667, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986)). We read the DeShaney Court's language to indicate that even though some common law torts have federal constitutional implications, it is up to the state legislatures and courts to establish the parameters for liability, if any, of each state's governmental actors with respect to civil remedies for alleged violations of an individual's state constitutional rights. Some violations of state constitutional provisions may also allow for relief under the federal constitution, but that does not necessarily mean that the legal theory under which the remedy is obtained is always the same. [7] Finally, the state-created danger theory, if we were to adopt it, requires an affirmative act by the governmental actor. We address whether there were any affirmative acts by governmental actors, in the present case, in our discussion of special relationships in this opinion infra. There, we conclude, in our discussion of special relationships, that there were no affirmative acts by governmental actors in this case. Thus, even if we were to adopt the state-created danger theory, it would not apply in this instance because the state actors did not act sufficiently affirmatively towards the Dawson family.