Opinion ID: 759227
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Claims Against Entity Defendants

Text: 15 The district court dismissed Young's Monell claim against the County of Fulton and DSS because her allegations failed to establish that she suffered any deprivation of her rights by reason of an official policy, custom, or practice of the County or DSS. See Young, 999 F.Supp. at 285-86 (citing Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978)). We agree with the district court and affirm on that ground. 16 Young urges vigorously on appeal that the DSS employees failed to comply with the procedural requirements of New York law, and that this non-compliance demonstrates a failure to train under Monell. This argument is not addressed in the district court opinion. 17 A claim for failure to train will trigger municipal liability only where the failure to train amounts to deliberate indifference to the rights of those with whom the state officials will come into contact. See City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 388, 109 S.Ct. 1197, 1204, 103 L.Ed.2d 412 (1989). In Walker v. City of New York, 974 F.2d 293 (2d Cir.1992), this Court listed three showings required to support a claim that a municipality's failure to train amounted to deliberate indifference of the rights of citizens: (1) that a policymaker [of the municipality] knows 'to a moral certainty' that [its] employees will confront a given situation; (2) that the situation either presents the employee with a difficult choice of the sort that training or supervision will make less difficult or that there is a history of employees mishandling the situation; and (3) that the wrong choice by the ... employee will frequently cause the deprivation of a citizen's constitutional rights. Walker, 974 F.2d at 297-98 (citation omitted). Under the Walker test, a claim for failure to train cannot be sustained unless the employees violated a clearly established federal constitutional right. See Watson v. Sexton, 755 F.Supp. 583, 588 (S.D.N.Y.1991) (To be 'deliberately indifferent' to rights requires that those rights be clearly established.). We therefore affirm the dismissal of the Monell claim against the County and DSS.