Opinion ID: 625611
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Whether the Victim's Federal Rights were Clearly Established Given the Circumstances

Text: The Victim in this case, John Doe, was not in the custody of the state. John Doe was a person who was present and living freely with his mother in the Templetons' home. Plaintiffs claim that John Doe had a right of safety by virtue of the federal doctrine of substantive due process. Only in limited circumstances does the Constitution impose affirmative duties of care on the state. See DeShaney v. Winnebago Cnty. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 109 S.Ct. 998, 1003-04, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989). And we have written that only custodial relationships automatically give rise to a governmental duty, under substantive due process, to protect persons from harm by third parties. White v. Lemacks, 183 F.3d 1253, 1257 (11th Cir.1999). A decision about a substantive due process violation requires an exact examination of the circumstances. For substantive due process purposes, we have never addressed the question of harm caused to a person situated as John Doe was situated: one in no custodial relationship with the statein the specific context of a third-party minor injured by another child in an adoptive home setting. But we have said that, if the plaintiff alleging the rights violation is in no custodial relationship with the state, then state officials can violate the plaintiff's substantive due process rights only when the officials cause harm by engaging in conduct that is arbitrary, or conscious shocking, in a constitutional sense. Id. at 1259 (quoting Collins v. City of Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115, 112 S.Ct. 1061, 1070, 117 L.Ed.2d 261 (1992)). [O]nly the most egregious official conduct can be said to be arbitrary in the constitutional sense. County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 118 S.Ct. 1708, 1716, 140 L.Ed.2d 1043 (1998) (internal quotations omitted). In addition, this standard is to be narrowly interpreted and applied, White, 183 F.3d at 1259, such that even intentional wrongs seldom violate the Due Process Clause. Waddell v. Hendry Cnty. Sheriff's Office, 329 F.3d 1300, 1305 (11th Cir.2003). [4] For qualified immunity purposes in this case, the federal law applicable to the specific circumstances of this case was not close to established clearly at the pertinent time. The general legal propositions discussed above about substantive due process and non-custodial relationships are vague in themselves, and more so in their possible application to the circumstances of a case like this one, involving, among other things, an adoptive home setting and a victim not in the custody of the government. Moreover, qualified immunity's clearly established test does not operate at a high level of generality: The contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right ... the unlawfulness must be apparent. Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3039, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987). Furthermore, if case law is necessary to show unlawfulness, that decisional law must apply with obvious clarity to the officials' own conductwhat they are doingto give fair warning to the officials that their specific conduct violates federal law. See Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 122 S.Ct. 2508, 2516, 153 L.Ed.2d 666 (2002). In no way did Waddell an opinion cited by Plaintiffsclarify or particularize the liability standard (even roughly) for a case of this kind. [5] Waddell explicitly declined to declare the precise liability standard to be employed in non-custodial substantive due process cases even of the kind presented in Waddell. So, Waddell, like the other decisions Plaintiff cites, cannot apply to the facts of this case with obvious clarity and, therefore, is incapable of having provided the social workers fair warning of the alleged unlawfulness of their acts. And all the child-injury cases cited by Plaintiffs are too readily distinguishable, involving children injured while in state custody and, thus, cannot provide fair warning in the particular circumstances of this case: a child injured while not in state custody. [6] In addition, Plaintiffs cite no binding authorityand we have found no Georgia Supreme Court decision and no binding authoritythat requires, for federal substantive due process purposes, that all psychological information about a potential adoptive child always be turned over to and called to the attention of the potential adoptive parents. Finally, even when the broad arbitrary, or conscious shocking, in a constitutional sense general proposition is applied to the facts and context of this case, our conclusion on immunity would remain the same. Even when we assume the law is clearly established at this high level of generality, the state workers' acts were not  clearly unlawful in light of pre-existing law. McClish v. Nugent, 483 F.3d 1231, 1248 (11th Cir.2007) (emphasis added). The Whitley Report, upon which Plaintiffs rely most heavily, was due to be given some weight by the social workers. And the record shows that it was, at least to some degree. For federal constitutional purposes, the social workers were not obviously legally obliged to do exactly what Dr. Whitley recommended. Furthermore, the Whitley Report seems to acknowledge that any placement decisions should be based on input from [C.H.'s] caregivers, and the professionals working with him. Whitley explicitly qualified his recommendation with the caveat that the professionals working with C.H. should have a say in the placement decision (and possibly override Whitley's recommendation against placing C.H. in a home with other children). Determinations of what constitutes egregious conduct by state officials must not be made in the glow of hindsight. Waddell, 329 F.3d at 1305. Based on all the information available at the time, the decisioneven if incorrect and ultimately harmful, in fact, to John Doeto place C.H. in this adoptive home just was not obviously arbitrary or conscious shocking in a constitutional sense. This case is not the rare case where the officials' conduct was so egregious that the officials should have known their acts were contrary to federal constitutional commands, even in the absence (as is true here) of relevant case law. Such cases are exceptional and rarely arise. See Santamorena v. Ga. Military Coll., 147 F.3d 1337, 1340 n. 6 (11th Cir.1998) (substantive due process case).