Opinion ID: 1703304
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Crockers' Section 1983 Action

Text: Although we find that the Crockers, as their son's next of kin, have a legitimate claim of entitlement to possess their son's remains for burial or other lawful disposition, we make clear that this determination is not dispositive of whether the allegations in this case can survive a motion for judgment on the pleadings or whether the Crockers can otherwise prevail in their section 1983 action. Indeed, the City and County urge us to find that despite any inchoate right the Crockers might have, there has been no constitutional violation here because a deprivation of that right has not been established. In this case, although the Fourth District has characterized the officials' conduct as egregious, Crocker, 727 So.2d at 1089, the Crockers have advised this Court that the trial court has subsequently found as a matter of law that the individual officer was not acting in bad faith or with malicious purpose. § 768.28(9)(a), Fla. Stat. (2000). [11] Indeed, the trial court found that nothing in the record reveals that the officer was acting outside the scope of his employment, in bad faith, or with malicious purpose. Further, the Crockers have conceded in this Court that they cannot prove the existence of willful or malicious conduct on the part of the City or County. The United States Supreme Court has made clear that only deprivations of constitutional rights are covered by section 1983 and deprivations that are merely negligent are not sufficient to constitute deprivations under section 1983. See Daniels, 474 U.S. at 330-31, 106 S.Ct. 662. As the Court explained in Daniels: Historically, this guarantee of due process [under the Fourteenth Amendment] has been applied to deliberate decisions of government officials to deprive a person of life, liberty, or property. E.g., Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U.S. 97 [, 24 L.Ed. 616] (1878) (assessment of real estate); Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165 [, 72 S.Ct. 205, 96 L.Ed. 183] (1952) (stomach pumping); Bell v. Burson, 402 U.S. 535 [, 91 S.Ct. 1586, 29 L.Ed.2d 90] (1971) (suspension of driver's license); Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651 [, 97 S.Ct. 1401, 51 L.Ed.2d 711] (1977) (paddling student); Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517 [, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 82 L.Ed.2d 393] (1984) (intentional destruction of inmate's property). No decision of this Court before Parratt supported the view that negligent conduct by a state official, even though causing injury, constitutes a deprivation under the Due Process Clause. This history reflects the traditional and common-sense notion that the Due Process Clause, like its forebear in the Magna Carta, see Corwin, The Doctrine of Due Process of Law Before the Civil War, 24 Harv. L.Rev. 366, 368 (1911), was intended to secure the individual from the arbitrary exercise of the powers of government. 474 U.S. at 331, 106 S.Ct. 662; see County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 848-49, 118 S.Ct. 1708, 140 L.Ed.2d 1043 (1998). In Daniels, the Court receded from its prior decision in Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981), to the extent that it states that mere lack of due care by a state official may `deprive' an individual of life, liberty, or property under the Fourteenth Amendment. 474 U.S. at 330-31, 106 S.Ct. 662. [12] Accordingly, it is not clear that the Crockers will be able to establish that a deprivation occurred, which would be a requirement of their section 1983 claim. Nonetheless, the scope of the certified question before us is narrow, and therefore we decline to rule as a matter of law that the Crockers will be unable to recover on their section 1983 claim based on a deprivation or the lack of intentional conduct on the officials' part. The County also urges us to find that the Crockers' cause of action is barred because the state provides adequate state remedies. In this case, the Crockers' allegations were limited to a claim that the deprivation of the right to possess their son's remains for a period of time occurred without procedural due process. At oral argument, counsel for the Crockers' reiterated that the Crockers' claims were limited to deprivation of property without due process and that they were not claiming the deprivation of a liberty interest, nor were they contending that their substantive due process rights were violated. [13] In procedural due process claims, the availability of state post-deprivation remedies is relevant to whether a constitutional deprivation has occurred because the deprivation by state action of a constitutionally protected interest in life, liberty, or property is not in itself unconstitutional; what is unconstitutional is the deprivation of such an interest without due process of law. The constitutional violation actionable under § 1983 is not complete when the deprivation occurs; it is not complete unless and until the State fails to provide due process. Therefore, to determine whether a constitutional violation has occurred, it is necessary to ask what process the State provided, and whether it was constitutionally adequate. This inquiry would examine the procedural safeguards built into the statutory or administrative procedure of effecting the deprivation, and any remedies for erroneous deprivations provided by statute or tort law. Zinermon, 494 U.S. at 125-26, 110 S.Ct. 975 (citations omitted) (footnote omitted). In some circumstances a statutory provision for a postdeprivation hearing, or a common-law tort remedy for erroneous deprivation, satisfies due process[,] ... simply because they are the only remedies the State could be expected to provide. Id. at 128, 110 S.Ct. 975 (citations omitted). Thus in both Arnaud and Fuller the courts found that, although a right existed, the claim was barred because state remedies were adequate. See Arnaud, 870 F.2d at 308; [14] Fuller, 724 F.2d at 719. [15] The Crockers assert, however, that they have no adequate remedy at state law because our decision in Gonzalez, 651 So.2d at 673, would not allow them to recover under state law under any circumstance. They assert that even if they could prove willful or wanton misconduct against the individual officers to allow a claim for tortious interference, they would be precluded by our sovereign immunity statute from recovering against the City or County. [16] In other words, the Crockers' argument is that they do not have an adequate state remedy because the combination of Florida's sovereign immunity statute and this Court's case law essentially means that they have no redress under state tort law. Although the parties raise this issue in the briefs, we decline to decide in this case whether our decision in Gonzalez would mean that the Crockers are deprived of an adequate state remedy because this issue is beyond the scope of the certified question and because it was not decided or discussed in the Fourth District's opinion. [17]