Court Opinion

ID: 9477289
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:19:23.945491+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:47.886288
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in Judge Johnson’s comprehensive opinion. I write separately to express additional reasons why I conclude that the district court's opinion should be reversed. First, this case is controlled by Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Company, 455 U.S. 422, 102 S.Ct. 1148, 71 L.Ed.2d 265 (1982), and not by Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984), or Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981). Logan held that a postdeprivation state remedy does not satisfy “due process where the *805property deprivation is affected pursuant to an established state policy.” Second, in addition to the deprivation of procedural due process right guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, Burch was deprived of explicitly articulated freedoms contained in the Bill of Rights — his Fourth Amendment right “to be secure in [his] person[]” and to be free from seizure and detention without due process of law and his Fifth Amendment right not to be “deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”1
I.
Any study, of the progeny of Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981), must include consideration of Hudson and Logan. Those cases provide the framework for analyzing procedural due process claims like Burch’s.
In Hudson, Palmer, a prisoner, alleged that Hudson had conducted a shakedown search of his cell and intentionally destroyed certain non-contraband personal property. Palmer claimed that he was entitled to damages under § 1983. The Supreme Court held that Palmer did not state a claim under § 1983 and that the reasoning in Parratt with respect to negligent deprivations of property applied also to intentional deprivations of property. The defendants in this case compare their deprivation of Burch’s liberty to Hudson’s deprivation of Palmer’s property. Palmer contended that his case was controlled by the “established state procedure” language in Logan, arguing that:
the deliberate destruction of his property by petitioner constituted a due process violation despite the availability of post-deprivation remedies. Brief for respondent and cross-petitioner at 8. In Logan, we decided a question about which our decision in Parratt left little doubt, that is, whether a postdeprivation state remedy satisfies due process where the property deprivation is effected pursuant to an established state procedure. We held that it does not. Logan plainly has no relevance here.
Hudson, 468 U.S. at 534, 104 S.Ct. at 3204 (emphasis added). The irrelevance of Logan to Palmer’s case was explained by an earlier statement in Hudson: “Two Terms ago, we reaffirmed our holding in Parratt in Logan ... in the course of holding that postdeprivation remedies do not satisfy due process where a deprivation of property is caused by conduct pursuant to established state procedure, rather than random and unauthorized action.” Id. at 532, 104 S.Ct. at 3203.
The pointed inquiry in this case is whether the defendants’ deprivation of Burch’s liberty was effected pursuant to an established state procedure. If it was not, this would be a Hudson-type case.2 There was no “established state procedure” authorizing Hudson’s deprivation of Palmer’s property.
Since Burch was detained by the defendants pursuant to “an established proce*806dure” set forth in Florida’s Mental Health statute, this ease is controlled by Logan. To see why, it is necessary to analyze that case. Logan filed a timely complaint with the Illinois Fair Employment Practices Commission. Pursuant to a state statute, the commission had to convene a fact-finding hearing within 120 days of the filing of the complaint. “Apparently through inadvertence,” the commission scheduled a hearing 5 days after the expiration of the statutory 120-day period. 455 U.S. at 426, 102 S.Ct. at 1152. The Illinois Supreme Court held that the commission’s failure to hold the hearing within the 120-day period deprived it of jurisdiction to hear the merits of Logan’s complaint. In an opinion by Justice Blackmun, a unanimous Supreme Court held that Logan’s due process rights had been violated and as a consequence he was deprived of a protected interest, his claim to his job. The Logan Court rejected the argument that Parratt was controlling, notwithstanding the fact that Illinois provided postdeprivation tort remedies which Logan could have pursued:
This argument misses Parratt’s point. In Parratt, the Court emphasized that it was dealing with “a tortious loss of ... property as a result of a random and unauthorized act by a state employee ... not a result of some established state procedure.” 451 U.S., at 541, 101 S.Ct., at 1915. Here, in contrast, it is the state system itself that destroys a complainant’s property interest, by operation of law, whenever the Commission fails to convene a timely conference — whether the Commission’s action is taken through negligence, maliciousness, or otherwise. Parratt was not designed to reach such a situation. See id., at 545, 101 S.Ct., at 1918 (second concurring opinion). Unlike the complainant in Parratt, Logan is challenging not the Commission’s error, but the “established state procedure” that destroys his entitlement without according him proper procedural safeguards.
Id. at 435-36, 102 S.Ct. at 1158.
As in Logan, the Florida state officials in this case were required by state law to secure a due process hearing and were not authorized to detain Burch without securing the hearing. As in Logan, the failure of the Florida officials to arrange for a hearing was a deprivation of an “established state procedure.” As in Logan, this failure caused a deprivation of a Fourteenth Amendment right, and a § 1983 claim can be pursued. Cf. Patterson v. Coughlin, 761 F.2d 886, 892 (2d Cir.1985) (failure of state officials to provide inmate with a proper hearing was neither random nor unauthorized as those terms were meant in Parratt).
The Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, recently recognized that “the Parratt analysis, in which the touchstone for predeprivation process is the feasibility of providing such process, is simply inapplicable where the alleged deprivation is inextricable from the alleged corruption of the process which the state ordinarily could provide.... It is meaningless to speak of the state’s ability to provide postdeprivation remedial process where the state process itself has been abused.” Bretz v. Kelman, 773 F.2d 1026, 1031 (9th Cir.1985) (en banc). Parratt is therefore inapposite. Because Florida state law required a hearing within 48 hours of the initial confinement, state officials “were in a position to provide for predeprivation process.” Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. at 534, 104 S.Ct. at 3204.
The argument that Logan is controlling is made even more persuasive when one considers that the defendants in Parratt (loss of hobby kit), Daniels, 474 U.S. 327, 106 S.Ct. 662, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986) (inmate’s slip on pillow), and Davidson, 474 U.S. 344, 106 S.Ct. 668, 88 L.Ed.2d 677 (1986) (negligent failure to protect inmate), were not required to do anything by state law; like many state actors and all citizens, they simply were not authorized to deprive persons of their constitutional rights. Logan is the only post-Parratt case in which the Supreme Court has considered a due process claim arising out of state officials’ failure to hold a hearing as required by state law. As such, it should provide the guiding principle in this case, where the failure of Florida state officials to provide *807Burch with the required hearing led to a six-month deprivation of liberty.
II.
Burch alleged in paragraph 13 of this complaint “Defendant ACMHS deprived Plaintiff of his liberty without due process of law in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.” Part II of the dissent is directed toward the suggestion in Judge Johnson’s concurrence that Burch suffered a “substantive due process violation.” I do not reach this question because the complaint clearly alleges a violation of Burch’s liberty interest. As so precisely articulated by Justice Blackmun, who authored Logan, “At the outset, then, we are faced with what has become a familiar two-part inquiry: we must determine whether Logan was deprived on a protected interest, and if so, what process was his due.” Logan, 455 U.S. at 428, 102 S.Ct. at 1153-54.
The first inquiry is whether Burch had a protected interest. Urging that the majority makes no attempt to explain where in the Bill of Rights the framers may have implicitly articulated this right, the dissent asks this question: “[D]id they implicitly articulate it in the Fourth Amendment, which provides that ‘[t]he right of people to be secure in their persons ... against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated’?” Dissent, infra at 816.
The dissent’s concerns are easily answered, for the Fourth Amendment was clearly implicated by the seizure and detention of Burch.
Both the standards and procedures for arrest and detention have been derived from the Fourth Amendment and its common law antecedents.... Once the suspect is in custody, however, the reasons that justify dispensing with the magistrate’s neutral judgment evaporate. There no longer is any danger that the suspect will escape or commit further crimes while the police submit their evidence to a magistrate. And, while the State’s reasons for taking summary actions subside, the suspect’s need for a neutral determination of probable cause increases significantly. The consequences of prolonged detention may be more serious than the interference occasioned by arrest. Pretrial confinement may imperil the suspect’s job, interrupt his source of income, and impair his family relationships.... When the stakes are this high, the detached judgment of a neutral magistrate is essential if the Fourth Amendment is to furnish meaningful protection from unfounded interference with liberty. Accordingly, we hold that the Fourth Amendment requires a judicial determination of probable cause as a prerequisite to extended restraint of liberty following arrest.
Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 111, 114, 95 S.Ct. 854, 861, 863, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975).
In Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 99 S.Ct. 2689, 61 L.Ed.2d 433 (1979), the Supreme Court establishes as clear precedent that Burch’s liberty interest was such that it could not be taken without a probable cause finding:
By virtue of its “incorporation” into the Fourteenth Amendment, the Fourth Amendment requires the States to provide a fair and reliable determination of probable cause as a condition for any significant pretrial restraint of liberty. Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975). The probable-cause determination “must be made by a judicial officer either before or promptly after arrest.” Id. at 125, 95 S.Ct. at 869.
443 U.S. at 142-43, 99 S.Ct. at 2694. Baker was held in jail for three days because of a mistaken identification. His arrest was pursuant to an arrest warrant issued by a magistrate which provided sufficient probable cause to hold him the three days. Burch was provided with no probable cause hearing.
Florida, through its statute, gave the defendants the authority to deliberately deprive Burch of his liberty, just as it authorized police officers in Dade County to arrest Pugh and deprive him of his liberty. The Florida statute authorizing such action on the part of the defendants, however, also required those defendants to afford Burch a due process hearing before an *808impartial magistrate. Dissenting in Par-ratt, Justice Powell stated that § 1983 “was enacted to deter real abuses by state officials in the exercise of governmental powers.” 451 U.S. at 549, 101 S.Ct. at 1920 (emphasis in original). Such an abuse occurred here.
If the philosophy of the dissent were to prevail, 42 U.S.C. § 1983 would be repealed by judicial fiat. Section 1983 guarantees a citizen access to the federal court system when state officials deprive him of a federal constitutional right without affording him a predeprivation or prompt postdepri-vation procedural due process hearing. The Supreme Court has not repealed § 1983 and neither should we.

. In Hudson, the Court discussed the application of the Fourth Amendment. Justice O'Connor, in her concurring opinion, made reference to the constitutional sources that provide protection to the property of citizens: "Those sources are the due process and the takings clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, not the search and seizure clause of the Fourth Amendment." Hudson, 468 U.S. at 540, 104 S.Ct. at 3207 (O’Connor, J., concurring). For the purposes of deciding this case, it is not necessary for us to identify whether Burch’s constitutional right derived from the Fourth or Fifth Amendments. Suffice it to say that the dissent is incorrect in urging that Burch had no constitutional right other than the right to procedural due process provided by the Fourteenth Amendment.

. The dissent argues that "the fact that the defendants acted in contravention of their duties under state law only reinforces the conclusion that the acts of deprivation were random and unauthorized," Dissent, infra at 812. The defendants did not kidnap Burch as a random act in violation of their duties as citizens under state law. Their deprivation of Burch’s freedom was authorized and done in the course of their employment as mental health professionals acting under color of and pursuant to Florida law. Their responsibility and consequent liability under § 1983 is no different from that of police officers who search a citizen’s home, arrest the citizen and detain him at the jail, all without a warrant or proceeding before a magistrate. See Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961).