Court Opinion

ID: 9477288
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:19:23.941689+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:47.883246
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring in which VANCE, KRAVITCH, HATCHETT, Circuit Judges, and TUTTLE, Senior Circuit Judge, join:
I write separately to set forth why I believe Burch’s complaint has actually raised a claim for a substantive due process violation and why, on the merits, Burch has stated a claim upon which relief could be granted for such a violation. Substantive due process claims “are outside the scope of Parratt because the constitutional violation is complete at the moment when the harm occurs. The existence of state postdeprivation remedies therefore has no bearing on whether the plaintiff has a constitutional claim.” Gilmere v. City of Atlanta, 774 F.2d 1495, 1500 (11th Cir.1985) (en banc), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1115, 106 S.Ct. 1970, 90 L.Ed.2d 654 (1986). A liberal construction of the pleadings indicates that Burch has sufficiently raised a claim for a substantive due process violation. Significantly, paragraphs 13 and 28 of the complaint allege that the appellees “deprived Plaintiff of his liberty without due process of law in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United *804States Constitution.” This allegation can encompass both substantive and procedural due process violations; Burch does not allege only deprivation of liberty “without procedural due process of law.”
In addition, paragraphs 9 and 27 contain allegations of specific actions by the appel-lees that, if true, state a claim upon which relief could be granted for a substantive due process violation.1 In these two paragraphs, Burch alleges that he was detained and treated against his will for 152 days without any judicial determination that the state properly could detain and treat him.
In Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715, 92 S.Ct. 1845, 32 L.Ed.2d 435 (1972), the Supreme Court held that a state’s indefinite commitment of a criminal defendant solely on account of his incompetency to stand trial violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process requirement. From the Jackson reasoning, especially here in light of the state’s extended deprivation of Burch’s liberty, I would conclude that, when the state held and treated Burch beyond a reasonable time after which a hearing should have been held, Burch’s detention and treatment gave rise to a claim for a substantive due process violation. I ground this conclusion in the belief that the governmental action of which Burch complains belongs to the species of conduct that is unjustified because it is, in and of itself, antithetical to fundamental notions of due process. See Gilmere, 774 F.2d at 1499.2
One final observation is in order. This Court recently noted that “a litigant proceeding in good faith has a right to use civil discovery in [an] attempt[] to prove the existence of a colorable claim for relief.” Collins v. Walden, 834 F.2d 961, 965 (11th Cir.1987). Today, this Court determines that Burch has stated a claim upon which relief could be granted for a procedural due process violation and thus has remanded the case to the district court. On remand, if Burch’s use of the discovery process produces evidence to support a claim for a substantive due process violation, he has the right to amend his pleadings so that his pleadings conform with this evidence.

. Paragraph 9 provides:
Defendant [Apalachee Community Mental Health Services, Inc.] confined and imprisoned Plaintiff against his will from December 7, 1981 to December 10, 1981. Without authorization from Plaintiff, Defendant ACMHS examined and treated him during the same period and administered heavy medications to him with force and duress. Plaintiff was not represented by counsel and no hearing of any sort was held at which he could have challenged his involuntary commitment and treatment.
Paragraph 27 provides:
Defendants [Florida State Hospital employees], and each of them, knew or should have known that Plaintiff was incapable of voluntary, knowing, understanding and informed consent to admission and treatment at FSH. See Exhibit G attached hereto and incorporated herein. Nonetheless, Defendants, and each of them, seized Plaintiff and against Plaintiffs will confined and imprisoned him and subjected him to involuntary commitment and treatment for the period from December 10, 1981, to May 7, 1982. For said period of 149 days, Plaintiff was without the benefit of counsel and no hearing of any sort was held at which he could have challenged his involuntary admission and treatment at FSH.

. Although during the en banc oral argument Burch’s attorney stated in response to questioning that "I don’t know that I have alleged any violations of substantive rights,” follow-up questioning revealed that the complaint and its incorporated exhibits contained allegations of substantive due process violations. This followup colloquy is consistent with my conclusion that, when the state held and treated Burch beyond a reasonable time after which a hearing should have been held, Burch’s detention and treatment gave rise to a claim for a substantive due process violation.