Court Opinion

ID: 9477291
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:19:23.952709+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:47.895522
License: Public Domain

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in which RONEY, Chief Judge, and HILL, FAY and EDMONDSON, Circuit Judges, join:
This opinion is intended to serve two purposes. First, I dissent from the majority’s holding that Burch has stated a claim for relief on procedural due process grounds. Second, I write separately to respond to the suggestion by some members of this court that Burch’s complaint states a substantive due process claim.
I.
In Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981), a prison warden negligently lost a hobby kit which a prisoner had ordered through the mail. The prisoner sought relief in federal court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1982), alleging that he had been deprived of his property without due process of law. The Supreme Court first concluded that the plaintiff had suffered a deprivation of property in the fourteenth amendment sense, and then turned to the question of what process was due. The Court noted that the State had been foreclosed from providing a predepri-vation hearing because the deprivation had resulted from “a random and unauthorized act by a state employee,” id. at 541, 101 S.Ct. at 1916, not an “established state procedure.” Id. at 543, 101 S.Ct. at 1917. The Court observed that a deprivation such as the one suffered by the plaintiff “is in almost all cases beyond the control of the State.” Id. at 541, 101 S.Ct. at 1916. Indeed, the Court observed, “the deprivation occurred as a result of the unauthorized failure of agents of the State to follow established state procedure.” Id. at 543, 101 S.Ct. at 1917. In light of these circumstances, the Court concluded that the tort claims procedure available under state law provided all the process that the plaintiff was constitutionally due. Thus, although the plaintiff had suffered a deprivation of a protected interest, no constitutional violation had occurred. Accordingly, the plaintiff had failed to state a claim for relief under section 1983.
Properly understood in light of Parratt, our task in this case is threefold. We must first identify the nature of the deprivation that Burch has alleged. If we conclude that Burch has alleged a deprivation within the meaning of the fourteenth amendment, i.e., a deprivation of life, liberty, or property, we must then determine, guided by Parratt, whether the deprivation occurred in a manner such that the state would have been unable to provide Burch with prede-privation process. If we find that the state had no real opportunity to provide predepri-vation process, we must determine whether available state tort claims procedures are sufficient to provide the process required by the fourteenth amendment.
It cannot be disputed that involuntary mental institutionalization at some point constitutes a deprivation of a protected liberty interest. See Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418, 425, 99 S.Ct. 1804, 1809, 60 L.Ed. 2d 323 (1979). We can assume here that Burch was involuntarily institutionalized by persons acting under color of state law and that Burch has alleged a deprivation of liberty in the fourteenth amendment sense.1 As emphasized above, however, such an allegation, standing alone, is insufficient to state a claim for relief under *811section 1988. We must additionally find that Florida has foreclosed Burch from receiving that measure of process to which is constitutionally entitled in light of the deprivation.
Given the nature of the acts that precipitated the deprivation in this case, it is difficult to see how the State had any more opportunity to provide predeprivation process than did the State in Parratt. As the plurality notes, Florida law establishes certain statutory procedures governing involuntary commitment. See Fla.Stat. § 394.463 (1981) (amended 1984). The Florida legislature designed these procedures to ensure that persons would not be wrongly deprived of liberty. The deprivation alleged by Burch was suffered at the hands of state employees acting in contravention of the statutory procedures. The State surely could not anticipate ees would act in a manner contrary to its express command. Thus, like the warden’s actions in Parratt, the employees’ actions here were “beyond the control of the State” and “random and unauthorized.” And, like the deprivation in Parratt, the deprivation here “occurred as the result of the unauthorized failure of agents of the State to follow established state procedure.” The conclusion that the State here, like the State in Parratt, had no real opportunity to provide predeprivation process therefore seems inescapable.
The plurality2 struggles to avoid this conclusion by arguing that the defendants in this case had “state-clothed authority” to deprive Burch of his liberty. The plurality apparently reasons that since the defendants were required by Florida law to ob*812serve certain predeprivation procedures,3 their failure to do so somehow made their actions neither “random” nor “unauthorized” as those terms are used in Parratt.4 The logic of this argument escapes me. It could not be clearer that nothing in Florida law “authorized” the defendants to deprive persons of protected interests. Indeed, as already noted, the Florida legislature had established a detailed scheme designed to protect against such deprivations. To my mind, 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.
The controlling inquiry under Parratt, which the plurality takes great pains to finesse, is whether the State could have anticipated the acts of deprivation such that it would have been in a position to provide predeprivation process. The State simply cannot anticipate acts of deprivation by state employees acting in contravention of their express duties under state law. See Vinson v. Campbell County Fiscal Court, 820 F.2d 194, 199 (6th Cir.1987).5 *813The line of reasoning the plurality uses to hold otherwise was expressly rejected by the Supreme Court in Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984). In Hudson, the Court made the following observations:
[the respondent] contends that, because an agent of the state who intends to deprive a person of his property ‘can provide predeprivation process, then as a matter of due process he must do so.’ ... This argument reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of Parratt. There we held that postdeprivation procedures satisfy due process because the state cannot possibly know in advance of a negligent deprivation of property. Whether an individual employee himself is able to foresee a deprivation is simply of no consequence. The controlling inquiry is solely whether the state is in a position to provide for predepri-vation process.
Id. at 535, 104 S.Ct. at 3204 (emphasis added).
Our recent decision in Fetner v. City of Roanoke, 813 F.2d 1183 (11th Cir.1987), is consistent with Hudson. Fetner involved a city council’s termination of a city employee. The employee sued under section 1983, alleging that he had been deprived of a protected property interest without due process. The court concluded that Parratt did not apply. As the court noted, the termination was an "act of the City’s highest governing board.” Id. at 1185. Thus, since the city council members were the final policymakers with respect to termination policy, the acts precipitating the alleged deprivation were plainly neither random nor unauthorized. Accordingly, the council members had “ample time to give [the employee] notice and offer him an opportunity to be heard before they fired him.” Id.
Here, in contrast to Fetner, the relevant final policymaking function did not reside with the agents whose acts precipitated the deprivation. Indeed, those agents acted in contravention of the stated policy of the relevant final policymaker, in this case the State. Under Parratt and Hudson, we must ask whether the final policymaker was in a position to anticipate the deprivation and thus provide predeprivation process. I do not see how we could answer that question otherwise than in the negative.
Under Parratt, if the State cannot anticipate a deprivation and is therefore unable to provide predeprivation process, state tort claims procedures may accord the plaintiff all the process due him under the fourteenth amendment. I would find that available Florida procedures accord the required measure of process.
If Burch can prove the facts he alleges in his complaint, he will be able to recover damages from defendant Apalachee Community Mental Health Services (ACMHS) under Florida law. Sovereign immunity will pose no obstacle; Florida has partially waived its sovereign immunity in its own courts. See Fla.Stat. § 768.28 (1981).6 With respect to his claims against the Florida State Hospital (FSH) employees, Burch also has available to him state remedies adequate to provide the process due. Fla. *814Stat. § 394.459(13) (1981) provides that “[a]ny person who violates ... [the mental health act] shall be liable for damages.” Although the statute excepts from liability persons who acted in good faith, it does not except persons merely because they acted negligently rather than intentionally.7 Furthermore, Burch has a state law remedy for false imprisonment, see Johnson v. Weiner, 155 Fla. 169, 19 So.2d 699, 700 (1944) (person who has been “unlawfully] restrain[ed] against his will” has actionable claim for false imprisonment), which, unlike the statutory remedy, has no good-faith limitation.
Thus, I would hold that Burch has failed to state a claim for relief under section 1983. Although he has alleged a deprivation of a protected interest, no constitutional violation has been worked against him because the State has not denied him the measure of process due under the fourteenth amendment.8
*815II.
Some members of this court would conclude, as an alternative holding, that Burch has been denied a substantive constitutional right. Ante at 803 (Johnson, J., specially concurring).9 For the reasons stated below, I would view such a holding as entirely unwarranted.
First, as the panel noted, Burch never raised a substantive due process claim. Burch v. Apalachee Community Mental Health Servs., 804 F.2d 1549, 1553 (11th Cir.1986). During oral argument before the en banc court, Burch’s counsel was asked if the complaint or the documents appended to the complaint contained any allegations that could be characterized as “deprivations of substantive rights.” Burch’s counsel replied, with commendable candor, “I do not know that I have alleged any violation of substantive rights.” After carefully scrutinizing Burch’s complaint, I too am unable to discern any such allegations.
Moreover, we are precluded from finding a substantive due process violation to the extent that Burch was mentally ill at the time of his confinement. This court has characterized substantive due process claims as “claims alleging] that [the governmental conduct in question] would remain unjustified even if it were accompanied by the most stringent of procedural safeguards.” 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). There can be no question that the State, if it provides, appropriate procedures, may confine mentally ill persons. As the Supreme Court has observed, the State has a legitimate interest in effecting such confinement:
The state has a legitimate interest under its parens patriae powers in providing care to its citizens who are unable because of emotional disorders to care for themselves; the state also has authority under its police power to protect the community from the dangerous tendencies of some who are mentally ill.
Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418, 426, 99 S.Ct. 1804, 1809, 60 L.Ed.2d 323 (1979). Thus, to the extent that Burch was mentally ill at the time of his confinement, he is, under the definition set forth in Gilmere, precluded from stating a substantive due process claim.
When Burch was first admitted to ACMHS, he was obviously suffering from a mental illness. In the words of the plurality, he was “hallucinating, confused, disoriented, and clearly psychotic.” Ante at 799. To state a substantive due process claim, then, Burch would have to allege two things: (1) that he recovered from his illness at some point during his confinement, asked to leave, and was not permitted to leave, and (2) that the State, by not permitting him to leave under such circumstances, violated a substantive right guaranteed Burch under the Constitution.
We can assume for the sake of argument that Burch’s complaint adequately alleges that he recovered from his illness at some point during his confinement and was not permitted to leave. In such a case, Burch’s complaint would be that he was falsely imprisoned by state employees acting contrary to statutorily prescribed procedures. This allegation, however, would not by it> *816self be enough to support a substantive due process claim. The fourteenth amendment standing alone does not create a right to be free from false imprisonment by state employees. See Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 146, 99 S.Ct. 2689, 2696, 61 L.Ed.2d 433 (1979) (“[F]alse imprisonment does not become a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment merely because the defendant is a state official.”). It may be that such a right can be inferred from one or more of the amendments contained in the Bill of Rights, and is incorporated through the fourteenth amendment so as to be applicable to the states. But where in the Bill of Rights the framers implicitly articulate this right? Did 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”? Or did they implicitly articulate it in the eighth amendment, which provides that “cruel and unusual punishment [shall not be] inflicted”? Or did they somehow articulate it in the first, fifth, or sixth amendments?
Unless the members of the court who would hold that Burch has stated a violation of a substantive right can identify in the Constitution a substantive basis for that right, their analysis breaks down into an argument that substantive due process is implicated whenever an individual acting under color of state law engages in simple tortious conduct. Presented with such conduct, a court need only invoke the “antithetical to fundamental notions of due process” label in order to find a compensable substantive violation. Substantive due process claims under section 1983 thereby take on a dimension wholly independent of the substantive guarantees actually contained in the Constitution, a dimension as broad as the universe of common law tort theory. The Supreme Court has repeatedly admonished us that the fourteenth amendment is not “a font of tort law to be superimposed upon whatever systems may already be administered by the States.” Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693, 701, 96 S.Ct. 1155, 1160, 47 L.Ed.2d 405 (1976). Yet nothing in the proposed analysis would prevent a court from, for example, transforming a garden variety common law libel action against a state employee into a section 1983 substantive due process claim.
The members of the court who would hold that Burch has stated a substantive due process claim apparently rely on this court’s en banc decision in Gilmere v. City of Atlanta, 774 F.2d 1495 (1985), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1115, 106 S.Ct. 1970, 90 L.Ed.2d 654 (1986), a case also involving a substantive due process claim in the money damages context. Gilmere, I submit, suffers from the same infirmity that I have identified here. See id. at 1505 (Tjoflat, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). In that case, the court created a substantive constitutional right, independent of the fourth amendment, to be free from unreasonable and unnecessary force during police-citizen encounters. The court did so without indicating where in the Bill of Rights it found this substantive guarantee. Rather, the court justified its holding through selective quotations from Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 72 S.Ct. 205, 96 L.Ed. 183 (1952). See Gilmere, 774 F.2d at 1500 (“[S]ubstantive due process is violated by state conduct that ‘shocks the conscience’ or constitutes force that is ‘brutal’ and such as ‘to offend even hardened sensibilities.’”) (quoting Rochin, 342 U.S. at 172-73, 72 S.Ct. at 209). In my view, the Gilmere court clearly read Rochin out of context. Rochin involved a criminal case in which the defendant’s conviction had been based chiefly on evidence pumped from his stomach. The issue before the Supreme Court was not whether an individual has a substantive due process right not to have his stomach pumped; rather, it was whether the admission of evidence so obtained rendered the defendant’s trial and conviction fundamentally unfair. Accordingly, Rochin does not speak to the issue of what kinds of claims would support a damages action based on the denial of substantive due process.10
*817Even under the standards set forth in Gilmere, however, Burch’s complaint does not state a substantive due process claim. As noted above, the en banc court in Gil-mere held that an individual can state a claim for damages under section 1983 provided that the state conduct of which he complains is “brutal” and “shocks the conscience.” The en banc court cited the following factors as appropriate for determining whether a substantive due process violation has occurred:
[A] court must look to such factors as the need for the application of force, the relationship between the need and the amount of force that was used, the extent of injury inflicted, and whether force was applied in a good faith effort to maintain or restore discipline or maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm.
Gilmere, 774 F.2d at 1500-01 (quoting Johnson v. Glick, 481 F.2d 1028, 1033 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1033, 94 S.Ct. 462, 38 L.Ed.2d 324 (1973)). In the present case, the State provided treatment to an individual who was from all accounts clearly psychotic. The individual had been brought to the State by a concerned citizen who found the individual wandering along a highway. It is very difficult for me to see how the State’s conduct in confining and treating this individual can be characterized as sadistic, malicious, or shocking to the conscience.11

. I assume only that Burch’s confinement constituted a deprivation of liberty in the fourteenth amendment sense. The fact that Burch may have been denied the statutory procedures prescribed by Fla.Stat. § 394.463 (1981) (amended 1984) does not implicate any interest cognizable under the fourteenth amendment. Burch may of course have a colorable claim that the defendants failed to follow the statutory procedures. But the eleventh amendment bars a federal court from granting relief against state officials on the ground that they violated state law. See Pennhurst State School & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 104 S.Ct. 900, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1984).

. Although eight of the thirteen members of the en banc court agree with Judge Johnson’s conclusion that Burch's complaint states a procedural due process claim for relief, only six judges have joined in Judge Johnson’s opinion. Judge Anderson, joined by Judge Godbold, would hold that Burch has stated a claim for relief on procedural due process grounds because he "has sufficiently alleged a deprivation pursuant to an established state procedure.” Ante at 808 (Anderson, J., specially concurring).
If Burch’s complaint did in fact contain such an allegation, I would agree that the Parratt analysis does not apply. I do not agree, however, with Judge Anderson’s reading of the complaint. Judge Anderson relies heavily on a letter that Burch appended to his complaint as "Exhibit G.” That letter, sent to Burch by the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, indicates that the administration of the Florida State Hospital had been “made aware that they were very likely asking medicated patients to make decisions at a time when they were not mentally competent.”
This letter is an insufficient basis for reading Burch's complaint as making an allegation that he was wrongfully confined pursuant to an “established state procedure." To begin with, the letter does not say that the alleged error was common or routine. Nor does it show that the State condoned the behavior; indeed, it shows precisely the contrary. Moreover, it is highly questionable whether the exhibits attached to Burch’s complaint can even be characterized as comprising part of Burch’s allegations. Such exhibits are best characterized as evidence of the allegations presented in the typed complaint, and evidentiary matter of this kind can and should be deleted from the pleadings. See In re Beef Indus. Antitrust Litig., 600 F.2d 1148, 1169 (5th Cir.1979); Control Data Corp. v. International Business Macks. Corp., 421 F.2d 323, 326 (8th Cir.1970).
Even assuming that evidentiary exhibits, properly cross-referenced, can be viewed as part of the allegations in a complaint, nothing in Burch’s typed complaint directed the district judge’s attention to the specific sentence that Judge Anderson identifies as critical. The typed complaint referred to Exhibit G only in the following manner: "Para. 27. Defendants, 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 [Florida State Hospital]. See Exhibit G attached hereto and incorporated herein.” The letter evidences the allegation in paragraph 27 because it contains the statement that Burch was "probably not competent to be signing legal documents” at the time of his admission to Florida State Hospital. Thus, in the single instance where the typed complaint contained a cross-reference to Exhibit G, the allegation being made was not that Burch was wrongfully confined pursuant to some established state procedure, but rather that Burch was incompetent to sign a consent form.
At some point, the liberality of construction afforded pleadings must be circumscribed by the “plain statement” rule of Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a). The vague sentence that Judge Anderson identifies as critical was buried in the more than twenty pages of evidentiary exhibits attached to Burch’s complaint. In this context, it is patently unrealistic to expect the district judge to have seized upon that sentence and to have imagined that it set forth an allegation that the defendants’ conduct was so customary as to make the Parratt analysis inapplicable.

. In focusing on the commitment procedures that Florida has statutorily prescribed, the plurality confuses two distinct due process concepts. A focus on state law would be appropriate were we in the position of a reviewing court deciding whether to order the release of a person being confined pursuant to an order issued under state law. In such a case, we would examine the procedures pursuant to which the confinement had been effected; if those procedures did not comport with the requirements of due process, we would issue an order requiring that the person be afforded a new hearing incorporating the procedures required by the Constitution. Cf. Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418, 99 S.Ct. 1804, 60 L.Ed.2d 323 (1979).
This case presents a due process issue of a wholly different nature. Burch, now released, claims that he was deprived during his confinement of a liberty interest by state employees who did not follow certain confinement procedures mandated by state law. Presented with such a claim, our task as directed by the Supreme Court is to determine whether, given the manner in which the alleged deprivation occurred, available postdeprivation redress in state court would provide Burch all the process he is due under the fourteenth amendment. If it would, Parratt tells us that no constitutional violation has occurred; the State has not denied Burch the process to which he is constitutionally due. Under clear Supreme Court precedent, see supra note 1, the fact that the state employees may have violated a state law in connection with the deprivation cannot support Burch's effort to state a section 1983 claim.

. By discussing whether the deprivation was "random" and "unauthorized" as those terms are used in Parratt, the majority implicitly accepts the notion that Parratt can apply to deprivations of liberty as well as deprivations of property. As the panel noted in its opinion, there is no basis for treating deprivations of life, liberty, and property differently insofar as the due process requirements of the fourteenth amendment are concerned. See Burch v. Apalachee Community Mental Health Servs., 804 F.2d 1549, 1554 (11th Cir.1986). This view is consistent with Lynch v. Household Fin. Corp., 405 U.S. 538, 92 S.Ct. 1113, 31 L.Ed.2d 424 (1972), wherein the Supreme Court stated that
the dichotomy between personal liberties and property rights is a false one. Property does not have rights. The right to enjoy property without unlawful deprivation, no less than the right to speak or the right to travel, is in truth, a personal right, whether the 'property' in question be a welfare check, a home, or a savings account.
Id. at 552, 92 S.Ct. at 1122. In Parratt itself, the Supreme Court relied on a case involving a liberty deprivation. See Parratt, 451 U.S. at 542-43, 101 S.Ct. at 1916-17 (citing Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 97 S.Ct. 1401, 51 L.Ed.2d 711 (1977)).

.Like the present case, Vinson involved a section 1983 action brought by a plaintiff claiming to have been falsely imprisoned as the result of conduct by a state employee acting in contravention of a duty imposed by the State. In Vinson, a probation officer employed by a county juvenile services department procured a summons requiring the plaintiff to appear at a hearing regarding her children's failure to attend school. The probation officer procured the summons in a manner that allegedly violated state law. The plaintiff did not comply with the summons, and was subsequently arrested for failing to appear at the hearing. She was confined for ten days and then released. Upon her release, she brought suit in federal district court, alleging inter alia that she had been deprived of procedural due process with respect to her confinement. The district court dismissed the claim, holding that (1) the state could not have anticipated the probation officer's actions, and (2) the plaintiff could file in state court an action for false imprisonment or abuse of process.
The Sixth Circuit, relying on Parratt, affirmed this part of the district court’s ruling. The court of appeals reasoned that “the state could not have predicted that the [summons] procedure would not be followed and was in no position to provide predeprivation process because [the probation officer’s] procurement of the alleg*813edly invalid summons, which resulted in the alleged false imprisonment, was a random and unauthorized act.” Vinson, 820 F.2d at 199. Thus, the Sixth Circuit has recognized that the key inquiry is whether the State could have anticipated the deprivation such that it would have been in a position to provide predeprivation process. More importantly, the Sixth Circuit has rejected the notion, central to the plurality’s analysis here, that Parratt has no application where the defendant acted in violation of an express duty imposed by state law.

. At the time Burch’s cause of action arose, Florida’s sovereign immunity law stated as follows:
[ajctions at law against the state or any of its agencies or subdivisions to recover damages in tort ... for injury ... caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the agency or subdivision while acting within the scope of his office or employment under circumstances in which ... a private person, would be liable to the claimant.
Fla.Stat. § 768.28(1) (1981). The State has since amended the statute, but it adheres to the partial waiver of sovereign immunity.

. The law also limits the amount of money a claimant can recover from the State, and requires that a plaintiff submit a claim to the State within three years after it arises. None of these limitations, however, is so unreasonable as to deny Burch an "adequate” state remedy. See Parratt, 451 U.S. at 544, 101 S.Ct. at 1917 (“Although the state remedies may not provide ... all the relief which may have been available ... under § 1983, that does not mean that the state remedies are not adequate to satisfy the requirements of due process.").

. Judge Clark, concurring in the plurality’s opinion, concludes that this case is controlled by the Supreme Court's decision in Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U.S. 422, 102 S.Ct. 1148, 71 L.Ed.2d 265 (1982). I cannot agree.
Logan did not involve a civil rights action brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1982). Logan involved a procedure before the Illinois Fair Employment Practices Commission. Under the Illinois Fair Employment Practices Act, a complainant had 180 days to lodge a charge of employment discrimination with the commission. The commission then had 120 days to convene a factfinding conference. Logan, an aggrieved employee, filed a timely charge, but the commission scheduled the factfinding conference for a date five days after the 120-day period. Logan’s former employer then moved the commission to dismiss the complaint on the ground that a timely conference had not been held. The commission denied the motion, and the employer sought a writ of prohibition to prevent the commission from holding the conference and granting relief. The Illinois Supreme Court granted the writ, holding that dismissal of Logan’s complaint was required because the 120-day convening requirement was a jurisdictional prerequisite. The supreme court further held that the dismissal, even though it effectively denied Logan his day in court, did not violate any of Logan’s rights under the equal protection or due process clauses of the fourteenth amendment.
Logan then appealed the Illinois Supreme Court’s decision to the United States Supreme Court. Logan, 455 U.S. at 428, 102 S.Ct. at 1153. A proper depiction of the posture of the case before the Supreme Court is as follows: Logan, having been prevented by the Illinois court from prosecuting his employment discrimination claim, was requesting the Supreme Court to hold that the Illinois court system had arbitrarily denied him full use of the adjudicatory procedures established under Illinois law. As the Supreme Court made clear, the issue before it was whether the Illinois court had exceeded constitutional limitations by dismissing Logan’s complaint. Id. at 429, 102 S.Ct. at 1154 (“[T]he Due Process Clauses protect civil litigants who seek recourse in the courts, either as defendants hoping to protect their property or as plaintiffs attempting to redress grievances.”). Reaching the merits, the Supreme Court held that Logan’s employment discrimination claim was a constitutionally protected property interest and that Logan was entitled to have his complaint processed. The ruling of the Illinois Supreme Court thus having been reversed, Logan was free to proceed with the prosecution of his claim.
As seen in the light of its true posture, then, Logan bears scant resemblance to the present case. This case does not involve a denial of due process by the Florida court system. Burch’s complaint is not that the Florida court system denied him due process by, for example, foreclosing him from demonstrating his competence in a competency hearing that had been convened pursuant to state law. If that had been the case, this litigation would have taken a wholly different path: Burch’s case, like the case in Logan, would have first found its way to the state appellate courts; if they rejected Burch’s constitutional claims, he would have appealed to the United States Supreme Court. The question before the Supreme Court would then have been whether the state court system had impermissibly interfered with Burch’s right to litigate his competence at the competency hearing and thereby secure release from the state hospital.
It should be obvious that Parran is inapplicable in a case presenting that kind of question. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the Supreme Court in Logan had dismissed the appeal on the ground that available state tort procedures provided Logan with all the process that was due. Presumably, the defendants in the contemplated tort action would be those *815persons responsible for the deprivation — the judges whose ruling allegedly denied Logan due process. We can assume an absence of judicial immunity. The basis of the tort action would be that the judges had wrongfully prevented Logan from making full use of the employment discrimination adjudicatory procedures. It is obvious, however, that any such claim would be precluded: since the United States Supreme Court had dismissed Logan’s appeal, the Illinois Supreme Court's ruling adverse to Logan would remain in effect and would estop Logan from claiming that he had been wrongfully denied full use of the employment discrimination adjudicatory procedures.
The Parratt analysis therefore could not have been intended to apply in cases where, as in Logan, the claim is that the state court system has denied the claimant due process and the claimant is seeking relief on appeal to the Supreme Court. In this sense, the due process claim in a case such as Logan is analytically indistinguishable from the claim in an appeal from a state conviction where the defendant contends that the trial judge denied him due process by, for example, admitting a coerced confession.

. Only five members of the thirteen-member en banc court agree with that conclusion.

. Furthermore, the Gilmere court ignored the historical context in which Rochin was decided. Rochin was decided in 1952, nine years before the Supreme Court decided that the fourth *817amendment was incorporated through the fourteenth amendment so as to apply to the states. See Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961). The result in Rochin was the same result that would have been reached had the fourth amendment been applied. Ro-chin therefore does not support the proposition that due process comprehends a body of substantive rights independent of the guarantees actually contained in the Constitution. Rochin can be viewed as a harbinger of Mapp’s holding that the fourteenth amendment incorporated the fourth amendment. This analysis also applies to other early decisions in which the Court ostensibly gave a broad reading to the concept of due process. Thus, for example, prior to the incorporation of the first amendment, the Court used a general concept of due process to invalidate a state law prohibiting private religious schools. See Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 45 S.Ct. 571, 69 L.Ed. 1070 (1925).

. Applying the factors set forth in Gilmere, the only allegation that even suggests a substantive due process violation must be inferred from a letter appended, along with several other documents, to Burch’s complaint. That letter, dated April 4, 1984, contains a reference to a beating Burch allegedly received at the hands of one Benny Johnson, an FSH attendant. It is highly questionable whether a reference in a letter appended to a complaint can suffice to state a claim. See supra note 2. Yet even assuming that a beating was sufficiently stated as a ground for relief, the complaint would still have to be dismissed because Benny Johnson is not named as a defendant in the complaint and we are precluded from basing FSH’s liability under section 1983 on a respondeat superior theory. See generally Monett v. New York City Dept. of Social Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978).