Santamorena v. Georgia Military College

Decision Date31 July 1998
Docket NumberNo. 97-9214,97-9214
Citation147 F.3d 1337
Parties127 Ed. Law Rep. 662, 11 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 1642 Yasmin SANTAMORENA, individually and as next friend of H.S., a minor, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. GEORGIA MILITARY COLLEGE, Peter J. Boylan, General, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Donald W. Osborne, David Lawrence Turner, Schulten, Ward & Turner, Atlanta, GA, Fred Bryan Wachter, Marietta, GA, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Carol Atha Cosgrove, Atlanta, GA, for Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Before EDMONDSON and BIRCH, Circuit Judges, and LAWSON *, District Judge.

EDMONDSON, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff appeals the district court's dismissal of her claim--a claim brought on behalf of Plaintiff and Plaintiff's minor daughter--that Defendants, Georgia Military College ("GMC") and several of its officials, violated Plaintiff's and her daughter's substantive due process rights. Because we agree with the district court that the individual Defendants are entitled to qualified immunity, we affirm. 1

Background

GMC is a state-run institution that serves as both a high school and a college. Plaintiff's daughter, H.S., was a 13-year-old high school freshman enrolled at GMC. 2 According to GMC policy, high school freshmen were required to stay on campus and to live in the barracks for the first four weeks of school. During this period, only the high school was in session; but GMC's college football team was on campus for pre-season training.

Before enrolling H.S. at GMC, H.S.'s parents inquired about security on the campus. In response to these concerns, several school officials represented to H.S.'s parents that H.S. would be adequately protected. School officials specifically told H.S.'s parents these things: that H.S. would be housed in a room near a school official's--Defendant Major Banks's--living quarters; that an adult supervisor would be assigned to H.S.'s barracks and available at all times; that a piece of sliding cardboard would be placed on the inside of the observation window in the door to H.S.'s room so that she could observe visitors; that security personnel would be present in the barracks to monitor visitors; and that a nightly bed check would be conducted to ensure that all students were in their rooms by 10:00 p.m.

About one week after H.S. arrived at GMC, she and her roommate (the other female high school student at GMC) were moved to a room in the opposite wing from the room in which the two were originally placed. No other school personnel or students lived in that wing of the barracks, and this new room was some distance from Major Banks's living quarters. In addition, the new room had a wooden board nailed to the observation window of the door--not a piece of sliding cardboard--which prevented H.S. from observing and identifying visitors.

On 1 September 1995, after being moved to the new room, H.S. was awakened by a knock on her door. H.S. opened the door and allowed GMC college football player, Kareem Holmes, to enter her room. Holmes then raped H.S.

Plaintiff, the parent of H.S., asserts that on the night of the attack, no security personnel were present to monitor the barracks, no bed check was conducted, and all supervisory responsibility for the barracks had been delegated to Defendant Major Banks. Major Banks was left in charge because Lt. Diane Ortega, the official actually assigned to supervise the main barracks and the female hall on the night of the incident, was not on campus.

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Plaintiff's claim is based on the rape of H.S. by a private third party on the campus of GMC while H.S. was a resident high school student there. Plaintiff alleges that GMC and GMC officials--by failing to protect H.S. from harm by a private actor (Holmes)--violated H.S.'s Fourteenth Amendment rights to personal security and to physical integrity and violated Plaintiff's related right to maintain family integrity. 3 The district court dismissed the complaint, before discovery, concluding in relevant part that the individual Defendants were entitled to qualified immunity. Plaintiff appeals the dismissal of her complaint against the individual Defendants--General Peter J. Boylan, Colonel Frederick Van Horn, Major Walter Banks, and Sergeant Larry Swint 4--challenging the district court's conclusion that these Defendants were entitled to qualified immunity.

Discussion

"Qualified immunity protects government officials performing discretionary functions from civil trials ... and from liability if their conduct violates no clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Lassiter v. Alabama A & M Univ. 28 F.3d 1146, 1149 (11th Cir.1994) (en banc) (internal quotations and citations omitted). 5 To overcome this immunity, Plaintiff has the burden of pointing to case law which "pre-date[s] the offic[ial]'s alleged improper conduct, involve[s] materially similar facts, and 'truly compel[s]' the conclusion that the plaintiff had a right under federal law." 6 Ensley v. Soper, 142 F.3d 1402, 1406 (11th Cir.1998) (citing Lassiter, 28 F.3d at 1150).

Defendants "assert[ed] the defense of qualified immunity in a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, and they are entitled to qualified immunity at this stage in the proceedings if [Plaintiff's] complaint fails to allege a violation of a clearly established constitutional right." Williams v. Alabama State Univ., 102 F.3d 1179, 1182 (11th Cir.1997). Whether the complaint alleges the violation of a clearly established right is a question of law, which we review de novo. See id. In deciding this case, we accept all facts alleged in the complaint as true and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party, Plaintiff. See id.

Plaintiff recognizes that her complaint, which is premised on a violation of the Due Process Clause, 7 is based on the rape of her daughter, not by a school official, but by a private third party. And, "nothing in the language of the Due Process Clause itself requires the State to protect the life, liberty, and property of its citizens against invasion by private actors." DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dep't of Social Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 109 S.Ct. 998, 1003, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989). "As a general matter, ... a State's failure to protect an individual against private violence simply does not constitute a violation of the Due Process Clause." Id. at 1004. 8

But "in certain limited circumstances the Constitution imposes upon the State affirmative duties of care and protection with respect to particular individuals." Id. Where "the State takes a person into its custody and holds him there against his will ... the Constitution imposes upon [the State] a corresponding duty to assume some responsibility for his safety and general well-being." Id. at 1005. Thus, a duty may be imposed on States to protect involuntarily committed mental patients, prisoners, and involuntarily placed foster children. See, e.g., Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307, 102 S.Ct. 2452, 73 L.Ed.2d 28 (1982) (mental patients); Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 97 S.Ct. 285, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976) (prisoners); Taylor v. Ledbetter, 818 F.2d 791 (11th Cir.1987) (foster children).

The question presented in this case is whether, given the status of the preexisting law, the Defendants, at the pertinent time, clearly owed Plaintiff or H.S. some constitutional duty to protect H.S. based on the voluntary, custodial relationship between H.S. and GMC. So, we consider cases where we have talked about the possibility of a constitutional duty when the State has a "special relationship" with either the victim or the perpetrator. See Wyke v. Polk County Sch. Bd., 129 F.3d 560 (11th Cir.1997); Mitchell v. Duval County Sch. Bd., 107 F.3d 837 (11th Cir.1997); Cornelius v. Town of Highland Lake, 880 F.2d 348 (11th Cir.1989).

"The contours of what constitutes a 'special relationship' between a [State institution] acting through its officials, and its citizens are hazy and indistinct." Wideman v. Shallowford Comm. Hosp., Inc., 826 F.2d 1030, 1035 (11th Cir.1987) (quoting Ellsworth v. City of Racine, 774 F.2d 182, 185 (7th Cir.1985)). During oral argument, Plaintiff's counsel acknowledged that whether a voluntary, instead of an involuntary, custodial arrangement between the State and a citizen could give rise to a special relationship, and thus a constitutional duty, remains "unclear" in this circuit. But still Plaintiff argues that the preexisting law was somehow so clearly established that Defendants should not be protected by qualified immunity.

Plaintiff points us to three cases, which Plaintiff claims clearly established that GMC owed a constitutional duty to H.S.: Taylor v. Ledbetter, 818 F.2d 791 (11th Cir.1987); Cornelius v. Town of Highland Lake, 880 F.2d 348 (11th Cir.1989); and Spivey v. Elliott, 29 F.3d 1522 (11th Cir.1994). None of these cases, however, provide the "bright line" necessary to delineate the concrete circumstances in which officials will violate the Constitution. See Lassiter, 28 F.3d at 1150 ("If case law, in factual terms, has not staked out a bright line, qualified immunity almost always protects the defendant.") (internal quotations and citations omitted).

When considering whether the law applicable to certain facts is clearly established, the facts of cases relied upon as precedent are important. The facts need not be the same as the facts of the immediate case. But they do need to be materially similar.... Public officials are not obligated to be creative or imaginative in drawing analogies from previously decided cases. 9

Lassiter, 28 F.3d at 1150 (quoting Adams v. St. Lucie County Sheriff's Dep't, 962 F.2d 1563, 1575 (11th Cir.1992) (Edmondson, J., dissenting), approved en banc, 998 F.2d 923 (11th Cir.1993)).

Given the facts, the cases relied on by Pl...

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