Ziegler v. Aukerman

• Decision Date: 14 January 2008
• Docket Number: No. 06-2618.,06-2618.
• Citation: 512 F.3d 777
• Parties: Susan ZIEGLER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Desiree AUKERMAN; Donna Brown; W.A. Foote Memorial Hospital, Defendants, Daniel Jonoshies, Defendant-Appellee, Dispatcher Roe; Jackson County, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

512 F.3d 777

Susan ZIEGLER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Desiree AUKERMAN; Donna Brown; W.A. Foote Memorial Hospital, Defendants Daniel Jonoshies, Defendant-Appellee Dispatcher Roe; Jackson County, Defendants.

No. 06-2618.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: October 23, 2007.

Decided and Filed: January 14, 2008.

ARGUED:

Elizabeth S. Warner, Jackson, Michigan, for Appellant. D. Randall Gilmer, Kupelian, Ormond & Magy, Southfield, Michigan, for Appellee.

ON BRIEF:

Elizabeth S. Warner, Jackson, Michigan, for Appellant. D. Randall Gilmer, G. Gus Morris, Kupelian, Ormond & Magy, Southfield, Michigan, for Appellee.

Before: KEITH and ROGERS, Circuit Judges; ALDRICH, District Judge.^*

OPINION

DAMON J. KEITH, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff Susan Ziegler appeals the district court decision granting summary judgment to Defendant Daniel Jonoshies, a police officer in the Springport Township Police Department, in this civil rights action filed under 42 U.S.C. 1983. We hold that the district court applied an incorrect legal standard in determining Defendant's summary judgment motion. However, because we also believe that applying the proper legal standard to the district court's findings of fact will not alter the outcome of that court's decision, we AFFIRM the district court's grant of summary judgment for Defendant.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

On the night of June 16, 2004, Plaintiff alleges that she went to W.A. Foote Me morial Hospital "to get a referral to an outpatient counselor to talk about some family problems." (J.A. 9.) According to hospital records, Plaintiff's husband brought her to the hospital because she was depressed and became suicidal. She arrived at the hospital at about 8 p.m. In the first half hour, Plaintiff allegedly reported that she was suicidal and planned to drive her car into a tree.¹ At 9:40 p.m., Plaintiff asked to go outside with her husband. She did not return, and when hospital staff could not locate her, police were notified and sent to Plaintiff's home. At 11:00 p.m., Plaintiff reappeared at the hospital. Plaintiff had just left the hospital to smoke. The police were notified and presumably told not to go to her home.

Upon Plaintiffs return to the hospital, she was examined by Defendant Desiree Aukerman, a nurse in the emergency room. Nurse Aukerman determined that Plaintiff had a medical illness that caused her to pose a risk of serious physical injury to herself or to others within the near future.² In her report, she quoted Plaintiff as saying she was at the "end of [her] rope" and thought about driving her car into a tree.³ (J.A. 87.) Subsequently, Nurse Aukerman filed a mental health petition detailing her findings and gave it to Dr. Donna Brown, a doctor at the hospital. Dr. Brown then met with Plaintiff and determined that she was depressed and suicidal. She filled out a clinical certificate quoting the same "end of the rope" statement Nurse Aukerman had reported. In addition, she stated in the certificate that Plaintiff expressed plans to run into a tree on the way home from work. Subsequently, Dr. Brown requested that Plaintiff be hospitalized.

Some time after Dr. Brown signed the certificate, Plaintiff stated that the law did not allow the hospital to hold her and she announced her intention to leave. Plaintiff then left. At 2:45 a.m., Nurse Aukerman, acting on instructions from Dr. Brown, called 911 and asked the police to locate Mrs. Ziegler and transport her back to the hospital because she was suicidal. Dispatcher Roe, the dispatcher who handled the 911 call, was told that there was a certificate for Susan Ziegler authorizing police action.⁴ Officer Daniel Jonoshies, acting on the dispatcher's request, took Mrs. Ziegler into police custody "outside her house . . . on the walkway or driveway connected to the house" and returned her to the hospital at 3:45 a.m. (J.A. 13.)

Upon arriving at the hospital, Officer Jonoshies was given the petition and clinical certificate for Mrs. Ziegler, and it was reiterated to him by Nurse Aukerman that the hospital wanted her confined there for mental health reasons.

Following Plaintiff's confinement, Ms. Ziegler filed suit in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Her suit claims violations of 42 U.S.C. § 1983, as well as various state tort laws. The defendants in her suit are Foote Hospital, Nurse Desiree Aukerman, Dr. Donna Brown, police officers Daniel Jonoshies and Officer Doe (both of the Springport Township Police Department), and a 911 dispatcher named Dispatcher Roe (an employee of the Jackson County Sheriff's office).

In Count I of Plaintiff's § 1983 claim she alleges that police officers Daniel Jonoshies and Officer Doe, as well as Dispatcher Roe, violated her Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches of her home and seizure of her person without a warrant or probable cause. She claims that the defendants, acting under the color of state law, took her into police custody at her home and transported her against her will to a hospital for a mental health confinement.

Count II of Plaintiff's § 1983 claim is against the county that employed the 911 dispatcher. In that count, Plaintiff claims that Jackson County (the dispatcher's employer) has a custom or policy of not having a record keeping system for mental health orders, and as a result, its 911 operators do not have a database to verify the existence or terms of such orders before dispatching police to pick up people on mental health orders. In addition, she claims that Jackson County failed to train its 911 dispatchers on the constitutional rights of persons to be free from unlawful seizures on mental health accusations for which there is no court order authorizing police involvement.

All defendants filed answers to the complaint, and eventually filed motions for summary judgment. In addition, Plaintiff filed a motion for leave to amend her complaint to add a Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process violation to Count I. On November 15, 2006, the district court heard oral arguments on all the pending motions. On November 21, 2006, the district court issued a written opinion granting summary judgment for Defendants Jonoshies, Roe, and Jackson County on Counts I and II, and denying Plaintiff's motion for leave to file an amended complaint. Plaintiff appeals only the judgment granted to Defendant Jonoshies, and the denial of her motion for leave to amend her complaint.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

This Court conducts a de novo review of a district court's grant of summary judgment. Holloway v. Brush, 220 F.3d 767, 772 (6th Cir.2000). Summary judgment is proper only where no genuine issue of material fact exists and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). In considering such a motion, the court views the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party and draws all reasonable inferences in favor of the non-moving party. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986). To defeat a properly supported motion for summary judgment, an adverse party "must set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e).

III. ANALYSIS

Elements of a § 1983 Claim

Mrs. Ziegler appeals the district court's order granting Defendant's summary judgment motion on her § 1983 claim against Officer Jonoshies. The district court granted Defendant's motion because it found that, although Mrs. Ziegler's constitutional rights were deprived by Officer Jonoshies, they were not deprived without due process of law. The court stated:

To prevail on her claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Plaintiff must demonstrate: (1) a deprivation of a right secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States; (2) caused by a person acting under color of state law; (3) occurring without due process of law. 42 U.S.C. § 1983; O'Brien v. City of Grand Rapids, 23 F.3d 990, 995 (6th Cir.1994). Viewed in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, the record does not support a question of fact regarding the third element.

(J.A. 28.)

The district court went on to hold that "Plaintiff's § 1983 claims must fail because the record demonstrates as a matter of law that her involuntary stay at the hospital complied with the procedures required under Michigan law." (J.A. 29.) However, the district court's finding is based on incorrect law. To prevail on a § 1983 claim, a plaintiff need only show that he or she was deprived of a constitutional right by a state actor. There is no additional requirement that Plaintiff show that the deprivation occurred without due process of law. Even a cursory read of 42 U.S.C. .§ 1983 will reveal that this is true, as the phrase "due process" does not appear anywhere in the statute. Of course, one can allege a due process violation under § 1983, and certain constitutional rights inherently raise due process concerns, but it is not required by the statute that one's due process rights be violated to prevail.

The district court's misstatement of the law is likely the result of the confusing and inconsistent manner in which this Circuit has described the law. The district court cites this Court's opinion in O'Brien v. City of Grand Rapids, 23 F.3d 990, 995 (6th Cir.1994), as support for the proposition that a § 1983 claim requires that the deprivation at issue occur without due process of law. In this respect, the district court is correct. O'Brien does state that there are three elements to a § 1983 claim, and that the third element is that the deprivation occur without due process of law. This Court has restated the existence of this third element in other cases as well. See Rhodes v. McDannel, 945 F.2d 117, 119 (6th Cir.1991); Nishiyama v. Dickson County, 814 F.2d 277, 279 (6th Cir.1987).

However, this Court has also ruled in another line of cases that there are only two elements to a § 1983 claim, leaving...