LeFrere v. Quezada

• Decision Date: 11 September 2009
• Docket Number: No. 09-10024.,09-10024.
• Citation: 582 F.3d 1260
• Parties: Suzanne LeFRERE, Personal Representative of the Estate of Ross Paul Yates, deceased, Elaine Garner, Personal Representative of the Estate of Ross Paul Yates, deceased, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Jorge QUEZADA, Defendant-Appellant, Baldwin County Commission, James B. Johnson, Steve Arthur, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

582 F.3d 1260

Suzanne LeFRERE, Personal Representative of the Estate of Ross Paul Yates, deceased, Elaine Garner, Personal Representative of the Estate of Ross Paul Yates, deceased, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Jorge QUEZADA, Defendant-Appellant, Baldwin County Commission, James B. Johnson, Steve Arthur, Defendants.

No. 09-10024.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

September 11, 2009.

Tracy P. Turner, Johnstone Adams, Mobile, AL, for Quezada.

Thomas E. James, Morris, Haynes & Mornsby, Birmingham, AL, for LeFrere.

Kristi Allen McDonald, McDonald & McDonald, Birmingham, AL, for Amicus Curiae.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama.

Before CARNES and PRYOR, Circuit Judges, and DOWD,^* District Judge.

CARNES, Circuit Judge:

Because state supreme courts are the final arbiters of state law, "when we write to a state law issue, we write in faint and disappearing ink," and "once the state supreme court speaks the effect of anything we have written vanishes like the proverbial bat in daylight, only faster." Sultenfuss v. Snow, 35 F.3d 1494, 1504 (11th Cir.1994) (Carnes, J., dissenting). A dozen years ago we held that under Alabama law jailers are entitled to absolute immunity against state law claims. Lancaster v. Monroe County, 116 F.3d 1419, 1431 (11th Cir.1997). This appeal presents the question of whether the effect of what we wrote in Lancaster has vanished in light of later decisions by the Alabama Supreme Court. Because the answer to that question is unclear, we will certify the important issue of Alabama constitutional law to the only Court that can authoritatively resolve it. See Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Ala., Inc. v. Nielsen, 116 F.3d 1406, 1413 (11th Cir.1997) ("[T]he only authoritative voice on Alabama law is the Alabama Supreme Court. . . .").

I.

Accepting for now the factual allegations in the second amended complaint and viewing them in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, see Chepstow Ltd. v. Hunt, 381 F.3d 1077, 1080 (11th Cir.2004), this is what occurred.

In March 2005 Ross Paul Yates was arrested, charged with burglary and theft of property, and released on bond. On May 27, 2006 Yates was booked into the Baldwin County jail as a pre-trial detainee. On May 30 he began to show signs of alcohol withdrawal. The medical staff at the jail prescribed three doses of Librium and placed him on fifteen-minute close-observation status. After receiving his first dose of Librium, he was returned to his cell where Corrections Officer Jorge Quezada was on duty. Yates never received his scheduled second and third doses, and later that evening he became agitated. Jail personnel, including Officer Quezada, removed Yates from his cell, handcuffed his hands behind his back, and fastened him to a D-ring on a wall. The officers, including Quezada, then failed to check on Yates every fifteen minutes as the medical staff had ordered. Around 11:45 p.m. on May 30 Yates died of alcohol withdrawal.

II.

The plaintiffs, Yates' personal representatives, sued the Baldwin County Commission, the Baldwin County sheriff, the chief corrections officer, and Officer Quezada. The second amended complaint contains three claims against Officer Quezada in his individual capacity: one under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for deliberate indifference to Yates' serious medical needs; one under § 1983 for cruel and unusual punishment; and one under Alabama law for negligent or wanton breach of his duties to Yates. We have supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claim. 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a); Ledford v. Peeples, 568 F.3d 1258, 1287-88 (11th Cir.2009). The contentions underlying the claims are that Officer Quezada should not have: fastened Yates to the D-ring; neglected to ensure that he received the prescribed Librium doses; failed to check on Yates for several hours; and falsified the close-observation documents to indicate that the mandated fifteen-minute checks had been done. The complaint also alleges that before this incident Officer Quezada had been reprimanded for violating jail procedures, including altering jail paperwork about the status of inmates.

Officer Quezada filed a motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) to dismiss the state law claim against him. He asserted that because he was employed as a corrections officer by the Baldwin County Sheriff he was entitled to absolute immunity under Article I, § 14 of the Alabama Constitution, 1901.

In denying Officer Quezada's motion to dismiss, the district court acknowledged our decision in Lancaster holding that under Alabama law jailers are entitled to absolute immunity from state law claims. See LeFrere v. Baldwin County Comm'n, No. 1:07-cv-00661, at *2-3, 2008 WL 5071892, at *1-2 (S.D.Ala. Nov. 25, 2008). But the district court thought that Alabama immunity law had undergone "significant fundamental changes" since Lancaster was decided, id. at *3, with the result that the decision was no longer a correct statement of Alabama law. See id. at *4 ("Substantial, subsequent developments in Alabama law have completely invalidated, or at least substantially undermined, the legal underpinnings of the Lancaster decision."). The court recognized that under Alabama law both sheriffs and their deputies, who act as the "alter egos" of sheriffs, have absolute immunity against state law claims. Id. at *3. Officer Quezada, however, was not a sheriff's deputy but a jailer. Believing that jailers, unlike deputies, are not "alter egos" of sheriffs, the district court concluded that jailers are not protected by state sovereign immunity. Id. Accordingly, the court denied Officer Quezada's motion to dismiss the state law claim. This is his appeal.

III.

District court denials of state sovereign immunity under Alabama law are immediately appealable to this Court. Tinney v. Shores, 77 F.3d 378, 382 (11th Cir.1996). We review de novo the district court's denial of a motion to dismiss based on sovereign immunity. Id. at 383. If the complaint contains a claim that is facially subject to an affirmative defense, that claim may be dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6). Cottone v. Jenne, 326 F.3d 1352, 1357 (11th Cir.2003); Marsh v. Butler County, 268 F.3d 1014, 1022 (11th Cir. 2001) (en banc).

IV.

Officer Quezada's motion to dismiss presents with clarity an important issue of Alabama law. The parties agree that under Article I, § 14 of the Alabama Constitution sheriffs and deputies are absolutely immune from lawsuits like this one. They also agree that Officer Quezada is a jailer, not a deputy. They disagree about whether Alabama's doctrine of sovereign immunity extends to jailers. If it does, Officer Quezada is immune from the plaintiffs' state law claim and the district court should have dismissed that claim under Rule 12(b)(6). See Cottone, 326 F.3d at 1357. If Alabama's doctrine of sovereign immunity does not extend to jailers, the district court properly denied Officer Quezada's motion to dismiss. It is a pure question of Alabama law.

In addressing issues of state law, we are bound by the decisions of the state supreme court. See Flintkote Co. v. Dravo Corp., 678 F.2d 942, 945 (11th Cir.1982). "`Only where no state court has decided the point in issue may a federal court make an educated guess as to how that state's supreme court would rule.'" Id. (quoting Benante v. Allstate Ins. Co., 477 F.2d 553, 554 (5th Cir.1973)).

A.

In 1997 we made an Erie guess about how the Alabama Supreme Court would handle the issue that is now back before us. See Lancaster, 116 F.3d at 1431. In the Lancaster case a man arrested for DUI went into alcohol withdrawal while locked up in the county jail. During a seizure he fell from his upper bunk and suffered a fatal head injury. Id. at 1423. His wife sued the sheriff and three jailers, bringing claims under state law and § 1983. Id.

Addressing the state law claims against the sheriff and his jailers, we observed that under "`Alabama law, a claim against an Alabama sheriff in his individual capacity is barred by the doctrine of sovereign immunity.'" Id. at 1430 (quoting McMillian v. Johnson, 101 F.3d 1363, 1365 (11th Cir.1996)). We identified the source of that immunity as Article I, § 14 of the Alabama Constitution, which provides that "the State of Alabama shall never be made a defendant in any court of law or equity." Id. Because the office of sheriff is created in the Alabama Constitution, see Ala. Const. art. V, § 112, § 14 of that constitution gives a sheriff absolute immunity for actions he takes in carrying out his duties. Lancaster, 116 F.3d at 1431 (citing Oliver v. Townsend, 534 So.2d 1038, 1044 (Ala. 1988)); see also King v. Colbert County, 620 So.2d 623, 625 (Ala.1993).¹

We also considered in Lancaster Alabama decisions that had characterized sheriff's deputies as alter egos of the sheriff and had recognized that they were entitled to the same Article I, § 14 absolute immunity. 116 F.3d at 1431; see also Alexander v. Hatfield, 652 So.2d 1142, 1144 (Ala.1994) ("We have also held that deputy sheriffs are immune from suit to the same extent as sheriffs."). In Alexander the Alabama Supreme Court decided that "the acts of the deputy sheriff are the acts of the sheriff. The deputy sheriff is the alter ego of the sheriff." 652 So.2d at 1144 (quoting Carr v. City of Florence, 916 F.2d 1521, 1526 (11th Cir.1990)). Because a sheriff's deputy is "legally an extension of the sheriff," the Court held that "it is logical that those acts should enjoy the same immunity covering the sheriff's own acts." Id. (citations omitted).

In Lancaster we applied the same reasoning to jailers that the Alabama Supreme Court had applied to deputies. The similarity between jailers and deputies seemed clear to us. They both have a "close working relationship" with sheriffs under Alabama law—both are selected and hired by sheriffs and paid by county governments. Lancaster, 116 F.3d at 1430. And although jailers, unlike deputies,...