Alexander v. Pathfinder Inc., 98-3153
| Decision Date | 14 June 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. 98-3153,98-3153 |
| Citation | 189 F.3d 735 |
| Parties | (8th Cir. 1999) Elsie Alexander, Individually and as Guardian of Larry Alexander, An Incompetent Person, Appellant, v. Pathfinder, Inc.; Colleen Black, Executive Director of Pathfinder, Inc., Individually and in Her Official Capacity; Cindy Crook, Administrator of Pathfinder Home, Individually and in Her Official Capacity; Tom Dalton, Director of the Arkansas Department of Human Services, in His Official Capacity; Sheri Simon, Psychological .Consultant to Pathfinder,Individually and in Her Official Capacity; Marilyn Martin, Licensed Social Worker Consultant for Pathfinder, Individually and in Her Official Capacity; and Colonel McLyle G. Zumwalt, Joan R. Zumwalt, Alton Johnston, Senator Max Howell, T. P. White, Robert Bamburg, Robert Ferguson, Jr., Senator Bill Gwatney, and Martha Lawhon, All Individually, Appellees. Submitted: |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas
[Copyrighted Material Omitted]
[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Before BEAM and MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judges, and PANNER,1 District Judge.
Elsie Alexander brought this action against Pathfinder Schools, Inc., doing business as Pathfinder, Inc., an intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded (ICF/MR), its board of directors and several individuals employed by or providing services to the facility (Pathfinder defendants), and Tom Dalton as director of the Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS). Ms. Alexander sought relief for damages that she and her son, Larry Alexander, an incompetent person, allegedly suffered in the period leading up to and following his discharge from a group home operated by Pathfinder. (Although both Ms. Alexander and her son are plaintiffs, for the sake of simplicity we frame the discussion in her name only.)
Ms. Alexander made claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983 for violation of the first amendment and of the constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection, under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), see 42 U.S.C. 12101-12213, and under 504, see 29 U.S.C. 794, of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, see 29 U.S.C. 701-796l; she also asserted state-law tort claims for invasion of privacy, assault, battery, negligence, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The district court 2 granted the defendants' motions to dismiss and for summary judgment. Ms. Alexander appeals and we affirm.
Ms. Alexander's son was a resident of a group home operated by Pathfinder. When Pathfinder informed Ms. Alexander that her son would be discharged from the home because his medical problems had become so severe that Pathfinder could no longer care for him, she requested a hearing before a state administrative hearing officer. The hearing officer upheld the discharge and gave the Alexanders thirty days to find placement at another facility.
Ms. Alexander took no steps to find another placement for her son but sued instead. The district court dismissed all of the claims on the grounds that they were precluded by the administrative hearing. See Alexander v. Pathfinder, Inc., 906 F. Supp. 502, 506-07 (E.D. Ark. 1995) (Alexander I). Ms. Alexander appealed and we affirmed in part and reversed in part. See Alexander v. Pathfinder, Inc., 91 F.3d 59 (8th Cir. 1996) (Alexander II). All matters that were or could have been considered at the administrative hearing were precluded, we said, id. at 62-63, but we remanded for consideration of a due process claim and state-law claims of invasion of privacy, assault, battery, and negligence, id. at 63.
More than a year after our decision in Alexander II, Ms. Alexander filed an amended complaint that included additional claims based on events that occurred after the hearing officer's decision. Ms. Alexander maintained, first, that Pathfinder. unlawfully discharged Mr. Alexander from the workshop day treatment program, which provides daily living training, social skills training, and paid work for persons with developmental disabilities. Second, she asserted that Pathfinder and DHS wrongfully denied Mr. Alexander access to the Medicaid waiver program, which provides home and community-based services to a limited number of individuals with developmental disabilities who would otherwise require an ICF/MR level of care. Ms. Alexander complained that the defendants refused to add Mr. Alexander's name to the list of persons qualified to participate in the program although they had allegedly told Ms. Alexander previously that he was qualified. Finally, Ms. Alexander contended that on two occasions when she tried to return Mr. Alexander to the group home after a weekend visit, she found the facility locked and deserted and representatives of Pathfinder refused to give Mr. Alexander additional medication. (After each incident, Ms. Alexander obtained a temporary restraining order directing Pathfinder to readmit Mr. Alexander.)
Ms. Alexander contended that Pathfinder violated the first amendment when it denied Mr. Alexander the services of the workshop and of the Medicaid waiver program and when it locked Mr. Alexander out of the facility, because these acts were in retaliation for her original lawsuit. She contended that the actions of DHS, in denying Mr. Alexander access to the Medicaid waiver program, violated the first amendment for the same reason. Ms. Alexander added a new federal claim against DHS for failure to promulgate rules for administrative hearing procedures and reiterated her original claims that DHS failed to provide a competent hearing officer, interfered with the hearing officer's duties, and failed to monitor Pathfinder adequately for compliance with applicable regulations, in violation of the constitutional guarantee of due process.
In addition, Ms. Alexander reasserted various state-law claims from her original complaint that we held were not precluded, namely, invasion of privacy, assault, battery and negligence. She added a claim for intentional infliction of emotional. distress that dealt with conduct different from that in her original complaint. This new claim was based, evidently, on the incidents in which Mr. Alexander was allegedly locked out of the Pathfinder facility and was denied additional medication.
The amended complaint added several new defendants, namely, Sheri Simon and Marilyn Martin, respectively a psychological consultant and a social worker consultant for Pathfinder, and the members of the board of Pathfinder. All deny that they are proper defendants in this case. DHS, Ms. Simon, and Ms. Martin moved to dismiss, and the Pathfinder defendants and the members of the Pathfinder board moved for summary judgment. The district court granted all of the defendants' motions.
We first consider Ms. Alexander's claims arising from the fact that Pathfinder discharged Mr. Alexander from the workshop day treatment program. Ms. Alexander stated in an affidavit that various Pathfinder employees assured her that Mr. Alexander could continue to participate in the workshop even after he ceased to be a resident at the Pathfinder facility. After Ms. Alexander sued, however, and after Mr. Alexander was definitely discharged from the Pathfinder group home, he was denied admission to the workshop. No reason for the denial was given.
Ms. Alexander contends that the defendants acted in retaliation for her complaints against them, in violation of her rights under the first amendment, the constitutional guarantee of due process, the ADA, and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Alternatively, or in addition, Ms. Alexander avers that the defendants excluded her son because of his condition and thereby denied him the equal protection of the law. The defendants, on the other hand, reply that Mr. Alexander was discharged because Pathfinder no longer received Medicaid funds for Mr. Alexander's participation in the workshop once he left the group home.
These facts, viewed in the light most favorable to Ms. Alexander as the nonmoving party, do not support either her claim under the first amendment or her due process and equal protection claims against Pathfinder, because these rights can be asserted only against state actors. Pathfinder is a private corporation and the fact that it receives Medicaid funds does not convert it into a state actor. See Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U.S. 991, 1002-12 (1982) (); see also Hoyt v. St. Mary's Rehabilitation Center, 711 F.2d 864, 865-67 (8th Cir. 1983). Similarly, the Pathfinder board and Sheri Simon and Marilyn Martin, consultants to Pathfinder, are not state actors and may not be sued under 42 U.S.C. 1983.
The ADA and 504 claims that were related to Mr. Alexander's discharge from the workshop were not adverted to in the amended complaint. Ms. Alexander first mentioned them, very generally, in her response to the defendants' motion for summary judgment. Only on appeal does Ms. Alexander state her theory that when the defendants excluded Mr. Alexander from the workshop, they violated her rights and those of Mr. Alexander under not only the first and fourteenth amendments but also the ADA and 504. We do not consider claims that were not raised below. Dorothy J. v. Little Rock School District, 7 F.3d 729, 734 (8th Cir. 1993).
DHS instituted a developmental disabilities alternative community services program (the Medicaid waiver program), see 42 U.S.C. 1396n(c), to provide home and community-based services to a limited number of individuals who would otherwise require an ICF/MR level of care. See Arkansas Department of Human Services v. Kistler, 898 S.W.2d 32, 33 (Ark. 1995). Ms. Alexander contended that Mr. Alexander was qualified by DHS as an eligible candidate for the program before she originally sued but that Pathfinder and...
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