Bond v. Atkinson

• Decision Date: 26 August 2013
• Docket Number: Nos. 11–3275,11–3559.,s. 11–3275
• Parties: Stephanie Jane BOND, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Michael R. ATKINSON, et al., Defendants–Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

728 F.3d 690

Stephanie Jane BOND, Plaintiff–Appellee,

v.Michael R. ATKINSON, et al., Defendants–Appellants.

Nos. 11–3275, 11–3559.

United States Court of Appeals,Seventh Circuit.

Argued Sept. 10, 2012.

Decided Aug. 26, 2013.

Paul Whitfield Hughes, Attorney, Mayer Brown LLP, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff–Appellee.

Nadine J. Wichern, Attorney, Office of the Attorney General, Chicago, IL, for Defendants–Appellants.

Before EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge, and CUDAHY and KANNE, Circuit Judges.

EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge.

Stephanie Bond was shot three times by her husband, who then killed himself. She survived and filed this suit against state and local police officers and other public officials, contending that they violated her constitutional rights under the fourteenth amendment by not enforcing an order of protection issued by a state court and by failing to confiscate her husband's guns after his state-law right to own firearms had been revoked. As a claim under the fourteenth amendment's due process clause, Bond's suit is doomed by decisions such as Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748, 125 S.Ct. 2796, 162 L.Ed.2d 658 (2005), and DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189, 109 S.Ct. 998, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989). But Bond invokes the equal protection clause. DeShaney observes that equal-protection claims may succeed even when due-process theories fail. 489 U.S. at 197 n. 3, 109 S.Ct. 998. A state is not obliged to protect residents from crime (that's the holding of Castle Rock and DeShaney), but when the state chooses to provide protective services it cannot protect men while failing to protect women. The state must provide equal protection of the laws, without discriminating on account of race, sex, religion, or other criteria the Constitution places off limits.

Bond contends in this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 that the defendants discriminated against her on account of sex. She does not present a class-of-one claim, on which see Del Marcelle v. Brown County Corp., 680 F.3d 887 (7th Cir.2012) (en banc), but contends that she has been disfavored in common with other women by defendants' failure to enforce the laws against domestic violence and to confiscate guns from potentially dangerous men. Defendants asked the district judge to rule in their favor on the ground of qualified immunity. The court referred this motion to a magistrate judge, who remarked that the rule against sex discrimination is well established and recommended denying the motion. 2011 WL 4860007 at *6–7, 2011 U.S. Dist. Lexis 119778 at *18–19 (C.D.Ill. Sept. 8, 2011). The district judge accepted this recommendation, 2011 WL 4860001 at *1–2, 2011 U.S. Dist. Lexis 118026 at *4 (C.D.Ill. Oct. 13, 2011), and defendants immediately appealed under the doctrine of Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985), which treats the rejection of an immunity defense as a final decision for the purpose of 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

The rule against sex discrimination in law enforcement is clearly established, just as the district court observed. But does Bond's complaint adequately allege sex discrimination? Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009), shows that an appellate court may resolve a qualified-immunity appeal by deciding that the complaint does not state a plausible claim.

According to the complaint, relatives of Gabriel Omo-Osagie, Bond's husband, told police in November 2009 that he had become suicidal and potentially violent. Bond herself reported that Omo-Osagie had hit her and had acquired an arsenal of guns, some of them stolen, though he lacked legal authority to own any firearm. A court issued an order of protection requiring Omo-Osagie to stay away from Bond. Police arrested Omo-Osagie for domestic battery, but a state judge released him.

Bond asked the police to confiscate Omo-Osagie's guns; according to the complaint, an officer of the Champaign County sheriff's office replied that, as long as Omo-Osagie's name was on the title to the couple's house, confiscation could proceed only with a court order, which neither the sheriff's office nor Bond ever sought. The complaint adds, however, that neither Illinois law nor the sheriff's office requires judicial permission. (A warrant would have been necessary to enter a house in order to search for the guns over the occupants' protests, but Bond might have had authority to consent to an entry.) In late November Omo-Osagie admitted to some of the defendants that he had violated the order of protection, but (as in Castle Rock) he was not arrested. On February 27, 2010, Omo-Osagie shot Bond three times and then killed himself. Not until March 2010 did the Illinois State Police begin to collect and dispose of Omo-Osagie's weapons.

That's the outline of the complaint's narration, which poses the question: Where's the sex discrimination? Bond does not allege that police confiscate guns from women who should not possess them, while leaving guns in the hands of men who should not possess them. The complaint does not allege that defendants require a warrant to confiscate men's firearms while not waiting for a warrant to confiscate women's firearms. It does not allege that police vigorously enforce protective orders issued for the benefit of men while not enforcing orders issued for the benefit of women. It does not allege that the police arrest women who threaten or attack male domestic partners, while failing to arrest men who threaten or attack female domestic partners. Bond does contend that the police described her as “only crying wolf,” but both men and women cry wolf. This is just another way of expressing the proposition that Bond's estimate of the risk differed from the officers' estimate; it does not tend to show sex discrimination.

Bond's principal theory is that enforcing the laws against domestic violence is a low priority for state and local law-enforcement agencies in Illinois. Because roughly 85% of the victims of domestic violence are female, see Bureau of Justice Statistics, Intimate Partner Violence 1993–2001 (2003), a policy of weak enforcement injures women disproportionately and therefore violates the Constitution.

The problem with that approach is that the harm comes from disparate impact rather than disparate treatment. Some statutes, prominently Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, deem disparate impact a form of discrimination. See, e.g., Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 91 S.Ct. 849, 28 L.Ed.2d 158 (1971). ( Griggs itself concerned race discrimination, but sex discrimination is treated the same under Title VII.) Yet the Supreme Court held in Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 96 S.Ct. 2040, 48 L.Ed.2d 597 (1976), that disparate impact does not violate the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment and cannot be redressed by suits under § 1983. See also, e.g., Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256, 99 S.Ct. 2282, 60 L.Ed.2d 870 (1979).

To obtain relief, a plaintiff must show intentional discrimination—that the defendants wanted men (but not women) left at large to injure their domestic partners. Feeney holds that it is not enough to show that state actors knew that women would fare worse than men under an official policy; instead the plaintiff must show that the state actors adopted that policy because of, not in spite of or with indifference to, its effect on women. Id. at 279, 99...