Brown v. Budz

• Decision Date: 16 February 2005
• Docket Number: No. 03-1997.,03-1997.
• Parties: David BROWN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Timothy BUDZ, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

398 F.3d 904

David BROWN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Timothy BUDZ, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 03-1997.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued September 22, 2004.

Decided February 16, 2005.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Erik F. Dyhrkopp, Wonah Kim (argued), Bell, Boyd & Lloyd, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Erik G. Light (argued), Office of the Attorney General, Chicago, IL, for Defendants-Appellees Timothy Budz, Robert E. Glotz, Aide Tyler, Aide Clark, and Aide Smith.

Stephen R. Swofford, James Constantine Vlahakis (argued), Hinshaw & Culbertson, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellee Raymond Wood.

Before COFFEY, WILLIAMS, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge.

David Brown, a resident of the Illinois Department of Human Services' Sexually Violent Persons and Detention Facility (Facility) was severely beaten several times by a fellow resident. Brown alleged that Facility employees failed to protect him in violation of his due process rights by allowing that fellow resident with allegedly violent propensities to roam Facility common areas unsupervised. He also alleged that several Facility employees violated his right to equal protection by intentionally treating him and other Caucasian residents differently from similarly situated African-American residents. The district court dismissed Brown's complaint for failure to state a claim, but because we find that the allegations in Brown's complaint are sufficient to state several claims on both counts, we affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. BACKGROUND

As this appeal calls for an evaluation of whether plaintiff's complaint fails to state a claim, we "take the plaintiff's factual allegations as true and draw all reasonable inferences in his favor." DeWalt v. Carter, 224 F.3d 607, 612 (7th Cir.2000) (citing Strasburger v. Bd. of Educ., 143 F.3d 351, 359 (7th Cir.1998)). Brown, a Caucasian, is currently and has been a resident at the Facility in Joliet, Illinois. He has been awaiting a civil commitment trial under the Illinois Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act, 725 ILCS 207/1, et seq. since December 1999.

On the evening of May 4, 2001, Brown was playing cards in the unsupervised dayroom, an area of the Facility where residents are allowed to watch television and enjoy other leisure activities. Another resident, referred to here as "G.B.," an African-American resident who had attacked other Caucasian Facility residents on other occasions, was also present in the dayroom. G.B. attacked and severely beat Brown several times in succession, causing Brown to suffer physical injuries.

The defendants are employees of the Facility who had been primarily responsible for Brown's care and custody at the time of the attack. Defendants-appellees Tyler, Smith, Clark, and Pomier were Security Therapy Aides (STAs) at the Facility; defendant-appellee Timothy Budz was the Director of the Facility; defendant-appellee Robert Glotz was the Facility's Security Director; and defendant-appellee Cy Hopkins was a Facility Internal Affairs Investigator (together, State Defendants). Defendant-appellee Dr. Raymond Wood was the Facility Clinical Director. All of these defendants personally knew of G.B.'s propensity for violence and history of attacking Caucasian residents before the assault on Brown, and were aware of a pattern of attacks by African-American residents in general against Caucasian residents at the Facility. Despite this knowledge, the defendants allegedly failed to take adequate measures to prevent such attacks from taking place.

In Count I of his Second Amended Complaint, Brown asserts a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that Facility officials failed to protect him in violation of his due process rights. Count II asserts a § 1983 claim alleging that STAs Tyler, Smith, Clark, and Pomier, as well as Investigator Hopkins (together, Equal Protection Defendants), violated his right to equal protection by intentionally treating him differently from similarly situated African-American residents in their conduct of protecting residents from attack, punishing residents for attacks, investigating attacks, and enforcing Facility policies. Defendants filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which the district court granted. Brown appeals.

II. ANALYSIS

To state a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a plaintiff must allege that he or she was (1) deprived of a federal right, privilege, or immunity (2) by any person acting under color of state law. Gomez v. Toledo, 446 U.S. 635, 638, 100 S.Ct. 1920, 64 L.Ed.2d 572 (1980) (citing 42 U.S.C. § 1983). There is no dispute that Brown's complaint adequately alleges that each defendant acted under color of state law. What is in dispute is whether Brown has sufficiently alleged a deprivation of a federal right — in particular, violations of his rights to due process and equal protection. Because the district court found Brown's allegations insufficient in this regard, dismissing his complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), this court reviews de novo the district court's decision. Voelker v. Porsche Cars N. Am., Inc., 353 F.3d 516, 521 (7th Cir.2003).

Whether a complaint sufficiently states a claim turns on whether it meets the general rules of pleading a claim for relief. Rule 8(a)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires that a complaint contain "a short and plain statement of the claim showing the pleader is entitled to relief." This "short and plain statement" requires a plaintiff to allege no more than "the bare minimum facts necessary to put the defendant on notice of the claim so that he can file an answer." Higgs v. Carver, 286 F.3d 437, 439 (7th Cir.2002) (citing Beanstalk Group, Inc. v. AM Gen. Corp., 283 F.3d 856, 863 (7th Cir.2002)). "In evaluating whether a plaintiff's complaint fails to state a claim, a court must take the plaintiff's factual allegations as true and draw all reasonable inferences in his favor." DeWalt, 224 F.3d at 612 (citing Strasburger, 143 F.3d at 359). Furthermore, "[a] complaint should be dismissed for failure to state a claim only if no relief could be granted under any set of facts that could be proved consistent with the allegations." Id. (internal quotations omitted). Indeed, "if it is possible to hypothesize a set of facts, consistent with the complaint, that would entitle the plaintiff to relief, dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) is inappropriate." Sanville v. McCaughtry, 266 F.3d 724, 732 (7th Cir.2001) (quoting Veazey v. Communications & Cable of Chicago, Inc., 194 F.3d 850, 854 (7th Cir.1999)).

A. Failure to Protect

The first count of Brown's complaint alleges that defendants failed to protect him from harm. Such claims are often rooted in the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause, which imposes upon prison officials the duty to "take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of the inmates." Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 832, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994) (quoting Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 526-27, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984)). In particular, this duty requires prison officials "to protect prisoners from violence at the hands of other prisoners." Id. at 833, 114 S.Ct. 1970 (internal quotations omitted). To state a failure to protect claim, a plaintiff-inmate must allege that (1) "he is incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk of serious harm," and (2) defendant-officials acted with "deliberate indifference" to that risk. Id. at 834, 114 S.Ct. 1970.

Defendant Dr. Wood contends that any decisions he made with respect to Brown in his capacity as a mental health professional must be analyzed under the "professional judgment" standard, which provides for imposition of liability "only when the decision by the professional is such a substantial departure from accepted professional judgment, practice, or standards as to demonstrate that the person responsible actually did not base the decision on such a judgment." Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307, 323, 102 S.Ct. 2452, 73 L.Ed.2d 28 (1982). However, no "accepted professional judgment, practice, or standards" would allow a professional to act in deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of serious harm to a detainee in his or her care. While the ultimate success of Brown's claims against Dr. Wood may in fact turn on whether the doctor's acts and omissions were in keeping with "professional judgment," Brown at this stage of the litigation need only allege that Dr. Wood was deliberately indifferent to a substantial risk of serious harm in order to state a failure to protect claim.

Director Budz, Security Director Glotz, and Internal Affairs Investigator Hopkins also argue that a different standard should be employed to assess Brown's claims against them. In Weiss v. Cooley, 230 F.3d 1027, 1033 (7th Cir.2000), this court upheld the dismissal of a failure to protect claim against so-called "policymaking" or "high-level" defendants where the complaint alleged merely a failure to implement adequate policies and procedures, rather than a failure to implement any policies or procedures whatsoever. Unlike the case at bar, however, the policymaking defendants in Weiss were alleged to have had knowledge of only general risks of violence at their prison, as opposed to particular knowledge of a specific risk posed by, or to, a particular detainee. Id. Here, Budz, Glotz, and Hopkins are alleged to have been personally aware of the specific threat G.B. posed to Caucasian residents (particularly by virtue of their averred knowledge of G.B.'s alleged serial attacks on Caucasians), and to have failed to take adequate measures to neutralize that particular risk. A failure to protect claim may sound against even a "high-level" official so long as the averred risk is specific to a detainee,...