Bukowski v. City of Akron

• Decision Date: 16 April 2003
• Docket Number: No. 01-4335.,No. 01-4248.,01-4248.,01-4335.
• Citation: 326 F.3d 702
• Parties: Lisa BUKOWSKI et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. CITY OF AKRON et al., Defendants, Patrick Summers and John Urbank, Defendants-Appellants. Lisa Bukowski et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. City of Akron, Defendant-Appellee, Patrick Summers et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

326 F.3d 702

Lisa BUKOWSKI et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. CITY OF AKRON et al., Defendants, Patrick Summers and John Urbank, Defendants-Appellants.

Lisa Bukowski et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. City of Akron, Defendant-Appellee, Patrick Summers et al., Defendants.

No. 01-4248.

No. 01-4335.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: October 30, 2002.

Decided and Filed: April 16, 2003.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

John C. Reece (argued and briefed), Bruce H. Christensen, Jr. (briefed), City of Akron, Department of Law, Akron, Ohio, for Defendants.

Gordon S. Friedman (argued and briefed), Friedman & Gilbert, Cleveland, Ohio, for Plaintiffs.

Before: SILER and MOORE, Circuit Judges; McKINLEY, District Judge.^*

OPINION

MOORE, Circuit Judge.

Lisa Bukowski (and her parents as her guardians and in their own right) sued the City of Akron as well as some of its officials for delivering Bukowski into the hands of Leslie Hall, a man who later raped her. The district court denied the officials qualified immunity, but held that the City of Akron itself was entitled to summary judgment. In No. 01-4248, the city officials appeal the denial of qualified immunity, and in No. 01-4335, the Bukowskis appeal the grant of summary judgment to the City. We hold that the Bukowskis have not made out a constitutional violation against the officials or the City. We therefore REVERSE the district court's denial of qualified immunity, AFFIRM its grant of summary judgment to the City, and REMAND the case to dismiss the officials and the City from the lawsuit, allowing the Bukowskis to proceed only against defendant Hall.

I. BACKGROUND

The tragic facts of this case are not in dispute. At the time the events took place, the Bukowskis were living together as a family in Avoca, Pennsylvania. Lisa Bukowski ("Bukowski"), who was nineteen years old at the time, was mentally disabled but was not under a guardianship of any kind. Bukowski was diagnosed as being mentally disabled when she was a year old. Her functioning is impaired in many ways. Her mother explained that she cannot cook, clean, or manage her financial affairs. She also has a tendency to ask the same questions repeatedly; her mother testified in deposition that "her brain just forgets quickly." Joint Appendix in No. 01-4248 ("J.A.") at 274. She has trouble understanding cursive handwriting and so can only read texts that are typed. On the other hand, Bukowski can function competently in a number of areas. She graduated from the special education program in her public high school, making moderately good grades. She is quite proficient at using the computer and the Internet and has worked as a volunteer at an adult care facility, playing games and talking with the elderly residents there and cleaning dishes. She has not, however, ever had a full-time paying job.

Sometime prior to May of 1999, Bukowski began talking online to a thirty-nine year old man, Leslie Hall. Hall told her that he was a disabled eighteen-year-old and encouraged her to come to Akron, Ohio to visit him. Never having met him before, Bukowski left home before dawn on May 8, 1999, taking a series of cabs and buses to reach Hall. At his place and far from her home, Hall repeatedly raped Bukowski.

After realizing that Lisa Bukowski had disappeared, Stanley and Robyn Bukowski began searching for their daughter. They called the Avoca Police Department, and with their help, they deduced that she had taken a taxi to a bus station and then traveled to Akron. The Bukowskis found an e-mail from Hall and, with the assistance of the Avoca Police Department and America Online, traced it to a physical address on May 10, 1999. The Avoca Police Department contacted the Akron Police Department, asking the officers there to help in locating a missing person. The Avoca officers explained that Bukowski was mentally disabled and nineteen, and gave the Akron Police Department Hall's address. The Avoca officers relayed a message from the Akron police to the Bukowskis that the Akron police would hold her until her parents arrived. Meanwhile, the Bukowskis began driving to Akron, which was between eight and nine hours away. The Akron Police Department dispatched police officers at around midnight on May 11, 1999, to pick Bukowski up from Hall's place. The officers met Bukowski and Hall at Hall's residence, and they convinced Bukowski to come with them to the police station.

Upon arriving at the Akron police station, Bukowski met with Officer John Urbank, a detective on the police force. Urbank briefly assessed Bukowski and recognized (chiefly because of her speech impediment) that she was a bit "slow." J.A. at 203. Urbank eventually concluded, however, that Bukowski had to "have some degree of ... ability to take care of herself" because she had traveled to Akron from Eastern Pennsylvania all by herself and had demonstrated some level of reading and writing ability in having met someone in an Internet chat room. J.A. at 201. When Urbank probed Bukowski about her relationship with Hall, she spoke favorably of him, calling him her boyfriend and asking repeatedly both to call him and to be returned to his residence. Bukowski testified in deposition and at Hall's criminal trial that she never told police either that she had sex with Hall or that he hurt her in any way. Bukowski also admits that she never told police that Hall was twenty years older than she was. Bukowski did, however, make remarks suggesting that she left Avoca to escape abuse from her parents. After a brief interview, Urbank sent Bukowski to interview with a victims advocate from the Victim's Assistance Program, Kimberly Heishman-Donahue. Heishman-Donahue also was clearly misled by Bukowski's statements about Hall — in her report, Heishman-Donahue concluded that she faced no risk of harm.

While Bukowski was meeting with Heishman-Donahue, Urbank called Defendant Patrick Summers, an Akron prosecutor and police legal advisor, to determine whether the Akron Police Department should hold Bukowski until her parents arrived. In two telephone conversations, Summers advised Urbank that the police had no legal authority to detain Bukowski and that they should therefore release her, if she insisted on leaving. Summers and Urbank considered committing Bukowski to the Summit County Children's Service Board under Ohio Juvenile Rule 6, but believed it inappropriate because Bukowski was nineteen years old and the Akron police had no paperwork confirming either her mental disability or that she was under a guardianship. Summers and Urbank also considered referring Bukowski to PEERS, a psychiatric service, but considered it also to be inappropriate because Bukowski was not a mentally ill person subject to hospitalization as required by state law. After considering and rejecting these options, Urbank explained to Bukowski that she could either wait at the police station or go to a shelter; Urbank did not offer Hall's residence as an option. Nevertheless, Bukowski stated that she wanted to return to Hall. Thus, at approximately 4:30 a.m., upon her request, the police returned Bukowski to Hall's residence.

When the Bukowskis arrived in Akron and picked up their daughter from Hall's residence, they learned that she had been repeatedly raped by Hall, both before and after she had been picked up by police. Bukowski was taken to a hospital, and based on that examination, officials filed rape and kidnaping charges against Hall.

Plaintiffs Lisa, Robyn, and Stanley Bukowski subsequently initiated this action against the City of Akron, Summers, Urbank, and Hall. The plaintiffs alleged that Urbank and Summers violated Lisa Bukowski's substantive due process rights and her parents' constitutional rights to the companionship of their daughter. The plaintiffs included a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress against the two officials. The plaintiffs also sued the City of Akron, claiming that it was responsible for the officials' constitutional violations because it failed adequately to train Urbank and Summers. The district court granted Urbank and Summers summary judgment on the claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress but denied summary judgment on the constitutional claims. The district court granted the City of Akron summary judgment on all claims, holding that the plaintiffs could not make out a failure-to-train claim under City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 109 S.Ct. 1197, 103 L.Ed.2d 412 (1989). Summers and Urbank appeal the denial of summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity in No. 01-4248. The Bukowskis appeal the grant of summary judgment to the City in No. 01-4335.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Jurisdiction

The district court below had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331. This court has jurisdiction over Summers's and Urbank's appeal of the district court's denial of qualified immunity pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985). The plaintiffs argue that this court does not have jurisdiction because there are material facts in dispute. However, because the defendants argue that the plaintiffs' facts are legally insufficient (rather than factually untrue), this court has jurisdiction. See Klein v. Long, 275 F.3d 544, 549 (6th Cir.2001), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 123 S.Ct. 95, 154 L.Ed.2d 26 (2002) (noting that as long as "a defendant seeking qualified immunity [is] willing to concede to the facts as alleged by the plaintiff and discuss only the legal issues raised by the case," the defendant is entitled to an interlocutory appeal to show that "the undisputed facts or the evidence viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff fail[s] to establish a prima facie violation of clear constitutional law").

This court also has jurisdiction over the Bukowskis' appeal of the district court's grant of summary judgment to the City of Akron. The district court granted the...