Calderon v. Kansas Soc. and Rehabilitation Serv.

• Decision Date: 06 July 1999
• Docket Number: No. 98-3183,98-3183
• Citation: 181 F.3d 1180
• Parties: (10th Cir. 1999) MARIA DEL CARMEN CALDERON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. KANSAS DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL AND REHABILITATION SERVICES; ROCHELLE CHRONISTER, Secretary of the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services; CAROL BACON, Judge of the Eighteenth Judicial District, Juvenile Department, Sedgwick County, Kansas, Defendants-Appellees
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

Page 1180

181 F.3d 1180 (10th Cir. 1999)

MARIA DEL CARMEN CALDERON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. KANSAS DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL AND REHABILITATION SERVICES; ROCHELLE CHRONISTER, Secretary of the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services; CAROL BACON, Judge of the Eighteenth Judicial District, Juvenile Department, Sedgwick County, Kansas, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 98-3183

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS TENTH CIRCUIT

July 6, 1999

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. D.C. No. 97-CV-1432-WEB

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Patricia Mendoza (Amalia S. Rioja, Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Chicago, Illinois, and Ladessa De La Cruz, De La Cruz & Doran, Wichita, Kansas, with her on the briefs), for Plaintiff-Appellant.

John R. Dowell, Assistant Attorney General, Topeka, Kansas (Carla J. Stovall, Attorney General, Topeka, Kansas, and C. William Ossmann, Chief of Litigation, Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, Topeka, Kansas, with him on the brief), for Defendants-Appellees.

Before SEYMOUR, Chief Judge, MAGILL^* and EBEL, Circuit Judges.

SEYMOUR, Chief Judge.

Ms. Calderon filed this action under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against the State of Kansas, Rochelle Chronister as Secretary of the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services (SRS), and Carol Bacon, a state court judge. In response to defendants' motions, the district court dismissed the action on various grounds including Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim. Ms. Calderon appeals and we affirm.

I

Ms. Calderon's underlying suit arises out of state court proceedings that resulted in the removal of her children from her care and custody. During the proceedings, Judge Bacon allegedly asked Ms. Calderon questions regarding her national origin, immigration status, marital status, socioeconomic status, and birth control practices. Ms. Calderon sued the state, the judge, and Ms. Chronister for allegedly violating her rights under the Fourth Fourteenth and Fifth Amendments. She also asserted state tort claims against defendants. Defendant Chronister answered the complaint and filed a motion to dismiss. Without answering, the remaining defendants filed motions to dismiss. The district court held that Eleventh Amendment immunity, judicial immunity, and qualified immunity protected defendants from suit. In so doing, the court held that the complaint failed to state a federal claim against any of the defendants. The court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state claims and dismissed them without prejudice.

II

On appeal, Ms. Calderon contends the allegations in her complaint were sufficient to state a claim. We review de novo the district court's dismissal for failure to state a claim. Dill v. City of Edmond, 155 F.3d 1193, 1201 (10th Cir.1998). Such dismissal "is inappropriate unless [p]laintiff can prove no set of facts in support of [her] claims that would entitle [her] to relief." Id. We must accept all factual allegations in the complaint as true and interpret all inferences in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. See id; Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6).

The district court held that the Eleventh Amendment bars Ms. Calderon's damage action against the State of Kansas and Ms. Chronister in her official capacity. Ms. Calderon does not contest that conclusion here but asserts that she is nevertheless entitled to sue Ms. Chronister for prospective injunctive relief under Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908), which allows parties to seek such relief against state officials for their unconstitutional acts. The issue, however, is whether Ms. Calderon's complaint stated a federal constitutional violation for which she sought prospective injunctive relief.

Ms. Calderon concedes that her complaint never expressly requested prospective injunctive relief. She argues instead that this omission should not be fatal because her alleged violations entitled her to injunctive relief as a matter of justice. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(c) ("[E]very final judgment shall grant relief to which the party in whose favor it is rendered is entitled, even if the party has not demanded such relief in the party's pleadings."). She cites Pension Benefit Guar. Corp. v. East Dayton Tool & Die Co., 14 F.3d 1122 (6th Cir. 1994), for the proposition that omissions in a prayer for relief do not bar redress as long as the pleading provides notice of and grounds for the underlying claims. The threshold question is thus whether Ms. Calderon's complaint gave any indication that she might be entitled to injunctive relief for ongoing federal constitutional violations by state officials.

In her complaint, Ms. Calderon complained only of a series of questions Judge Bacon and SRS asked her that "elicited information relating to family planning issues and her decisions to procreate, viz, the use of norplant . . ., information relating to the plaintiff's race, national origin, and citizenship . . . [and] socioeconomic status as it relates to the plaintiff's ability to care for her children." Aplt. App. at 3. We are not told the manner in which the line of questioning allegedly violated any of Ms. Calderon's rights or would warrant any kind of injunctive relief.

The rest of the complaint asserted vaguely that Ms. Calderon was subjected to the "described treatment," which we take to mean the line of questioning, "because of her gender (female), race (Hispanic), national origin (Mexico), citizenship (undetermined), and socioeconomic status (at or below the national poverty level);" that the facts "were used to deprive [her] of her rights, privileges and immunities secured by the Constitution and the laws of the United States" in unspecified ways; and that defendants violated her "liberty interest in the security of her person, her rights to equal protection, her rights to due process of law, and her privilege against self-incrimination under the Fourth, Fourteenth and Fifth Amendments." Id. at 4. These allegations provided no indication that prospective injunctive relief would ameliorate the alleged violations, which had already occurred.

Furthermore, the only harm Ms. Calderon alleged was her own "substantial and permanent emotional injury, medical expenses and other damages," and the damages requested were "in excess of $8,000,000.00." Id. at 4-5. Although a court might speculate that the heart of the complaint was to adjust child custody, no court has a duty to read this interpretation from the litigant's mind, Brever v. Rockwell Int'l Corp., 40 F.3d 1119, 1131 (10th Cir. 1994), especially in light of the fact that Ms. Calderon never mentioned the children in either her allegations of misconduct, the resulting harm, or the requested remedy.

In the most liberal construction of the complaint, we are unable to discern the basis for Ms. Calderon's claims beyond any embarrassment the questions may have caused her. We cannot deduce any grounds for a federal constitutional violation or for injunctive relief except to enjoin questioning. As the questioning was completed and there was no indication of further questioning, injunctive relief would have been inappropriate.

Notably, Ms. Calderon offered nothing more in her Memorandum in Opposition of Defendant's Motion to Dismiss to indicate a constitutional violation that would have entitled her to any relief, much less prospective injunctive relief. In addition to repeating information in the complaint, the Memorandum asserted that Judge Bacon attempted to regulate contraception and immigration. See Aplt. App. at 12. Ms. Calderon stated no facts at all to support these allegations, failed to explain the nexus between the judge's questions and the alleged act of regulating Ms. Calderon, and did not assert that the attempt to regulate was ongoing. Thus, neither Ms. Calderon's Memorandum nor her complaint specified any constitutional violation that would have entitled her to relief. The district court did not err in holding that Ms. Calderon had not stated a claim against Ms. Chronister under the doctrine of Ex parte Young.

Ms. Calderon contends Judge Bacon was not entitled to judicial immunity because the judge's questions regarding Ms. Calderon's citizenship were clearly beyond the scope of her jurisdiction. See Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349, 356-57 (1978) ("A judge will not be deprived of immunity because the action he took was in error, was done maliciously, or was in excess of his authority; rather, he will be subject to liability only when he has acted in the 'clear absence of all jurisdiction.'"). This argument is meritless. The Kansas Code for Care of Children grants state court judges jurisdiction over child custody proceedings, see Kan. Stat. Ann. 38-1503, and authorizes judges to consider a variety of factors in determining which placement will best serve the child's welfare, id. 38-1562. Even assuming arguendo that some of Judge Bacon's questions were inappropriate, she clearly acted in her judicial capacity pursuant to the code's jurisdictional grant. The district court therefore correctly dismissed Ms. Calderon's action against Judge Bacon under the doctrine of judicial immunity.

The district court also dismissed all claims against Ms. Chronister in her individual capacity based on qualified immunity. Under this doctrine, government officials are immune from liability for damages "insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). "When the defense of qualified immunity has been raised by the defendant, the plaintiff then has the burden to show with particularity facts and law establishing the inference that the defendants violated a constitutional right." Waiter v. Morton, 33 F.3d 1240, 1242 (10th Cir. 1994). As we have indicated, Ms. Calderon alleged neither facts nor law supporting an...