Commonwealth Bank & Trust Co., N.A. v. Russell

Citation825 F.2d 12
Decision Date10 August 1987
Docket NumberNo. 86-5915,86-5915
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (3rd Circuit)
PartiesCOMMONWEALTH BANK & TRUST COMPANY, N.A., Executor, Estates of Frank N. Lent and Betty J. Lent, Appellants, v. Dale "Bill" RUSSELL, Sheriff; and Potter County Commissioners.

William A. Hebe, Spencer, Gleason & Hebe, Wellsboro, Pa., for appellee Dale "Bill" Russell, Sheriff.

C. Edward S. Mitchell (argued), Mitchell, Mitchell & Gray, Williamsport, Pa., for appellee Potter County Com'rs.

Robert H. Vesely (argued), John M. Humphrey, Rieders, Travis, Mussina, Humphrey & Harris, Williamsport, Pa., for appellants.

Before SLOVITER and STAPLETON, Circuit Judges, and SHAPIRO, District Judge. *

SLOVITER, Circuit Judge.

Commonwealth Bank & Trust Company, N.A., the executor of the estate of Frank and Betty Lent, appeals from the order of the district court dismissing its claim brought under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 alleging that the Lents, who were murdered by an escaped prisoner, were deprived of their constitutional rights through the actions of the defendant prison and county officials.

I. FACTS

In reviewing the dismissal of a complaint pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), we must construe the complaint most favorably to the plaintiff and accept as true all the well-pleaded allegations therein. The complaint alleges that the Lents were residents of Potter County; that Elmer Slingerland, a prisoner, was confined in the Potter County Jail on July 22, 1985 on charges of homicide, burglary, robbery and theft in the April 15, 1985 murder of a Potter County resident who had been shot several times; that Slingerland was being held on $250,000 bail; that sometime in the evening on July 24, 1985 two turnkeys and other agents of the Potter County jail supervised recreation in the jail yard and that when the prisoners were returned to their cells no head count was conducted; that it was the policy of the jail not to take counts because of a series of inoperable locks in the cell block area; and that on the morning of July 25, 1985 employees of the jail discovered that Slingerland had escaped.

A ladder from the recreation yard had been placed inside one of the exterior walls of the jail. The complaint alleges that Slingerland used the ladder "as well as the deteriorating condition of the wall," trees outside the wall, and horseshoes from the recreation yard to scale the wall and descend to the street outside the jail or in the alternative that he used unsecured access to windows and the roof of the jail and then scaled the interior aspect and top of the jail wall to escape. App. at 9-10. According to the complaint, after escaping, Slingerland stole a handgun from a Potter County farm home and used that handgun in the shooting deaths of the Lents.

The complaint alleges that defendants Dale "Bill" Russell, the Potter County sheriff, and the Potter County Commissioners 1 knew or should have known that deficiencies in the internal locking mechanisms of the jail, deficiencies in other portions of the jail including the jail wall and adjacent trees external to the wall and deficiencies in the training and supervision of the jail's turnkeys could lead to the injuries suffered by the Lents; that "municipal officials did have knowledge of inadequate jail conditions and security since Pennsylvania Department of Corrections Reports regularly faulted the facility and procedures at the Potter County Jail"; that defendants failed to remedy the deficiencies, institute proper correctional procedures and train and supervise jail employees; and that defendants' failure to act constituted "gross negligence, reckless indifference, and wilful neglect" of the rights of the Lents. App. at 12-13. The complaint alleges that the acts or omissions of the defendants who are supervisory municipal officials constituted an official policy which resulted in the Lents' deaths and that, since Slingerland, the person whose affirmative conduct caused the harm, was under the direct control or supervision of the defendants, the Lents' death can be attributed to them. App. at 12.

Count I of the complaint alleges a claim under Sec. 1983 for loss of the Lents' "liberty interest in their expectation of continuing life and property interest in the ownership, use and continued enjoyment of their real and personal property" in violation of their rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. App. at 11. Counts II, III and IV allege state claims.

The district court dismissed the Sec. 1983 claim pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. The court, relying on Martinez v. California, 444 U.S. 277, 100 S.Ct. 553, 62 L.Ed.2d 481 (1980), held that Slingerland was not an agent of the state, that the defendants had no reason to believe that the Lents were in any greater danger than the public at large, and that there was no "special relationship" between Potter County and the Lents which created an affirmative duty of care and protection. App. at 33-37. The district court also dismissed the pendent state law claims. Plaintiff appeals.

II. Discussion

The complaint adequately alleges that the defendants were acting under color of state law, see Riley v. Jeffes, 777 F.2d 143, 145 (3d Cir.1985), that the Lents were deprived of interests in life and property, id., and that the defendants acted with the reckless indifference or callous disregard that will support a claim of violation of the Fourteenth Amendment under Sec. 1983. See Davidson v. Cannon, 474 U.S. 344, 106 S.Ct. 668, 670, 88 L.Ed.2d 677 (1986), aff'g Davidson v. O'Lone, 752 F.2d 817, 828 (3d Cir.1984) (in banc). The facts alleged, however, implicate yet another requirement of Sec. 1983, i.e. that the constitutional deprivation alleged be fairly attributable to defendants' conduct. As the district court recognized, the starting point for consideration of this issue is the Supreme Court's decision in Martinez v. California, 444 U.S. 277, 100 S.Ct. 553, 62 L.Ed.2d 481 (1980).

In Martinez, a 15 year old girl was tortured and then murdered by a parolee five months after his release from prison. The parolee, who had been convicted of rape, was committed initially to a state mental hospital as a "Mentally Disordered Sex Offender not amenable to treatment" and thereafter sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 1 to 20 years, with a recommendation that he not be paroled. He was paroled five years later notwithstanding that, according to the complaint, parole officials were fully informed of his dangerous propensities and the likelihood that he would commit another violent crime. 444 U.S. at 279, 100 S.Ct. at 556. The California courts sustained a demurrer to the complaint.

The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the plaintiffs "have not alleged a claim for relief under Federal law." Id. The Court concluded that "taking these particular allegations as true, the [state officials] did not deprive [plaintiffs'] decedent of life within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment." Id. at 285, 100 S.Ct. at 559. The Court stated its reasoning briefly:

Her life was taken by the parolee five months after his release. He was in no sense an agent of the parole board. Cf. Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974). Further, the parole board was not aware that [plaintiffs'] decedent, as distinguished from the public at large, faced any special danger. We need not and do not decide that a parole officer could never be deemed to "deprive" someone of life by action taken in connection with the release of a prisoner on parole. But we do hold that at least under the particular circumstances of this parole decision, [plaintiffs'] decedent's death is too remote a consequence of the parole officers' action to hold them responsible under the federal civil rights law. Although a Sec. 1983 claim has been described as "a species of tort liability," Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 417, 96 S.Ct. 984, 988, 47 L.Ed.2d 128, it is perfectly clear that not every injury in which a state official has played some part is actionable under that statute.

Id. (footnotes omitted).

Since Martinez, the courts have dismissed Sec. 1983 claims against state officials for injuries or deaths caused by parolees or released criminals. For example, Fox v. Custis, 712 F.2d 84 (4th Cir.1983), involved a Sec. 1983 suit by three female plaintiffs who were raped, beaten, shot, stabbed and set on fire by a parolee. The complaint alleged that the parole board and parole officers continued the parolee on parole despite their knowledge that the parolee was convicted for defrauding an innkeeper three weeks after his release and despite their suspicion that shortly after the parolee's release he had committed an act of arson which resulted in a woman's death. The dismissal of the complaint was affirmed on the ground that no special relationship existed between the plaintiffs and the state officials which gave rise to an affirmative duty of protection. The court found that "[t]he claimants here were simply members of the general public, living in the free society, and having no special custodial or other relationship with the state.... [T]he state agent defendants here were 'unaware that the [claimants] as distinguished from the public at large faced any special danger.' " Id. at 88 (quoting Martinez, 444 U.S. at 285, 100 S.Ct. at 559).

Similarly, in Humann v. Wilson, 696 F.2d 783 (10th Cir.1983) (per curiam), the court affirmed the dismissal of a complaint in a suit brought by a victim who had been raped by an inmate of a community corrections facility which permitted a good deal of freedom and interaction in the community. Relying on Martinez, the court concluded that there was no special relationship alleged.

Other courts have reached similar results. See Janan v. Trammell, 785 F.2d 557, 560 (6th Cir.1986) (no cause of action stated where parolee, who had made threats against a...

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