Crocker v. Pleasant

• Decision Date: 01 February 2001
• Docket Number: No. SC95148.,SC95148.
• Citation: 778 So.2d 978
• Parties: John CROCKER, et al., Petitioners, v. Richard PLEASANT, etc., et al., Respondents.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

778 So.2d 978

John CROCKER, et al., Petitioners, v. Richard PLEASANT, etc., et al., Respondents.

No. SC95148.

Supreme Court of Florida.

February 1, 2001.

V. Lynn Whitfield of Whitfield & Mosley, West Palm Beach, Florida; and Dea Abramschmitt, West Palm Beach, FL, for Petitioners.

Patrick N. Brown, City Attorney, Claudia M. McKenna, Deputy City Attorney, and Mayra I. Rivera-Delgado, Assistant City Attorney, and Leonard Berger, Assistant County Attorney, West Palm Beach, FL, for Respondents.

Carl E. Brody, Jr., Assistant County Attorney, Clearwater, FL, for The Florida Association of County Attorneys, Amicus Curiae.

PARIENTE, J.

We have for review a decision of the Fourth District Court of Appeal, which certified the following question certified to be of great public importance:

DOES [STATE V.] POWELL [497 So.2d 1188 (Fla.1986)] PRECLUDE ALL SECTION 1983 CLAIMS GROUNDED ON INTERFERENCE WITH AN INTEREST IN A DEAD BODY?

Crocker v. Pleasant, 727 So.2d 1087, 1089 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999). We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. For the reasons explained in this opinion, we answer the certified question in the negative.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The decedent in this case was the adult son of the petitioners, John Crocker and Betty Crocker (the "Crockers"), who brought an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1994), against Palm Beach County ("County") and the City of West Palm Beach ("City").¹ See Crocker, 727 So.2d at 1087-88

. The uncontested facts are set forth in the Fourth District's opinion:

Appellants' twenty-three year old son was found dead in West Palm Beach without identification. Three days later, the West Palm Beach police officer assigned to investigate obtained the name and address of the plaintiffs in Miami Shores, and teletyped Miami Shores' police department requesting the department to have the plaintiffs call the officer about their son. The officer did not advise Miami Shores that this was a death notification.

The Miami Shores police notified the officer that no one was home but that they would try again. The officer then sent a second teletype to Miami Shores, advising that "no extra effort was necessary and that a note to contact him would suffice." The officer took no other steps to contact the plaintiffs, closed the file, and authorized the release of their son's body to Palm Beach County for burial. Prior to the burial, which occurred about two months after the death, the parents had filed a missing person's report, had continuously searched for their son, and had flyers distributed with his picture on them. The missing person's report was available to the West Palm Beach police. Six months later plaintiffs first learned through their own efforts of their son's death.

Crocker, 727 So.2d at 1088.

In their action against the City and the County, the Crockers alleged that they had a "constitutionally protected property interest in the body" of their son and "a right to procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution prior to the deprivation of their property interest." Accordingly, the Crockers' allegations against the County focused on the County's failure to use reasonable efforts to notify them of their son's death before his burial.² The Crockers' allegations against the City focused not only on the police officer's failure to notify the Crockers of their son's death before his burial, but also on the City's failure to adequately supervise, discipline, and retrain the officer, despite the City's awareness of the officer's "propensity to violate the operating procedures which leads to the violation of the rights of others."³ The Crockers further alleged that as a result of the failure to notify them of their son's death, they were deprived of the right to possess the body for "burial or disposition in any other lawful manner for a period of six months."

The City and County each filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings and the trial court granted both motions.⁴ In granting these motions, the trial court relied both on State v. Powell, 497 So.2d 1188 (Fla.1986), in which this Court upheld as constitutional a state statute that authorized removal of corneal tissue from a dead body without permission of relatives, and on Gonzalez v. Metropolitan Dade County Public Health Trust, 651 So.2d 673 (1995), in which this Court determined that either physical injury or willful or wanton misconduct is required to support a cause of action for mental anguish based on negligent handling of a corpse.

On appeal, the Fourth District affirmed the trial court's order based solely on this Court's decision in Powell. See Crocker, 727 So.2d at 1089

. The Fourth District interpreted Powell as having decided that "the right of next of kin to possess the body for burial was not a `protectable liberty or property interest in the remains' of the decedent." Id. at 1088 (quoting Powell, 497 So.2d at 1193). Nonetheless, the Fourth District expressed concern about the Crockers' inability to bring a section 1983 action because the court regarded the misconduct alleged in the present case to be "much more egregious than the claim made in Powell." Id. at 1089. Specifically, the Fourth District stated that "the allegations in the present case are that the West Palm Beach police officer showed such a callous indifference to the rights of the plaintiffs, whose names and address in Miami were known to him, as to constitute outrageous conduct and tortious interference with the right of burial." Id. Accordingly, the court affirmed the trial court's judgment, but stated that this Court "should determine whether Powell is limited to corneal removal or precludes section 1983 actions where the interference with burial is more egregious." Id. The Fourth District thus certified the question of whether Powell precludes all section 1983 claims grounded on interference with an interest in a dead body.

LAW AND ANALYSIS

1. Actions Under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983

Section 1983 provides in pertinent part:

Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.

42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Supp.1998) (emphasis added). "The purpose of § 1983 is to deter state actors from using the badge of their authority to deprive individuals of their federally guaranteed rights and to provide relief to victims if such deterrence fails." Wyatt v. Cole, 504 U.S. 158, 161, 112 S.Ct. 1827, 118 L.Ed.2d 504 (1992). Thus, a person alleging a deprivation of his or her Fourteenth Amendment⁵ rights may bring a cause of action against the State or any local governmental entity under section 1983.⁶ See 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

Broadly speaking, claims against the State under section 1983 have been grouped into three general categories. See Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U.S. 113, 125, 110 S.Ct. 975, 108 L.Ed.2d 100 (1990)

. First, a person may bring an action under section 1983 for a state official's deprivation of that individual's fundamental rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, such as freedom of speech or freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. See id. Second, a person may bring a section 1983 action for a violation of substantive due process that amounts to "arbitrary, wrongful government actions `regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement them.'" Id. (quoting Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 331, 106 S.Ct. 662, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986)). In this category, courts have consistently required that in order to constitute a violation of substantive due process, the right must be "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty." McKinney v. Pate, 20 F.3d 1550, 1556 (11th Cir.1994). A violation of substantive due process can also arise where the governmental action "shocks the conscience." Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 172, 72 S.Ct. 205, 96 L.Ed. 183 (1952). "As a general matter, the [U.S. Supreme] Court has always been reluctant to expand the concept of substantive due process because guideposts for responsible decisionmaking in this unchartered area are scarce and open-ended." Collins v. City of Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115, 125, 112 S.Ct. 1061, 117 L.Ed.2d 261 (1992).

Lastly, and important for our analysis in this case, a person also may bring a section 1983 action for the deprivation of procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. See Zinermon, 494 U.S. at 125,

110 S.Ct. 975. To maintain a claim under this third type of section 1983 action, the individual bringing an action for deprivation of procedural due process must first establish the existence of a constitutionally protected property or liberty interest that has been interfered with by the State. See Kentucky Dep't. of Corr. v. Thompson, 490 U.S. 454, 460, 109 S.Ct. 1904, 104 L.Ed.2d 506 (1989). The United States Supreme Court has held that in order to have a property interest, "a person clearly must have more than an abstract need or desire for it.... He must, instead, have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it." Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972). In addition, several federal courts have referred to the interest of the next of kin in their loved one's remains as a state "quasi-property right." See, e.g., Arnaud v. Odom, 870 F.2d 304, 308 (5th Cir.1989) (applying Louisiana law); Fuller v. Marx, 724 F.2d 717, 719 (8th Cir.1984) (applying Arkansas law). Accordingly, the threshold question presented in this case is whether the Crockers have a constitutionally protected property interest, "quasi-property right," or ...