Crumpton v. Gates
| Decision Date | 04 November 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 90-55117,90-55117 |
| Citation | 947 F.2d 1418 |
| Parties | John CRUMPTON, IV, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Daryl GATES; Tom Bradley; Tom Reddin; Ed Davis; Herbert Boeckmann; Maxwell E. Greenberg; Barbara L. Schlei; Robert Talcott, et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Stephen Yagman, Yagman & Yagman, Venice, Cal., for plaintiff-appellant.
Jack L. Brown, Asst. City Atty., Los Angeles, Cal., for defendants-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
Before BOOCHEVER, KOZINSKI and O'SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judges.
John Crumpton, IV, a six-year-old child, brought this civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 against Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates and several former police chiefs, current and former members of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, various known and unknown Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers, Mayor Bradley, and the City of Los Angeles. Crumpton alleges that the killing of his father by an alleged LAPD "death squad" violated his own constitutional rights. The district court granted defendants' motion for summary judgment on the ground that, because Crumpton was a fetus at the time his father was killed, he was not a "person" within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. section 1983 and, therefore, was unable to bring the civil rights claim. We reverse and remand.
In his complaint, Crumpton alleges that the LAPD had formed a "death squad," or "cadre of officers whose mission it was to execute persons targeted for execution by LAPD." According to Crumpton, from 1966 to the time of the filing of his complaint, this "death squad" followed those persons believed to be criminals who were "escaping the arm of the law in that they were not being convicted for crimes they had committed, and in that when convicted, their sentences were too short and/or inadequate." He alleges that the "death squad" allowed its targets to commit crimes, "and then easily on pretext execute[d] those persons."
Crumpton claims that on or about September 15, 1982, the individual officer defendants in this case functioned as a "death squad" and followed his father to a bank they knew he planned to rob. After robbing the bank, Crumpton contends, defendants pursued his father and fatally shot him in the back. At the time of the killing, Crumpton was a two month-old fetus; he was not born until April 23, 1983.
Crumpton brought this civil rights action for his own damages sustained as a result of the loss of his father, seeking compensatory and punitive damages, and injunctive relief in the form of either an order that the "death squad" disband or court supervision of "death squad" activities.
Defendants moved for summary judgment arguing that Crumpton, who was a fetus at the time his father was killed, was not a "person" as contemplated by 42 U.S.C. section 1983. Relying on Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973), the district court granted the motion for summary judgment on the ground that "a fetus is not a person under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 on whose behalf an action can be brought."
This case poses a novel, purely legal question. Indeed, our research has uncovered no federal case on all fours. Specifically, we must decide whether a child may bring a section 1983 action based upon the unconstitutional killing of his father prior to the child's birth.
42 U.S.C. section 1983, derived from section 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (), 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 proceeding for redress.
Congress enacted section 1983 pursuant to its power under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to adopt "appropriate legislation" to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment. Quern v. Jordan, 440 U.S. 332, 351 n. 3, 355, 99 S.Ct. 1139, 1150 n. 3, 1152, 59 L.Ed.2d 358 (1979) (Brennan, J., concurring). See also Ngiraingas v. Sanchez, 495 U.S. 182, 110 S.Ct. 1737, 1740, 109 L.Ed.2d 163 (1990).
Traditionally, the requirements for relief under section 1983 have been articulated as: (1) a violation of rights protected by the Constitution or created by federal statute, (2) proximately caused (3) by conduct of a "person" (4) acting under color of state law. See, e.g., Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 535, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 1912, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981), overruled on other grounds, Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 328, 106 S.Ct. 662, 663, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986). Central to this case is a fifth requirement, that the plaintiff be a "citizen of the United States or other person." The only elements at issue in this case are the first and fifth.
Section 1983 does not create substantive rights; it merely serves as the procedural device for enforcing substantive provisions of the Constitution and federal statutes. See, e.g., Chapman v. Houston Welfare Rights Org., 441 U.S. 600, 617, 99 S.Ct. 1905, 1916, 60 L.Ed.2d 508 (1979) (). See also Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess. app. 68 (remarks of Rep. Shellabarger), 481-82 (remarks of Rep. Wilson), 568 (remarks of Sen. Edmunds). Thus, a section 1983 plaintiff must allege an independent substantive basis for relief.
While the articulation of Crumpton's claim is not a model of clarity, we believe it sufficiently avers that the violation of his father's Fourth Amendment right "not to be subjected to the use of excessive force" thereby violated his own Fourteenth Amendment rights. While this type of claim has generated considerable confusion and disagreement, see generally 1 M. Schwartz & J. Kirklin, Section 1983 Litigation: Claims, Defenses, and Fees §§ 13.3-13.7 (2d ed. 1991), we have concluded such claims are not based on derivative rights, but rather assert an independent violation of a survivor's personal federally protected rights. See Smith v. City of Fontana, 818 F.2d 1411, 1418-20 (9th Cir.), cert. denied In Fontana, while we did not permit a decedent's children to maintain their father's Fourth Amendment cause of action for the alleged use of excessive force by police that caused his death, we did permit them to assert a substantive due process claim based on the violation of their right to familial companionship and society. We characterized the children's interest as "a cognizable liberty interest," which "the state has no legitimate interest in interfering with ... through the use of excessive force." Id. at 1419-20. We found our conclusion substantially bolstered by the legislative history of section 1983's precursor, the Ku Klux Klan Act, described by one of its proponents Id. at 1419 (alteration in original) (quoting Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess. 807 (1871) (statement of Rep. Butler)). 1 In light of our holding in Fontana and the powerful evidence that Congress intended to provide survivors with a remedy for their own constitutional injuries occasioned by the wrongful killing of a parent, we find that Crumpton has adequately alleged a deprivation of constitutional proportions.
484 U.S. 935, 108 S.Ct. 311, 98 L.Ed.2d 269 (1987).
The crux of this case, however, is not the nature of the constitutional right asserted, but rather who may bring a suit under 42 U.S.C. section 1983. Defendants contend that Crumpton is not a proper party under section 1983 because he was a fetus and not a "person" at the time his father was killed. In support, they cite the Supreme Court's statement in Roe v. Wade that "the word 'person,' as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn." Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 158, 93 S.Ct. 705, 729, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973). Defendants argue that the legislative history of section 1983 indicates that Congress intended the same meaning of "person" to apply in section 1983 as in the Fourteenth Amendment, which section 1983 was enacted to enforce. Indeed, some other jurisdictions have indicated that a fetus is not a "person" for section 1983 purposes. See Arnold v. Board of Educ., 880 F.2d 305, 312 n. 9 (11th Cir.1989); Ruiz Romero v. Gonzalez Caraballo, 681 F.Supp. 123, 125-26 (D.P.R.1988); Harman v. Daniels, 525 F.Supp. 798, 800-01 (W.D.Va.1981); Poole v. Endsley, 371 F.Supp. 1379, 1382 (N.D.Fla.1974), aff'd in part, 516 F.2d 898 (5th Cir.1975); McGarvey v. Magee-Womens Hosp., 340 F.Supp. 751 (W.D.Pa.1972), aff'd, 474 F.2d 1339 (3d Cir.1973). 2
The question of whether a fetus is a "person" entitled to sue under section 1983, however, is not dispositive in this case, and defendants' citation to Roe, Poole, and McGarvey is inapposite. Each of those cases involved the rights of a fetus qua fetus. Whether Crumpton, a six-year-old child, may assert a section 1983 cause of action based upon the killing of his father by state actors is an entirely different proposition, one for which we have found Aside from their reliance on these "fetus qua fetus" cases, defendants have cited federal decisional law closer in point, Harman, 525 F.Supp. 798. See also Ruiz Romero, 681 F.Supp. 123. These two cases address whether an infant can sue for direct physical prenatal injuries caused while...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Coe v. County of Cook
...123-30, 109 S.Ct. 2333, 105 L.Ed.2d 91 (1989) (plurality opinion); Pena v. Mattox, 84 F.3d 894, 899-900 (7th Cir.1996); Crumpton v. Gates, 947 F.2d 1418 (9th Cir.1991), let alone to the relation between a father and a fetus. But even if they would take this large step, perhaps in a case in ......
-
Pahle v. Colebrookdale Tp.
...rights when their family members are subjected to deadly or damaging unlawful actions by the government. See, e.g., Crumpton v. Gates, 947 F.2d 1418, 1422-1423 (9th Cir.1991) (child can recover, as of date of his birth, under § 1983 for unwarranted interference with his rights to familial c......
-
Lewis v. Grinker
...their mothers prior to their birth which resulted in birth defects and other disabilities to them, the children. In Crumpton v. Gates, 947 F.2d 1418, 1422-23 (9th Cir.1991), the Ninth Circuit held that a child could maintain an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for unwarranted interference with......
- Kayes v. Pacific Lumber Co.