Davis v. Fulton County, Ark.

• Decision Date: 13 February 1995
• Docket Number: Civ. No. B-C-93-21.
• Parties: Bobby DAVIS and Lloyd Marlo Davis, her husband, Plaintiffs, v. FULTON COUNTY, ARKANSAS; Fulton County Quorum Court, individually and as members of the Quorum Court; Paul Martin, individually and as Sheriff of Fulton County, Arkansas; and Charles Bost, individually and as a Deputy Sheriff of Fulton County, Arkansas, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas

884 F. Supp. 1245

Bobby DAVIS and Lloyd Marlo Davis, her husband, Plaintiffs, v. FULTON COUNTY, ARKANSAS; Fulton County Quorum Court, individually and as members of the Quorum Court; Paul Martin, individually and as Sheriff of Fulton County, Arkansas; and Charles Bost, individually and as a Deputy Sheriff of Fulton County, Arkansas, Defendants.

Civ. No. B-C-93-21.

United States District Court, E.D. Arkansas, Northern Division.

April 28, 1995.

Nunc Pro Tunc February 13, 1995.

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Karen Pope Greenaway, Summerford, Greenaway & Zelinski, Attys. at Law, Fayetteville, AR, for plaintiffs Bobby Davis, Lloyd Marlo Davis, husband of Bobby Davis.

Michael R. Rainwater, Robert A. Russell, Jr., Duncan & Rainwater, Little Rock, AR, for defendants Fulton County, Ark., Fulton County Arkansas Quorum Court, individually and as members of Quorum Court, Paul Martin, individually and as Sheriff of Fulton County, Ark., Charles Bost, individually and as a Deputy Sheriff of Fulton County, Ark.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

EISELE, District Judge.

Before the Court is defendants' Motion to Dismiss Amended Complaint, filed in connection with plaintiffs' Amended Complaint alleging a cause of action under 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983 (West 1994), as well as several state law tort claims. Plaintiffs have filed a response to this motion, opposing the relief sought. The Court has jurisdiction over this federal claim pursuant to 28 U.S.C.A. § 1331 (West 1993), as well as supplemental jurisdiction over these state law claims pursuant to 28 U.S.C.A. § 1367(a) (West 1993). For the reasons expressed in the following opinion, defendants' motion will be granted in part and denied in part.

I.

As a preliminary matter, the Court notes that although plaintiffs' Amended Complaint (Docket No. 17) refers to Mr. Lloyd Marlo Davis as a named plaintiff, all of the claims advanced therein relate exclusively to the harms allegedly suffered by Mrs. Bobby Davis at the hands of a third-party assailant. Moreover, none of these alleged harms afford Mr. Davis a cause of action under the legal theories raised in the Amended Complaint. The constitutional violation at issue in the § 1983 claim is plainly an alleged deprivation of Mrs. Davis' Fourteenth Amendment rights, see discussion infra, and § 1983 does not afford Mr. Davis an independent cause of action based upon constitutional deprivations allegedly suffered by his wife. Coon v. Ledbetter, 780 F.2d 1158, 1160-61 (5th Cir.1986) (citing cases); see Flittie v. Solem, 827 F.2d 276, 280 (8th Cir.1987); cf. Gora v. Costa, 971 F.2d 1325, 1328-29 (7th Cir.1992). Furthermore, the state law tort claims advanced in the Amended Complaint are likewise premised upon harms allegedly suffered by Mrs. Davis, and Arkansas law does not afford Mr. Davis standing to present any independent tort claim based upon injuries suffered by his wife alone. See Deason v. Farmers & Merchants Bank of Rogers, Ark., 299 Ark. 167, 173, 771 S.W.2d 749, 753 (1989). Since Mr. Davis has failed to advance a legal theory, e.g., loss of consortium,¹ that would entitle him to relief under the facts alleged in the Amended Complaint, the Court must conclude that he has been improperly designated as a plaintiff. See Carter v. Zahn, 37 F.R.D. 556, 560 (D.Kan.1965); see also 7 Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller and Mary Kay Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1683 at 443-45 (2d ed. 1986). Accordingly, the Court will sua sponte terminate Mr. Davis' status as a plaintiff in this action. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 21; see also Intercon Research Assocs., Ltd. v. Dresser Indus., Inc., 696 F.2d 53, 56 (7th Cir.1982) (a district court has broad discretion under Rule 21 to determine whether it is appropriate to drop a party). Consequently, the term "plaintiff" will hereinafter refer exclusively to Mrs. Davis.

II.

Defendants first argue that plaintiff's § 1983 claim should be dismissed for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). In evaluating the merits of this motion, the Court is required to accept the allegations of plaintiff's Amended Complaint as true. Albright v. Oliver, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 114 S.Ct. 807, 810, 127 L.Ed.2d 114 (1994); Coleman v. Watt, 40 F.3d 255, 258 (8th Cir.1994). Moreover, the Court may grant defendants' motion only if, after so viewing the pleadings, it is patently clear that there is no set of facts that plaintiff could prove thereunder which would entitle her to relief under § 1983. Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 101-02, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957); Forbes v. Arkansas Educ. Television Communication Network Found., 22 F.3d 1423, 1427 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 115 S.Ct. 500, 130 L.Ed.2d 409 (1994).

Plaintiff has alleged the following facts in her Amended Complaint which, as discussed above, must be accepted as true. Plaintiff is a resident of Salem, Arkansas who, along with her husband, owns and operates a local grocery store. Plaintiff's store is located directly in front of the Fulton County Detention Center (FCDC), the operation of which is controlled, in varying degrees, by all of the above-named defendants. Amended Complaint ¶¶ 14-15, 22-23, 26. On May 13, 1992, plaintiff was working alone in her store when she was approached by Lawrence D. Hull, who then grabbed her and attempted to force her into a bathroom in the rear of the store. When plaintiff resisted, Hull threatened to kill her, and, when plaintiff ultimately submitted, Hull brutally raped and assaulted her. Hull was subsequently convicted in an Arkansas state court of second degree assault for his attack upon plaintiff. Amended Complaint ¶¶ 18-19.

At the time of this attack upon plaintiff, Hull was a pretrial detainee in the custody of the Fulton County Sheriff's Department (the Sheriff's Department), where he was awaiting the disposition of outstanding criminal charges.² Hull was housed in the FCDC while in the Sheriff's Department's custody, and had been given the status of a "trusty" detainee, which allowed him to be periodically released from his cell while performing various tasks for Fulton County law enforcement personnel. Immediately prior to his attack upon plaintiff, Hull had been released from the FCDC by Deputy Sheriff Bost, who had directed Hull to unload some groceries from a police car parked behind plaintiff's store. Deputy Sheriff Bost allowed Hull to leave the FCDC unescorted and unsupervised while performing this task. After releasing Hull, Deputy Sheriff Bost left the FCDC on personal business, and was later dispatched to respond to a domestic disturbance. As a consequence, Hull was left outside the confines of the FCDC, and beyond the supervision of the Sheriff's Department, for an extended period of time, and it was this unrestricted freedom which afforded Hull the opportunity to attack plaintiff. Amended Complaint ¶¶ 16, 27, 35.

Deputy Sheriff Bost's decision to allow Hull to leave the FCDC unsupervised on May 13, 1992 was not an isolated incident. Indeed, Sheriff Paul Martin and the Fulton County Quorum Court (the Quorum Court) had approved and adopted policies which allowed the FCDC's trusty detainees to be released unsupervised when performing tasks for law enforcement personnel.³ Amended Complaint ¶¶ 21-23. In fact, plaintiff had seen Hull on several prior occasions washing police cars outside the FCDC while wearing his trusty detainee uniform, and on none of these occasions was Hull under the direct supervision of any member of Fulton County's law enforcement personnel. Amended Complaint ¶ 20. Moreover, these policies regarding trusty detainees did not prohibit Deputy Sheriff Bost from allowing Hull to leave the FCDC unsupervised, even though both he and the other named defendants had knowledge of Hull's prior criminal acts and his propensity for violence, as well as Hull's prior record of sexually deviant and assaultive behavior. Amended Complaint ¶¶ 24, 28-34.

III.

Plaintiff's federal cause of action is based upon 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983 (West 1994), which provides in relevant part:

Every person who, under color of any ... custom, or usage, of any State ..., subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States ... 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.

Section 1983 is a remedial statute. It "`is not itself a source of substantive rights, but rather a method for vindicating federal rights elsewhere conferred.'" Albright v. Oliver, supra, ___ U.S. at ___, 114 S.Ct. at 811 (quoting Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 144 n. 3, 99 S.Ct. 2689, 2695 n. 3, 61 L.Ed.2d 433 (1979)). Therefore, in order to evaluate plaintiff's § 1983 claim, the Court must look to the allegations of her Amended Complaint for a description of the constitutional right(s) alleged to be at issue. See Collins v. City of Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115, 123-27, 112 S.Ct. 1061, 1068-69, 117 L.Ed.2d 261 (1992); Gregory v. City of Rogers, 974 F.2d 1006, 1010 (8th Cir.1992) (en banc) (Gregory II), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 113 S.Ct. 1265, 122 L.Ed.2d 661 (1993). In her Amended Complaint, plaintiff alleges that as a result of defendants' conduct, as outlined above, she was "deprived ... of her liberty interests and the right to be secure in her person without due process of law." Amended Complaint ¶ 45. Thus, it is clear that plaintiff's § 1983 claim is premised upon an alleged violation of her rights secured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.⁴ Accordingly, for plaintiff to establish a prima facie case under § 1983 for a deprivation of her Fourteenth Amendment due process rights, she must show: (1) that defendants' actions were taken under color of state authority, Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 172-87, 81 S.Ct. 473, 476-84, 5 L.Ed.2d 492...