Doe v. Gooden, No. 99-1698
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit) |
| Writing for the Court | Hansen |
| Citation | 214 F.3d 952 |
| Parties | (8th Cir. 2000) JANE DOE, 1; JANE DOE, 2; JANE DOE, 3; JANE DOE, 4; JANE DOE, 5; JOHN DOE, 1, APPELLEES, v. DR. BENNY L. GOODEN, INDIVIDUALLY, AND A SUPERINTENDENT OF FORT SMITH SCHOOL DISTRICT; PATRICIA J. JACKSON, INDIVIDUALLY AND AS FORMER SUPERINTENDENT OF FT. SMITH SCHOOL DISTRICT, APPELLANTS. Submitted: |
| Decision Date | 14 December 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. 99-1698 |
Page 952
v.
DR. BENNY L. GOODEN, INDIVIDUALLY, AND A SUPERINTENDENT OF FORT SMITH SCHOOL DISTRICT; PATRICIA J. JACKSON, INDIVIDUALLY AND AS FORMER SUPERINTENDENT OF FT. SMITH SCHOOL DISTRICT, APPELLANTS.
Filed: June 2, 2000
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas.
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Before Richard S. Arnold and Hansen, Circuit Judges, and Melloy, 1 District Judge.
Hansen, Circuit Judge.
Dr. Benny Gooden and Dr. Patricia Jackson appeal the district court's order denying their motion for summary judgment in this 42 U.S.C. 1983 action brought by six minor students (the plaintiffs) of the Fort Smith School District. Gooden and Jackson argue they are entitled to qualified immunity because they lacked actual knowledge of and were not deliberately indifferent to any abuse that rose to the level of a constitutional violation committed by school teacher Claudie Lovell. The district court concluded reasonable jurors could find on the evidence that Gooden and Jackson had notice of and were deliberately indifferent to Lovell's conduct and, therefore, denied Gooden and Jackson's motion for summary judgment. We reverse and remand.
I.
Gooden, the Superintendent of the Fort Smith School District, and Jackson, the former Assistant Superintendent, were two of the named defendants in a complaint filed by six minor students alleging that their teacher, Lovell, subjected them to verbal, physical, and sexual abuse. The allegations of abuse are extensive. 2 Lovell was an elementary school teacher in the Fort Smith School District for over twenty-two years until his verbal suspension on Monday, January 15, 1996, following the receipt of written complaints from a group of parents on Friday, January 12, 1996. On January 17, 1996, Gooden sent Lovell a written letter of suspension.
The plaintiffs filed a complaint against the school district and various school district employees and board members. The plaintiffs asserted several causes of action arising out of the alleged abuse, including a 42 U.S.C. 1983 claim, violation of the Arkansas child abuse reporting statute (Ark. Code Ann. 12-12-507 (Michie Supp. 1995)), the tort of outrage, and negligent supervision and retention. Only the 1983 claim is before us. Every defendant, except Lovell, filed a motion for partial summary judgment as to the 1983 claim. The district court granted the motion for partial summary judgment for all the movants, except Gooden and Jackson. Gooden and Jackson appeal the denial of their motion for partial summary judgment as to the 1983 claim.
II.
A district court's order denying a defendant's motion for summary judgment is an immediately appealable order where the defendant has asserted qualified immunity and the issue concerns an abstract issue of law relating to qualified immunity. See Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299, 313 (1996). Qualified immunity shields state officials from civil liability when "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). "Only those issues that concern what the official knew at the time the alleged deprivation occurred are properly reviewed in this type of interlocutory appeal." Miller v. Schoenen, 75 F.3d 1305, 1308 (8th Cir. 1996). Review of these issues "is necessary in order to determine whether a reasonable
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state actor would have known that his actions, in light of those facts, would violate the law." Id.
School district officials can be liable under 1983 if they are deliberately indifferent to acts committed by a teacher that violate a student's constitutional rights. See Gebser v. Lago Vista Indep. Sch. Dist., 524 U.S. 274, 290-91 (1998) (a Title IX case drawing an analogy to the deliberate indifference standard of 1983). The plaintiffs must show that the district officials received notice of a pattern of unconstitutional acts, demonstrated deliberate indifference to the acts, failed to take sufficient remedial action, and that such failure proximately caused the injury to the students. See Jane Doe A v. Special Sch. Dist. of St. Louis County, 901 F.2d 642, 645 (1990). We note initially that the failure of the movants to report the suspected abuse, as required by the Arkansas state statute, does not amount to "unconstitutional misconduct" as stated in the district court's order on the motion for partial summary judgment. (Appellant's Adden. at A-33)...
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