Fox v. Custis
| Decision Date | 13 July 1983 |
| Docket Number | No. 82-1144,82-1144 |
| Citation | 712 F.2d 84 |
| Parties | Constance P. FOX; Lisa M. Morris, by her next friend, Miriam J. Morris; Wendy F. Morris, by her next friend, Miriam J. Morris, Appellants, v. Roy S. CUSTIS; John R. Chandler, Jr., Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Marc E. Bettius, Fairfax, Va. (Stephen K. Fox, Bettius, Rosenberger & Carter, P.C., Fairfax, Va., Robert A. Downs, Vienna, Va., on brief), for appellants.
Dennis G. Merrill, Asst. Atty. Gen., Richmond, Va. (Gerald L. Baliles, Atty. Gen., Richmond, Va., on brief), for appellees.
Before HALL and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judges, and EUGENE A. GORDON, Senior United States District Judge, sitting by designation.
Constance Fox, Wendy Morris and Lisa Morris (claimants) appeal the district court's dismissal of their several claims against Roy Custis and John Chandler (defendants), employees of Virginia's Department of Corrections, Division of Probation and Parole Services. Claimants charged that the negligent failure of the defendants to reincarcerate Morris Odell Mason, a dangerous parolee under their supervision, renders them responsible for Mason's subsequent criminal acts against claimants. In one count, each asserted a cause of action under Virginia tort law and in another, each premised liability on 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In dismissing both claims, the district court held that the defendants were absolutely immune under state law to liability on the state tort claims and that the § 1983 count failed to state a claim for which relief could be granted.
We hold that the district court properly dismissed the § 1983 claims and therefore affirm that portion of its judgment. But because we hold that the court should have exercised its discretion not to decide the pendent state claims, we vacate that part of the district court's order and remand with instructions to remand those claims to the state court.
The critical facts, construed most liberally to claimants from their complaint, are these. Roy S. Custis and his immediate supervisor, John R. Chandler, Jr., employees of Virginia's Department of Corrections, Division of Probation and Parole Services, were assigned to supervise Morris Odell Mason when he was paroled on April 12, 1978. Mason had been convicted in 1976 of arson and grand larceny, and was sentenced to a term of twenty years, with ten years suspended, in the state penitentiary.
Chandler and Custis possessed sufficient information of Mason's propensities for arson, sexual aberrations and other criminal behavior to alert them of his dangerousness. Within three weeks of Mason's release, on May 1, he defrauded an innkeeper in violation of Virginia Code § 18.2-188. On May 8, Mason was convicted of this offense and given a 30-day suspended sentence. Chandler and Custis were aware of Mason's conviction, and considered it a violation of his terms of parole. In fact, Chandler on May 10 wrote to Mason,
Custis and Chandler also suspected, through information provided to them by the county sheriff, that Mason had committed an act of arson on May 1 that resulted in one woman's death. The defendants nevertheless did not revoke Mason's parole, but left him free.
On May 14, Mason set fire to Fox's home, raped, beat and set on fire Lisa Morris, and shot and stabbed appellant Wendy Morris. Mason has since been convicted of the arson-murder of May 1, a murder committed on May 13, and the various crimes of May 14 against claimants.
Claimants filed separate damage actions against Custis and Chandler in the Circuit Court of Northampton County, Virginia. Their state tort claims alleged that Va.Code § 53-250(4) (since repealed) required appellees to reincarcerate Mason as soon as they became aware that Mason had violated the terms of his parole, and that the appellees' negligent, willful, wanton and reckless disregard of their duty to supervise Mason proximately and foreseeably resulted in injury to the appellants.
Their claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleged that the negligent actions of the parole officers, under color of state law, deprived appellants of constitutionally protected rights without due process of law.
The defendants removed each action from the Circuit Court of Northampton County to federal district court, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1441, after which the three cases were consolidated. Defendants subsequently moved to dismiss the several complaints. The district court granted the motion and this appeal followed.
The district court dismissed the § 1983 claim on the authority of Martinez v. California, 444 U.S. 277, 100 S.Ct. 553, 62 L.Ed.2d 481 (1980) (unanimous opinion). In Martinez, the Supreme Court held that the parents of a 15-year old girl, who was murdered by an unreasonably dangerous parolee five months after his release from prison, had no cognizable claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the parole officials who were responsible for his release. The Martinez Court conceded that the relevant officials "knew, or should have known, that the release of [the prisoner] created a clear and present danger that such an incident would occur." Id. at 280, 100 S.Ct. at 556. Nevertheless, the Court concluded that the parole officers "did not 'deprive' appellants' decedent of life within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment." Id. at 285, 100 S.Ct. at 559.
The § 1983 claim in Martinez was that parole board officials, "by their action in releasing [an inmate to parole], subjected [the § 1983 claimants'] decedent to a deprivation of her life without due process of law." Id. at 283, 100 S.Ct. at 558 (footnote omitted). The claim here is that the parole officers, by failing to revoke Mason's parole, subjected these § 1983 claimants to deprivations of liberty and property without due process of law. The basic similarity of claims and issues is obvious.
The claim in Martinez was found not cognizable under § 1983 because "under the particular circumstances of [that] parole decision, [the victim's] death [was] too remote a consequence of the parole officers' action" to hold them responsible. Id. at 285, 100 S.Ct. at 559. Two factors were apparently critical in the Court's conclusion that effect was too remote from asserted cause to constitute a "deprivation" of constitutional right: the five months lapse of time between state action and loss of life, and the defendants' lack of awareness that the Martinez victim "as distinguished from the public at large, faced any special danger." Id.
If we take the Martinez analytical approach as the appropriate one for decision here, the claims in this case differ from the claims there in two arguably significant respects. The time interval between state conduct and victim injury was considerably shorter here; and the defendants here, unlike the Martinez defendants, had responsibility for the post-release supervision of the parolee. 1 In another respect obviously significant in the Martinez analysis the facts are similar: here too the defendants were unaware that the claimant-victims, as distinguished from the public at large, faced any special danger.
Predictably, claimants urge that the shorter time interval and the supervisory responsibility of these defendants distinguish this case from Martinez and compel the conclusion that the relationship between state action and victim injury here were not remote but so close as to constitute a "deprivation" of rights within the meaning of § 1983. 2 Equally predictably, the state urges that the critical factor here as in Martinez is the defendant-officers' lack of awareness of any special danger to the victim-claimants from the continued freedom of the parolee under their supervision.
If Martinez provided the sole analytical framework for reaching decision here, we would on an assessment of the factors deemed relevant there find the injuries here also "too remote" from the challenged conduct of the state actors to constitute a "deprivation" of constitutional rights under § 1983. But the mix of factors here is concededly different and the cause and effect relationship concededly less attenuated than that in Martinez.
For that reason, another analytical approach--well established in § 1983 litigation--should and can be drawn upon to bolster the conclusion that no cognizable § 1983 claim is presented in this case. This approach concentrates primarily upon the exact nature of the constitutional rights protected by § 1983 rather than upon the remoteness of injury from state action that was the primary focus of the Martinez Court's analysis of § 1983's application in the same general factual pattern.
Threshold rights analysis under § 1983 begins with recognition that this section of the Civil Rights Act only protects against action under color of state law that "subjects ... any citizen ... or other person ... to the deprivation of any rights ... secured by the Constitution and laws" of the United States. See Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 146-47, 99 S.Ct. 2689, 2695-96, 61 L.Ed.2d 433 (1979). From this it follows that "[t]he first inquiry in any § 1983 suit ... is whether the plaintiff has been deprived of [such] a right," id. at 140, 99 S.Ct. at 2692, and this in turn involves "isolating the particular constitutional infringement complained of," Martinez, 444 U.S. at 284 n. 9, 100 S.Ct. at 559 n. 9.
Here the particular constitutional infringement complained of is the deprivation of liberty and property rights secured by the fourteenth amendment. In more specific factual terms, the claimants have asserted the right not to be injured in person or property by the irresponsible failure of the state to protect them against any risks of harm posed to them by a state parolee under the direct...
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