Hoffert v. Westendorf
| Decision Date | 16 July 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 19-CV-2063-CJW-MAR,19-CV-2063-CJW-MAR |
| Parties | ROGER JOSEPH HOFFERT, JR., Plaintiff, v. JEREMY WESTENDORF, CHASTITY SULLIVAN, KIMBERLY A. GRIFFITH, TONY THOMPSON, PHILLIP WENDLING, and BETH SKINNER, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Iowa |
This matter is before the Court on defendant Beth Skinner's ("Skinner") and defendants Jeremy Westendorf ("Westendorf"), Chastity Sullivan ("Sullivan"), Kimberly A. Griffith ("Griffith"), Phillip Wendling ("Wendling"), and Tony Thompson's ("Thompson") (collectively "defendants") motions to dismiss filed on May 18, 2020, and May 28, 2020, respectively. (Docs. 38 & 40). Plaintiff timely filed resistances to both motions on June 1, 2020, and June 10, 2020, respectively. (Docs. 41 & 43). On June 17, 2020, defendants, except Skinner, timely filed a reply. (Doc. 48).
For the following reasons, the Court grants defendants' motions and this case is dismissed with prejudice.
In his Second Amended Complaint (Doc. 36), plaintiff states the following facts: On August 3, 2017, plaintiff was arrested and detained at the Black Hawk County Jail pursuant to a bench warrant relating to an assault charge. (Id., at 3). Plaintiff had a valid prescription for Seroquel which was dispensed to him by staff at the Black Hawk County Jail. (Id.). That same day, plaintiff was charged by criminal complaint with introducing a controlled substance into a detention facility in violation of Iowa Code Section 719.7. (Id.). On January 4, 2018, plaintiff pleaded guilty to this offense based on allegedly deficient advice from counsel. (Id., at 5). Plaintiff was sentenced to three years' probation with a five-year suspended prison sentence. (Id., at 6). On March 30, 2018, the Iowa district court revoked plaintiff's probation and imposed his suspended prison sentence. (Id.). On September 23, 2019, plaintiff won his postconviction relief action based on a finding that Seroquel was not a controlled substance. (Id., at 7). On December 13, 2019, all charges relating to plaintiff's possession of Seroquel were dismissed. (Id.). Defendants here are various employees of the Black Hawk County Attorney's Office, Black Hawk County Sheriff's Office, and the Iowa Department of Corrections ("IDOC") involved in defendant's arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment for introducing a controlled substance into a detention facility. (Id., at 2, 4-7).
On October 4, 2019, plaintiff filed a pro se Complaint against defendants in this Court. (Doc. 1-1). After requesting and receiving an extension of time (Docs. 7 & 8), plaintiff filed his Amended Complaint on February 11, 2020, with the assistance of counsel (Doc. 9). On March 18, 2020, and April 6, 2020, defendants filed two separate motions to dismiss. (Docs. 16 & 22). After receiving leave (Doc. 33), plaintiff filed a Second Amended Complaint (Doc. 36).
In his Second Amended Complaint, plaintiff asserts six causes of action: (1) malicious prosecution under Iowa law against defendants Westendorf, Sullivan, Griffith, and Wendling in their individual and official capacities, (2) a Title 42, United States Code, Section 1983 violation of his substantive due process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments against the same parties, (3) abuse of process under Iowalaw against the same parties, (4) a Section 1983 claim of false imprisonment in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments against Skinner and Thompson in their individual and official capacities, (5) a Section 1983 claim of cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment against Skinner and Thompson, and (6) intentional infliction of emotional distress ("IIED") under Iowa law against all defendants in their individual and official capacities. (Id., at 7-10).
A complaint must contain a "short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." FED. R. CIV. P. 8(a)(2). Rule 8 does not require "detailed factual allegations." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). Nevertheless, it "demands more than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). A complaint that relies on "naked assertion[s]" devoid of "further factual enhancement," "labels and conclusions," or "a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do." Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 557.
Before filing an answer, a defendant may move to dismiss a complaint for "failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted" under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). To survive a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), "a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter . . . to 'state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'" Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (citation omitted). "[W]hen ruling on a defendant's motion to dismiss, a judge must accept as true all of the factual allegations contained in the complaint." Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007). The Court must also grant "all reasonable inferences" from the pleadings "in favor of the nonmoving party." Crumpley-Patterson v. Trinity Lutheran Hosp., 388 F.3d 588, 590 (8th Cir. 2004) (citation omitted). "A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factualcontent that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. Plausibility is not equivalent to probability, but it is something "more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully." Id. "The question . . . is not whether [a plaintiff] might at some later stage be able to prove [its claims]; the question is whether [a plaintiff] has adequately asserted facts (as contrasted with naked legal conclusions) to support his claims." Whitney v. Guys, Inc., 700 F.3d 1118, 1129 (8th Cir. 2012).
"The doctrine of qualified immunity protects government officials from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). At the motion to dismiss stage, qualified immunity requires courts to consider (1) whether the facts alleged make out a violation of a constitutional right and (2) whether the right at issue was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation. Id., at 232.
The plaintiff bears the burden of showing that the law was clearly established. Estate of Walker v. Wallace, 881 F.3d 1056, 1060 (8th Cir. 2018). "A clearly established right is one that is 'sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right.'" Mullenix v. Luna, 136 S. Ct. 305, 308 (2015) (citation omitted). The absence of factually similar authority establishing a constitutional right is often fatal. Moore-Jones v. Quick, 909 F.3d 983, 985 (8th Cir. 2018) (citing White v. Pauly, 137 S. Ct. 548, 552 (2017)). Although there need not be a case directly on point, "existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate." Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 741 (2011). Qualified immunity "protects all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law." District of Columbia v. Wesby, 138 S. Ct. 577, 589 (2018) (). "If the law did not put the official on notice that his conduct would be clearly unlawful, a motion to dismiss based on qualified immunity is appropriate." Risdal v. Smith, No. 11-CV-4035-DEO, 2013 WL 12073224, at *4 (N.D. Iowa June 20, 2013) () (quoting Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 202 (2001)).
"To advance the practical administration of government, the law recognizes certain government officials should be absolutely immune from suit for conduct relating to the discharge of certain government functions." Venckus v. City of Iowa City, 930 N.W.2d 792, 800 (Iowa 2019). Iowa law recognizes "judicial process immunity" which protects certain government officials from liability "for conduct intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process." Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Judicial process immunity extends to certain actions of prosecutors. Minor v. State, 819 N.W.2d 383, 394 (Iowa 2012). The Iowa Supreme Court has extended absolute prosecutorial immunity to common law torts, Iowa constitutional claims, and federal Section 1983 claims. Venckus, 930 N.W.2d 810-33 (Appel, J., concurring) (). "The Iowa Supreme Court has applied essentially identical principles of [federal] absolute prosecutorial immunity to state-law claims." Aguilera v. Wright Cty., 50 F. Supp. 3d 1057, 1065 (N.D. Iowa 2014) (citation omitted).
"Absolute immunity defeats a suit at the outset, so long as the official's actions were within the scope of the immunity." Stockley v. Joyce, No. 19-1573, 2020 WL 3493522, at *3 (8th Cir. June 29, 2020) (citation and alteration omitted). A prosecutor is not absolutely immune from suit when taking investigatory or administrative actions. Minor, 819 N.W.2d at 395. Prosecutors are immune, however, for acts within their prosecutorial functions. Id., at 394. Prosecutorial functions include "initiating a prosecution and [ ] presenting the State's case," id., at 394, which encompasses "thepreparing and filing of trial information[s] and motions" id. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Likewise, many of a prosecutor's strategic and discretionary decisions made while prosecuting a case, including the decision to continue a prosecution, are prosecutorial functions covered by this immunity. See Venckus, 930 N.W.2d at 804-05. Absolute immunity protects all prosecutorial functions...
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