Kedra v. Schroeter
| Decision Date | 18 February 2016 |
| Docket Number | CIVIL ACTION NO. 15-5223 |
| Citation | 161 F.Supp.3d 359 |
| Parties | Joan Kedra, Plaintiff, v. Richard Schroeter, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania |
Gerald J. Williams, Christopher Markos, Williams Cuker Berezofsky LLC, Philadelphia, PA, for Plaintiff.
Kevin R. Bradford, Stephen R. Kovatis, Office of Attorney General, Philadelphia, PA, for Defendant.
EDUARDO C. ROBRENO
, JUDGE.
This case arises from the tragic death of David Kedra (“Decedent”), who died as the result of injuries sustained in an accidental shooting during a firearms safety training session in September 2014. Plaintiff Joan Kedra (“Plaintiff”), as the personal representative of the estate of Decedent (her son), brings this action against Richard Schroeter (“Defendant”), who taught the session and fired the fatal shot. Plaintiff brings this case under 42 U.S.C. § 1983
and the Fourteenth Amendment, alleging that Defendant violated Decedent's due process rights. Defendant has moved to dismiss the case on the grounds that he is entitled to qualified immunity. For the reasons that follow, the Court will grant the motion.
Decedent, a 26–year–old Pennsylvania State Trooper, was ordered to attend a routine firearms safety training session on September 30, 2014. Compl. ¶¶ 6, 9–10. Defendant, a veteran police officer and trained firearms instructor, was the training instructor for the session. Id. ¶¶ 11–12. In the course of demonstrating a “trigger reset” to the trainees, Defendant failed to ensure that no bullet was in the handgun he was using. Id. ¶ 14. The gun was in fact loaded, and when Defendant pulled the trigger,2 the gun discharged and the bullet struck Decedent in the abdomen. Id. ¶¶ 17–18. Decedent died several hours later as a result of his wounds
. Id. ¶ 19.
On September 18, 2015, Plaintiff (the administratrix of Decedent's estate), filed the instant Complaint. It contains one count, brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983
and the Fourteenth Amendment. Defendant filed a Motion to Dismiss, to which Plaintiff responded. Defendant also filed a Motion for Leave to File a Reply Brief, which the Court will grant. The Court held a hearing on the Motion to Dismiss, and the motion is now ripe for disposition.
A party may move to dismiss a complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6)
. When considering such a motion, the Court must “accept as true all allegations in the complaint and all reasonable inferences that can be drawn therefrom, and view them in the light most favorable to the non-moving party.” DeBenedictis v. Merrill Lynch & Co., 492 F.3d 209, 215 (3d Cir.2007) (internal quotation marks omitted). To withstand a motion to dismiss, the complaint's “[f]actual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007)
. This “requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Id. Although a plaintiff is entitled to all reasonable inferences from the facts alleged, a plaintiff's legal conclusions are not entitled to deference and the Court is “not bound to accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation.” Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286, 106 S.Ct. 2932, 92 L.Ed.2d 209 (1986).
The pleadings must contain sufficient factual allegations so as to state a facially plausible claim for relief. See, e.g., Gelman v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 583 F.3d 187, 190 (3d Cir.2009)
. “ ‘A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.’ ” Id. (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 663, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) ). In deciding a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the Court limits its inquiry to the facts alleged in the complaint and its attachments, matters of public record, and undisputedly authentic documents if the complainant's claims are based upon these documents. See
Jordan v. Fox, Rothschild, O'Brien & Frankel, 20 F.3d 1250, 1261 (3d Cir.1994) ; Pension Benefit Guar. Corp. v. White Consol.
Defendant argues that this case should be dismissed because he is entitled to qualified immunity.3 Qualified immunity operates “to ensure that before they are subjected to suit, officers are on notice their conduct is unlawful.” Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 206, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001)
. The Supreme Court has established a two-part analysis for determining when qualified immunity is applicable: “(1) whether the official's conduct violated a constitutional or federal right; and (2) whether the right at issue was ‘clearly established.’ ” Sharp v. Johnson, 669 F.3d 144, 159 (3d Cir.2012) (quoting Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151 ).4
To make out a “state-created danger” claim under the Fourteenth Amendment, as Plaintiff attempts to do here, a plaintiff must establish the following elements:
Bright v. Westmoreland County, 443 F.3d 276, 281 (3d Cir.2006)
(internal quotation marks omitted).
The parties agree that the issue in this case is whether Defendant's culpability shocks the conscience. As the Third Circuit has acknowledged, this question “has an elusive quality to it,” “in part because the level of culpability required to shock the conscience will depend upon the extent to which a state actor is required to act under pressure.” Sanford v. Stiles, 456 F.3d 298, 301 (3d Cir.2006)
. Clarifying this matter in Sanford, the Third Circuit stated:
The level of culpability required to shock the conscience increases as the time state actors have to deliberate decreases. In a hyperpressurized environment, an intent to cause harm is usually required. On the other hand, in cases where deliberation is possible and officials have the time to make unhurried judgments, deliberate indifference is sufficient.
(internal quotation marks omitted). The Sanford court also acknowledged a third temporal possibility: “circumstances involving something less urgent than a ‘split-second’ decision but more urgent than an ‘unhurried judgment.’ ” 456 F.3d at 310. In those circumstances, “the relevant question is whether the officer consciously disregarded a great risk of harm.” Id.
The parties agree that deliberate indifference is the appropriate standard here, as Defendant had plenty of time to act and no need to make hurried judgments. That is, in order for Defendant's conduct to shock the conscience, he must have acted with deliberate indifference. The meaning of “deliberate indifference,” however, is not so easily settled, as this case presents a difficult issue concerning Defendant's state of mind.
It is undisputed that Defendant did not know there was a bullet in the gun—or, at least, Defendant claims he did not know there was a bullet in the gun, and counsel for Plaintiff has affirmatively stated (during the hearing on the Motion to Dismiss) that Plaintiff could not and would not plead that Defendant knew there was a bullet in the gun. It is also undisputed that Defendant knew the rules of firearms safety training, including that he should have had a second individual confirm that the gun contained no bullets, and that he failed to follow that rule, among others.
But Plaintiff does not contend that Defendant was consciously aware that he had failed to follow all of the safety rules and proceeded anyway. Rather, Plaintiff's argument is effectively that the risk was so obvious that it shocks the conscience for him to fail to follow the rules, even if he did not realize in the moment that he was not following them.
Defendant, on the other hand, argues that the deliberate indifference standard requires subjective knowledge, such that he could not have acted with deliberate indifference unless he was consciously aware that he had not complied with all safety rules and thus that pulling the trigger carried a deadly risk.
Here, again, Sanford
is relevant. In that case, the Third Circuit explicitly left open “the possibility that deliberate indifference might exist without actual knowledge of a risk of harm when the risk is so obvious that it should be known.” Id. at 309. As the court said:
We leave to another day the question whether actual knowledge is required to meet the culpability requirement in state-created danger cases. On the one hand, the Supreme Court has held that actual subjective knowledge of a risk is required for at least some Eighth Amendment claims. However, the Court has also held that the “obviousness” of a risk can be sufficient for liability in other cases. The Third Circuit has since stated that generally, a municipality may be held liable for a constitutional violation arising from a policy or custom if it demonstrates indifference to a known or obvious consequence. But we have not addressed the question as it relates to underlying state-created danger claims.
(citations omitted). And that question remains unanswered today. See
Benedict v. Sw. Pa. Human Servs., Inc., 98 F.Supp.3d 809, 826 (W.D.Pa.2015) (...
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Kedra v. Schroeter
...Appellant conceded she "could not and would not plead that [Schroeter] knew there was a bullet in the gun," Kedra v. Schroeter , 161 F.Supp.3d 359, 363 (E.D. Pa. 2016), and, second, that in view of Sanford , it was not clearly established that deliberate indifference could exist based only ......