Lambert v. Williams

• Decision Date: 07 April 2000
• Docket Number: PLAINTIFFS-APPELLANT,V,DEFENDANTS-APPELLEES,No. 99-1819,99-1819
• Citation: 223 F.3d 257
• Parties: (4th Cir. 2000) ANTHONY LAMBERT, SR.; MARION KNIGHT LAMBERT,BRENDA G. WILLIAMS, INDIVIDUALLY AND IN HER OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS A SOCIAL WORKER; VELVEETA R. REID, INDIVIDUALLY AND IN HER OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS SOCIAL WORKER; DARLENE REID, INDIVIDUALLY AND IN HER OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS SOCIAL WORKER; ALICE E. STALLINGS, INDIVIDUALLY AND IN HER OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS SERVICE SUPERVISOR; VIOLA SPIVEY, INDIVIDUALLY; WILLIE BINES, INDIVIDUALLY; GWENDOLYN C. COLEMAN, INDIVIDUALLY AND IN HER CAPACITY AS DIRECTOR, PASQUOTANK COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES; PASQUOTANK COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES; PASQUOTANK COUNTY BOARD OF SOCIAL SERVICES; PASQUOTANK COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA; BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, PASQUOTANK COUNTY, Argued:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 257

223 F.3d 257 (4th Cir. 2000)

ANTHONY LAMBERT, SR.; MARION KNIGHT LAMBERT, PLAINTIFFS-APPELLANTS,

V.

BRENDA G. WILLIAMS, INDIVIDUALLY AND IN HER OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS A SOCIAL WORKER; VELVEETA R. REID, INDIVIDUALLY AND IN HER OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS SOCIAL WORKER; DARLENE REID, INDIVIDUALLY AND IN HER OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS SOCIAL WORKER; ALICE E. STALLINGS, INDIVIDUALLY AND IN HER OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS SERVICE SUPERVISOR; VIOLA SPIVEY, INDIVIDUALLY; WILLIE BINES, INDIVIDUALLY; GWENDOLYN C. COLEMAN, INDIVIDUALLY AND IN HER CAPACITY AS DIRECTOR, PASQUOTANK COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES;

PASQUOTANK COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES; PASQUOTANK COUNTY BOARD OF SOCIAL SERVICES; PASQUOTANK COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA; BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, PASQUOTANK COUNTY, DEFENDANTS-APPELLEES.

No. 99-1819

U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit

Argued: April 7, 2000

Decided August 07, 2000

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Elizabeth City. Terrence W. Boyle, Chief District Judge. (CA-98-9-2-BO)

Argued: Lawton P. Cummings, Student Counsel, Appellate Litigation Program, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C., for Appellants. Coleman M. Cowan, Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice, P.L.L.C., Raleigh, North Carolina; Thomas Giles Meacham, Jr., North Carolina Attorney General's Office, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellees. On Brief: Steven H. Goldblatt, Director, Nicole J. Williams, Student Counsel, Appellate Litigation Program, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C., for Appellants. Robert H. Sasser, Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice, P.L.L.C., Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellees Williams, et al.

Before Motz, Circuit Judge, Samuel Grayson Wilson, Chief United States District Judge for the Western District of Virginia, sitting by designation, and Gerald Bruce Lee, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation.

Affirmed by published opinion. Chief Judge Wilson wrote the opinion, in which Judge Motz and Judge Lee joined.

OPINION

Wilson, Chief District Judge

Appellants Anthony Lambert, Sr., and Marion Knight Lambert ("the Lamberts") appeal from the district court's order dismissing their 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action. In an earlier decision, we held that res judicata barred all claims asserted by the Lamberts, with the exception of a claim for malicious prosecution. See Lambert v. Williams, No. 98-2070 (4th Cir. Dec. 29, 1998). The district court dismissed on remand, holding that the Lamberts failed to state a claim against the appellees sued in their official capacities and extending qualified immunity to the appellees sued in their individual capacities. We find that the Lamberts have not stated a viable claim under § 1983, and therefore affirm.

I.

The Lamberts, proceeding pro se, filed this§ 1983 action challenging child abuse and neglect proceedings brought against them by Pasquotank County, North Carolina officials. The Lamberts named various state and local government officials in their individual and official capacities (collectively, the "individual appellees"),¹ in addition to the Pasquotank County Department of Social Services, the Pasquotank County Board of Social Services, and Pasquotank County (collectively, the "county appellees").

The Lamberts alleged that on April 23, 1992, appellees Gwendolyn Coleman and Brenda Williams filed a juvenile petition in the county district court alleging that the Lamberts were abusing and neglecting their two children. County officials removed the children from the Lamberts' custody on an emergency basis on that day. On February 27, 1995, the county district court resolved the matter in the Lamberts' favor and restored to them custody of their children.

The Lamberts, proceeding pro se, filed this case in February 1998 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Their amended complaint alleged that from April 1992, when the county officials filed the juvenile petition, until February 1995, when the matter was resolved in the Lamberts' favor, the appellees conspired to deprive the Lamberts of the custody, care, and management of their children. The complaint set forth little in the way of specific factual allegations. Instead, it concluded without elaboration that the underlying proceedings were "malicious" and baseless, that the appellees "knew or should have known" that the allegations were untrue, and that the appellees concealed exculpatory evidence, fabricated evidence, made false statements under oath, and failed to investigate the Lamberts' claim of innocence. The Lamberts also alleged that the appellees were motivated by racial animus (the Lamberts are AfricanAmerican) and a desire to obtain increased federal funding for the county Department of Social Services when they brought and pursued the juvenile petition. With respect to the county appellees, the Lamberts alleged that they acted with "deliberate indifference" by failing to train the individual appellees in the proper handling of child abuse and neglect proceedings.

The Lamberts asserted numerous legal bases for their civil rights action, including the First, Fourth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985, and the North Carolina Constitution. Although the Lamberts did not specifically set forth a malicious prosecution cause of action, the district court construed the amended complaint to include such a claim.

The district court initially dismissed the entire action as barred by res judicata, since the Lamberts brought these identical allegations in state court in 1994 and the state court dismissed the case on its merits. The Lamberts appealed the district court's res judicata ruling and, with the exception of the Lamberts' malicious prosecution claim, we affirmed. Regarding the malicious prosecution claim, we noted that the Lambert's state court action was dismissed before the custody proceedings were terminated in the Lamberts' favor; consequently, the malicious prosecution claim was not ripe during the Lamberts' state court action, because favorable termination is an element of the common law malicious prosecution tort. See Lambert v. Williams, No. 98-2070, slip op. at 2-3.

On remand, the district court granted the appellees' supplemental motions to dismiss, finding that the individual appellees were entitled to qualified immunity on the remaining claim and that the Lamberts' allegations did not show that the county appellees were guilty of constitutionally-cognizable misconduct. The Lamberts filed a timely appeal, and this court appointed counsel for the Lamberts for purposes of the appeal.

II.

The only remaining claim in this case is one the Lamberts now style a "§ 1983 malicious prosecution" claim. There is at present an "embarrassing diversity of judicial opinion" over the composition, or even existence, of a claim for "malicious prosecution" founded in § 1983. Albright v. Oliver, 975 F.2d 343, 345 (7th Cir. 1992), rev'd, 510 U.S. 266 (1994). The Lamberts contend that a plaintiff can establish a prima facie case for such a claim by proving (1) each element of the common law tort of malicious prosecution, and (2) the deprivation of some constitutional right. Construed liberally, the Lamberts' amended complaint satisfied this standard by alleging (1) the common law elements of malicious prosecution and (2) deprivations of their Fourteenth Amendment rights to "family integrity" and equal protection. See, e.g., Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 503 (1977) (ordinance limiting permissible occupancy of dwelling to specified categories of related individuals violates due process right to family integrity); Oyler v. Boles, 368 U.S. 448, 455-56 (1962) (prosecution on the basis of race constitutes an equal protection violation); Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520 (1972) (federal courts should construe pro se pleadings liberally).

The Lamberts' amended complaint also alleged independent violations of their equal protection and family integrity rights. However, we found those claims to be barred by res judicata in our earlier ruling. Understood in light of this disposition, the Lamberts essentially contend now that § 1983 enables them to bring a claim for malicious prosecution that is somehow distinct from the underlying constitutional violation, though it incorporates constitutional elements. We now hold that § 1983 does not empower a plaintiff to bring a claim for malicious prosecution simpliciter. What is conventionally referred to as a "§ 1983 malicious prosecution" action is nothing more than a § 1983 claim arising from a Fourth Amendment violation. The Lamberts have not, however, raised a Fourth Amendment argument in this appeal. The theory that the Lamberts do set forth does not, in light of our earlier res judicata ruling, state a claim for relief under § 1983.

The common law tort of malicious prosecution is well-established: a prima facie case of malicious prosecution must include (1) the initiation or maintenance of a proceeding against the plaintiff by the defendant; (2) termination of that proceeding favorable to the plaintiff; (3) lack of probable cause to support that proceeding; and (4) the defendant's malice. See W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on Law of Torts 874 (5th Ed. 1984). Common law malicious prosecution is not itself redressable under § 1983, however, since § 1983 is not "a source of substantive rights, but a method for vindicating federal rights elsewhere conferred by those parts of the United States Constitution and federal statutes that it describes." Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 144 (1979); see also United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259, 272 (1997) ("[C]ivil liability under § 1983... may be imposed for deprivation of a constitutional right if, but only if, in light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness [under the Constitution] is apparent.").

Initially, some...