Lindquist v. Woronka, 96-3021

• Citation: 706 So.2d 358
• Decision Date: 28 January 1998
• Docket Number: No. 96-3021,96-3021
• Parties: 23 Fla. L. Weekly D337 Kris LINDQUIST, Appellant, v. Andrew WORONKA and Steven Lobeck, Appellees.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 358

706 So.2d 358

23 Fla. L. Weekly D337

Kris LINDQUIST, Appellant, v. Andrew WORONKA and Steven Lobeck, Appellees.

No. 96-3021.

District Court of Appeal of Florida Fourth District.

Jan. 28, 1998.

J. Reed Millsaps, Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Anthony J. Palmer of William deForest Thompson, P.A., Fort Lauderdale, for appellant.

Glen J. Torcivia of Law Offices of Glen J. Torcivia, P.A., West Palm Beach, for appellees.

PER CURIAM.

Appellant, Kris Lindquist (plaintiff), appeals the trial court's dismissal with prejudice of those counts of his fourth amended complaint which are against appellee police officers Andrew Woronka and Stephen Lobeck (defendants). ¹ Claiming that defendants' conduct deprived him of due process, plaintiff sought to impose individual liability on defendants, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, for injuries he sustained in a traffic accident after being released from police custody. Because we find that the officers did not have a special relationship with plaintiff requiring them to protect him at the time he was injured, and were not otherwise legally responsible for acting to create the dangerous situation that resulted in his injuries, we affirm the trial court's dismissal.

On January 31, 1993, plaintiff was arrested by defendants while they were on duty with the City of Riviera Beach Police Department. At the time of his arrest, plaintiff was intoxicated, disoriented, confused, unaware of his surroundings, and otherwise incapacitated. After his arrest, defendants drove plaintiff approximately two miles to the City of Riviera Beach Police Department headquarters. There, pursuant to department policy, plaintiff was charged with disorderly conduct, ² and then released with a notice to appear at a future court date.

After his release, while crossing the highway near the police station on foot, plaintiff was struck by a vehicle. As a result of the accident, plaintiff suffers from various permanent injuries including: paralysis of one side of his body; traumatic brain injury; vision impairment; loss of mobility and loss of ability to communicate. He requires full-time care.

Plaintiff does not allege that he was falsely arrested or falsely imprisoned. Rather, he claims the opposite--that defendants should have kept him in custody for his own protection because he was obviously inebriated. Alternatively, plaintiff alleges that the police officers should have driven him home. Plaintiff claims that defendants instead knowingly released him from the City of Riviera Beach Police Station, "an area more dangerous than the area where [he] was arrested," thus exposing him to increased danger.

The trial court dismissed the civil rights claims against defendants, after allowing plaintiff three previous amendments, on the basis that the defendants' action, or inaction, did not rise to the level of a constitutional violation, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which provides:

Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of any State ... subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.

When considering the propriety of the trial court's dismissal of the complaint or counts of the complaint under § 1983, this court must consider all the allegations contained in the complaint to be true. See Hughes v. Rowe, 449 U.S. 5, 101 S.Ct. 173, 66 L.Ed.2d 163 (1980); Harris v. Monds, 696 So.2d 446 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997). To state a cause of action for violation of § 1983, the plaintiff must allege that a person, acting under color of state law, deprived him of rights protected under the federal constitution, or federal laws. See Gomez v. Toledo, 446 U.S. 635, 100 S.Ct. 1920, 64 L.Ed.2d 572 (1980). Complaints alleging a violation of this statute should not be dismissed unless it is clear that plaintiff is entitled to no relief under any facts given in support of the claim. See Southern Alliance Corp. v. City of Winter Haven, 505 So.2d 489 (Fla. 2d DCA 1987) (citing Cruz v. Cardwell, 486 F.2d 550 (8th Cir.1973)).

The trial court relied on DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189, 109 S.Ct. 998, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989), in dismissing the complaint against defendants. In that case, after being returned to his father's care by Winnebago County social services despite repeated warnings and signs that he was in danger, four-year-old Joshua DeShaney was beaten so severely by his father that he suffered permanent brain damage and was left profoundly retarded.

The DeShaneys brought an action under § 1983 against the county and individual social workers, alleging that the defendants deprived Joshua of his liberty without due process of law, in violation of his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment, "by failing to intervene to protect him against a risk of violence at his father's hands of which they knew or should have known." Id. at 193, 109 S.Ct. at 1002.

The Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment in the defendants' favor, holding that the defendants' failure to protect Joshua from his father's violence did not violate Joshua's substantive due process rights. In reaching this conclusion, the Supreme Court recognized that:

Judges and lawyers, like other humans, are moved by natural sympathy in a case like this to find a way for Joshua and his mother to receive adequate compensation for the grievous harm inflicted upon them. But before yielding to that impulse, it is well to remember once again that the harm was inflicted not by the State of Wisconsin, but by Joshua's father.

Id. at 202-03, 109 S.Ct. at 1007.

The Supreme Court rejected the DeShaneys' claims that a "special relationship" existed between the defendants and Joshua DeShaney such that they had a duty to provide protective services. The Supreme Court recognized, however, that "in certain limited circumstances the Constitution imposes upon the State affirmative duties of care and protection with respect to particular individuals ... because the person is unable 'by reason of the deprivation of his liberty to care for himself....' " Id. at 199, 109 S.Ct. at 1005.

Taken together, [these cases] stand only for the proposition that when the State takes a person into its custody and holds him there against his will, the Constitution imposes upon it a corresponding duty to assume some responsibility for his safety and general well-being.

Id. at 199-200, 109 S.Ct. at 1005. The Supreme Court found that this "special relationship" analysis had no applicability in the DeShaney case because Joshua was not in the state's custody when he was injured by his father. In the substantive due process analysis, it is the State's affirmative act of restraining the individual's freedom to act on his own behalf--through incarceration, institutionalization, or other similar restraint of personal liberty--which is the "deprivation of liberty" triggering the protections of the Due Process Clause, not its failure to act to protect his liberty interests against harms inflicted by other means.

DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 200, 109 S.Ct. at 1006.

Recognizing that the circumstances may have imposed upon defendants the duty to act under state tort law, the Supreme Court concluded that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment "does not transform every tort committed by a state actor into a constitutional violation." Id. at 202, 109 S.Ct. at 1006 (emphasis supplied). Because "the State had no constitutional duty to protect Joshua against his father's violence, its failure to do so--though calamitous in hindsight--simply does not constitute a violation of the Due Process Clause." Id.

Here, plaintiff was not in custody at the time of the accident, nor was his liberty otherwise restrained....