Monahan v. Dorchester Counseling Center, Inc

• Decision Date: 08 January 1991
• Docket Number: No. 91-1844,91-1844
• Citation: 961 F.2d 987
• Parties: Kevin MONAHAN, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. DORCHESTER COUNSELING CENTER, INC., et al., Defendants, Appellees. . Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 987

961 F.2d 987

Kevin MONAHAN, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. DORCHESTER COUNSELING CENTER, INC., et al., Defendants, Appellees.

No. 91-1844.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard Jan. 8, 1991.

Decided April 15, 1992.

Robert G. Flanders, Jr., with whom Neal J. McNamara, and Flanders & Medeiros Inc., Providence, R.I., were on brief for plaintiff, appellant.

Robert D. Fleischner and Steven J. Schwartz, Northampton, Mass., Center for Public Representation, on brief for Center for Public Representation, Coalition for the Legal Rights of the Disabled, United Families, Inc., Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Greater Fall River, and Hyland House, Inc., amici curiae.

Douglas H. Wilkins, Asst. Atty. Gen., Government Bureau, with whom Scott Harshbarger, Atty. Gen., and Eleanor Coe, Asst. Atty. Gen., Government Bureau, Boston, Mass., were on brief for state defendants, appellees Henry Tomes, James Stratoudakis, Ph.D., Daniel K. Amigone, Mark A. Fridovich, Ph.D., Alfred E. Darby, M.D., Meryl Moss, Randy Morse, David Kazen, Martin Bauermeister, M.D., Robert Marot, James Farelly, Cynthia Pillsbury, R.N., Toni Monteiro, and Sheila Wallace.

Thomas M. Elcock with whom Peter C. Knight, Rhonda L. Rittenberg, Denise K. Cahalane and Morrison, Mahoney & Miller, Boston, Mass., were on brief for defendants, appellees Michael St. Germaine, Lorna Jones and Dorchester Counseling Center, Inc.

Before TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge, ALDRICH and CAMPBELL, Senior Circuit Judges.

LEVIN H. CAMPBELL, Senior Circuit Judge.

In this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, plaintiff Kevin Monahan, a mentally ill person, seeks injunctive relief and damages against the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ("Commonwealth") and various individuals and entities. While residing at a Commonwealth-run group home, Monahan asked to be taken to another facility. After being denied admission to the latter, Monahan was driven back to the group home by a Commonwealth employee. During the return trip, Monahan jumped out of a van and ran onto an interstate highway where he was struck by a car and severely injured. The District Court for the District of Massachusetts granted defendants' motion to dismiss and denied plaintiff's motion to amend his complaint to add a new cause of action. We affirm.

I.

In reviewing the dismissal of the complaint, we take the allegations in the complaint as true and grant all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff. The Dartmouth Review v. Dartmouth College, 889 F.2d 13, 20 (1st Cir.1989). According to the complaint, Monahan was first hospitalized for mental illness in 1978 and has been hospitalized on and off since then. On or about April 1, 1989, Monahan "voluntarily committed himself" to a group home in Fall River, Massachusetts known as Millie's Cottage. ¹ At the same time, Monahan was an outpatient at the Corrigan Mental Health Center ("Corrigan"), a treatment facility for the mentally ill operated by the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health ("DMH").

During the evening of April 1, 1989, Monahan told the staff at Millie's Cottage that he was having an anxiety attack. A Millie's Cottage worker attempted to drive Monahan to Corrigan's crisis intervention facility, but Monahan twice jumped out of the vehicle. After a Millie's Cottage worker informed Corrigan staff of Monahan's actions, Corrigan's campus police came to Millie's Cottage, picked up Monahan, took him to Corrigan, and then returned him to Millie's Cottage.

Monahan continued to suffer from anxiety attacks and hallucinations. The next night he was again taken to Corrigan by Corrigan's campus police. At Corrigan, Monahan received both medication and a prescription for additional medication from the medical director, defendant Alfred Darby. Monahan was then returned to Millie's Cottage by the campus police. He continued to exhibit anxious behavior during the next few days, and, on the night of April 6, he told Millie's Cottage staff that he wanted to die and asked to be taken to Corrigan. A staff worker at Millie's Cottage called Corrigan and was instructed by defendant Michael St. Germaine, ² a Crisis Intervention Services staff worker, to bring Monahan to Corrigan.

At this point, defendant David Kazen, apparently a DMH employee working at Millie's Cottage, drove Monahan to Corrigan in a van. At Corrigan, Monahan told St. Germaine that he was going to kill himself. St. Germaine phoned the psychiatrist on call, defendant Martin Bauermeister, ³ telling him of Monahan's condition and reporting, inaccurately as it was later discovered, the amount of medication Monahan had received on his last visit to Corrigan. Bauermeister, without personally examining Monahan, prescribed that amount of medication (i.e., half the earlier dose), which was administered immediately. Both Bauermeister and St. Germaine refused to admit Monahan to Corrigan.

When Monahan was refused admission, Kazen escorted him back into the van. While the van was parked, Monahan said he did not want to return to Millie's Cottage and jumped out. Kazen and Monahan went back inside the Corrigan facility, and Monahan again asked to be admitted. St. Germaine refused to admit him, and Kazen and Monahan returned to the van.

While en route to Millie's Cottage, the van stopped at a stoplight. Monahan jumped out and began walking down the off ramp of an interstate highway. Kazen, instead of notifying the police or attempting to stop Monahan, returned to Millie's Cottage. There, he called St. Germaine, and two other Millie's Cottage workers were dispatched to look for Monahan. Before they arrived, Monahan was struck by a car and severely injured.

Monahan filed a 20-count complaint ⁴ in the District Court for the District of Massachusetts, naming as defendants the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and 21 individuals and entities. Count I alleged that all the defendants had "intentionally and/or with reckless indifference to plaintiff's rights, deprived plaintiff of his right to life, liberty, and property without due process ... in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution." The specific allegations concerning this violation included "failing to monitor, transport and supervise plaintiff properly," "failing to provide adequate diagnosis, treatment and related services," and "failing to notify the police" when plaintiff left the van. Counts II through VI made the same allegations, breaking down the "fail[ure] to diagnose," "fail[ure] to arrange for ... safe transport," etc., according to the specific groups of defendants allegedly responsible for these actions (or inactions). Count VII alleged that several defendants had violated 42 U.S.C. § 10841, the "Restatement of Bill of Rights for Mental Health Patients" and apparently sought to recover directly under that statute. In addition, Count VIII, which plaintiff sought to add in a proposed second amended complaint, alleged a cause of action under § 1983 for the same violations of § 10841. The remaining 13 counts alleged violations of Massachusetts statutory and common law.

The district court granted defendants' motion to dismiss and denied plaintiff's motion to file the second amended complaint. The court found that Monahan had failed to state a § 1983 claim because defendants' actions did not "shock the conscience." Furthermore, Monahan's complaint was dismissed pursuant to DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dept. of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189, 109 S.Ct. 998, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989), because Monahan was a voluntary patient not confined by the state against his will. The court further held that Monahan had no claim under § 10841 because that statute neither establishes a private cause of action nor creates rights enforceable under § 1983. Finally, the court declined to exercise its pendent jurisdiction over the remaining state law claims. Monahan v. Dorchester Counseling Center, Inc., 770 F.Supp. 43 (D.Mass.1991).

II.

We shall assume for purposes of this appeal that in failing to supervise and look after Monahan more carefully, defendants might be found not just negligent but "deliberately indifferent." Nonetheless, while their conduct could have violated state tort law, it did not violate either the United States Constitution or 42 U.S.C. § 10841.

A. The Constitution

In Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307, 324, 102 S.Ct. 2452, 2462-63, 73 L.Ed.2d 28 (1982), the Supreme Court held that a mental patient involuntarily committed to a state hospital enjoyed "constitutionally protected interests in conditions of reasonable care and safety, reasonably nonrestrictive confinement conditions, and such training as may be required by these interests." On the other hand, in DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189, 109 S.Ct. 998, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989), the Court held that county officials did not violate a young boy's due process rights when, in spite of repeated warnings, they failed to take action to protect the boy from beatings by his father.

Monahan's status falls somewhere between that of the plaintiffs in Youngberg and DeShaney. He was not involuntarily committed, as was the plaintiff in Youngberg. However, he did live for six days in a facility administered by (or at least on behalf of) the Commonwealth. His relationship to the state was therefore considerably closer than that of the plaintiff in DeShaney, who lived in a private home. The latter factual distinction notwithstanding, we think this case is governed by the rationale of DeShaney.

In DeShaney, the Court held that the county officials had not violated the boy's substantive due process rights because

[t]he [Due Process] Clause is phrased as a limitation on the State's power to act, not as a guarantee of certain minimal levels of safety and security. It forbids the State itself to deprive individuals of life, liberty, or property without "due process of law," but its language cannot fairly be extended to impose an...