Montoya ex rel. S.M. v. Española Pub. Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ.
| Decision Date | 23 April 2013 |
| Docket Number | No. CV 10-651 WPJ/LFG,CV 10-651 WPJ/LFG |
| Parties | Sandra Montoya, on Behalf of her Minor Child, S.M., et al., Plaintiffs, v. Española Public School District Board of Education, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Mexico |
and
THIS MATTER comes before the Court upon a Motion to Dismiss the Third Amended Complaint Filed by Plaintiff S.V., filed on April 20, 2012 by Defendants Española Public School District Board of Education, Dorothy Sanchez, Devanna Ortega, Lewis Johnson, and Dennis Gallegos ("School Defendants" or "Defendants"), (Doc. 247). Having reviewed the parties' briefs and applicable law, the Court grants Defendants' motion with regard to Plaintiff's substantive due process claim brought in Count 7, and the municipal liability claim (Monell) claim in Count 12; but denies Defendants' motion on Plaintiff's negligence claim in Count 3 brought under the New Mexico Tort Claims Act.
Plaintiffs are students who were enrolled at either Española Valley High School or Carlos Vigil Middle School in north-central New Mexico. The Third Amended Complaint (Doc. 196), brought by the students' parents, seeks class certification pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2),and alleges negligence, third-party beneficiary claims of breach of contract and breach of implied contract, and violations of various rights under the New Mexico and United States Constitutions. Plaintiffs allege that the school administration is apathetic about school safety, and that Defendants have created a dangerous environment for students, and have taken little or no action to prevent attacks on students by other students.
Plaintiff S.V. alleges claims of §1983 Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process in Count 7 against the Española Public School District Board of Education ("Board of Education"), Associate Superintendent Dorothy Sanchez, and Carlos Vigil Middle School Assistant Principal Dennis Gallegos;1 a municipal liability claim against the Board of Education in Count 12; claims for equitable relief against the Board of Education under the New Mexico State Constitution in Count 5; and negligence claims in Count 3 brought under the New Mexico Tort Claim Act, NMSA 1978 §§ 41-4-1, et seq.
The relevant facts are set forth in the Third Amended Complaint ("TAC"), ¶¶ 159-183. In February 2010, Plaintiff S.V. was, at the time the complaint was filed, a 13 year-old female student who transferred from a private school in Española to Carlos Vigil Middle School to participate in varsity golf. The TAC alleges that several girls at the school started harassing S.V. In March of 2010, one of these girls shoved S.V., and S.V. turned around and hit the girl in self-defense. The attacker was suspended, but continued to attend school. The following month, in April, two female students attempted to block S.V. from entering her math class. S.V. told the teacher, Mr. Anthony Salazar, that the other students were threatening her, and Mr. Salazar told Plaintiff to sit down. Again in April three female students attacked S.V. outside of this samemath class; this attack was recorded with a student's cell phone. The Española police arrived at the school in response to this incident, but Defendant Assistant Principal Dennis Gallegos only reported two of the three girls to the police. According to the TAC, the third unreported girl instigated the fight.
Plaintiff's mother, Charlene Guinn, confronted Defendant Gallegos with the video showing S.V. being attacked by three other female students. Ms. Guinn asked Defendant Gallegos for the report of the incident, but he did not have one. Ms. Guinn then asked for a complaint form, but Defendant Gallegos told her he did not have one and that he had never seen one before. Ms. Guinn then went to speak to the Española Police Department, which decided to include the third student in the report after Ms. Guinn provided the police with that student's contact information. That student was suspended for three days. However, despite being suspended, the third student remained at school and tried, along with another student, to push S.V. down a stairwell. Ms. Guinn never was given an answer as to why the student was suspended only for three days, when the school's official code of conduct calls for a suspension of five to ten days if the student is hindering the education process.
Ms. Guinn submitted a complaint form regarding the incidents after receiving one from Defendant Associate Superintendent Dorothy Sanchez. Defendant Sanchez told Ms. Guinn she would deal with the incident but would not speak to Ms. Guinn about Defendant Gallegos' failure to discipline the student attackers. Since Ms. Guinn submitted the complaint form, Defendant Gallegos threated that S.V. may not be eligible to remain on the varsity golf team.
Prior to the assault, S.V. maintained average grades. S.V. continues to be bullied and is now afraid to go to school.
Defendants raise the defense of qualified immunity. Qualified immunity shields government officials performing discretionary functions 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. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). Once a defendant pleads qualified immunity, the burden shifts to the plaintiff to show both that the defendant's alleged conduct violated the law and that that law was clearly established when the alleged violation occurred. Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987). A right is clearly established "if [t]he contours of the right are sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right." Id. The challenged action need not have been previously declared unlawful, but its unlawfulness must be evident in light of existing law. Beedle vs. Wilson, 422 F.3d 1059 (10th Cir. 2005). This is generally accomplished when there is controlling authority on point or when the clearly established weight of authority from other courts supports plaintiff's interpretation of the law. Id.
The Court applies the same standard in evaluating the merits of a motion to dismiss in qualified immunity cases as to dismissal motions generally: a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim for relief that is plausible on its face. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949 (2009) (quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). A court must accept as true all well pleaded facts, as distinguished from conclusory allegations, and those facts must be viewed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Shero v. City of Grove, Okl., 510 F.3d 1196, 1200 (10th Cir. 2007) (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. 544). The complaint must plead sufficient facts, taken as true, to provide plausible grounds that discovery will reveal evidence to support the plaintiff's allegations. Id.
Plaintiff requests that the Court deny the motion to dismiss, and in the alternative, convert the motion into a summary judgment motion and allow Plaintiff an opportunity to conduct limited discovery pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(d). The alternative requested by Plaintiff is denied. The Court has already found Plaintiff's Rule 56(d) affidavit to be deficient. See Docs. 326 & 328. In addition, the Court finds there is no need to convert this motion into a summary judgment motion, thereby rendering Plaintiff's alternative request moot.
In this motion, Defendants move for dismissal of S.V.'s negligence claims in Count 3, brought pursuant to the New Mexico Tort Claim Act, NMSA 1978 §§ 41-4-1 et seq ("NMTCA"), and Plaintiff's substantive due process claims and municipal liability claims. Defendants also claim that the Court has dismissed Plaintiffs' claim of breach of contract claim in Count 2 and for equitable damages under the New Mexico Constitution in Count 5. However, according to the claims chart (Doc. 196, Ex. 1), Plaintiff S.V. does not assert a breach of contract claim against the School Defendants, and in a previous Memorandum Opinion and Order, the Court dismissed claims for equitable relief under the state constitution which were asserted by other Plaintiffs. See Doc. 334. In that Order, the Court ruled that the state constitutional claims for all Plaintiffs would be dismissed where the federal constitutional claims were dismissed. Id. at 7 (). Therefore, the Court need not address those claims here, but will instead limit the discussion to Plaintiff S.V.'s Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process claim in Count 7, the municipal liability claim in Count 12, and the negligence claim in Count 3. Plaintiff also asserts a common-law negligence claim in Count 4 against Defendant Big Ross, which is not relevant to the parties' briefs and so the Court does not address here.
The Court has addressed § 1983 substantive due process claims alleged by other Plaintiffs in this case, and thus there is no need to reiterate either the framework or the basis for the Court's analysis for this claim. See Docs. 333 at 9-12; 335 at 8-9; 339 at 10-15; and 340 at 5-8. Similar to other Plaintiffs alleging a substantive due process claim, Plaintiff S.V. alleges this claim under a danger creation theory only (Doc. 283 at 13) and correctly does not assert the...
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