Pethtel v. Tenn. Dep't of Children Servs.
| Decision Date | 20 November 2020 |
| Docket Number | No.: 3:10-CV-469-TAV-HBG,: 3:10-CV-469-TAV-HBG |
| Parties | KATHLEEN ELAINE PETHTEL, et al., Plaintiffs, v. STATE OF TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN SERVICES, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Tennessee |
Defendants State of Tennessee Department of Children's Services, District Attorney General David Clark, Clinch Valley Children's Center, Foothills Care, Inc., Solution Source, Omni Vision, Shannon Forrester, Helen Burleson, Katie Butler, Cynthia Koehler, Samantha Cardwell, Erin Schad, Sean Morehead, Julie Rotella, Pamela Becker, Margaret Durgin, Gail Clift, Stephanie Huckabey, Jay Huckabey, Hazel Bumgardner, Martha Ruff, Stephen Ruff, Kimbra McKinley, Ryan Peters, Stacey Pratt, Leigh Anne Goldstine, Stella Hamilton, Anderson County Health Department, Pediadvocates, Heather Poster, and Terry Ryan have moved to dismiss plaintiffs' claims against them for various reasons [Docs. 213, 215, 233, 257, 282, 284, 286]. All of plaintiffs' claims against these defendants must be dismissed, and the Court will therefore GRANT defendants' motions. The additional motions by dismissed parties and plaintiffs' motions related to those parties [Docs. 291, 292, 294, 303, 304] will be DISMISSED as moot. Plaintiffs have moved for leave to amend the complaint [Doc. 297], which for the reasons discussed below, will be DENIED.
Plaintiffs in this civil rights action have sued forty-five (45) defendants, forty-two (42) of whom remain,1 seeking compensatory and punitive damages, as well as injunctive relief [Doc. 6 ¶¶ 538-44]. Plaintiffs' 114-page complaint2 contains 544 paragraphs, many of which include multiple subparts [Id.]. Plaintiffs assert various claims, including claims under § 1983 for violations of the First, Second, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution; § 1985 for conspiracy to commit § 1983 violations; the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act as amended by the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997; the Americans with Disabilities Act; the Tennessee Constitution; Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 29-24-101 to -104 (libel and slander); Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-101 (); and the common law (intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, and invasion of privacy) in addition to claims asserting violations of the Tennessee Department of Children's Services' policies and the Brian A. Settlement Agreement [Doc. 6 ¶¶ 330-531].
Due to the lengthy nature of the factual background and complaint in this case, details of relevant allegations and facts will be addressed as needed. As a brief overview,3 plaintiffs Tobias and Kathleen Pethtel adopted seven (7) minor children [Doc. 6 ¶ 1]. Oneof the minor Pethtel children made a 911 prank call on November 10, 2009, which drew officers from the Anderson County Sheriff's Department to the Pethtel home [Id. ¶¶ 2-3]. Some of the deputies reportedly saw a bruise on the face of one of the children, which the child explained as a bruise from a bicycle accident [Id. ¶ 5]. The deputies called the State of Tennessee Department of Children's Services ("DCS") to the plaintiffs' home [Id.]. That same day, after some investigation, six (6) of the minor children were removed from the home and placed in two (2) different homes [Id. ¶ 13]. DCS also removed the seventh minor child from military school in Florida [Id.]. DCS, through defendant Koehler, filed a Petition for Dependency and Neglect and a Protective Custody Order in the Anderson County Juvenile Court, alleging the Pethtel children were neglected [Id. ¶ 15]. The plaintiff parents were later found guilty of one count of misdemeanor child abuse in Anderson County criminal court and sentenced; they filed a waiver of the right to appeal and right to a new trial [Doc. 206 p. 2; Doc. 220-1].
All of plaintiffs' claims arise out of this law enforcement visit to the home of plaintiffs and ensuing actions by local law enforcement, DCS, and other individuals and agencies named in the complaint for their treatment of plaintiffs and involvement in plaintiffs' familial relationships.
Many defendants have brought motions to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 8(a) and 12(b)(6). Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a) sets out a liberalpleading standard. To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint need contain only a "short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief, 'in order to give [the opposing party] fair notice of what the . . . claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.'" Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47 (1957)). This is to "avoid situations . . . wherein the pleading is so verbose that the Court cannot identify with clarity the claim(s) of the pleader and adjudicate such claim(s) understandingly on the merits." Harrell v. Directors of Bureau of Narcotics & Dangerous Drugs, 70 F.R.D. 444, 446 (E.D. Tenn. 1975). Detailed factual allegations are not required, but a party's "obligation to provide the grounds of his entitlement to relief requires more than labels and conclusions." Id. (internal quotations omitted). "[A] formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do," nor will "an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009).
In deciding a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, a court must construe the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, accept all factual allegations as true, draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff, and determine whether the complaint contains "enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570; Directv, Inc. v. Treesh, 487 F.3d 471, 476 (6th Cir. 2007) (citation omitted). This assumption of factual veracity, however, does not extend to bare assertions of legal conclusions, Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679, nor is the Court "bound to accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation." Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286 (1986).
"A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads the factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. "Determining whether a complaint states a plausible claim for relief will . . . be a context-specific task that requires th[is Court] to draw on its judicial experience and common sense." Id. at 679.
The Court will evaluate defendants' motions pursuant to these standards.
Due to the defendants' general confusion regarding what claims plaintiffs allege against whom,4 and the varied organization of claims across the defendants' motions, the Court will discuss its approach in addressing the various motions to dismiss in this case and its analysis of the complaint.
The Court has conducted an extensive and careful review of the complaint, construing it in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. However, even under this standard, the complaint is deficient in many areas, particularly in its specificity with which it alleges claims against the many defendants. To attempt to clarify matters, in response to the state defendants'5 first motion to dismiss [Doc. 121], plaintiffs filed a claim chart with "many of the state defendants and many of the causes of action against them" [Doc. 140. p. 18; Doc. 141-1]. This chart is a word document "not meant as an exhaustive list of all claims or defendants" that places an X where plaintiffs assert they alleged a claim for the claims in each column against defendants in each row [Doc. 140-1 p. 4].
Plaintiffs' complaint is structured with many factual or "general" allegations at the beginning, and then, beginning on page fifty-nine (59), puts together the elements of claims and begins their substantive legal counts.6 However, plaintiffs' chart sometimes includes claims against persons not at all mentioned in the legal claims of the complaint. The complaint often states "defendants" took particular actions, with no indication as to which of the forty-five (45) defendants plaintiffs are referring. Plaintiffs state in their response to defendants Goldstine, Hamilton, and Foothills Care, Inc.'s motion that "defendants" refersto all defendants because repeating all defendants' names would have made the complaint too lengthy [Doc. 247 p. 2]. However, plaintiffs did not define the term "defendants" to refer to all defendants in the complaint.7 Additionally, plaintiffs use the term "defendants" to refer to various groupings. Thus, "defendants" is not used consistently such that the Court or parties could deduce plaintiffs' definition. Sometimes, plaintiffs make statements like, "these defendants and their employer agencies," or "defendants herein are employees of the State of Tennessee Department of Children's Services, the Anderson County Sheriff's Department, Anderson County Health Department, Clinch Valley Children's Center, Omni Visions, Solution Source, CASA of Anderson County, and Foothills Care, Inc., Pediadvocates" when the agencies themselves and employers listed are also defendants [Doc. 6 ¶¶ 313, 333]. Plaintiffs use the terms "state-actor Defendants, private Defendants and the private agencies employing Defendants" in addition to "defendant agencies" [Id. at ¶¶ 334, 342]. Such issues could have been avoided had plaintiffs used more specific wording, defined the term "defendants," or simply stated "all defendants" instead of just "defendants."
Additionally, plaintiffs make statements like "Defendant's actions had no valid secular purpose" [Id. ¶ 458], "Defendants have censored Plaintiffs from expressing their religious beliefs" [Id. ¶ 455], and "The Defendants acted as to the Plaintiffs, with conduct a reasonable person would describe as extreme and...
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