Smith v. District of Columbia

• Decision Date: 05 July 2005
• Docket Number: No. 03-7143.,03-7143.
• Citation: 413 F.3d 86
• Parties: Minnie SMITH, Appellee v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Appellant Gail L. Turner, Administrator, Youth Services Administration, et al., Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

413 F.3d 86

Minnie SMITH, Appellee v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Appellant Gail L. Turner, Administrator, Youth Services Administration, et al., Appellees.

No. 03-7143.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued March 22, 2005.

Decided July 5, 2005.

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Appeal from the United States District Court (USDC) for the District of Columbia (No. 00cv00894).

Donna M. Murasky, Senior Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause for appellant. With her on the briefs were Robert J. Spagnoletti, Attorney General, and Edward E. Schwab, Deputy Attorney General.

Leon Dayan argued the cause for appellee Minnie Smith. With him on the brief were Robert M. Weinberg, W. Gary Kohlman, and Laurence S. Gold. Abigail V. Carter entered an appearance.

Before: GINSBURG, Chief Judge, and EDWARDS and TATEL, Circuit Judges.

TATEL, Circuit Judge.

Sometime after 11 p.m. on April 28, 1999, an unidentified assailant shot and killed seventeen-year-old Tron Lindsey and his roommate in the apartment where they lived as part of a program for delinquent youths in the District of Columbia's legal custody. Alleging among other things that the District, by virtue of its deliberate indifference in selecting and monitoring the program provider, had violated Tron's substantive due process rights, Tron's grandmother brought suit as next of kin and on behalf of his estate. After a twelve-day trial, the jury found the District liable and awarded damages of $72,000. Because the district court correctly identified the legal standard for a due process violation and because Tron's grandmother "proffered `sufficient evidence upon which a jury could properly base a verdict' in her favor," Mackey v. United States, 8 F.3d 826, 829 (D.C.Cir. 1993) (quoting Richardson v. Richardson-Merrell, Inc., 857 F.2d 823, 828 (D.C.Cir. 1988)) (emphasis omitted), we affirm.

I.

The District of Columbia has several ways of dealing with delinquent youths. It places many in the Oak Hill Youth Center—a juvenile detention facility with a history of problems so serious that even the District has called it a "troubled program." See District of Columbia v. Jerry M., 738 A.2d 1206, 1212 (D.C.1999). It places others in programs geared to youths who've committed less serious crimes or seem relatively likely to stay out of trouble. Such programs include "independent living" programs—the focus of this case—in which youths live on their own in program-provided apartments, though subject to restrictions on their activities and supervision by staff.

Rather than running its own independent living program, the District contracts the work out to private companies. Although a 1986 D.C. law required the Mayor to promulgate rules for providers of residential facilities for District juveniles, see D.C.Code § 7-2103; see generally id. §§ 7-2101 to 7-2108 (codifying the Youth Residential Facilities Licensure Act of 1986), the Mayor failed to develop any such rules for independent living programs prior to the events leading to this case. Absent such rules, no minimum standards were required of District providers generally, and the city's Youth Services Administration (YSA) had, in the words of its Administrator Gail Turner, "no specific standards" for selecting providers. Tr. 3/17/03 at 32.

Viewed in the light most favorable to Tron's grandmother, Minnie Smith, see, e.g., Ekedahl v. COREStaff, Inc., 183 F.3d 855, 858 (D.C.Cir.1999) (per curiam) (holding that we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the prevailing party), the record reveals the following events: In early 1998, the company the District had contracted with to operate an independent living program for delinquent youths folded due to allegations of tax fraud. A former employee of that company, James Jones, formed a new company, Education Solutions Academy (ESA), intending to seek the District's business. Although Jones had worked at a school run by the contractor before its collapse, no record evidence suggests that he had any experience with independent living programs. Jones hired a program director, Eric Antonio, who did have experience with at-risk youths but, like Jones, had never before worked at an independent living program—as he acknowledged, he "did not know that much about" such programs. Tr. 3/12/03 at 67.

As the site for their program, Jones and Antonio selected Queenstown Apartments in Mt. Ranier, Maryland. Located fairly close to a Metro stop and grocery stores, this complex struck them as a good place for the youths to live, and they thought its easy access to D.C. would facilitate weekend home visits. The complex had over 1000 units, arranged in a "garden-style" layout with every few units sharing the same main door to the outside. Although the complex had several security cameras, the main doors had none. Nor did these doors have locks. Doors leading into individual units did have locks, as well as peepholes, but record evidence suggests that poor hallway lighting made the peepholes useless. At trial, an expert testified that factors like "low lighting no locks or very few locks; no accountability; no guard services; no guard personnel watching the area, all of which was the case at Queenstown" tend to attract drug crimes. Tr. 3/18/03 at 103. Another expert testified that Queenstown Apartments "ha[d] been an open air drug market for at least 15 years" prior to 1998. Tr. 3/14/03 at 6.

During their site selection process, Antonio and Jones met with a Queenstown Apartment manager but asked no questions about safety or security, as Antonio conceded at trial. Nor did they inform the manager that youths in their program would be adjudicated delinquents. Despite Queenstown's handful of security measures—such as offering two reduced-rent units to police officers—the manager testified that "we simply weren't equipped" to accommodate a program for juvenile delinquents. Tr. 3/21/03 at 96. The manager even acknowledged that Queenstown "would not have let the program on the grounds" had it known that the program's youths were juvenile delinquents. Id. at 147.

With Queenstown Apartments in mind as a site, ESA sought a contract from YSA. YSA's point person for the approval process was a social worker, Kenneth King. Because the District had failed to develop criteria for evaluating contractors, see supra at 89-90, King had no standards against which to judge ESA's proposal. Along with other social workers, King met with Jones and Antonio, but never asked whether either had prior experience with independent living programs. Nor did he inquire whether ESA had a Maryland license to operate an independent living program involving minors. Had he done so, he would have discovered that ESA lacked the necessary license. Although King twice visited Queenstown Apartments, he neither met with Queenstown officials nor made any inquiries about safety or security.

Acting on King's recommendation, YSA signed a contract with ESA in November 1998. (Less than a year later, King quit his YSA job to become ESA's CEO at an annual salary of $84,000.) During its first year of operation, ESA had up to sixteen youths living at Queenstown Apartments at any given time. For each youth it received $110 per day from the District.

Seventeen-year-old Tron Lindsey was one such youth. Due to his parents' drug problems, he had grown up with his grandmother. Some time after moving out of her house, he was arrested for hitting and kicking a man, charged with assault, found guilty, and placed at the Oak Hill Youth Center. In February 1999, a D.C. Superior Court probation officer recommended that Tron be taken out of Oak Hill and placed in an independent living program. The officer made this recommendation on the basis of several factors, including Tron's "very limited court involvement," his wish to complete his education, and his own preference for an independent living program as opposed to more time at Oak Hill. Tr. 3/20/03 at 69, 70. Accepting this recommendation, the court placed Tron with ESA—a placement that only another court order could change.

Arriving at ESA's Queenstown site in early March, Tron was assigned to an apartment unit with another youth, Tyrone Wallace. As part of the program, Tron attended life skills workshops run by either Antonio or another ESA counselor. With Antonio's help, Tron began spending several hours a day at Covenant House, an educational program aimed at helping at risk youth. Although Tron could only get on the waiting list for some Covenant House classes, he convinced one of its employees to set up an independent study for him and another ESA youth. The employee explained that while she wouldn't do this for everyone, Tron impressed her. Tron "expressed a real, particular desire that seemed very sincere. . . . He was a very polite young man. He was cooperative. He was courteous, and for myself I know that I will often time go the extra step for someone who acts like this is what they want." Tr. 3/12/03 at 128.

ESA required all youths to obey a 7 p.m. curfew. After that hour, they were neither to leave their apartments nor to let anyone in except ESA staff. But at least in Tron's case, this requirement was virtually never observed. Record evidence suggests that out of the fifty-one days Tron spent at ESA, he missed his curfew fifty times. As Antonio put it, "[h]e usually showed up anywhere after 7:00 to as late as 11:00. He would usually be there the next morning." Tr. 3/13/03 at 12. According to Antonio, although ESA docked Tron's allowance (which ranged from $15 to $25 a week), it never otherwise punished him. Antonio acknowledged, however, that Tron might have gotten sent back to Oak Hill if he had continued to violate the curfew.

Uncontrolled curfew violations were not ESA's only problem. During Tron's brief time at Queenstown, ESA had to release one counselor (a man with a criminal record) due to poor performance and rumors that he...