Ware v. Dist. of Columbia

• Decision Date: 01 November 2022
• Docket Number: 1:21-cv-02895 (TNM)
• Parties: JENIYAH WARE, Plaintiff, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

JENIYAH WARE, Plaintiff,
v.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., Defendants.

No. 1:21-cv-02895 (TNM)

United States District Court, District of Columbia

November 1, 2022

MEMORANDUM OPINION

TREVOR N. McFADDEN, U.S.D.J.

Jeniyah Ware sues the District of Columbia and a company called Golden Diversity, Inc. (Golden). See Compl., ECF No. 1. She alleges that the District hired Golden to provide “tutoring services” to juveniles who, like Ware, had cases pending in the District's juvenile justice system. Id. ¶ 25. And she says that a Golden employee sexually abused her during her time in a juvenile facility. See id. ¶ 40. Based on this, she raises several claims against Golden and the District, including sexual battery of a child, negligence, negligent hiring, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. She also claims that the District violated her civil rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

Golden did not respond, so the Clerk entered a default against it. See ECF No. 9. Ware moved for default judgment against Golden. See Pl.'s Mot. for Default J. (Pl.'s Mot.), ECF No. 21; see also ECF No. 17. The District moved to dismiss all claims against it. See Def.'s Mot. to Dismiss (Def.'s Mot.), ECF No. 11. Because Ware fails to state a claim against both Defendants, the Court will deny her motion for default judgment and grant in part the District's motion to dismiss. The motion to dismiss will be denied insofar as the dismissal is without prejudice.

I.

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In October 2016, Jeniyah Ware was 13 years old when police arrested her on a misdemeanor charge of unlawful entry. Compl. ¶¶ 1, 14. She then “was in a pre-adjudicated juvenile probation status under the management and control of Family Court Social Services Division” (FCSSD). Id. ¶ 1. FCSSD is the sole probation agency for pre-adjudicated juveniles advising and serving the District's Family Court Operations Division. Id. ¶ 3. Periodically, Ware resided in court-ordered Youth Shelter Homes or the District's Youth Center. Id. ¶ 1. The District's Youth and Rehabilitation Services operated and supervised these placements. Id. At other times, Ware lived with her father. Id.

The District later certified Ware's case to the Juvenile Behavioral Diversion Program for an eligibility determination. Id. ¶ 21. As a condition of her pretrial release, the District ordered Ware to attend a Balance and Restorative Justice Drop-In Center and to participate in the Leadership of Today in Solidarity program. Id. At these programs, juveniles on probation receive various services, including tutoring. Id. ¶ 9. FCSSD officials and employees manage, operate, and staff these programs. Id. ¶ 22.

Golden was a contractor that provided tutoring services to juveniles under a Statement of Work with FCSSD. Id. ¶ 6-7. According to Ware, the District “mandated training for all youthservice providers based on commissioned research, issued annual studies, established profiles of perpetrators, and distributed statistics on potential and actual sexual victimization and trafficking of D.C. pre- and post-adjudicated juveniles, with a focus on African-American teenage girls.” Id. ¶ 44.

Golden hired Anthony Brooks and assigned him to be Ware's tutor. Id. ¶¶ 9, 27, 34. Ware alleges that from March through September 2017, Brooks sexually abused her. Id. ¶ 35. On September 20, 2017, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) arrested Brooks. See Arrest

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Report, ECF No. 15-2. The day before his arrest, Ware told MPD that Brooks “was her mentor while she attended a court ordered program but when she changed programs the mentoring should have stopped,” and that Brooks had picked her up from her father's home and drove her to his home in Maryland, before sexually assaulting her. See id. Brooks later pled guilty to transporting minors for sexual activity. Compl. ¶¶ 11, 35.

Ware alleges that, in October 2016, probation officer Stephanie Lea notified both FCSSD and Golden that she observed Brooks “exhibit inappropriate and predatory-like behaviors toward female juvenile participants[.]” Id. ¶ 29. Ware also alleges that another probation officer, Denise Tennant-Bryan, “reported on-site inappropriate behaviors” by Brooks in 2016. Id. ¶ 30. And she claims that both FCSSD and Golden “failed to fulfill mandatory reporting obligations and to terminate and remove Brooks” despite knowledge of his “predatory-like behaviors.” Id. ¶ 31.

In March 2018, about six months after MPD arrested Brooks, Ware's father sent a letter to the Mayor and the District's Office of Risk Management notifying the District of Ware's claims. See Notice Letter, ECF No. 15-1. This suit followed.

II.

To survive a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), a complaint must contain sufficient factual allegations that, if true, “state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). A claim is facially plausible when the facts “allow[] the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). And courts must accept plaintiffs' factual allegations as true and grant in their favor “all inferences that can be derived from the facts alleged.” L. Xia v. Tillerson, 865 F.3d 643, 649 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (cleaned up).

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Yet courts need not credit “a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (cleaned up). Courts consider “only the facts alleged in the complaint, any documents either attached to or incorporated in the complaint[,] and matters of which [it] may take judicial notice.” Hurd v. District of Columbia, 864 F.3d 671, 678 (D.C. Cir. 2017).

III.

Consider first Ware's sole federal claim. Ware alleges that the District violated her Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to be free from state-created bodily harm and is thus liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The District counters that Ware fails to plausibly allege a predicate constitutional violation or that District policy or custom caused her alleged injuries. Def's Mot. 9-18. The Court agrees with the District on both scores.

Section 1983 allows Ware to sue the District for some constitutional violations. But “Congress did not intend municipalities to be held liable unless action pursuant to official municipal policy of some nature caused a constitutional tort.” Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs. of City of N.Y., 436 U.S. 658, 691 (1978). The Court thus conducts a two-step inquiry. See Baker v. District of Columbia, 326 F.3d 1302, 1306 (D.C. Cir. 2003). First, there must be a predicate constitutional violation. Id. Second, a District custom or policy must have been the “affirmative link” to that constitutional violation, “such that [it] was the moving force behind the constitutional violation.” Id. (cleaned up). Ware stumbles at both steps.

A.

The Court first considers whether Ware has shown a predicate constitutional violation. She alleges that the District failed to adequately protect her from Brooks's predatory behavior in

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violation of the Fifth Amendment.^[1] The Fifth Amendment protects citizens from being “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” U.S. Const. amend. V.^[2] The Court finds that Ware has not plausibly alleged a violation of her due process rights.

Ware claims that she had a “constitutional right . . . to be free from state-created bodily harm.” Compl. ¶ 115. In other words, she invokes her substantive due process right to bodily integrity. See Roe v. Wilson, 365 F.Supp.3d 71, 79 (D.D.C. 2019) (recognizing sexual assault by a schoolteacher can violate a student's substantive due process right to bodily integrity). Substantive due process challenges present a threshold question: “whether the behavior of the government officer is so egregious, so outrageous, that it may fairly be said to shock the contemporary conscience.” Cnty. of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 847 n.8 (1998). As the Supreme Court has emphasized, the due process clause “does not transform every tort committed by a state actor into a constitutional violation.” DeShaney v. Winnebago Cnty. Dep't of Social Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 202 (1989). Ordinarily, a plaintiff shows conscience-shocking behavior by showing either (1) “a substantial infringement of state law prompted by personal or group animus” or (2) “a deliberate flouting of the law that trammels significant personal or property rights.” Tri Cnty. Indus., Inc. v. District of Columbia, 104 F.3d 455, 459 (D.C. Cir. 1997).

But Ware argues that a lower standard should apply here: she asserts that the District is liable for its alleged deliberate indifference to her safety. Opp'n 5-7. To do so, Ware invokes a state-endangerment theory, under which “an individual can assert a substantive due process right

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to protection by the District of Columbia from third-party violence when District of Columbia officials affirmatively act to increase or create the danger that ultimately results in the individual's harm.” Butera v. District of Columbia, 235 F.3d 637, 651 (D.C. Cir. 2001). She claims that the District is liable under the deliberate indifference standard because it “affirmatively assigned, supported, and allowed Brooks to serve as [Ware's] one-on-one tutor.” Compl. ¶ 121.

Alternatively, Ware alleges that the deliberate indifference standard applies here because the District had a heightened obligation to her, stemming from her court-ordered participation in the diversion program. If so, a “lower threshold for meeting the shock the conscience test by showing deliberately indifferent as opposed to intentional conduct applies.” Est. of Phillips v. District of Columbia, 455 F.3d 397, 403 (D.C. Cir. 2006). The District counters that it had no such obligation because Ware was pre-adjudicated and on probation, and thus the District never committed her to its custody. Def.'s Mot. 11-12.

This Court need not decide whether the District...