Wilson v. Formigoni, 93-3131

• Decision Date: 14 December 1994
• Docket Number: No. 93-3131,93-3131
• Parties: Diane M. WILSON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Ugo FORMIGONI, Carlos Deeb and Bruce Wilosinski, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 1060

42 F.3d 1060

Diane M. WILSON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Ugo FORMIGONI, Carlos Deeb and Bruce Wilosinski,

Defendants-Appellants.

No. 93-3131.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued May 19, 1994.

Decided Dec. 14, 1994.

Patrick J. Cullinan (argued), Smith, Williams & Lodge, Chicago, IL, for plaintiff-appellee.

Roland W. Burris, Alison O'Hara (argued), Rita M. Novak, Office of the Atty. Gen., Chicago, IL, for defendants-appellants.

Before SPROUSE, ^* COFFEY and KANNE, Circuit Judges.

COFFEY, Circuit Judge.

Diane M. Wilson, a patient at the Madden Mental Health Center ("Madden") operated by the state of Illinois in Hines, Illinois, brought this suit under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 against the facility's director, her treating psychiatrist and social worker. She alleged that the defendants violated her substantive and procedural due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment by failing to provide her with reasonably safe conditions of confinement and by failing to initiate involuntary commitment proceedings. She also raised several pendent state tort claims. 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1367. The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint, claiming, among other things, that Wilson's due process claims were barred by qualified immunity. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). The district court granted the motion to dismiss with respect to the substantive due process claim, but denied the defendants' qualified immunity defense as to the procedural due process claim. 832 F.Supp. 1152. The defendants appeal only the district court's denial of their motion to dismiss the plaintiff's procedural due process claim on qualified immunity grounds. We have jurisdiction under the collateral order doctrine. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2817-18, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985); 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291. We reverse holding that Wilson has failed to meet the threshold burden of asserting a violation of a constitutional right.

I. Background

For purposes of reviewing a denial of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, we accept the factual allegations of the complaint as true. Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U.S. 113, 118, 110 S.Ct. 975, 979, 108 L.Ed.2d 100 (1990); Dawson v. General Motors Corp., 977 F.2d 369, 372 (7th Cir.1992). Wilson's complaint provides the following factual background. Wilson suffers from a schizophrenic disorder, and her condition has been determined as presenting a danger to herself and others. She is easily agitated and has attacked other patients in the facility. Since 1984, Wilson has been a patient in a number of mental health institutions including Madden, and her psychiatric episodes have been documented in the respective institutions. While confined at Madden, Wilson was observed and treated by defendant psychiatrist Carlos Deeb and other Madden staff. As late as 1992, Dr. Deeb opined Wilson's mental illness to be severe. Also documented in the record at Madden were Wilson's repeated attempts to commit suicide as well as her history of being AWOL from the mental health facilities and after-care homes and placing herself in circumstances of danger. On occasion, she has been found walking down the middle of an interstate highway, or sleeping on an interstate highway, and on another occasion, attempting to get into the vehicle of unknown and armed strangers--she has a tendency to take up with strangers and hitchhike to other states.

In July 1990, Wilson was detained by the police and thereafter was brought to Madden pursuant to a petition for involuntary/judicial admission. Attached to the petition was a physician's certificate stating that Wilson was unable to care for herself and that she suffered from homicidal as well as suicidal tendencies, and recommending that Wilson be involuntarily committed. ¹ Madden's staff persuaded Wilson to sign an application for voluntary admission, and informed her that as a general rule patients in her situation do not lose any of their legal rights, benefits or privileges simply because they are admitted to a mental health facility. ² An intake assessment at the time of Wilson's admission noted that Wilson exhibited a markedly impaired attention span, lacked decision making abilities, as well as appearing to be delusional. A psychiatric evaluation of Wilson prepared around the same time opined that Wilson was only partially oriented, and that her thought process was fragmented.

Wilson remained at Madden for approximately two months and was transferred to the University of Chicago Hospital for further diagnostic testing and evaluation. She was returned to Madden three weeks later again pursuant to a petition, prepared by the University of Chicago Hospital medical staff, recommending her involuntary/judicial admission. A certificate attached to the petition stated, among other things, that Wilson required long-term psychiatric care to protect her from serious harm. Madden's staff again persuaded Wilson to sign an application for voluntary admission or commitment.

While Wilson was confined at Madden, there were times when Wilson's freedom of movement was restricted without her consent. At times she was confined to her unit, or placed in segregation as well as placed in full leather restraints. Between July 1990 and November 1991, Wilson made nine written requests to be released from Madden. On each occasion the staff at Madden was able to persuade Wilson to withdraw her request. On one occasion when Wilson refused to rescind her request, the staff prepared and filed a petition with the court for involuntary admission. Prior to the hearing on this petition, however, Wilson withdrew the request again due to the staff's power of persuasion. During this period, Wilson made several oral requests for release which were ignored.

Between November 1991 and February 1992, there were five instances of Wilson leaving the facility without authorization or supervision. On one of the occasions she was found at O'Hare Airport and returned by the police. Another time, she was issued a grounds pass to the canteen but failed to return as instructed. She was later returned by a member of the clergy from Madden. Twice, Wilson voluntarily returned to Madden after an unauthorized absence or sometime after the expiration of her grounds pass. On March 3, 1992, Wilson attended a group therapy session in a building separate from where she was housed. The nurse in charge sent a note to the group therapy leader requesting him or her to call the nurse before Wilson left the session in order that Wilson could be escorted back to her unit. Either because the note was never delivered to the group therapy leader or the leader failed to follow the instruction, Wilson left the building and the premises without an escort at approximately 8 p.m. She was found approximately four hours later severely injured and unconscious more than five miles away from Madden. The injuries caused Wilson to be hospitalized for two months, and her psychiatric condition has continued to deteriorate since that episode. Wilson was adjudicated legally disabled by the Circuit Court of Cook County in April 1992, Estate of Diane M. Wilson, 92 P 2625, Dckt. 241, Pg. 145 (April 21, 1992), and presumably is now involuntarily committed as a mental health patient at Madden.

In her Sec. 1983 action against the defendants, Wilson alleged in Count I that the defendants violated her substantive due process rights by failing to take effective measures to restrain her or prevent her from leaving the facility without supervision and by acting with reckless disregard of her rights to reasonably safe conditions of confinement. Count II alleged that the defendants violated Wilson's procedural due process rights by failing to initiate the involuntary commitment proceedings pursuant to the state's Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Code ("Mental Health Code"), even though they knew that Wilson was incompetent to give informed consent to voluntary admission. See 405 ILCS 5/3-700 et seq. It further alleged that although the defendants were aware of Wilson's repeated instances of leaving the facility without authorization or supervision and her markedly impaired ability to care for herself, they merely persuaded Wilson to withdraw her requests to be released instead of initiating involuntary placement proceedings as Wilson argues is required by the Illinois Mental Health Code. See 405 ILCS 5/3-403. Counts III through V asserted pendent state law negligence claims against the three defendants individually.

The district court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss on qualified immunity grounds with respect to Count I. The court acknowledged that Wilson's complaint sufficiently alleged that she was a de facto involuntary patient, and that an involuntarily committed mental patient's right to reasonably safe conditions of confinement was established by Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307, 102 S.Ct. 2452, 73 L.Ed.2d 28 (1982). The court found, however, that it was not clearly established that Youngberg applied to those voluntary patients who were in reality committed involuntarily. The district court noted that since the Supreme Court's decision in DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dept. of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189, 109 S.Ct. 998, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989), which held that one has no due process right to safety unless the state had taken an affirmative action to deprive him of his liberty, courts have frequently denied voluntarily committed patients' substantive due process claims. As to Wilson's procedural due process claim, however, the district court found that the defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity. Relying on Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U.S. 113, 110 S.Ct. 975, 108 L.Ed.2d 100 (1990), the district court found that Wilson has alleged a deprivation of a clearly established constitutional right of which a reasonable person would have known. The defendants appeal from that decision.

II. Analysis

We review the district court's decision to...