Woods v. Maryville Acad.
| Decision Date | 19 November 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 17 C 8273,17 C 8273 |
| Parties | HARLIS WOODS, Plaintiff, v. MARYVILLE ACADEMY, EDWARD J. BOCK, JOHN P. MADDEN, THOMAS F. MEAGHER, GEORGE W. ROURKE, CATHERINE M. RYAN, EARL SEGERDAHL, WILLIE SIMMONS, JR., REV. JOHN P. SMYTH, JOSEPH J. STEVENS, THOMAS M. TULLY, ARTHUR R. VALASQUEZ, REV. DAVID RYAN, BRYAN LEWIS, JANN JAMESON, and DIRECTOR OF DCFS, JESS MCDONALD, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
The State of Illinois removed Harlis Woods from his mother's custody when he was seven years old because she abused him. As a ward of the State, the Department of Child and Family Services ("DCSF") took care of Woods and placed him in a variety of foster homes and residential facilities over the next decade. During a six-month stay at Maryville Academy, another child physically and sexually abused Woods. Despite repeated attempts to report the incidents, Maryville staff did not intervene. This inaction culminated in Woods' rape, only after which Maryville got involved to prevent any further abuse. Emotionally and psychologically scarred, Woods sued Maryville Academy, its Board of Directors, its Executive Director, two employees, and the DCFS Director under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 because the defendants failed to protect Woods, depriving him of his right to due process, in addition to a variety of other state-law claims.
The Maryville Defendants collectively moved to dismiss, arguing that they are not proper parties because of the state action doctrine. Jess McDonald, the former DCFS Director, individually moved to dismiss, asserting that sovereign immunity shields him from lawsuit. Because the defendants are plausible state actors, and some, including McDonald, did not personally participate in the alleged deprivation of Woods' constitutional rights, the Court grants the Maryville Defendants' motion in part and denies it in part, while granting McDonald's motion in its entirety.
As a young boy, Woods' mother physically abused him and exposed him to illicit drugs in their home. (Dkt. 19 ¶ 24.) This conduct led DCSF to remove seven-year-old Woods from his mother's custody in 1991. Id. Over the next decade, DCSF placed Woods in a range of foster homes and residential facilities. Id. ¶ 25. One of these facilities was Maryville Academy, where Woods stayed from December 1995 to May 1996, when he was twelve-years-old. Id. at ¶ 26.
DCFS contracted with Maryville Academy to care for some of the children in its custody. Id. ¶ 28. Maryville Academy was one facility owned and operated by the larger Maryville organization, which was the largest residential facility network in Illinois, housing approximately 14,000 children across 21 locations. Id. ¶ 86. Statepolicy required Maryville to report an incident of abuse within 48 hours. Id. ¶ 88. Many state employees, including Jess McDonald—the Director of DCFS—were aware of incidents of child abuse at Maryville. Id. ¶ 29. Despite having the knowledge of the substantial risk of abuse, DCFS placed Woods there anyway. Id. ¶ 30.
Shortly after arriving at Maryville, another child ("J.A.") began to physically abuse Woods. Id. ¶ 31. Woods reached out to Jann Jameson, a supervisor at Maryville, and asked for help. Id. ¶ 32. Jameson, however, took no action to report the abuse or prevent it from happening again. Id. ¶ 37. Instead, Jameson told Woods to "man up" and fight back. Id. ¶ 38. Jameson and his staff commonly arranged fights between the children at Maryville. Id. ¶¶ 39-40. Over the next two months, J.A. abused Woods eight to ten more times. Id. ¶ 41. Jameson never intervened. Id. ¶ 43.
Woods next tried approaching Reverend David Ryan, Maryville's Executive Director, when Ryan was visiting the campus. Id. ¶ 44. Woods described the abuse and the staff's failure to stop it. Id. ¶ 47. Ryan assured Woods that he would stop the abuse, however he never followed up. Id. ¶¶ 48-49. Because Jameson and Ryan did not assist him, Woods went to Brian Lewis, the senior manager of his housing unit, to complain about the abuse. Id. ¶ 50. Lewis brought the two boys together and blamed them both for fighting. Id. ¶ 52. After that, Lewis took no further action, telling the boys that he did not want to hear about it anymore. Id. ¶¶ 53-54. Because Woods complained, J.A. retaliated and attacked him a few days later. Id. ¶ 55. With Woods refusing to fight back, J.A. said that he would make Woods his "bitch," andthen forcibly performed oral sex on Woods, making him reciprocate. Id. ¶¶ 57-59. J.A. forced oral sex four to six more times over the next few weeks. Id. ¶ 60.
After this repeated sexual abuse, Woods again sought the aid of Jameson. Id. ¶ 61. Because Jameson had not witnessed these acts, he told Woods that he could not help him. Id. ¶ 64. Thereafter, Jameson failed to protect Woods. Id. ¶ 65. Seeing that he was receiving no assistance, Woods looked for and found Lewis. Id. ¶ 66. After Woods recounted the forced sex acts, Lewis became upset, but took no action in response. Id. ¶¶ 68-69. Still having no support, Woods returned to Ryan and told him about the sexual abuse. Id. ¶¶ 70-71. Ryan reassured Woods that he would do something about it, but he never did. Id. ¶¶ 72-73.
Shortly after Woods voiced these complaints, J.A. cornered him again, forcibly sodomizing Woods with his finger. Id. ¶¶ 74, 76. Woods ran away, and within minutes, told Jameson about what happened. Id. ¶ 77. This shocked and apparently worried Jameson, because he and Lewis took Woods away with them while they privately discussed the matter. Id. ¶¶ 78-79. After the conversation, Woods told Lewis that he wanted to speak with his DCFS caseworker so that he could leave Maryville and escape the abuse. Id. ¶ 81. Lewis responded and said that he would make sure that J.A. stayed away from Woods in the future. Id. ¶ 82. With that, Woods suffered no further abuse for the remaining six weeks that he stayed at Maryville. Id. ¶ 83. In May 1996, DCFS transferred Woods to another residential facility. Id. ¶ 84.
Since experiencing his trauma, Woods has been in and out of prison. Id. ¶ 122. In 2001, Western Correctional Center placed 17-year-old Woods in solitaryconfinement for an extended period. Id. ¶ 123. During this time, Woods experienced a psychotic break, requiring the prison staff to physically restrain him and keep him on suicide watch. Id. ¶ 125. Amid that traumatic event, Woods repressed many of his childhood memories, including those of his abuse. Id. ¶ 126. As a result, Woods retained no memory of the Maryville incidents. Id. ¶ 128. Years later, Woods began working with a therapist in prison. Id. ¶ 129. The therapist suggested that he write down his experiences to help process his childhood trauma. Id. ¶ 130. In May 2017, detailed memories of his time at Maryville began to return to Woods. Id. ¶ 131-32.
DCFS placed children at Maryville until 2002. Id. ¶ 85. It also received a significant number of complaints regarding Maryville that were never made public. Id. ¶ 118. In December 2002, the State assigned two monitors to Maryville. Id. ¶ 110. That same month, the State placed a hold on sending any more children there. Id. ¶ 115. Then, in 2003, the State removed the remaining children from Maryville. Id. ¶ 116. By the time Maryville closed, it had a documented history of child abuse. Id. ¶¶ 89-91, 96, 101, 104, 106, 109, 111, 113-14. Because of the abuse he suffered while under the care and custody of DCFS and Maryville, Woods sued. Id. ¶ 133.
A complaint must "'state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'" Sloan v. Am. Brain Tumor Ass'n, 901 F.3d 891, 894 (7th Cir. 2018) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). In other words, a "'claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.'" Boucher v. Fin.Sys. of Green Bay, Inc., 880 F.3d 362, 366 (7th Cir. 2018) (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)). Conclusory statements do not suffice. See id. In construing the complaint, the Court accepts all the well-pleaded facts as true and "'draw[s] all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff.'" United States ex rel. Berkowitz v. Automation Aids, Inc., 896 F.3d 834, 839 (7th Cir. 2018) (quoting Kubiak v. City of Chicago, 810 F.3d 476, 480-81 (7th Cir. 2016)).
Woods brings three failure-to-protect claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983: the first against Jess McDonald, the former Director of DCFS; the second against the Maryville Academy Board of Directors and three employees, Reverend Ryan, Bryan Lewis, and Jann Jameson; and the third against Maryville Academy itself. Fourth, Woods asserts negligence against Maryville, its Board, and the three employees involved. Fifth, Woods alleges respondeat superior against Maryville based on the negligence of those three employees. Sixth, Woods complains of intentional infliction of emotional distress against the Board and the three employees.
Former Director McDonald moved to dismiss the claims against him from this action, arguing that either the Eleventh Amendment bars them, and even if it does not, McDonald claims that Woods did not allege that McDonald personally participated in Woods' placement at Maryville. The rest of the defendants ("the Maryville Defendants") moved to dismiss the remaining claims, contending that they are not state actors for constitutional purposes, in addition to the fact that Woods failed tosatisfy the heightened pleading standard for his intentional infliction of emotional distress claim.
Federal civil rights statutes, including Section 1983, prohibit "unconstitutional actions by persons acting under the color of state law." Cosgriff v. Cty. of Winnebago, 876 F.3d 912, 915 (7th Cir. 2017), cert. denied sub nom. Cosgriff v. Winnebago Cty., Ill., 138 S. Ct. 1991 (201...
To continue reading
Request your trial