Erie v. Hunter

593 F.Supp.3d 374

Storm ERIE

v.Nancy HUNTER

CIVIL ACTION NO. 21-00267-BAJ-RLB

United States District Court, M.D. Louisiana.

Signed March 23, 2022

Garret Scott DeReus, Emily Anne Westermeier, Andrew David Bizer, Bizer & DeReus, LLC, New Orleans, LA, for Storm Erie.

Matthew Patrick Roth, Louisiana Department of Justice Civil Rights Section, Baton Rouge, LA, Rachel Phaedra Dunaway, Office of Attorney General - DOJ, Baton Rouge, LA, for Nancy Hunter.

RULING AND ORDER

BRIAN A. JACKSON, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

In this civil rights action, Plaintiff alleges that his First Amendment rights were violated when he was forced to attend a religious service by Defendant Nancy Hunter, a psychiatric aide at the Eastern Louisiana Mental Health System. Now Defendant moves to dismiss Plaintiff's action on the sole basis that she is shielded from liability by the qualified immunity doctrine. (Doc. 8). Plaintiff opposes Defendant's motion. (Doc. 11). For reasons below, Defendant's motion will be denied, and this matter will be referred to the Magistrate Judge for entry of a scheduling order.

I. RELEVANT BACKGROUND

The Court accepts the following allegations as true for present purposes:

Plaintiff is a patient committed by court-order to the care of Eastern Louisiana Mental Health System (ELMHS), a state-run mental health facility located in Jackson, Louisiana. (Doc. 1 at ¶¶ 7-8). Currently, Plaintiff is housed in ELMHS's Secure Forensic Facility (SFF). (Id. at ¶¶ 8, 16). As a consequence of his commitment, Plaintiff's "movement" is restricted and maintained by ELMHS employees. (Id. at ¶ 12). If Plaintiff disobeys the order of any ELMHS employee he risks being "written up," a sanction that may "result in loss of privileges and decreased freedoms." (Id. at ¶ 13).

Defendant is a psychiatric aide employed by ELMHS. (Id. at ¶¶ 1-2, 18). On Saturday, January 9, 2021, at around 10:00 a.m., Plaintiff was in his room when Defendant approached him and stated that he and all other residents housed in the SFF would be required to attend a religious service in the recreational center. (Id. at ¶¶ 15-18). Plaintiff responded that he did not want to attend, to which Defendant replied that "she was going to get a guard and force everyone to go" because "she was the only aid on the ward so she could not leave anyone in their room." (Id. at ¶¶ 18-19). "Under the threat of forced compulsion, and afraid of being written up or more substantial punishment, [Plaintiff] attended the religious service," which was "decidedly Christian ... (not agnostic) and lasted one hour." (Id. at ¶¶ 20-21).

Plaintiff promptly reported the events of January 9 to his attorney who, in turn, provided ELMHS's Chief Executive Officer, Hampton Lea, written notification of the same. (Id. at ¶ 28). Counsel's letter prompted a response from "an attorney for the Louisiana Department of Health," who stated that "ELMHS is investigating the matter ... [and] will be in touch once the investigation is completed." (Id. at ¶ 29).

Approximately one month later, on February 8, 2021, Plaintiff was summoned to a meeting with SFF's director Gino Bertucci, where Mr. Bertucci shared with Plaintiff the results of ELMHS's investigation. (Id. at ¶ 31). At this meeting, Mr. Bertucci informed Plaintiff: (i) that Defendant "admitted that the incident occurred"; (ii) that ELMHS "conceded that the events in question occurred and that [Plaintiff] was, indeed, forced to attend a religious service"; and (iii) that ELMHS "was going to ‘re-educate’ the staff and that the staff could not force someone to go to a church function." (Id. at ¶¶ 33-35). Despite the Department of Health's prior correspondence with Plaintiff's counsel, no attempt was made to contact Plaintiff's counsel, or to involve counsel in Plaintiff's meeting with Mr. Bertucci. (Id. at ¶ 32).

II. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Plaintiff initiated this action on May 10, 2021. (Doc. 1). Plaintiff's Complaint alleges that his forced attendance at the January 9 religious service violated his First Amendment right to be free from state action advancing and prescribing religious beliefs and expression. (Id. at ¶¶ 39-44). Plaintiff's pursues his First Amendment claim against Defendant in her individual capacity only, and seeks an award of damages (actual, nominal, and punitive) and attorneys’ fees and costs. (Id. at ¶¶ 48, 50).

Now, Defendant seeks dismissal of Plaintiff's First Amendment claim, on the sole basis that she is shielded from liability by the doctrine of qualified immunity "because her conduct in the specific situation in which she was confronted was not clearly unlawful." (Doc. 8-1 at 5).¹ Plaintiff opposes Defendant's Motion, arguing that Defendant's qualified immunity defense fails because Plaintiff's First Amendment rights were plainly violated when he "was forced to attend a religious church service against his will and expressly stated his objections," and that his rights were clearly established because the Supreme Court has unequivocally held that state actors cannot "force [or] influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will," Everson v. Bd. of Ed. of Ewing Twp. , 330 U.S. 1, 15, 67 S.Ct. 504, 91 L.Ed. 711 (1947). (Doc. 11 at 7-8).

III. DISCUSSION

A. Standard

A Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss tests the sufficiency of the complaint against the legal standard set forth in Rule 8, which requires "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). "To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ " Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) ).

Here, the only issue is whether Defendant is entitled to qualified immunity. Qualified immunity shields a government official from liability for civil damages "when an official's conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." City of Escondido, Calif. v. Emmons , ––– U.S. ––––, 139 S. Ct. 500, 503, 202 L.Ed.2d 455 (2019). Its intended purpose is to strike a balance "between the interests in vindication of citizens’ constitutional rights and in public officials’ effective performance of their duties" by making it possible for government officials "reasonably [to] anticipate when their conduct may give rise to liability for damages." See Anderson v. Creighton , 483 U.S. 635, 639, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987) (quoting Davis v. Scherer , 468 U.S. 183, 195, 104 S.Ct. 3012, 82 L.Ed.2d 139 (1984) ). Put differently, "[q]ualified immunity gives government officials breathing room to make reasonable but mistaken judgments about open legal questions. When properly applied, it protects ‘all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.’ " Ashcroft v. al-Kidd , 563 U.S. 731, 743, 131 S.Ct. 2074, 179 L.Ed.2d 1149 (2011) (quoting Malley v. Briggs , 475 U.S. 335, 341, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986) ).

The Fifth Circuit's two-pronged test for qualified immunity asks (1) "whether the facts, viewed in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, show that the official's conduct violated a constitutional right," and (2) "whether the right was ‘clearly established.’ " Cunningham v. Castloo , 983 F.3d 185, 190-91 (5th Cir. 2020). A court may analyze these prongs in either order, and resolve the case on a single prong. Id. at 190.

Relevant here, to determine whether a constitutional right was "clearly established" at the time of the alleged violation, the Court looks for guidance from controlling Supreme Court and Fifth Circuit authority. See McClendon v. City of Columbia , 305 F.3d 314, 329 (5th Cir. 2002). "[I]n the absence of directly controlling authority, a ‘consensus of cases of persuasive authority’ [from other Circuits] might, under some circumstances, be sufficient to compel the conclusion that no reasonable officer could have believed that his or her actions were lawful." Id. (quoting Wilson v. Layne , 526 U.S. 603, 604, 119 S.Ct. 1692, 143 L.Ed.2d 818 (1999) ).

The "clearly-established" prong imposes a "demanding standard" that "is difficult to satisfy." Cunningham , 983 F.3d at 191. Importantly, "[a] right is ‘clearly established’ only if it ‘is sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right.’ " Cunningham , 983 F.3d at 191 (quoting Mullenix v. Luna , 577 U.S. 7, 11, 136 S.Ct. 305, 193 L.Ed.2d 255 (2015) ). The "right must be defined with specificity," not "at a high level of generality." Emmons , 139 S. Ct. at 503 (quotation marks omitted). "We do not require a case directly on point, but existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate." al-Kidd , 563 U.S. at 741, 131 S.Ct. 2074. The "salient question" is " ‘whether the state of the law at the time of the state action gave the state actors fair warning that their alleged treatment of the plaintiff was unconstitutional.’ " McClendon , 305 F.3d at 329 (quoting Roe v. Texas Dep't of Protective & Regul. Servs. , 299 F.3d 395, 409 (5th Cir. 2002) ); see also Mullenix, 577 U.S. at 12, 136 S.Ct. 305 ("The dispositive question is whether the violative nature of the particular conduct is clearly established." (quotation marks omitted)).

"When a defendant asserts qualified immunity, the plaintiff has the burden of proving that it is inapplicable." Waganfeald v. Gusman , 674 F.3d 475, 483 (5th Cir. 2012).

B. Discussion

Applying this framework, the Court determines that Plaintiff has carried his burden of proving that qualified immunity is inapplicable at this early stage of the proceedings. The specific constitutional right at issue is Plaintiff's right, under the Establishment Clause, to be free from state action...