Harper v. Dist. of Columbia

TANEISHA HARPER, Plaintiff, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 1:19-cv-2817 (CJN)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

April 21, 2020

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Taneisha Harper brings this action against the District of Columbia, Mayor Muriel Bowser, and the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency ("CSOSA"), seeking compensation for the wrongful death of her common-law husband and asserting violations of his Fifth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights. See generally Compl., ECF No. 1-1. Defendants District of Columbia and Bowser move to dismiss. See generally Defs. District of Columbia and Mayor Muriel Bowser's Mot. to Dismiss ("Mot."), ECF No. 3. For the reasons discussed below, the Motion is granted.

I. Background

The facts giving rise to this action center around the tragic murder of Daniel Parker, who was "brutally killed" in July 2017 by Dewayne Shorter, a convicted felon and parolee who appears to have had numerous run-ins with law enforcement. E.g., Compl. ¶¶ 8-14, 20.¹

According to Harper, Shorter had an "extensive history of violent and dangerous behavior." Id. ¶ 14. As a result, CSOSA placed a GPS monitoring device on Shorter while he was on parole. Id. In the weeks before Parker's murder, Shorter threatened to use his AR-15 rifle against two police officers during an altercation. Id. ¶¶ 10-12. Harper claims that, despite Shorter's threats and his status as a convicted felon who had admitted to illegally possessing an AR-15, law enforcement failed to search for and confiscate the weapon. See id. ¶ 13.

Shortly thereafter, Shorter was arrested and placed in the custody of the Department of Corrections ("DOC"), which removed Shorter's ankle monitor and released him the next day "back to the custody of CSOSA," which in turn released Shorter to the public without replacing the ankle monitor. See id. ¶¶ 15-17. Within ten hours of his release, Shorter—who had publicly vowed to exact revenge on Parker for unexplained reasons—shot and killed Parker with the same type of weapon and ammunition he had previously threatened to use against police officers. See id. ¶¶ 10, 18-19. Shorter was subsequently arrested and charged for Parker's murder. Id. ¶ 24.

Harper initially filed suit in D.C. Superior Court, asserting three claims: wrongful death as a result of CSOSA's and the District's negligence; violations of Parker's Fifth Amendment due process rights; and violations of Parker's Fourteenth Amendment rights. See generally Compl.² The District removed this action based on the constitutional claims, see Notice of Removal, ECF No. 1, and subsequently moved to dismiss, see Mot.

II. Legal Standard

To survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), Harper must plead "enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." See Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 544, 570 (2007).³ A claim is facially plausible if "the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows 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) (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556). The Court must construe Harper's Complaint "in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and accept as true all reasonable factual inferences drawn from well-[pleaded] factual allegations." Nicholson v. Spencer, 311 F. Supp. 3d 1, 3 (D.D.C. 2018) (citation omitted).

III. Analysis

A. Wrongful Death

Harper alleges that the District's negligence resulted in her husband's wrongful death. Compl. ¶¶ 32-33. Generally, "[t]he elements of a cause of action for negligence are [1] a duty of care owed by the defendant to the plaintiff, [2] a breach of that duty by the defendant, and [3] damage to the interests of the plaintiff, [4] proximately caused by the breach." Goolsby v. District of Columbia, 354 F. Supp. 3d 69, 74 (D.D.C. 2019) (quoting Taylor v. District of Columbia, 776 A.2d 1208, 1214 (D.C. 2001) (applying District of Columbia law to negligence claim against the District)). The District focuses its arguments on the first prong, contending thatthe public duty doctrine shields the District from liability because it absolves municipalities of any duty to protect specific individuals except in rare cases. See Mot. at 6-8.

The public duty doctrine derives from

the fundamental principle that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen. . . . The duty to provide public services is owed to the public at large, and, absent a special relationship between the police and an individual, no specific legal duty exists.

Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1, 3 (D.C. 1981) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). In the District's view, it had no specific duty to protect Parker and therefore cannot be liable for any negligent acts that may have led to his death. See Mot. at 6-8.

Harper counters by arguing that the D.C. Council has narrowed the application of the doctrine beyond its traditional reach. See Pl.'s Resp. and Mem. of P. & A. to Defs.' Mot. ("Resp.") at 6-7, ECF No. 5 (citing D.C. Code § 5-401.02 (2020)). The relevant portion of the D.C. Code states:

The Council ratifies the interpretation and application of the public duty doctrine by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals up through the decision of . . . September 25, 2014, in Allen v. District of Columbia, [100 A.3d 63 (D.C. 2014), reh'g en banc granted, opinion vacated, No. 10-CV-1425, 2015 WL 5725532 (D.C. June 15, 2015)], No. 10-CV-1424, and extends the public duty doctrine to claims against the District for the actions of contractors and their employees . . . .

§ 5-401.02.

As the District rightly points out, the plain text of the D.C. Code makes clear that the Council was codifying the doctrine as applied in Allen. See Defs. The District of Columbia and Mayor Muriel Bowser's Reply to Pl.'s Opp'n to Defs.' Mot. to Dismiss ("Reply") at 2, ECF No. 6. Harper cannot point to anything in the text to support her argument that the Code was enacted to narrow the public duty doctrine.

At issue in Allen was whether the public duty doctrine should shield from liability medical services personnel and emergency medical technicians (EMTs) who were assigned to provide on-site monitoring of firefighter candidates during the administration of a physical ability test. Allen, 100 A.3d at 68-70. Concluding that the public duty doctrine applied was generally triggered by the claim, the Allen court then examined whether the doctrine's "special relationship" or "special duty" exception applied. This exception requires a plaintiff to "allege and prove two things: (1) a direct or continuing contact between the injured party and a governmental agency or official, and (2) a justifiable reliance on the part of the injured party." Id. at 70 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Although the decedent in Allen had repeated contacts with the District in the course of his application process, the court held he was still unable to establish direct or continuing contacts in part because "[e]ven a series of contacts over a period of time between a public agency and an injured or endangered person is not enough to establish a special relationship, absent some showing that the agency assumed a greater duty to that person . . . ." Id. (citation omitted). Because "any individual could have applied to be a firefighter, and the District would have corresponded with that person to the same extent," the court rejected the argument that the District assumed a greater duty to the decedent. Id. at 71. The court further held that even if the decedent had a special relationship with the District's fire recruitment personnel as a prospective employee, plaintiffs could not show that such a relationship extended to the EMTs' alleged errors during the medical emergency. See id. at 72-73. And plaintiffs were unable to meet the justifiable reliance prong because, on summary judgment, they failed to present evidence that the decedent acted or failed to act in a particular way because of the presence of EMTs. See id. at 74-75.

What remains at issue here, then, is whether the special relationship exception⁴ overcomes the application of the public duty doctrine. It does not. Harper does not allege that there was any relationship between Parker and the District, let alone one that was sufficiently close to satisfy Allen. The most generous reading of the Complaint is that Parker's safety should have been on the District's radar because Shorter was a convicted felon who was not permitted to own a gun and the community (including the District and CSOSA) knew that Shorter had previously "vowed revenge" on Parker. Compl. ¶¶ 19, 27. But even assuming the District knew that Shorter posed a danger to Parker in particular, id. ¶ 27, "the mere fact that an individual has emerged from the general public and become an object of the special attention of public employees does not create a relationship which imposes a special legal duty," Allen, 100 A.3d at 72 (citing Hines v. District of Columbia, 580 A.2d 133, 136 (D.C. 1990)). And Harper certainly has not alleged that Parker justifiably relied on the District's protection, as there are no indications that Parker acted or failed to act in a certain way because of any relationship with the District.

Harper separately urges the Court to refrain from applying the doctrine on public policy grounds. See Resp. at 7. She argues that the doctrine "would result in a blanket immunity for a municipality for gross and flagrant negligent acts" and "would leave citizens powerless and defenseless to the whims and inadequacies of government agencies." Id. But Harper assumesthat the District is advocating for a broader reading of the doctrine, which it is not. The District's interpretation of the doctrine aligns with the clear...