Kinzie v. Dallas County Hosp. Dist.

239 F.Supp.2d 618

James Christian KINZIE, Plaintiff, v. DALLAS COUNTY HOSPITAL DISTRICT d/b/a Parkland Memorial Hospital, Defendant.

No. CIV.A.3:99-CV-2825-L.

United States District Court, N.D. Texas, Dallas Division.

January 3, 2003.

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Michael W. Shore, Joel M. Fineberg, Law Office of Joel M. Fineberg, Dallas, TX, for Plaintiff.

Winston L. Borum, Borum & Hancock, Fort Worth, TX, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

LINDSAY, District Judge.

Before the court are the following:

1. Defendant's Second Motion to Dismiss, filed April 14, 2000;

2. Plaintiffs Response to Defendants' Second Motion to Dismiss, filed April 25, 2000;

3. Defendants' Reply to Plaintiffs Response to Defendants Second Motion to Dismiss, filed May 5, 2000;

4. Defendants' Supplemental Brief in Support of its Second Motion to Dismiss, filed November 6, 2000;

5. Plaintiffs Surreply to Defendants' Reply to Plaintiffs Response to Defendants' Second Motion to Dismiss, filed March 30, 2001;

6. Defendants' Second Supplemental Brief in Support of its Second Motion to Dismiss, filed October 21, 2002;

7. Plaintiffs Supplemental Response to Defendants' Motion to Dismiss, filed October 21, 2002; and

8. Appendix to Plaintiffs Supplemental Response to Defendants' Motion to Dismiss, filed October 21, 2002.

After careful consideration of Plaintiffs Third Amended Complaint ("Complaint"), the motion, response, reply, surreply, briefs, supplemental briefs, appendices submitted by the parties, and applicable law, the court grants Defendant's Second Motion to Dismiss.

I. Facts and Procedural Background

In March 1985, Plaintiff James Christian Kinzie ("Plaintiff or "Kinzie") underwent heart surgery at Children's Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. He was four years old. During the surgery and recovery, he received several units of blood through blood transfusion. The blood transfused to Kinzie was provided by a blood bank operated by Defendant Dallas County Hospital District d/b/a Parkland Memorial Hospital ("Parkland" or "Defendant"). Parkland is a governmental entity.

The blood transfused to Kinzie was infected with the human immune deficiency virus ("HIV"), which is the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome ("AIDS"). AIDS is a severe immunological disorder transmitted primarily through venereal routes, or by exposure to contaminated blood or blood products, resulting in a defect in the cell-mediated immune response manifested by increased susceptibility to life threatening infections and conditions. See The American Heritage Steadman's Medical Dictionary 25 (1995); and Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 24 (10th ed.1999). There is no known cure for AIDS, and it is a deadly disease.¹ Simply stated, when a person has AIDS, his or her immune system breaks down and the person becomes highly susceptible to rare illnesses that would not normally occur in a individual whose immune system was not infected with HIV.

Parkland obtained the HIV infected blood from a homosexual male donor at one of its mobile collection stations. The blood technician who drew the blood did so without completing documentation to verify that she: 1) gave the donor information about the transmission of HIV through blood transfusions; 2) asked the donor appropriate HIV-screening questions; ²

and 3) ensured that the donor read and understood the provided literature that addressed HIV-related issues. That documentation was instead forged on the technician's behalf, and the individual responsible for the forgery was not identified by the parties. The technician's conduct allegedly was indicative of widespread training practices promoted and implemented by Parkland. Parkland also allegedly had an established "don't ask, don't tell" policy with regard to the sexual history of blood donors, although it was aware that homosexual males were at high risk for HIV infection.

Parkland accepted the infected blood in question from the donor, made it available to Kinzie at Children's Medical Center before it was tested for HIV, and waited two months after he (Kinzie) had received the blood before testing it. In September 1985, Parkland was informed that the blood had tested positive for HIV, but did not notify Kinzie. This allegedly was done pursuant to an established policy of not notifying former blood recipients that they had received HIV-positive blood. Accordingly, Kinzie was not aware that he had been exposed to the virus until he was diagnosed at age sixteen—approximately eleven years after Parkland first learned that the blood was contaminated with HIV. When Kinzie initially confronted Parkland, it denied that he (Kinzie) had been transfused with HIV-positive blood. Kinzie's parents did not discover that he had been infected with HIV-positive blood until some time in late 1996.

Plaintiff brought this suit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that Parkland violated his: 1) substantive due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment; 2) procedural due process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments; and 3) right under 21 C.F.R. § 610.47.³ Parkland moves for dismissal under Fed. R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). See Plaintiffs Complaint ¶¶ 4, 21, 24, 40-60.

II. 12(b) (6) Standard of Review

A motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) "is viewed with disfavor and is rarely granted." Lowrey v. Texas A & M Univ. Sys., 117 F.3d 242, 247 (5th Cir.1997). A district court cannot dismiss a complaint, or any part of it, for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted "unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief." Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957); Blackburn v. City of Marshall, 42 F.3d 925, 931 (5th Cir.1995). Stated another way, "[a] court may dismiss a complaint only if it is clear that no relief could be granted under any set of facts that could be proved consistent with the allegations." Swierkiewicz v. Sorema, 534 U.S. 506, 122 S.Ct. 992, 998, 152 L.Ed.2d 1 (2002) (quoting Hishon v. King & Spalding, 467 U.S. 69, 73, 104 S.Ct. 2229, 81 L.Ed.2d 59 (1984)). In reviewing a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the court must accept all well-pleaded facts in the complaint as true and view them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Baker v. Putnal, 75 F.3d 190, 196 (5th Cir.1996). In ruling on such a motion, the court cannot look beyond the pleadings. Id.; Spivey v. Robertson, 197 F.3d 772, 774 (5th Cir.1999), cert. denied, 530 U.S. 1229, 120 S.Ct. 2659, 147 L.Ed.2d 274 (2000). The pleadings include the complaint and any documents attached to it. Collins v. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, 224 F.3d 496, 498-99 (5th Cir.2000). Likewise, "`[documents that a defendant attaches to a motion to dismiss are considered part of the pleadings if they are referred to in the plaintiffs complaint and are central to [the plaintiffs] claims.'" Id. (quoting Venture Assocs. Corp. v. Zenith Data Sys. Corp., 987 F.2d 429, 431 (7th Cir.1993)). The ultimate question in a Rule 12(b)(6) motion is whether the complaint states a valid cause of action when it is viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and with every doubt resolved in favor of the plaintiff. Lowrey, 117 F.3d at 247. A plaintiff, however, must plead specific facts, not mere conclusory allegations, to avoid dismissal. Guidry v. Bank of LaPlace, 954 F.2d 278, 281 (5th Cir.1992).

III. Analysis

In light of the 12(b)(6) standard of review, to state a claim for relief against Parkland under § 1983, Kinzie must set forth allegations which, if proved, would establish that Parkland violated rights secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States, and that Parkland committed these alleged violations while acting under color of state law. See American Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S 40, 49-50, 119 S.Ct. 977, 143 L.Ed.2d 130 (1999); West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 48, 108 S.Ct. 2250, 101 L.Ed.2d 40 (1988); Piotrowski v. City of Houston, 51 F.3d 512, 515 (5th Cir.1995) ("Piotrowski I"). Additionally, since Parkland is a governmental entity, for Kinzie to have stated a § 1983 claim, he must have sufficiently pleaded, that is, put Parkland on notice, that its official policy or custom deprived him of a federally protected right. See Monell v. New York City Dep't of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 694, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978). The court will in turn evaluate whether Plaintiff has met these requirements, and begins by evaluating whether Kinzie has pleaded that Parkland violated rights secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States.

A. Plaintiffs Contentions Regarding Violations of Fourteenth Amendment Substantive Due Process Rights

To capture the essence of Plaintiffs substantive due process claims, the court references key passages from Plaintiffs Complaint:

41. In summary, Plaintiff was deprived of his substantive due process rights when Parkland

a. recklessly failed to train its blood technicians despite a substantial certainty that blood recipients would be infected with HIV as a result;

b. consciously disregarded the substantial risks to the lives and health of patients when it adopted a policy of not asking potential donors proper screening questions or doing any meaningful screening of donated blood for political reasons and in the face of a substantial certainty that patients would be infected as a result; and

c. intentionally withheld that it had given James Kinzie HIV-infected blood for more than eleven (11) years, thus denying him treatment and counseling which could have improved his quality of life and denying him access to the courts.

42. Parkland's acts and omissions were so egregious as to shock the conscience and offend human dignity. As such, Parkland, a government entity acting under color of state law, violated Plaintiffs substantive due process rights...