Martin v. E. St. Louis Sch. Dist.

CHINETTA MARTIN, individuallyand as Guardian of the Estate of C.D.C., Plaintiff, v. EAST ST. LOUIS SCHOOL DISTRICT #189,ARTHUR R. CULVER, LELON SEABERRY, JR.,EAU CLAIRE SHELBY, SAMUEL YOUNG,MARRIET LUCAS, as Next Friend of M.D.L., a minor,and ILETHA SUGGS, Defendants.

Case No. 14-cv-1393-MJR-SCW

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

April 29, 2016

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

REAGAN, Chief District Judge:

In September 2013, C.D.C. was placed in a restricted special education program at the East Saint Louis High School. She was previously enrolled in an East Saint Louis-area high school designated for special education school students only, but that school closed after the 2012 to 2013 year. Three months after C.D.C. transitioned to the East Saint Louis High School, she was allegedly pushed into a janitor's closet by Samuel Young, another student in the special education program at the high school, and raped by M.L, a general education student at the school. In 2014, C.D.C.'s mother, Chinetta Martin, brought suit in this Court against the school district, some of its employees, and C.D.C.'s attackers, claiming that the students violated state law by attacking her and that the school officials violated state and federal law by failing to protect her.

The school defendants have now moved for summary judgment, and Martin has responded. For the reasons below, the school defendants' motion for summary judgment on the federal claims is granted. The Court will decline jurisdiction over Martin's state law claims, leaving Martin free to pursue those in state court.

Background

Before the 2013-2014 school year, many special needs high school students who lived in or around East Saint Louis, Illinois attended the James E. Williams School, a facility that was designated for special education students. That facility closed in 2013 and the special needs students assigned there were either transferred to a therapeutic day school or integrated into a new restrictive special education program housed in the eastern wing of the East Saint Louis High School, with the placement decision based on each student's needs and functioning. C.D.C., the then-sixteen-year-old daughter of Chinetta Martin, was a student at James E. Williams before it closed, and she was selected for integration into the program at East Saint Louis High School.

C.D.C. started classes at East Saint Louis High School in September 2013. The program she was placed in, commonly called the "Emotional Disabilities" program, was made up of two separate classrooms, each staffed by a special education teacher and a teacher's aide. The students in the program transitioned between those classrooms as dictated by their schedule. Many of the students in the program, including C.D.C., suffered from mild-to-moderate mental retardation, and thus weresuggestible and needed supervision. To increase safety and help prevent "potential conflict[s] with peers, roaming, and truancy," the special education director started the program off by ordering that the program participants be escorted between classes and that absences from class be reported to school security, who patrolled the school.

On December 16, 2013, a little over three months after C.D.C. started at East Saint Louis High School, she was allegedly raped by M.L., a general education student at the school. C.D.C. testified that she was in class watching a movie during the sixth or seventh hour of the school day. During the movie, another special education student in the Emotional Disabilities program named Young entered C.D.C.'s classroom, grabbed C.D.C.'s arm, and pulled her out of the room while C.D.C. was up from her desk near the classroom door. No one saw her being taken out of the room. Young then ushered C.D.C. to a nearby hallway in the eastern wing of the school, where a number of other students were loitering. Among those present in the hallway was M.L., a general education student at the school. According to the parties, security footage from the hallway showed C.D.C. playing with the students for a brief time. The footage then showed M.L. entering a closet off the hallway, and after that showed Young grabbing C.D.C. by the arm, pulling her down the hallway, and pushing her into the janitor's closet. C.D.C. testified that M.L. then raped her in the closet for eight minutes.

After the rape, C.D.C. returned to her classroom to get her things and try to catch the bus. One of the special education teachers asked her why she was coming back so late to get her things, and C.D.C. testified that she told her nothing about the rape.C.D.C. missed the bus and called her mother to come pick her up. That night, she was distraught. Her mother asked her what was wrong, and she told her of the rape.

The next day Martin went to the high school with C.D.C. and her stepfather and reported the rape to Principal Lelon Seaberry, Jr., and Associate Principal Eric Harris. The parties dispute how those two reacted to Martin's report. In her brief, Martin says that the two reviewed the security tape and then said something to her that left her with the impression that no rape occurred and that the assault was just "horse playing," although the material cited for that proposition has Martin testifying that she didn't recall what Seaberry and Harris said to her after she reported the incident, and Harris testifying that he said nothing to indicate that the case involved "horse playing" alone and that no matter what the school would proceed with an investigation. Either way, one day later, officers from the East Saint Louis Police Department visited Martin's home, told Martin that someone at the school had informed police of the security footage and C.D.C.'s account, and encouraged Martin to press charges and have C.D.C. examined. She did, and Young and M.L. were ultimately charged with sexual assault. M.L. pled guilty to a lesser count and Young's charges are still pending.

On December 18, 2014, Martin filed suit in this Court concerning the events surrounding C.D.C.'s rape. She sued individually and on behalf of her daughter, and named the East Saint Louis School District #189; the school district's superintendent, Arthur Culver; the high school's principal, Lelon Seaberry, Jr.; one of the special education teachers, Eau Claire Shelby; and Young She claimed that Young violated Illinois law by attacking her, and that the school defendants violated the FourteenthAmendment of the United States Constitution, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Illinois law by failing to prevent her rape. She amended her complaint once on April 6, 2015 to remove some of her requests for attorney's fees; and again on July 13, 2015 to add federal and state claims against the other special education teacher in C.D.C.'s program and state claims against M.L. The case then proceeded to discovery.

On February 1, 2016, the school district and the named school district employees moved for summary judgment, arguing that Martin's federal claims against them aren't viable and that her state claims against them fail on immunity grounds. Martin has responded, so the motion for summary judgment is now before the Court for review.

Discussion

Summary judgment is proper on one or more of a party's claims if the evidence shows that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Archdiocese of Milwaukee v. Doe, 743 F.3d 1101, 1105 (7th Cir. 2014). In evaluating whether there is a genuine issue as to a material fact, the Court must construe the facts in the light most favorable to the non-movant, and draw all legitimate inferences and resolve doubts in favor of that party. Nat'l Athletic Sportswear, Inc., 528 F.3d 508, 512 (7th Cir. 2008). If after doing so no reasonable jury could find for the non-movant on her claim, summary judgment on that claim is proper; if the jury could find for the non-movant on her claim, it must proceed. Dempsey v. Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe Ry. Co., 16 F.3d 832, 836 (7th Cir. 1994).

Martin brings a number of state and federal claims in this case, but it makes good sense to start with her federal ones—if judgment should be granted on the federal claims, the Court might decline to hear the state ones, leaving them instead for state court. Her first federal claim is that the school officials and teachers at the East Saint Louis High School had a duty to protect C.D.C. from the rape under the substantive due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This claim runs into some difficulty given the Supreme Court's rulings in Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005), and DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189 (1989), which hold that the Constitution does not compel state actors to protect citizens from private parties. That kind of liability, says those cases, is legally unsound and practically unwise, despite the fact that the cases often involve sad and sympathetic facts. It is legally shaky because the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties rather than positive ones—it protects the people from the state but not "from each other," so it is an imperfect vehicle (especially when compared to state law) to press failure-to-protect claims against a state actor. DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 196. It is practically ill-advised because it would almost always put unelected judges in the position of deciding government resource allocation, decisions that would be far more flexible if left to officials who are accountable to the public through the democratic process. See id.; Dawson v. Milwaukee Hous. Auth., 930 F.2d 1283, 1286 (7th Cir. 1991).

DeShaney suggested two exceptions to the bar against failure-to-protect claims, both related to each other but arguably distinct. The first contemplates liability when the government takes custody of a...