Pahler v. City of Wilkes-Barre

207 F.Supp.2d 341

Charles M. PAHLER, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF WILKES-BARRE, Thomas McGroarty, and William Barrett, Defendants.

CIVIL ACTION NO. 3:00-1143.

United States District Court, M.D. Pennsylvania.

January 25, 2001.

Order Denying Reconsideration May 5, 2001.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Anthony J. Mazullo, Jr., Christopher Mazullo, Stengel, Moyer & Mazullo, PC, Doylestown, PA, for plaintiff.

George A. Reihner, John G. Dean, Elliott Reihner Siedzikowski North & Egan, Scranton, PA, for defendants.

MEMORANDUM and ORDER

NEALON, District Judge.

Presently before the court is a motion to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12 (b)(6) filed on behalf of the defendants on September 5, 2000. (Doc. 12). The defendants filed a brief in support of the motion, along with exhibits, on September 19, 2000. (Docs. 14 & 15 respectively). The plaintiff thereafter submitted a brief in opposition to the motion on October 12, 2000 (Doc. 16), to which the defendants replied on October 27, 2000. (Doc. 18). Consequently, the motion is ripe for consideration by the court. For the following reasons, the defendants' motion will be granted, and the plaintiff's complaint will be dismissed.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff, Charles M. Pahler (Pahler), a Wilkes-Barre police officer, initiated this action by filing a complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the City of Wilkes-Barre (City); its Mayor, Thomas McGroarty (McGroarty); and its Chief of Police, William Barrett (Barrett), on June 26, 2000. (Doc. 1). Each of the individuals is sued individually and in their official capacities. The plaintiff has also invoked this court's supplemental jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a) by filing a state law claim of negligence against each defendant. Id. at pp. 17-18.

The complaint reveals that the City of Wilkes-Barre has an Emergency Services Unit (ESU)¹ encompassed within its Police Department comprised of individuals who are specially trained to manage highly dangerous situations² arising in the city. Id. at ¶¶ 9, 10, 13. In addition to training, members of the ESU are issued special equipment for use and protection in such situations. Id. at ¶ 19. On July 10, 1998, a group of officers including the plaintiff, were called upon to take part in a raid of a suspected drug dealer's residence. Id. at ¶ 16. The ESU, however, was not utilized for the drug raid on that day. Id. at ¶ 21. During the course of the drug raid, plaintiff was struck and severely injured with buckshot from a shotgun of a fellow police officer who neglected to set the safety mechanism on the shotgun. Id. at 20. Although the ESU was not used in the raid, the individual who discharged the shotgun was a member of that unit. Id. at ¶ 21. Insofar as the plaintiff was not a member of the ESU, he was not trained for that unit, was not issued any special equipment, and was not briefed on the unit's tactics. Id. at ¶ 4. Up to and including that day, the plaintiff's normal duties were that of a patrol officer patrolling a specific area in a marked Department vehicle. Id. at ¶ 17.

Plaintiff avers that the defendants violated his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process by requiring him to participate in a high risk drug raid with officers who were not adequately trained in violation of department policy; by failing to utilize the ESU in the raid; and by failing to adopt a uniform procedure/policy for the mandatory use of the ESU during highly dangerous situations. (Doc. 16, p. 4). The individual defendants are not charged with directing or participating in this particular operation. They are accused of authorizing and permitting untrained personnel to perform in operations requiring ESU personnel contrary to statewide accepted standards for the utilization of such personnel. Id.

DISCUSSION

A court, in rendering a decision on a motion to dismiss, must accept the veracity of the plaintiffs allegations. See Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974); White v. Napoleon, 897 F.2d 103, 106 (3d Cir.1990). A court should "not inquire whether the plaintiffs will ultimately prevail, only whether they are entitled to offer evidence to support their claims." Nami v. Fauver, 82 F.3d 63, 65 (3d Cir.1996). "[A] complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim 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).

The test in reviewing a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim is whether, under any reasonable reading of the pleadings, the plaintiff may be entitled to relief. See Holder v. City of Allentown, 987 F.2d 188, 194 (3d Cir.1993) (citation omitted). Additionally, a court must accept as true the factual allegations in the complaint and all reasonable inferences that can be drawn from them. See Markowitz v. Northeast Land Co., 906 F.2d 100, 103 (3d Cir.1990); Indep. Enters., Inc. v. Pittsburgh Water & Sewer Auth., 103 F.3d 1165, 1168 (3d Cir.1997).

1. Constitutional Claims Under 42 U.S.C. § 1983

To state a viable claim pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, plaintiff must allege that a person, acting under color of state law, deprived or knowingly caused the deprivation of rights secured by the Constitution.³ 42 U.S.C. § 1983. "When a public employee asserts a defense of qualified immunity, however, the court must determine as a threshold matter whether the defendant is entitled to that defense."⁴ D.R. v. Middle Bucks Area Vocational Technical Sch., 972 F.2d 1364, 1368 (3d Cir.1992), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 1079, 113 S.Ct. 1045, 122 L.Ed.2d 354 (1993) (citing Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982)). "Until this threshold immunity question is resolved, discovery should not be allowed." Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727. Generally, governmental officials performing discretionary functions are "shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727. "`A necessary concomitant to the determination of whether the constitutional right asserted by the plaintiff is clearly established at the time the defendant acted is the determination of whether the plaintiff has asserted a violation of a constitutional right at all.'" D. R., 972 F.2d at 1368 (emphasis in original) (quoting Siegert v. Gilley, 500 U.S. 226, 111 S.Ct. 1789, 114 L.Ed.2d 277 (1991)). "Normally it is only then that a court should ask whether the right allegedly implicated was clearly established at the time of the events in question." County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 841 n. 5, 118 S.Ct. 1708, 140 L.Ed.2d 1043 (1998). Adhering to this precedent, the predicate question is whether the plaintiff has alleged a deprivation of any right secured by the constitution. D. R., 972 F.2d at 1368.

Pahler's claim under section 1983 rests on the substantive component of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In an effort to demonstrate a constitutional deprivation, the plaintiff has identified two legal theories to which his factual allegations are addressed: (1) state created danger; and (2) failure to train. Each will be addressed in turn.

a. State Created Danger

In general, state actors have no affirmative obligation to protect citizens from injuries caused by others or themselves. DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dep't of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 195-96, 109 S.Ct. 998, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989). This general rule is subject to two exceptions: (1) the special relationship exception, which allows the plaintiff to recover when the state enters into a special relationship with a particular citizen and fails to protect the health and safety of the citizen to whom it owes an affirmative duty; and (2) the state created danger exception, which allows the plaintiff to recover when a state actor creates a danger that causes harm to an individual. Morse v. Lower Merion School District, 132 F.3d 902, 907 (3d Cir.1997). Here, the plaintiff advances the latter exception.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has adopted the "state created danger" theory as a "viable mechanism" for imposing a constitutional violation under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Kneipp v. Tedder, 95 F.3d 1199, 1201 (3d Cir.1996). In order to find someone constitutionally liable under such theory, four elements must be satisfied:

(1) the harm ultimately caused was foreseeable and fairly direct;

(2) the state actor acted in willful disregard for the safety of the plaintiff;⁵

(3) there existed some relationship between the state and the plaintiff; and

(4) the state actors used their authority to create an opportunity that otherwise would not have existed for the harm to occur.

Id. at 1208. Subsequent to the Kneipp decision, the United States Supreme Court, in County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 118 S.Ct. 1708, 140 L.Ed.2d 1043 (1998), applied the "shocks the conscience" standard to all substantive due process cases involving abusive executive action. In Lewis, the Supreme Court had to decide whether a police officer violated "the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of substantive due process by causing death through deliberate or reckless indifference to life in a high-speed automobile chase aimed at apprehending a suspected offender." Id. at 836, 118 S.Ct. 1708. Although the Court held that the shock the conscience standard would apply, it also held that the degree of wrongfulness necessary to reach that standard varied under the circumstances of the case. The Supreme Court emphasized that "the measure of what is conscience shocking is no calibrated yard stick." Id. at 847, 118 S.Ct. 1708. Moreover, "preserving the constitutional proportions of substantive due process demands an exact analysis of circumstances before any...