Piechowicz v. Lancaster Cent. Sch. Dist.

1

DENISE PIECHOWICZ, individually and as Administratrix of the Estate of J.P., deceased, Plaintiff, v. LANCASTER CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al., Defendants.

No. 17-CV-845-LJV-LGF

United States District Court, W.D. New York

December 8, 2022

DECISION & ORDER

LAWRENCE J. VILARDO, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

This case concerns the tragic suicide of J.P., a special-education student at Lancaster Central Middle School. The plaintiff Denise Piechowicz, is J.P.'s mother and the adminstratrix of his estate. Piechowicz alleges that the remaining defendants in this case, Principal Peter Kruszynski and the Lancaster Central School District, violated federal and state law by initiating and conducting a disciplinary investigation that ultimately led to J.P.'s suicide.^[1] See Docket Item 25.

Piechowicz initially filed a complaint in New York State Supreme Court Erie County, asserting claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), the Rehabilitation Act, and New York State law. Docket Item 1-1. On August 28, 2017, the defendants removed the case to this Court. Docket Item 1. That same day, the defendants moved to dismiss the complaint. Docket Item 4. On November 13, 2017, Piechowicz responded to the defendants' motion to dismiss, Docket Item 11, and on November 29, 2017, the defendants replied, Docket Item 12.

In the meantime, on September 8, 2017, this Court referred this case to United States Magistrate Judge Leslie G. Foschio for all proceedings under 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(A) and (B). Docket Item 5. On March 21, 2018, Judge Foschio issued a Report and Recommendation (“first R&R”) finding that the defendants' motion should be granted and that the complaint should be dismissed without leave to amend. Docket Item 13.

On April 10, 2018, Piechowicz objected to the first R&R, arguing that the state pleading standard should apply to a removed action, and that even if the federal pleading standard applied, her claims cleared that hurdle. Docket Item 16. On April 30, 2018, the defendants responded to Piechowicz's objection, Docket Item 19, and Piechowicz replied on May 14, 2018, Docket Item 20. This Court heard oral argument on the plaintiff's objection on November 13, 2019. Docket Item 23.

On December 2, 2019, this Court issued a decision and order granting in part and denying in part the motion to dismiss. Docket Item 24. More specifically, the Court found that Piechowicz's federal claims were not viable as pleaded but granted her leave to amend her federal claims against Kruszynski and the Lancaster Central School District. Id. The Court concluded that “amendment would be futile as to the remaining defendants,” however, and dismissed them from the case. Id. at 6 n.2.

About a month later, Piechowicz filed an amended complaint. Docket Item 25. On February 19, 2020, the remaining defendants renewed their motion to dismiss.

Docket Item 30. On March 30, 2020, Piechowicz responded, Docket Item 32, and on April 13, 2020, the defendants replied, Docket Item 35.

On January 18, 2022, Judge Foschio issued a second R&R, again finding that Piechowicz's federal claims were not viable. Docket Item 36. Judge Foschio further recommended that this Court should decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Piechowicz's state law claims if it agreed that her federal claims could not proceed. Id. Both sides filed objections to the second R&R; each side then responded to each other's objections and replied in further support of their own objections. See Docket Items 37, 38, 40-43.

On July 13, 2022, this Court heard oral argument on the objections and ordered supplemental briefing. Docket Item 46. The parties filed supplemental briefs on July 27, 2022, Docket Items 47 and 48, and each side responded to each other's brief on August 3, 2022, Docket Items 49 and 50.

A district court may accept, reject, or modify the findings or recommendations of a magistrate judge. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1); Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(b)(3). The court must review de novo those portions of a magistrate judge's recommendation to which a party objects.^[2] 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1); Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(b)(3).

This Court has carefully reviewed the thorough second R&R; the record in this case; the objections, responses, and replies; the post-argument briefs and responses; and the pleadings and materials submitted by the parties. Based on that de novo review, this Court accepts and adopts Judge Foschio's recommendations in the second R&R. Piechowicz's federal claims are dismissed. This Court declines to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Piechowicz's remaining state law claims and remands those claims to state court.

DISCUSSION^[3]

I. SECTION 1983 CLAIMS

A. Fourteenth Amendment

1. Substantive Due Process

In her amended complaint, Piechowicz renews her claim that the defendants' conduct violated the substantive due process protections of the Fourteenth Amendment. See, e.g., Docket Item 25 at ¶ 86 (alleging that the defendants “had a special relationship [to J.P.] whereby [they] had a constitutional duty to protect [him]” and that the defendants “exposed J.P. to danger”). To state a substantive due process claim based on a failure to protect, a plaintiff must demonstrate either that there was a “special relationship” between her and the defendant or that a “state-created danger” injured her. See Matican v. City of New York, 524 F.3d 151, 155-58 (2d Cir. 2008) (citing DeShaney v. Winnebago Cnty. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189 (1989)). The plaintiff also must allege extreme and outrageous conduct that “shock[s] the contemporary conscience.” Id. at 155.

This Court previously concluded that, “[a]ccepting [the complaint's] allegations as true, . . . a reasonable jury could deem the principal's actions”-which allegedly included “ma[king] false statements”; “harass[ing], bull[ying], and intimidat[ing] J.P.”; and “secur[ing the] participation of a police officer with the sole purpose of improperly intimidating and harassing J.P.”-to be the sort of extreme and outrageous conduct that would shock the contemporary conscience. Docket Item 24 at 6. But this Court also found that “[w]hether these allegations plausibly satisf[ied] the state-created danger exception” was “a closer question.” Id. at 7. More specifically, the Court questioned “whether the complaint plausibly allege[d] that Kruszynski knew or should have known that he was putting J.P. at risk of suicide” through the disciplinary investigation. Id. This Court declined to “definitively decide” that issue, however, and instead gave Piechowicz leave to amend her substantive due process claim. Id. The time has now come to tackle that question.^[4] As Judge Foschio observed, “[i]t is only in a ‘rare case' that ‘the state-created danger exception might apply to a situation where the victim committed suicide.'”^[5]Docket Item 36 at 30 (quoting Nichols v. Livingston County, 2019 WL 3935998, at *7 (W.D.N.Y. Aug. 20, 2019)); see also Briggs v. County of Monroe, 293 F.Supp.3d 379, 390 (W.D.N.Y. 2018) (concluding that “this is not the rare case in which the state-created danger exception might apply to a situation where the victim committed suicide”). In the words of the Sixth Circuit,

[t]he rarity of DeShaney liability for suicides can be partially attributed to the high standard of proof in state-created-danger cases, but it is also uniquely difficult to assign constitutional liability to the government when the noncustodial victim harms himself. As a general principle, people cannot violate their own constitutional rights, and where a person makes a free and affirmative choice to end his life, the responsibility for his actions remains with him.

Cutlip v. City of Toledo, 488 Fed.Appx. 107, 116 (6th Cir. 2012).

An example of such a “rare case” is Armijo v. Wagon Mound Public Schools, 159 F.3d 1253 (10th Cir. 1998). There, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of summary judgment on a substantive due process claim arising out of a specialeducation student's suicide, finding that the school may have created a dangerous condition by suspending a student who had previously threatened suicide and leaving him alone at his home where school officials knew that he had access to firearms. Id. at 1263-64. Likewise, in Sloane v. Kanawha County Sheriff Department, 342 F.Supp.2d 545 (S.D. W.Va. 2004), the court declined to dismiss the plaintiff's state-created danger claim where law enforcement officers “knew that [a teenager's] emotional difficulties were such that their conduct would increase the risk that he would harm himself,” but nonetheless repeatedly “question[ed him] in an abusive manner outside his grandparents' presence.” Id. at 552 (emphasis added). Indeed, one of the officers in that case “stated that he was worried that [the teenager] might feel ‘he was up against a wall' and become suicidal” but still continued the interrogation. Id. at 548 (emphasis added).

By contrast, in cases where there appears to have been no indication that the student was at a particular risk of committing suicide, courts have dismissed state-created danger claims, even when the plaintiff alleged that the school's disciplinary action caused the suicide. See e.g., Hasenfus v. LaJeunesse, 175 F.3d 68, 71-74 (1st Cir. 1999) (affirming dismissal of substantive due process claim when student attempted suicide in school locker room after being reprimanded by gym teacher in front of other students and sent to the locker room unsupervised); Walgren v. Heun, 2019 WL 265094, at *7-9 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 17, 2019) (dismissing substantive due process claim that was based on allegations that teenage student committed suicide shortly after school deans and a police detective interrogated him without his parents present and...