Sistrunk v. City of Hillview

545 F.Supp.3d 493

Williene SISTRUNK, Plaintiff

v.CITY OF HILLVIEW, et al., Defendants

No. 3:20-cv-406-BJB-CHL

United States District Court, W.D. Kentucky, Louisville Division.

Signed April 23, 2021

Joshua Taylor Rose, Abell Rose LLC, Louisville, KY, for Plaintiff.

Mark A. Osbourn, Bush & Osbourn, PLLC, Louisville, KY, for Defendants City of Hillview, Christopher Boone, Charles McWhirter.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Benjamin Beaton, District Judge

Williene Sistrunk, an 86-year-old African-American woman, lives in Louisville's West End. She filed this lawsuit against two named police officers, additional unnamed officers, the City of Hillview, and Louisville Metro Government, asserting they violated her federal and state-law rights in May 2019. The officers, Sistrunk alleges, raided her home while she was in bed: they forced her, shoeless and wearing only her undergarments, out of her home and into public view. They damaged and removed her property. And they did so, according to Sistrunk, without a warrant or probable cause—in hopes of finding Sistrunk's grandson, who has never lived with her. Complaint (DN 1-2) ¶¶ 13–16.

At this early stage of the lawsuit, courts must accept a plaintiff's factual allegations as true. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 679, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009). The officers and Hillview have filed an answer largely denying Sistrunk's accusations, and the case will proceed to discovery with respect to those defendants.

The remaining named defendant, Louisville Metro, filed a motion to dismiss the claims against it. DN 4. Louisville Metro is correct that the Complaint's minimal factual allegations about the government's own conduct, measured against what the law requires to establish municipal liability, do not state a valid claim. So the Court must dismiss the Complaint against Louisville Metro. But the dismissal is without prejudice, meaning Sistrunk will have the opportunity to attempt to replead her allegations consistent with the legal standards discussed below.

A. Municipal liability. Sistrunk's claims against Louisville Metro seek to hold the government responsible for its officers’ actions at her house. The Complaint alleges that Louisville Metro is responsible for the search of Sistrunk's house because it maintains a custom of unconstitutional searches based on its failure to adequately train officers in obtaining and executing search and arrest warrants.

Sistrunk sued Louisville Metro under a federal statute authorizing a lawsuit against any "person" who, under color of law, "subjects" someone else ("or causes [someone else] to be subjected") to the violation of her constitutional or other federal rights. 42 U.S.C. § 1983.¹ The "person" may be a city. See Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs. , 436 U.S. 658, 690, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978) ("Local governing bodies, therefore, can be sued directly under § 1983 ...") (footnote omitted).

The Supreme Court has recognized, however, that a municipal government is not automatically liable for "an injury inflicted solely by its employees or agents." Monell , 436 U.S. at 694, 98 S.Ct. 2018 ; id. at 691, 98 S.Ct. 2018 ("[A] municipality cannot be held liable solely because it employs a tortfeasor.") (emphasis in original); see also Gregory v. City of Louisville , 444 F.3d 725, 752 (6th Cir. 2006) (no vicarious liability for constitutional violations committed by city employees).

Instead, the municipality may be liable only if the government itself is to blame for the unconstitutional acts—that is, if it adopted or ratified a policy or custom that caused the harm inflicted by its officers or employees. Monell , 436 U.S. at 694, 98 S.Ct. 2018 ("the government as an entity is responsible under § 1983" only "when execution of a government's policy or custom ... inflicts the injury"). Congress did not render municipalities liable, in other words, "unless action pursuant to official municipal policy of some nature caused a constitutional tort." Id. at 691, 98 S.Ct. 2018.

Proving this requires a plaintiff to "point to a municipal ‘policy or custom’ and show that it was the ‘moving force’ behind the constitutional violation." Crabbs v. Scott , 800 F. App'x 332, 336 (6th Cir. 2020) (quoting Monell , 436 U.S. at 694, 98 S.Ct. 2018 ). The pleadings must set forth the specific policy or custom allegedly adopted by the government. A plaintiff may do so by pointing to "(1) the municipality's legislative enactments or official agency policies; (2) actions taken by officials with final decision-making authority; (3) a policy of inadequate training or supervision; or (4) a custom of tolerance or acquiescence of federal rights violations." Jones v. Clark County , 959 F.3d 748, 761 (6th Cir. 2020) (quoting Thomas v. City of Chattanooga , 398 F.3d 426, 429 (6th Cir. 2005) ).

B. Complaint. Sistrunk's Complaint, as set forth below, addresses Louisville Metro's alleged liability only briefly. These allegations are best read to invoke the third category of Monell violations: a policy of inadequate training. The Sixth Circuit has described what the law requires to set forth such a claim:

"In order to show that a municipality is liable for a failure to train its employees, a plaintiff ‘must establish that: (1) the City's training program was inadequate for the tasks that officers must perform; (2) the inadequacy was the result of the City's deliberate indifference; and (3) the inadequacy was closely related to or actually caused the injury.’ "

Jackson v. City of Cleveland , 925 F.3d 793, 834 (6th Cir. 2019) (quoting Ciminillo v. Streicher , 434 F.3d 461, 469 (6th Cir. 2006) ).

The sum total of the Complaint's allegations on this point are found at paragraphs 32–35:

32. Upon information and belief, Hillview and Metro's policy or custom regarding obtaining and/or executing search warrants deprived Plaintiff of her Fourth Amendment rights to be protected from unreasonable searches and seizures.

33. Upon information and belief, Hillview and Metro fails to adequately train its officers regarding obtaining search warrants in order to protect citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights to be protected from unreasonable searches and seizures.

34. Upon information and belief, Hillview and Metro fails to adequately train its officers regarding executing search and/or arrest warrants in order to protect citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights to be protected from unreasonable searches and seizures.

35. Metro is deliberately indifferent to the known or obvious consequences of its policies and customs.

These paragraphs contain legal conclusions, not factual allegations. Bare-bones assertions of liability offer no basis on which the Court could infer that Louisville Metro's training (or lack thereof) violated the Constitution. "Stripped of legal language," Birgs v. City of Memphis , 686 F. Supp. 2d. 776, 780 (W.D. Tenn. 2010), the Complaint cannot satisfy § 1983 ’s requirements as the Supreme Court has interpreted the statute. The Complaint offers no facts indicating that Louisville Metro's training is inadequate, much less that Louisville Metro showed deliberate indifference toward any such inadequacies, or still further that any alleged indifference was closely related to or actually caused the constitutional violation. See Jackson , 925 F.3d at 834 ; cf. Birgs , 686 F. Supp. 2d. at 780 (granting motion to dismiss because a failure-to-train complaint failed to plead "more than conclusory statements" (citing Iqbal , 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937 )); Cooper v. Rhea County , 302 F.R.D. 195, 201 (E.D. Tenn. 2014) (same). Although a complaint must provide only "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the [plaintiff] is entitled to relief," Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2), "[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice," Iqbal , 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937.

1. Inadequate training. To show the first element of a failure-to-train claim, allegations must focus on the "adequacy of the training program in relation to the tasks the particular officers must perform." City of Canton v. Harris , 489 U.S. 378, 390, 109 S.Ct. 1197, 103 L.Ed.2d 412 (1989). This Complaint contains no such factual allegations. The Sixth Circuit has recognized that the type of "conclusory allegations or legal conclusions" Sistrunk does offer will not suffice. Verble v. Morgan Stanley Smith Barney , 676 F. App'x 421, 424 (6th Cir. 2017) (quoting Bright v. Gallia County , 753 F.3d 639, 652 (6th Cir. 2014) ); see also Sweat v. Butler , 90 F. Supp. 3d 773, 778 (W.D. Tenn. 2015).

2. Deliberate indifference. Equally lacking are Sistrunk's allegations regarding the second element: deliberate indifference. This imposes "a stringent standard of fault, requiring proof that a municipal actor disregarded a known or obvious consequence of his actions." Bd. of Cty. Comm'rs of Bryan County v. Brown , 520 U.S. 397, 410, 117 S.Ct. 1382, 137 L.Ed.2d 626 (1997). In other words, a pleading must indicate a "risk of a constitutional violation arising as a result of" the inadequate training that is "plainly obvious." Gregory , 444 F.3d at 752. To make that showing, a plaintiff must allege either "prior instances of unconstitutional conduct demonstrating that the City had notice that the training was deficient and likely to cause injury but ignored it," or else "evidence of a single violation of federal rights, accompanied by a showing that the City had failed to train its employees to handle recurring situations presenting an obvious potential for such a violation." Campbell v. City of Springboro , 700 F.3d 779, 794 (6th Cir. 2012).

Sistrunk alleges deliberate indifference in a single sentence: "Metro is deliberately indifferent to the known or obvious consequences of its policies and customs." Complaint ¶ 35. This conclusory allegation fails to identify either 1) prior instances of unconstitutional conduct that put the government on notice, or 2) a single...