Warren v. District of Columbia

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 13, 2003 Decided January 2, 2004

No. 02-7120

MORRIS J. WARREN,

APPELLANT

v.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(01cv00349)

Susan S. Friedman, Student Counsel, argued the cause for

appellant. With her on the briefs were Steven H. Goldblatt,

Director of the Appellate Litigation Program, appointed by

the court, and Cary Berkeley Kaye, Supervising Attorney.

Morris J. Warren, pro se, was on the briefs for appellant.

Bills of costs must be filed within 14 days after entry of judgment.

The court looks with disfavor upon motions to file bills of costs out

of time.

2

Mary L. Wilson, Assistant Corporation Counsel, argued

the cause for appellee. With her on the brief was Edward E.

Schwab, Acting Deputy Corporation Counsel.

Before: RANDOLPH and ROBERTS, Circuit Judges, and

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge RANDOLPH.

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge: Morris Warren, representing

himself, sued the District of Columbia under 42 U.S.C. § 1983

for constitutional violations he claims to have suffered while

incarcerated in a private prison in Youngstown, Ohio. The

Corrections Corporation of America operated the prison pur-

suant to a contract with the District. The issue is whether

the district court erred in dismissing the complaint for failure

to state a claim of municipal liability under Monell v. Dep’t of

Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658 (1978).

On request, the clerk of the district court provides prison-

ers with a packet containing information on how to file a civil

rights complaint, as well as a complaint form. Warren ob-

tained a packet, completed the form in handwriting, and filed

it in the district court. The court dismissed his complaint,

but then granted him leave to amend, which Warren did using

another form. Under the headings ‘‘Statement of Claim’’ and

‘‘Relief,’’ Warren complained about the Youngstown facility

and what happened to him there and alleged that the District

of Columbia ‘‘knew or should have known’’ that he had been

mistreated. Warren’s five-page response to the District’s

motion to dismiss provided more detail.

It is often stated that pro se prisoner complaints should be

‘‘liberally construed.’’ E.g., Boag v. MacDougall, 454 U.S.

364, 365 (1982); Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 106 (1976);

Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519 (1972). But that does not

distinguish such complaints from any others. The general

rule, applicable in all cases, is ‘‘that the complaint will be

construed liberally on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion.’’ 5A CHARLES

ALAN WRIGHT & ARTHUR R. MILLER, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND

PROCEDURE § 1357 (2d ed. 1987). In pro se prisoner cases,

courts frequently add—after noting the ‘‘liberal construction’’

3

rule—that the complaint should not be dismissed under Rule

12(b)(6) 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.’ ’’ Estelle, 429 U.S. at 106 (quoting

Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45–46 (1957)). But again this

is not unique for prisoner cases. It is the ‘‘accepted rule’’ in

every type of case. Conley, 355 U.S. at 45–46. Perhaps

courts are more forgiving in pro se prisoner cases because the

complaints are often handwritten; they may not follow formal

pleading conventions; and they may not draw fine lines

between the legally relevant and the legally irrelevant. For

example, in one such case, we derived the prisoner’s cause of

action not only from his formal complaint but also from other

papers he had filed. See Anyanwukatu v. Moore, 151 F.3d

1053, 1058 (D.C. Cir. 1998).

Viewing Warren’s complaint and his response to the Dis-

trict’s motion to dismiss together, as did the district court, we

discern the following allegations: prison officials used com-

mon needles to draw blood from Warren and members of his

‘‘pod,’’ deprived him of medication for a month, locked him

down ‘‘for no apparent reason,’’ forced him to ‘‘lay [sic] on the

cold floor naked between 15 to 20 hours everyday [sic],’’

denied him ‘‘cell running water or toilet water [for] over 72

hours, weeks at a time,’’ sprayed tear gas ‘‘everyday [sic] in

the cells and pods,’’ and destroyed his property. Warren

alleges that, as a result of this mistreatment, he caught

pneumonia, suffered a mild stroke, and became infected by

‘‘yellow jaundice’’ (from the needle).

Warren claims the District ‘‘knew or should have known’’

about his mistreatment yet did not act to stop it. He

describes several ways in which the District learned or should

have learned about his situation: his own complaints to the

mayor and to Department of Corrections Director Odie

Washington, his wife’s telephone calls, newspaper articles

describing the mistreatment of prisoners at Youngstown, and

the activities of a contract monitor appointed pursuant to the

settlement of a class action brought by the Youngstown

prisoners against the District and the Corrections Corpora-

tion.

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Under Monell, municipalities are liable for their agents’

constitutional torts only if the agents acted pursuant to

municipal policy or custom. 436 U.S. at 694. Respondeat

superior does not apply. Id. In order to state a claim

against a municipality, the plaintiff therefore must allege not

only a violation of his rights under the Constitution or federal

law, but also that the municipality’s custom or policy caused

the violation. See Collins v. City of Harker Heights, 503 U.S.

115, 123–24 (1992); Baker v. District of Columbia, 326 F.3d

1302, 1306 (D.C. Cir. 2003).

The District argues that the district court properly dis-

missed the complaint because Warren failed to allege any

constitutional violations. The District never mentioned this

argument in the district court but thinks Dandridge v.

Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 476 n.6 (1970), allows a prevailing

party to defend the judgment on any ground. The law is

otherwise. The Supreme Court has entrusted to the discre-

tion of the courts of appeals the ‘‘matter of what questions

may be taken up and resolved for the first time on appeal.’’

Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U.S. 106, 121 (1976). In this court,

the general rule is that a prevailing party may defend the

judgment on any ground decided or raised below. See Rog-

ers v. District of Columbia, 194 F.3d 174 (D.C. Cir. 1999);

District of Columbia v. Air Florida, Inc., 750 F.2d 1077,

1084–85 (D.C. Cir. 1984). That too is the general rule in the

Supreme Court. See, e.g., Granfinanciera, S.A. v. Nordberg,

492 U.S. 33, 38–39 (1989). While we have discretion to

consider issues not presented to the district court, Roosevelt

v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 958 F.2d 416, 419 n.5 (D.C.

Cir. 1992), the District has offered us no good reason for

departing from our general rule. If on remand the District

continues to believe that Warren has not alleged constitution-

al violations, it may file an appropriate motion. Nothing we

say in this opinion resolves the issues the District wishes to

raise here for the first time.

This brings us to the question whether Warren sufficiently

alleged that a District custom or policy caused the claimed

violations of his constitutional rights. Causation would exist

if, for instance, the municipality or one of its policymakers

5

explicitly adopted the policy that was ‘‘the moving force of the

constitutional violation.’’ Monell, 436 U.S. at 694; see City of

St. Louis v. Praprotnik, 485 U.S. 112, 123–30 (1988). Or a

policymaker could knowingly ignore a practice that was con-

sistent enough to constitute custom. Praprotnik, 485 U.S. at

130. Or the municipality may not have responded ‘‘to a need

TTT in such a manner as to show ‘deliberate indifference’ to

the risk that not addressing the need will result in constitu-

tional violations.’’ Baker, 326 F.3d at 1306 (citing Canton v.

Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 390 (1989), and Daskalea v. District of

Columbia, 227 F.3d 433, 441 (D.C. Cir. 2000)).

Appointed counsel emphasizes the ‘‘deliberate indifference’’

theory of municipal liability. ‘‘Deliberate indifference,’’ we

wrote in Baker, 326 F.3d at 1306, ‘‘is determined by analyzing

whether the municipality knew or should have known of the

risk of constitutional violations,’’ but did not act. Although

this is an objective standard, it involves more than mere

negligence. It does not require the city to take reasonable

care to discover and prevent constitutional violations. It

simply means that, faced with actual or constructive knowl-

edge that its agents will probably violate constitutional rights,

the city may not adopt a policy of inaction. See Farmer v.

Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 841 (1994) (describing the holding in

Canton).

Here Warren has alleged that the District ‘‘knew or should

have known’’ about the ongoing constitutional violations, but

did nothing. If Warren can prove the violations, and prove as

well that the District had actual or constructive knowledge of

them, he will have established the District’s liability. On a

motion to dismiss under FED. R. CIV. P. 12(b)(6), the court

must assume the truth of all well-pleaded allegations. It

follows that Warren has stated a cause of action and that his

complaint should not have been dismissed.

The District objects that Warren failed to plead ‘‘facts’’

establishing knowledge by the District. The district court

said much the same: Warren’s ‘‘proffered evidence was not

sufficient to impute knowledge[.]’’ Warren v. District of

Columbia, Civ. No. 01–0349 (HHK), mem. op. at 4 n.4 (D.D.C.

6

Aug. 1, 2001). But at this stage of the litigation, Warren

needed only to supply ‘‘a short and plain statement of the

claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief,’’ FED. R.

CIV. P. 8(a), which he has done. See, e.g., Swierkiewicz v.

Sorema N.A., 534 U.S. 506 (2002); Leatherman v. Tarrant

County Narcotics Intelligence & Coordination Unit, 507 U.S.

163 (1993). It is of no moment that Warren’s allegation of

actual or constructive knowledge on the part of the District

was conclusory. Many well-pleaded complaints are concluso-

ry. See generally 5 CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT & ARTHUR R.

MILLER, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 1218 (2d ed.

1990). And while we do not have to accept conclusions of law

as true, conclusions of fact are another matter. For example,

in Taylor v. FDIC, 132 F.3d 753 (D.C. Cir. 1997), we found

that whistleblowers’ bare allegation that they ‘‘disclosed a

possible violation of law’’ was ‘‘a statement of material fact

that must be accepted as true for a Rule 12(b)(6) motion.’’

Id. at 762. See also Krieger v. Fadley, 211 F.3d 134, 136

(D.C. Cir. 2000); Maljack Productions, Inc. v. Motion Pic-

ture Ass’n of Am., Inc., 52 F.3d 373, 376 (D.C. Cir. 1995). On

the other hand, in Tulare County v. Bush, 306 F.3d 1138

(D.C. Cir. 2002), we refused to accept as true plaintiffs’

allegation that the President’s creation of a national monu-

ment violated the Antiquities Act, a legal conclusion with

which we disagreed. See also Mountain States Legal Found.

v. Bush, 306 F.3d 1132 (D.C. Cir. 2002). Here we must

accept as true Warren’s factual statements, such as: ‘‘[T]hey

stuck the same needles in everybody’s arms to draw blood[.]’’

And we must also accept as true his allegation of constructive

knowledge because mixed questions of law and fact—such as

negligence and constructive knowledge—are treated like fac-

tual issues for the purposes of Rule 12(b)(6). See FED. R. CIV.

P. Form 9 (allowing conclusory allegation of negligence);

Blackmore v. Coleman, 701 F.2d 967, 970 (D.C. Cir. 1983)

(negligence and constructive knowledge both mixed questions

of law and fact).

Our decision to reverse and remand leaves many issues

open: whether the mistreatment Warren alleges actually

occurred; whether the treatment that did occur violated his

constitutional rights; whether any or all of the incidents fall

7

within the scope of the settlement we mentioned earlier;

whether the District had actual or constructive notice of the

violations or whether Warren can establish municipal liability

under some other theory. We have nothing to say on these

issues. We hold only that the complaint should not have been

dismissed for failure to state a cause of action.

Reversed and remanded.