Pahler v. City of Wilkes-Barre

Opinions of the United

2002 Decisions States Court of Appeals

for the Third Circuit

3-13-2002

Pahler v. Wilkes-Barre

Precedential or Non-Precedential:

Docket 1-2275

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NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

No. 01-2275

CHARLES M. PAHLER,

Appellant

v.

CITY OF WILKES-BARRE; THOMAS D. McGROARTY,

individually and as Mayor of the City of Wilkes-Barre;

WILLIAM J. BARRETT, individually and as Chief of

Police in the City of Wilkes-Barre

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. Civil No. 00-cv-01143)

District Judge: Hon. William J. Nealon

Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)

February 7, 2002

Before: SLOVITER, AMBRO, Circuit Judges, and SHADUR, District

Judge

(Filed: March 12, 2002)

OPINION OF THE COURT

SLOVITER, Circuit Judge.

Charles Pahler appeals from the District Court's dismissal of his

complaint

brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983 against the City of Wilkes-Barre

("City"), its

Mayor, Thomas D. McGroarty ("McGroarty"), and its Chief of Police, William

Barrett

("Barrett"), alleging a violation of the substantive due process component

of the

Fourteenth Amendment. Pahler, a City police officer, was ordered to

participate in a drug

raid during which he sustained severe injuries from a buckshot from a

shotgun of a fellow

police officer who neglected to set the safety mechanism on the shotgun.

The officer who

discharged the shotgun was a member of the Emergency Services Unit ("ESU")

of the

Police Department, but the ESU was not used in the raid.

Pahler claims that 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 and by failing to use the ESU despite the fact that it

comprises

"officers who volunteered their candidacy, were then specially selected as

members of the

ESU, and were then to be specially and continually trained to manage

highly dangerous

incidents of violence arising in the City." App. at 3. Pahler was not a

member of the

ESU and his duties predominantly consisted of patrolling a specific

geographical area in a

marked Department vehicle.

Pahler's claim implicates two distinct legal theories: the "state-

created danger"

theory and the "failure to train" theory. Pahler now challenges the

District Court's

decision, arguing (1) that the District Court committed error by not

accepting as true the

factual allegations in the complaint and (2) that the District Court erred

by concluding

Pahler failed to plead a cause of action under a "failure to train"

theory.

For the reasons that follow, we will now affirm.

I.

In dismissing Pahler's complaint, the District Court held that

"state-created

danger" substantive due process claims are "inapplicable to law

enforcement personnel

who are injured during the course of their employment." App. at 61

(citing Collins v.

City of Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115 (1992); Rutherford v. City of Newport

News, 919

F. Supp. 885 (E.D. Va. 1996), aff'd, 107 F.3d 867 (4th Cir. 1997); Hartman

v. Bachert,

880 F. Supp. 342 (E.D. Pa. 1995)). The District Court also concluded that

even if the

"state-created danger" theory were applicable to Pahler's claims,

defendants' alleged

failure to use the ESU to conduct a raid on a suspected drug dealer's

residence was not

"'deliberatively indifferent' behavior that shocks the conscience

constituting a substantive

due process violation." App. at 62. Finally, the District Court

determined that even if

Pahler's "state-created danger" theory is found to apply to law

enforcement officers who

suffered employment-related injuries, McGroarty and Barrett are entitled

to the defense of

qualified immunity. App. at 63.

The District Court also dismissed Pahler's Fourteenth Amendment

substantive due

process "failure to train" claim. The court held that Pahler "has neither

identified the

specific training the [C]ity should have offered which would have

prevented his injury,

nor has he established that such training was not provided." App. at 65.

In addition, the

District Court noted that Pahler's complaint appears to support the view

that the

individual who engaged in the injurious act has been trained in the use of

shotgun, but

merely neglected to set the safety device. According to the District

Court, such conduct

does not rise to the level of a constitutional violation. App. at 65

(citing County of

Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 849 (1998) ("opining that 'liability

for negligently

inflicted harm is categorically beneath the threshold of constitutional

due process'")).

II.

This court's review of a district court order dismissing a complaint

pursuant to

Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be

granted is plenary and

we apply the same test as the District Court. See Doug Grant, Inc. v.

Greate Bay Casino

Corp., 232 F.3d 173, 183 (3d Cir. 2000). Although our standard of review

requires us to

"accept as true all factual allegations in the complaint, we need not

accept as true

'unsupported conclusions and unwarranted inferences.'" Id. at 183-84

(quoting City of

Pittsburgh v. W. Penn Power Co., 147 F.3d 256, 263 n.13 (3d Cir. 1998)).

A. State-Created Danger

Generally, the state has no affirmative obligation to protect its

citizens from the

violent acts of private individuals. One of the exceptions to this

general principle is the

"state-created danger" theory of liability, which we adopted in Kneipp v.

Tedder, 95 F.3d

1199 (3d Cir. 1996). We applied the four-part test articulated in Mark v.

Borough of

Hatboro, 51 F.3d 1137 (3d Cir. 1995), which holds a state actor liable if:

(1) the harm ultimately caused was foreseeable and

fairly

direct; (2) the state actor acted in willful disregard for the

safety of the plaintiff; (3) there existed some relationship

between the state and the plaintiff; (4) the state actors used

their authority to create an opportunity that otherwise would

not have existed for the third party's crime to occur.

Kneipp, 95 F.3d at 1208 (quoting Mark, 51 F.3d at 1152).

Thereafter, in County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833 (1998),

the Supreme

Court analyzed the overarching framework of substantive due process. We

held in Miller

v. City of Philadelphia, 174 F.3d 368, 375 (3d Cir. 1999), that Lewis

requires a court, in

all substantive due process cases, to determine if the state actor's

behavior shocks the

conscience. The precise degree of wrongfulness to reach the "conscience-

shocking" level

depends upon the circumstances of a particular case.

In this case, the District Court held that the second factor of the

Kneipp test has

been modified by the "shock the conscience" standard, and what rises to

that level will

ultimately depend on the factual scenario of the case at hand. We agree.

Accordingly, a

plaintiff seeking to recover under a "state-created danger" theory must

show that the actor

acted with a willful disregard for or deliberate indifference to

plaintiff's safety that rises

to the level of shocking the conscience.

The District Court stated that regardless of the degree of

culpability that should be

applied, the state-created danger theory arising out of the substantive

due process clause

of the Fourteenth Amendment does not apply to the plaintiff while

functioning as a police

officer. App. at 63. The court also stated that "[e]ven if the state

created danger theory

could be applied to police officers, the conduct of the defendants would

not support a

finding that shocks the conscience." App. at 63. Because we agree with

the latter, we

need not decide whether the "state-created danger" theory applies to a

police officer.

Failure to utilize the ESU to raid a suspected drug-dealer's residence can

hardly be

described as "deliberately indifferent" behavior that shocks the

conscience constituting a

substantive due process violation. As the Supreme Court has stated,

"[t]he Due Process

Clause 'is not a guarantee against incorrect or ill-advised personnel

decisions.'" Collins

v. City of Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115, 129 (1992) (quoting Bishop v.

Wood, 426 U.S.

341, 350 (1976)).

Pahler argues that the District Court acted inappropriately in

deciding that the

defendants' actions did not constitute deliberately indifferent behavior

that shocks the

conscience because of the lack of an established record. He hypothesizes

that discovery

could reveal that the defendants deliberately chose not to utilize the ESU

because they did

not want to allocate the additional funds necessary to deploy the ESU. In

Collins, the

Supreme Court cautioned:

Decisions concerning the allocation of resources to

individual

programs, . . . and to particular aspects of those programs,

such as the training . . . of employees, involve a host of

policy

choices that must be made by locally elected representatives,

rather than by federal judges interpreting the basic charter of

Government for the entire country.

503 U.S. at 128-29. Moreover, we note that Pahler's injury was not caused

by the

dangers of the drug raid but by the negligence of a fellow police officer.

Accepting all of

the allegations of the complaint, we agree with the District Court that

nothing suggests

that defendants acted with indifference that shocks the conscience.

Accordingly,

Pahler's substantive due process claim under the "state-created danger"

theory must fail.

B. Failure to Train

Pahler's second claim is based on the defendants' alleged failure to

train. A

municipality may be held constitutionally liable under 1983 for failing

to properly train

its officers. See City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 387 (1989);

Reitz v. County of

Bucks, 125 F.3d 139, 145 (3d Cir. 1997). However, inadequate police

training may serve

as the basis for 1983 liability only where the failure to train "amounts

to deliberate

indifference to the rights of persons with whom the police come into

contact." City of

Canton, 489 U.S. at 388. Additionally, "adequately trained officers

occasionally make

mistakes; the fact that they do says little about the training program or

the legal basis for

holding the city liable." Id. at 391.

"[S]tringent standards of culpability and causation must be applied"

when an

injury is caused by an employee rather than the municipality. Reitz, 125

F.3d at 145.

Thus, "[a] plaintiff pressing a 1983 claim must identify a failure to

provide specific

training that has a causal nexus with their injuries and must demonstrate

that the absence

of that specific training can reasonably be said to reflect a deliberate

indifference to

whether the alleged constitutional deprivations occurred." Id.

Pahler has not pled any of the necessary elements to state a claim

upon which

liability may be imposed against the defendants under the failure to train

theory. In fact,

Pahler stated in his complaint that the officer who engaged in the

injurious act merely

neglected to set the safety device. Simply put, Pahler makes no

allegation that establishes

his injuries were cased by the defendants' deliberately indifferent

failure to train the

City's officers. As unfortunate as the mistake was, such a mistake cannot

form the basis

of 1983 claim for "failure to train."

III.

Because we find that District Court did not err in dismissing

Pahler's 1983

claim, we will affirm the judgment of the District Court.

__________________________

TO THE CLERK:

Please file the foregoing opinion.

/s/ Dolores K. Sloviter

Circuit Judge