H. U. v. Northampton Area School Distri ( 2021 )

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
_____________
No. 20-2996
_____________
H.U.; B.U.,
PARENTS AND NATURAL GUARDIANS
OF K.U., A MINOR,
Appellants
v.
NORTHAMPTON AREA SCHOOL DISTRICT;
COLONIAL NORTHAMPTON – IU 20
_____________________________________
On Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania
(District Court No. 5:18-cv-03896)
District Court Judge: Joshua D. Wolson
_____________________________________
Argued on September 21, 2021
(Filed: October 15, 2021)
Before: JORDAN, PORTER, and RENDELL, Circuit Judges.
Michael D. Shaffer [Argued]
Shaffer & Gaier
1628 John F. Kennedy Boulevard
8 Penn Center,
Suite 400
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Counsel for Appellants
John E. Freund, III [Argued]
Rebecca A. Young, Esq.
King, Spry, Herman, Freund, & Faul
One West Broad Street
Suite 700
Bethlehem, PA 18018
Counsel for Appellee, Colonial Northampton – IU 20
_________
O P I N I O N*
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RENDELL, Circuit Judge
In December 2017, K.U. was sexually assaulted by a fellow student on a school
van operated by Colonial Intermediate Unit 20 (“CIU 20”). K.U.’s parents, Plaintiffs
H.U. and B.U., sued CIU 20 and one of its service districts on her behalf under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983. The District Court granted summary judgment against Plaintiffs. For the reasons
that follow, we will affirm.
I.
At the time of the assault, K.U. was a fifteen-year-old student who, because of her
various neurological disorders, attended Colonial Academy, a school for children with
special needs operated by Defendant CIU 20. CIU 20 is a Pennsylvania intermediate unit
servicing thirteen school districts, including Northampton Area School District.
*
This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not
constitute binding precedent.
2
CIU 20 transported K.U. to and from Colonial Academy by van. Three or four
other students rode the van daily with K.U., accompanied by two CIU staff members: a
driver (Elaine Souders) and a monitor (Melonie Young). Souders and Young both
received TACT2 “[t]herapeutic aggressive control training,” addressing “how to . . .
deescalate a student’s aggressive behavior.” App. 265, 284. TACT2 training does not
cover peer-to-peer sexual contact specifically, but all drivers and monitors were
instructed in their Employee Manual to “enforce assertive discipline” on school
transportation and to “physical[ly] restrain[]” students if it is necessary to “protect the
child or other children on the vehicle.” App. 227, 250.
The students on the van had assigned seats, with K.U. normally sitting alone. At
some point in December 2017, however, K.U. asked if she could move and sit next to
another student: A.J. At the time, A.J. was twelve or thirteen years old and had a history
of violent contact with his peers, including punching and throwing objects at them. He
had also threatened extreme violence against peers and the school. Melonie Young,
unaware of this history and never having observed A.J. engage in violence or sexual
misconduct, permitted the seat change. H.U. v. Colonial Northampton - IU 20, No. 5:18-
CV-3896-JDW, 2020 WL 5292073, at *2-3 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 4, 2020). The change was
unproblematic for several days but, at some point in late December, A.J. sexually
assaulted K.U. on the van ride home from school. He groped her, forced her hand down
his pants, and made her perform oral sex on him.
On December 22, K.U. reported the assault to a teacher at Colonial Academy.
3
The assault wrought a severe psychological toll on K.U. In the weeks that
followed, she twice attempted suicide by overdosing. She also attempted to get off the
school van while it was moving. She has experienced increased depression, anxiety, and
difficulties with trust, especially of males.
K.U.’s parents, H.U. and B.U., later brought this action on her behalf. In their
Complaint, Plaintiffs asserted that CIU 20 and Colonial Northampton Area School
District had violated K.U.’s substantive due process rights under a state-created danger
theory. Plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their claims against the school district and the
District Court granted summary judgment in favor of CIU 20 on the remaining claims.
H.U., 2020 WL 5292073, at *4. Applying the state-created danger test of Bright v.
Westmoreland Cnty., the Court reasoned that Plaintiffs could not show the assault on
K.U. was foreseeable because Young was not on notice that A.J. posed a risk. Id. at *2-3
(citing Bright v. Westmoreland Cnty., 443 F.3d 276, 281 (3d Cir. 2006)). This appeal
followed.
II.
We have jurisdiction to review the District Court’s determination under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1291. Our review of a grant of summary judgment is plenary and “we must grant all
reasonable inferences from the evidence to the non-moving party.” See Knabe v. Boury
Corp., 114 F.3d 407, 410 n. 4 (3d Cir. 1997); see also Anderson v. Consol. Rail Corp.,
297 F.3d 242, 246–47 (3d Cir. 2002).
4
III.
Plaintiffs contend that the District Court erred in finding the record did not support
a state-created danger claim. They also fault the District Court for not going on to
address their failure-to-train theory of municipal liability. We consider each contention
in turn.
First, Plaintiffs urge that K.U.’s substantive due process rights were violated
because the bus monitor’s approval of the seating change “caused [K.U.] to be in a more
vulnerable position” seated next to the “violent, unpredictable” A.J. Appellants’ Br. at
28. We do not agree. Although what happened to K.U. is undeniably tragic, the
elements of a constitutional violation are simply not made out.
Generally, the Due Process Clause does not impose an affirmative duty upon the
state to protect citizens from the acts of private individuals. See DeShaney v. Winnebago
Cnty Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 198–200 (1989). We have recognized an
exception to this rule where the state itself acts to create or enhance a danger that
deprives the plaintiff of her substantive due process rights. Sanford v. Stiles, 456 F.3d
298, 304 (3d Cir. 2006). To prevail on a state-created danger claim, a plaintiff must
prove four elements:
(1) the harm ultimately caused was foreseeable and fairly direct;
(2) a state actor acted with a degree of culpability that shocks the conscience;
(3) a relationship between the state and the plaintiff existed such that the plaintiff
was a foreseeable victim of the defendant’s acts, or a member of a discrete
class of persons subjected to the potential harm brought about by the state’s
actions, as opposed to a member of the public in general; and
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(4) a state actor affirmatively used his or her authority in a way that created a
danger to the citizen or that rendered the citizen more vulnerable to danger
than had the state not acted at all.
Bright, 443 F.3d at 281 (internal quotation marks and footnotes omitted). Plaintiffs fail
this test because they have not shown foreseeability or conscience-shocking action on the
part of CIU 20, as the District Court correctly found.
Although we could begin and end our analysis with the absence of conscience-
shocking behavior, because this aspect depends to a large extent on a defendant’s ability
to foresee what occurred, we begin with a consideration of that aspect. See Morse v.
Lower Merion Sch. Dist., 132 F.3d 902, 910 (3d Cir. 1997).
To make out foreseeability, Plaintiffs must “allege an awareness on the part of the
state actors that rises to [the] level of actual knowledge or an awareness of risk that is
sufficiently concrete to put the actors on notice of the harm.” Phillips v. Cnty. of
Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 238 (3d Cir. 2008). Foreseeability of harm is assessed from the
perspective of the state officers who take the risk-creating action. See, e.g., Mann v.
Palmerton Area Sch. Dist., 872 F.3d 165, 171 (3d Cir. 2017), as amended (Sept. 22,
2017) (analyzing foreseeability from the perspective of a football coach who told
concussed student to continue practicing); L.R. v. Sch. Dist. of Philadelphia, 836 F.3d
235, 245 (3d Cir. 2016) (analyzing foreseeability from the perspective of a teacher who
released a young student to a stranger); Phillips, 515 F.3d at 238–39 (analyzing
foreseeability from the perspective of two 911 operators who provided personal
information to a dangerous criminal).
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Here, the only state actor Plaintiffs identify is Young, who approved K.U.’s
request to sit with A.J. on the van. 1 Consequently, we ask whether A.J. assaulting K.U.
was foreseeable to Young and conclude that it was not. Young was unaware of A.J.’s
past behavioral problems documented in his school records. H.U., 2020 WL 5292073, at
*3 (“Ms. Young did not have actual or constructive knowledge about A.J.’s history. . .
.”). She had never observed A.J. engage in any sexual misconduct on the school van, nor
was she aware of any past incident of sexual assault on school transportation.2 Thus, the
risk of serious harm was not foreseeable and Plaintiffs are left unable to satisfy this
element of the Bright test.
Further, as noted above, because foreseeability is relevant to the shocks-the-
conscious element, Plaintiffs’ claim also fails there. As Young “ha[d] time to make an
‘unhurried judgment[]’” regarding the seat change, Plaintiffs must show deliberate
indifference to satisfy the conscience-shocking prong. See Kedra v. Schroeter, 876 F.3d
424, 437 (3d Cir. 2017) (quoting Vargas v. City of Philadelphia, 783 F.3d 962, 973 (3d
1
Plaintiffs’ strained attempts to impose liability on CIU 20 based on what “it” knew or
did are unavailing. A state entity can only act through its employees, and the entity itself
can be liable under Monell only if it has adopted a custom or policy. Monell v. Dep’t of
Soc. Servs. of City of New York, 436 U.S. 658, 690–95 (1978). Moreover, any purported
“failure” on the part of an employee of CIU 20—e.g. failing to share student history
information—does not constitute an affirmative act for the purposes of the state-created
danger analysis. See Bright, 443 F.3d 276, 284 (3d Cir. 2006) (citing DeShaney, 489
U.S. at 197) (“[M]ere ‘failure to protect an individual against private violence’ does not
violate the Due Process Clause.”).
2
Nor was the risk of sexual assault a matter of common sense or experience for a school
van monitor. Cf. Phillips, 515 F.3d at 237 (citing Kneipp v. Tedder, 95 F.3d 1199, 1208
(3d Cir. 1996)) (foreseeability may be based on a defendant’s “ordinary common sense
and experience”).
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Cir. 2015)). But Young could not have been ‘deliberately indifferent’ to a risk she did
not know of. See, e.g., Morse, 132 F.3d at 910 (“[T]he notion of deliberate indifference
contemplates a danger that must at least be foreseeable.”). Thus, Plaintiffs’ state-created
danger claim founders on this front as well.
As Plaintiffs cannot show a substantive due process violation, the District Court
was perfectly justified in stopping its analysis at this point. See, e.g., Mulholland v. Gov’t
Cnty. of Berks, Pa., 706 F.3d 227, 238 n. 15 (3d Cir.2013) (internal citations omitted) (“It
is well-settled that, if there is no [constitutional] violation in the first place, there can be
no derivative municipal claim.”). We choose to go further, however, and hold in the
alternative that, even assuming a violation arguendo, Plaintiffs still cannot prevail
because there is no basis for Monell liability here.3
Plaintiffs argue that CIU 20 is liable under Monell for failing to train its employees
regarding peer-to-peer sexual contact because this omission caused a violation of K.U.’s
rights. 4 Although failure-to-train could be a cognizable basis for municipal liability, it
generally requires that a “pattern of similar constitutional violations by untrained
employees” have occurred, sufficient to put the policymaker on notice of a training
deficiency. See Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51, 62 (2011) (citing Bd. of Cnty.
Comm’rs of Bryan Cnty., Okl. v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 399 (1997)). Here, Plaintiffs have
3
“Generally, we may affirm on any ground supported by the record . . . .” Laurel
Gardens, LLC v. Mckenna, 948 F.3d 105, 116 (3d Cir. 2020) (citing TD Bank N.A. v.
Hill, 928 F.3d 259, 270 (3d Cir. 2019)).
4
Monell applies because CIU 20 is classified as a municipal entity. Cf. Arnold v. Blast
Intermediate Unit 17, 843 F.2d 122, 127 (3d Cir. 1988).
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not identified a single prior substantive due process violation wrought by CIU 20 or its
employees to put CIU 20 on notice of a need for additional training. Indeed, the record
shows that there had been no prior incidents of student sexual assault on school
transportation, let alone sexual assaults amounting to constitutional torts.
Plaintiffs attempt to overcome this dearth of past violations by arguing CIU 20
officials were at least aware of the abstract risk of such problems, given the special needs
of their student population. Connick is clear, however, that a pattern of violations is the
usual requirement, not just a vague awareness of some broad threat. See 563 U.S. at 62;
see also Johnson v. City of Philadelphia, 975 F.3d 394, 403 (3d Cir. 2020) (“Accidents
occur, of course. But the Monell inquiry asks whether a municipality was deliberately
indifferent to the risk of a constitutional violation.”). Nor have Plaintiffs shown this case
falls within the “narrow range of ‘single-incident’ liability.” Connick, 563 U.S. at 71–72
(citing City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 390 (1989)). Put simply, state-created
danger substantive due process violations were not an ‘obvious’ consequence of CIU 20’s
failure to provide peer-to-peer sexual assault training, as no such assault had ever
occurred at CIU 20 before. See, e.g., Thomas v. Cumberland Cnty., 749 F.3d 217, 225
(3d Cir. 2014) (focusing on the “frequency of [inmate] fights” in finding risk of
violations was obvious).
Finally, CIU 20 did require employees to participate in a relevant training
program: TACT2. Although this program did not address peer-to-peer sexual conduct
specifically, it trained CIU 20 staff on how to confront and resolve student aggression.
The sexual assault at issue here certainly falls within that broad category, as it was an act
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of inter-personal physical violence. See, e.g., Est. of Davis ex rel. McCully v. City of N.
Richland Hills, 406 F.3d 375, 385–86 (5th Cir. 2005) (distinguishing between “a
complete failure to train” and “a failure to train in one limited area”) (internal citations
omitted). Young and Souders were also instructed to “enforce assertive discipline” on
the van and to “physical[ly] restrain[]” students if it proved necessary to “protect the
child or other children on the vehicle.” App. 227, 250.
Given these facts, there was no basis in the record to find CIU 20 was deliberately
indifferent to the risk of violence, including sexual violence, on school transportation.
IV.
We accordingly will affirm the order of the District Court.
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