MARK R. HORNAK, District Judge.
Brenda and David Benedict ("Plaintiffs" or "the Benedicts"), filed the Complaint in this action as co-administrators of the estate of their son, David. ECF No. 1-2, at ¶ 1. Defendants are (a) Southwestern Pennsylvania Human Services, Inc., (b) Bruno Mediate in his official capacity as Director of the Westmoreland County Adult Probation/Parole Office, (c) Bruno Mediate in his individual capacity, (d) Westmoreland County, and (e) Westmoreland Drug and Alcohol Commission. The Complaint alleges the same claims against all Defendants
Before the Court are all Defendants' Motions to Dismiss all counts of the Complaint, ECF Nos. 5; 10; 25; 27, along with the briefs in support and in opposition to these motions, ECF Nos. 6; 11; 24; 29; 32; 33; 34; 35. Based on the Court's consideration of the papers filed of record, stipulations of the parties, and the matters presented to the Court at the hearing/argument on September 22, 2014 as to the Defendants' Motions to Dismiss, the Court will grant the Motions in part, dismiss the Complaint with prejudice as to Counts IV and V (the federal claims), dismiss certain other claims based on the stipulations and concessions of the parties, and remand the action and remaining claims to state court forthwith for further disposition.
In the spring of 2012, the Court of Common Pleas of Westmoreland County sentenced Derek Benedict ("Mr. Benedict"), the son of David and Brenda Benedict, to participate in a rehabilitation program for drug addiction at the Day Reporting Center ("DRC").
The Complaint was originally filed in the Court of Common Pleas of Westmoreland County and was removed to this Court by Defendants Westmoreland County and Bruno Mediate in his individual capacity. ECF No. 1. All Defendants have filed Motions to Dismiss the Complaint; Bruno Mediate in his official capacity has moved to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), while all other Defendants have moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6).
The parties stipulated on the record in open court during oral argument as follows: Counts IV and V are dismissed with prejudice as asserted against Westmoreland Drug and Alcohol Commission, Inc., and Southwestern Pennsylvania Human Services, Inc. Count I is also dismissed with prejudice as asserted against Westmoreland County and Bruno Mediate in his individual capacity based on stipulation. The parties also stipulated on the record in open court that Count IV, a claim purportedly based on the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, is to be deemed amended to instead implicate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and all references to the Fifth Amendment are deemed to refer to the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Court also dismisses with prejudice Counts I-V as asserted against Bruno Mediate in his official capacity. Plaintiffs concede in their Response to Motion to Dismiss by Defendant Bruno Mediate in His Official Capacity that it "appears that Counsel for the Defendant is correct," ECF No. 24, at 2, and the doctrine of sovereign immunity bars the claims against Bruno Mediate in his official capacity. The Court agrees that a suit against Mr. Mediate in his official capacity constitutes a suit against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania because county probation officers are part of the judiciary, which is an arm of the State. See Haybarger v. Lawrence Cnty. Adult Prob. & Parole, 551 F.3d 193, 198 (3d Cir.2008) ("We have held that Pennsylvania's judicial districts, including their probation and parole departments, are entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity."); First Judicial Dist. v. Pa. Human Relations Comm'n, 556 Pa. 258, 727 A.2d 1110, 1112 (1999). Since such suit is impermissible under the doctrine of sovereign immunity, Regelman v. Weber, No. 10-675, 2011 WL 1085685, at *3 n. 2 (W.D.Pa. Mar. 21, 2011), and because Plaintiffs present no authority to the contrary, all claims against Bruno Mediate in his official capacity are also dismissed with prejudice.
As for the matters not subject to these various stipulations and concessions, all that remains for consideration by the Court is the Motion to Dismiss filed on behalf of both Bruno Mediate in his individual capacity and Westmoreland County (collectively, "Defendants") as to Counts IV and V. ECF No. 13.
Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides for dismissal of a complaint when plaintiffs fail to allege a claim upon which relief may be granted. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). Determining sufficiency of a complaint requires "accept[ing] all of the complaint's well-pleaded facts as true, but [courts] may disregard any legal conclusions." Fowler v. UPMC Shadyside, 578 F.3d 203, 210-11 (3d Cir.2009) (citing Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009)). Courts "must then determine whether the facts alleged in the complaint are sufficient to show that the plaintiff has a `plausible claim for relief.'" Id. at 211 (quoting Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1950). "`A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.'" Sheridan v. NGK Metals Corp., 609 F.3d 239, 262 n. 27 (3d Cir.2010) (quoting Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1949). The allegations of a valid complaint must "raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence of the necessary element[s]." Thompson v. Real Estate Mortg. Network, 748 F.3d 142, 147 (3d Cir.2014) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted).
Plaintiffs allege claims implicating the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause and Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause. ECF No. 1-2, at ¶¶ 39-52. To advance a claim via 42 U.S.C. § 1983, plaintiffs must allege that they were deprived of a right secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States by a person acting with the authority of state law. Morrow v. Balaski, 719 F.3d 160, 165-66 (3d Cir.2013) (en banc), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 134 S.Ct. 824, 187 L.Ed.2d 686 (2013). "The first step in evaluating a section 1983 claim is to identify the exact contours of the underlying right said to have been violated and to determine whether the plaintiff has alleged a deprivation of a constitutional right at all." Nicini v. Morra, 212 F.3d 798, 806 (2000) (en banc) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). This means that if the Court determines that the Complaint fails to allege a deprivation of a constitutional right, the Court will not reach Defendants' other arguments that (1) Mr. Mediate is entitled to qualified immunity, (2) Westmoreland County cannot be held liable and (3) supervisory liability is not established. See Kaucher v. Cnty. of Bucks, 455 F.3d 418, 423 n. 2 (3d Cir.2006) ("[T]he initial inquiry under the doctrine of qualified immunity and the doctrine of municipal liability asks whether the plaintiff asserted a violation of a cognizable constitutional right."); Barkes v. First Corr. Med., Inc., 766 F.3d 307, 316 (3d Cir.2014) ("`Failure to' claims — failure to train, failure to discipline, or ... failure to supervise — are generally considered a subcategory
Defendants move to dismiss Count V, which alleges "deliberate indifference to the substantial risk of harm to Derek Benedict in violation of the Eighth Amendment." ECF No. 1-2, at ¶¶ 46-52. Plaintiffs contend that Mr. Benedict had an Eighth Amendment right "to be protected from harm" during the hours he attended the drug rehabilitation program at the DRC. Id. at ¶ 47. Defendants' counterargument goes as follows: the Eighth Amendment "applies only to persons who are incarcerated as a result of a conviction and sentence," and since Mr. Benedict was sentenced to a drug rehabilitation program rather than to prison, he was not "incarcerated" for Eighth Amendment purposes. ECF No. 11, at 3 (emphasis added). Thus, Defendants contend that Plaintiffs cannot state an Eighth Amendment claim as a matter of law. Id. at 3-4.
The Eighth Amendment guards against the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment. U.S. Const. amend. VIII. Among the guarantees associated with Eighth Amendment protection is the right to "`humane conditions of confinement.'" Betts v. New Castle Youth Dev. Ctr., 621 F.3d 249, 256 (3d Cir.2010) (quoting Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 832, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994)). Notably, the conditions-of-confinement protection includes an affirmative duty on the government's part to "`take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety'" of those in its custody. Id. at 256 (quoting Farmer, 511 U.S. at 832, 114 S.Ct. 1970).
The Third Circuit has explained that "[t]o state a claim for damages against a prison official for failure to protect from inmate violence, an inmate must plead facts that show (1) he was incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk of serious harm, (2) the official was deliberately indifferent to that substantial risk to his health and safety, and (3) the official's deliberate indifference caused him harm." Bistrian v. Levi, 696 F.3d 352, 367 (3d Cir.2012). The Court concludes that the Complaint fails to establish both the first element of the Eighth Amendment claim, which is objective, and also fails to support the second, subjective element.
The primary inquiry with regard to the first prong, which is itself dispositive of the Eighth Amendment issue, is whether Mr. Benedict's participation in the rehabilitation program "from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. every day," ECF No. 32, at 2, is sufficiently analogous to incarceration to trigger Eight Amendment protections. The Court concludes that it is not.
The Complaint certainly alleges facts sufficient to imply that the government "ha[d] secured a formal adjudication of guilt in accordance with due process of law."
According to Black's Law Dictionary, "incarceration" means "[t]he act or process of confining someone; imprisonment." Black's Law Dictionary (10th ed.2014). While this definition may not foreclose the possibility that Mr. Benedict was incarcerated, or confined, during the time he was obligated by court order to be physically present at the DRC, case law and the Complaint itself counsel otherwise.
Beginning with the latter, the Complaint specifically states that the "program at the Day Reporting Center [which Mr. Benedict attended] was created as an alternative to incarceration at the Westmoreland County Jail." ECF No. 1-2, at ¶ 13 (emphasis added). The Court believes that the Plaintiffs' characterization of the program not as mandatory confinement, but as an alternative to such confinement, carries some weight. Turning to the case law, it appears that the Third Circuit has not defined "incarceration" when using the term in the Eighth Amendment context. In the context of the Sentencing Guidelines, however, another district court in this Circuit has held that because the Guidelines "treat[] community confinement as an alternative to a sentence of imprisonment in certain situations ... the term `incarceration' in [Guidelines] section 4A1.2(e)(1) refers to imprisonment in a jail or similar correctional facility and does not include residence in a community treatment
Moreover, the vast majority of cases dealing with the Eighth Amendment use the specific terms "prisoner" and "prison official." E.g., Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834, 114 S.Ct. 1970; Levi, 696 F.3d at 367. The Court also observes that neither the Court, nor counsel, has uncovered case law recognizing Eighth Amendment protection for those not incarcerated or imprisoned but instead sentenced to attend an alternative, community-based treatment program several hours each day, as was Mr. Benedict. ECF No. 11, 3-4. Although some courts have found no Eighth Amendment protection for those on parole release, see Bradley v. New Jersey State Parole, No. 06-5255, 2007 WL 1876492, at *3 (D.N.J. June 27, 2007) (finding no viable claim where the plaintiff was allegedly harassed by officers who came to his home during a period of parole release rather than incarceration), or those disciplined in public school, see Marsh v. Delaware State Univ., No. 05-00087, 2006 WL 141680, at *3 (D.Del. Jan. 19, 2006) (finding no claim alleged when a public school expels a student because he was not incarcerated), others have recognized that the door is not closed to such an assertion, see Hoffman v. Stulga, 464 Fed.Appx. 229, 232 (5th Cir. 2011) (per curiam) (assuming without deciding that the Eighth Amendment's protections could apply to felons on probation while upholding dismissal of plaintiffs claim based on other parts of the Eighth Amendment analysis); Coulter v. Studeny, No. 12-60, 2012 WL 4857039, at *1 (W.D.Pa. Oct. 12, 2012) (explaining that the plaintiff "provides no citations to any legal authority indicating that conditions of probation can give rise to an Eighth Amendment claim," but proceeding to dismiss the count on different Eighth Amendment grounds).
That said, even if the Court could conclude that the facts pled met the first prong of the Eighth Amendment analysis, the Complaint also fails to establish the second, subjective element. To meet that prong, Plaintiffs must adequately allege that Defendants were "deliberately indifferent to that substantial risk to [Mr. Benedict's] health and safety," meaning that they were actually aware of the excessive risk to Mr. Benedict's safety. Levi, 696 F.3d at 367. Plaintiffs can prove actual knowledge either directly or by inference through circumstantial evidence — "[i]n other words, `a factfinder may conclude that a prison official knew of a substantial risk from the very fact that the risk was obvious.'" Id. (quoting Farmer, 511 U.S. at 842, 114 S.Ct. 1970). Plaintiffs have only pled facts indicating that Defendants knew of the rampant problems at the DRC prior to its shutdown. ECF No. 1-2, at ¶¶ 15-20. After the DRC reopened, Plaintiffs' sole allegation about any knowledge the officials then had is a generic averment that their "failures resumed." Id. at ¶ 23. There are no specific plausible factual allegations in support of that statement, and it is vague (at best) as to whether the statement refers to the legal conclusion that Defendants "had a duty to protect" program participants, id. at ¶ 19, which the Court would disregard as a legal conclusion as instructed by our Court of Appeals in Fowler, or whether Plaintiffs refer to the numerous specific factual allegations documented in other paragraphs of the Complaint.
Because the Court concludes that the Complaint fails to state a legally sufficient Eighth Amendment claim, Count V will be dismissed as to both Defendants. Furthermore, because amendment would be futile as to this claim because there are no further facts under the circumstances which could establish an Eighth Amendment violation as a matter of law (particularly as to the issue of incarcerated status), see Phillips v. Cnty. of Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 236 (3d Cir.2008) (holding that district courts must permit curative amendments "unless an amendment would be inequitable or futile"), the dismissal of that Count will be with prejudice.
Moving to the substantive due process argument, the Court must first address whether it is appropriate to even consider that claim, as the United States Supreme Court has held that "[w]here a particular Amendment provides an explicit textual source of constitutional protection against a particular sort of government behavior, that Amendment, not the more generalized notion of substantive due process, must be the guide for analyzing these claims." Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266, 273, 114 S.Ct. 807, 127 L.Ed.2d 114 (1994) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). However, the Supreme Court has also explained that if the claim is not "covered by" some other Amendment, it is properly considered under a substantive due process rubric. Cnty. of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 843, 118 S.Ct. 1708, 140 L.Ed.2d 1043 (1998). Because the Court concludes that the Eighth Amendment is inapplicable to this case, resulting in dismissal of the Complaint as it pertains to an Eighth Amendment violation, the Court concludes it is proper to consider whether the Complaint plausibly alleges facts sufficient to establish a due process violation.
The Fourteenth Amendment offers both procedural and substantive protections to citizens by ensuring that states shall not "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1. At issue here is whether a substantive due process violation arises when an individual who was sentenced to a drug rehabilitation program (as an alternative to incarceration) obtained drugs at the facility and ingested the drugs at home after leaving the treatment facility, resulting in the individual's death.
As a general matter, the government has no affirmative duty to protect its citizens from private harms. Ye v. United States, 484 F.3d 634, 636 (3rd Cir. 2007) (citing DeShaney v. Winnebago Cnty. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 196, 109 S.Ct. 998, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989)). While the Due Process Clause protects against potential abuses of government power to deprive citizens of life, liberty, or property, "[t]he Constitution protects people from the government, not from each other or from themselves." Ye, 484 F.3d at 637. However, courts recognize that plaintiffs may establish due process violations through one of two legal theories which constitute exceptions to this general rule: the "`special relationship' exception and the `state-created danger' exception." Id. Because the Court concludes that neither exception is applicable to this case, Count IV will also be dismissed.
The Supreme Court has explained that "it is the State's affirmative act of restraining the individual's freedom to act on his own behalf — through incarceration, institutionalization, or other similar restraint of personal liberty" which triggers substantive due process protections. DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 200, 109 S.Ct. 998 (emphasis added). If the State "`takes a person into its custody and holds him there against his will,'" a special relationship is created and the government acquires an affirmative obligation to protect the individual from harm — including harm caused by third parties.
Defendants contend that Mr. Benedict was not in the State's "custody" as a matter of law and therefore the State acquired no special relationship to protect him from harm. ECF No. 11, at 5. Such custody, according to Defendants, only arises when the State "assume[s] a full-time, continuous, physical custody ... which renders the person wholly dependent upon the state for his or her basic needs of food, shelter, clothing, and safety." Id. DeShaney's language alone does not foreclose a finding that Mr. Benedict was in the State's custody because he was, after all, "sentenced"
Neither the Court, nor counsel, has located a case dealing directly with whether individuals sentenced to participate in drug rehabilitation programs mandating a defendant's physical presence for several hours per day at a court-directed location are in "custody" for the purposes of the substantive due process analysis. However, the Supreme Court and our Court of Appeals have provided guidance in determining that they are not.
On the one hand, courts have definitively held that a special relationship requiring State protection arises in cases involving traditional incarceration, DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 198, 109 S.Ct. 998 (explaining that Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 97 S.Ct. 285, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976), recognized the government's obligation to provide medical care to incarcerated individuals), and involuntary
By contrast, the Third Circuit has found no special relationship existed in cases pertaining to state control over developmentally disabled individuals living in their own homes, Phila. Police & Fire Ass'n for Handicapped Children, Inc. v. City of Phila., 874 F.2d 156, 166 (3d Cir.1989), or public school students, see D.R., 972 F.2d at 1371-72 (contrasting the physical custody that State officials exercise over public school children with that wielded over prisoners and involuntarily committed patients on the grounds that the latter categories of individuals are "wholly dependent upon the state for food, shelter, clothing, and safety" and are "not free to leave," whereas the former category and their parents maintain control over where the individuals attend school and "may turn to persons unrelated to the state for help on a daily basis"), among others.
Most significant to this inquiry is the Third Circuit's decision in Philadelphia Police & Fire Association for Handicapped Children, Inc. v. City of Philadelphia. In that case, a class of intellectually disabled
Reading the alleged facts as pled by the Plaintiffs as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in Plaintiffs' favor (as the Court must), the Court concludes that Mr. Benedict (1) was sentenced, and (2) was required to be at the DRC for a certain period of each day, and was at those specific times without the ability to come and go as he pleased. ECF Nos. 1-2, at ¶ 12; 32 at 2. Unlike parents of public school children,
However, such facts are insufficient to withstand a Motion to Dismiss when our Court of Appeals has concluded, albeit not in the context of a criminal sentence, that "intermittent custody [does not] give[] rise to an affirmative duty on the state's part." Phila. Police, 874 F.2d at 168 n. 9. "Custody" as interpreted by the Third Circuit amounts to the "full time severe and continuous restriction of liberty" present in circumstances of incarceration and institutionalization, among others, which render individuals "wholly dependent upon the state for food, shelter, clothing, and safety" and without the "opportunity to seek outside help to meet their basic needs."
The government may also acquire an affirmative duty to protect "if the state's own actions create the very danger
Defendants attack Count IV by asserting that Plaintiffs fail to allege facts sufficient to meet the first, second, and fourth elements of the state-created danger test.
Beginning with the fourth element, Defendants assert that Plaintiffs have failed to point to any affirmative act by the State which created a danger to Mr. Benedict or rendered him more vulnerable to danger. ECF No. 11, at 10. In other words, Defendants claim the Complaint is premised upon "inactions and omissions," id., which our Court of Appeals has held insufficient to establish the fourth factor, see Phillips, 515 F.3d at 236 (holding that when "allegations, at their core, are omissions, not commissions — inactions rather than actions," the fourth prong cannot be met).
The Third Circuit has cautioned that "the line between action and inaction is not always easily drawn," but that courts should also be wary of maintaining claims where "[a]ny and all failures to act would be transformed into an affirmative exercise of authority." Morrow, 719 F.3d at 178; Bright, 443 F.3d at 282 ("[W]e have never found a state-created danger claim to be meritorious without an allegation and subsequent showing that state authority was affirmatively exercised."). When a complaint "redefine[s] clearly passive inaction as affirmative acts," as occurs when plaintiffs plead that officials failed to enforce certain policies, the claim is generally insufficient to show an affirmative creation or enhancement of danger to a plaintiff. See Morrow, 719 F.3d at 178 (finding a school's alleged failure to adequately enforce its disciplinary policy falls short of an affirmative act for purposes of the test); Kaucher, 455 F.3d at 433 n. 11 (collecting cases standing for the proposition that "failures to act cannot form the basis of a valid § 1983 claim"). Although at times the difference between "action" versus "inaction" is simply a matter of phrasing, the key to distinguishing between the two is deciding whether State officials "created or increased the risk" themselves, or whether they simply "might have done more" to protect individuals from harm. Morrow, 719 F.3d at 179 (quoting id. at 186 (Ambro, J., concurring and dissenting)).
Here, the Complaint is undoubtedly framed in terms of failures and inaction. Plaintiffs allege, inter alia, that Defendants failed to supervise program participants and relevant employees, failed to monitor the premises, failed to prevent drug sales, failed to appropriately staff the
Moreover, this case differs from Kneipp with regard to "who created the danger": here, it was clearly a third-party drug dealer who sold Mr. Benedict the heroin, and Mr. Benedict himself who ingested the drugs; in Kneipp, "police officers intervened to cut off [the Plaintiff's] private source of protection by giving [her husband] permission to go home alone, thereby increasing the danger that [the Plaintiff] would suffer harm in her visibly intoxicated state when they abandoned her." Id. at 1210 (emphasis in original). In short, Plaintiffs' allegations that Defendants failed in various ways to protect their son from drug dealers in the vicinity of the treatment center amounts to passive inaction that allowed a third party to take advantage of Mr. Benedict — Defendants' actions did not create that danger themselves. Therefore, Plaintiffs fail to establish the fourth prong of the state-created danger test.
Plaintiffs also do not plead facts that state a plausible claim under the first prong of the state-created danger test. This element requires plaintiffs to plausibly plead that the harm was both "foreseeable and fairly direct." Henry v. City of Erie, 728 F.3d 275, 282 (3d Cir.2013). Foreseeability requires that officials were aware, and thus on notice, of the risk of harm, id. at 282, while the "fairly direct" portion of the test provides that defendants' actions cannot be "separated from the ultimate harm by a lengthy period of time and intervening forces and actions," id. at 285. Here, even if the facts could show foreseeability, they do not establish the "fairly direct" element. Defendants' actions (which are framed by the Complaint as inactions and omissions) are too remote to fulfill the "fairly direct" requirement. In Morse v. Lower Merion School District, the Third Circuit concluded that school officials' act of unlocking a door by which an attacker entered the building and murdered a teacher was too attenuated a cause of a teacher's death to meet the first prong of the state-created danger test. 132 F.3d 902, 908-09 (3d Cir.1997), Similarly, by this standard, any failure to monitor, supervise, or otherwise impose safeguards on third parties seeking to enter the treatment center here, allegedly resulting in a drug dealer's infiltration of the facility and subsequent sale of drugs to a recovering addict, is too remote to be the "catalyst for the harm" to Mr. Benedict. Henry, 728 F.3d at 285 (internal citation and quotation marks omitted).
The second and last-contested element of the state-created danger test
Our Court of Appeals has crafted its definition of deliberate indifference for substantive due process purposes from Eighth Amendment precedent, explaining that it requires the official to "`both be aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and ... also draw the inference,'" Nicini, 212 F.3d at 811 (quoting Farmer, 511 U.S. at 837, 114 S.Ct. 1970); Customers Bank v. Municipality of Norristown, 942 F.Supp.2d 534, 542 (E.D.Pa.2013) aff'd, 563 Fed.Appx. 201 (3d Cir.2014). The Third Circuit has not yet ruled on whether officials may be liable for deliberate indifference in substantive due process cases when they should have known about a risk but did not, as opposed to when they actually knew of a risk and failed to act. Id. at 542 (citing Nicini, 212 F.3d at 811); Kaucher, 455 F.3d at 428 n. 5 ("[W]e have not yet definitively answered the question of whether the appropriate standard in a non-Eighth Amendment substantive due process case is subjective or objective.").
In this case, the Complaint alleges that officials knew of substantial risks of harm coming to participants in the program before the DRC shut down. ECF No. 1-2, at ¶¶ 15-20. What Plaintiffs fail to plausibly allege, however, is that the Defendants had actual knowledge of what Plaintiffs allege were the continued problems after the DRC re-opened. Without a specific factual allegation showing such knowledge, the Court cannot conclude as a matter of law that Defendants acted with deliberate indifference. Moreover, since Plaintiffs also cannot establish the first and fourth elements of a state-created danger claim, the Court need not attempt to divine the applicable rule in this area.
Because Plaintiffs do not, and cannot, make out a Fourteenth Amendment claim on either the special relationship or state created danger theory, the Court must dismiss that Count against Defendants Westmoreland County and Bruno Mediate in his individual capacity. Additionally, as with the Eighth Amendment claim, the Court concludes that amendment would be futile as to the Fourteenth Amendment claim because additional facts under the circumstances could not establish a substantive
As explained in greater detail above, the Court will dismiss with prejudice the two federal claims that provided this Court with jurisdiction over the action.
For the foregoing reasons, the Motion to Dismiss Counts IV and V of Defendants Westmoreland County and Bruno Mediate in his individual capacity is granted and those claims are dismissed with prejudice. Further, all of Plaintiffs' claims at Counts I-III are dismissed with prejudice (as stipulated by the parties) with regard to Westmoreland County and Bruno Mediate in his individual capacity. Counts I-V are dismissed with prejudice as to Bruno Mediate in his official capacity. Counts IV-V as asserted against Defendants Southwestern Pennsylvania Human Services, Inc. and Westmoreland Drug and Alcohol Commission are also dismissed with prejudice pursuant to the parties' stipulation. Finally, the remainders of Defendants Southwestern Pennsylvania Human Services, Inc.'s and Westmoreland Drug and Alcohol Commission's Motions to Dismiss are denied without prejudice per their stipulations at oral argument. This case is remanded forthwith to the Court of Common Pleas of Westmoreland County for further proceedings.
An appropriate order will issue.
While our Court of Appeals has indeed held that pre-trial detainees are not covered under the Eighth Amendment because there has been no formal adjudication and punishment, or sentence, on the Amendment's terms, Hubbard v. Taylor, 399 F.3d 150, 166 (3d Cir. 2005) (internal citations omitted), Plaintiffs here allege that the Court of Common Pleas "sentenced" Mr. Benedict to attend the drug rehabilitation program. ECF No. 1-2, at ¶ 12. The question is thus not the typical one of whether an individual was incarcerated in the traditional sense of the word, but whether participation in a drug rehabilitation program for several hours per day is similar enough to incarceration for the Eighth Amendment to apply.
As in Bratchett, Plaintiffs here allege Mr. Benedict was exposed to unsafe conditions while participating in a program outside the traditional prison setting. ECF No. 1-2, at ¶¶ 15-24. They allege facts sufficient to infer that Mr. Benedict was required to attend the program because he was "sentenced" to be there-his attendance at the DRC was a mandated, post-verdict sanction imposed by a court. However, there is no indication from the opinion in Bratchett that anyone challenged that plaintiff's status as "incarcerated," and furthermore, the plaintiff in that case was in fact a prisoner at the time of the incident, though he was not physically within the confines of a penitentiary when the injury occurred. As a prisoner, Bratchett still could not go home at the end of the day, and still relied on prison officials to provide him with all of the basic necessities of living. This is unlike Mr. Benedict's experience, where he attended the program at the DRC for three hours each day and then went about his life outside of the DRC detached from any direct supervision of the government. Without more, this Court cannot conclude that Mr. Benedict's participation in the DRC program is so analogous to the situation in Bratchett as to render him "incarcerated" such that the Eighth Amendment applies.
