Teresa Taylor v. Mark Alexander, et al

Filing

Opinion issued by court as to Appellant Teresa Jane Taylor. Decision: Affirmed. Opinion type: Non-Published. Opinion method: Per Curiam.

Case: 14-11242

Date Filed: 09/30/2014

Page: 1 of 5

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 14-11242
Non-Argument Calendar
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 9:14-cv-80335-KAM

TERESA JANE TAYLOR,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
versus
LT. MARK ALEXANDER,
Internal Affairs,
SERGEANT LE POLSNER F. EMA,
ID# 8524,
SERGEANT LE EDDIE E. SIMS,
ID # 3264,
DEPUTY SHERIFF LE JOHN R. MOORE,
ID # 8206
Defendants – Appellees.

________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
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(September 30, 2014)

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Before TJOFLAT, JORDAN, and COX, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Teresa Taylor, pro se, challenges on this appeal the district court’s sua
sponte order denying her application to proceed in forma pauperis and
concomitantly dismissing her 42 U.S.C. §1983 complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted.
We review de novo a district court’s sua sponte dismissal under Section
1915(e)(2)(b)(ii). Hughes v. Lott, 350 F.3d 1157, 1159-60 (11th Cir. 2003). We
affirm the district court’s dismissal.
Taylor’s claim arises from the defendants’ alleged failure to come to her aid
in a time of peril in her home. She alleges that the peril was presented by several
“unknown men,” who had been sent to evict her – forcibly, if necessary – who
threatened her with more or less serious bodily injury if she did not leave her
locked bedroom and cooperate with them, and who damaged the interior of her
rented home prior to defendants arriving in response to her 911 call. She further
alleges that the officers refused to arrest the “unknown men” when they did arrive
(she does not state how she knew this from the confines of her locked bedroom),
and that, when she called 911 again, the defendants threatened to arrest her, but
never reappeared. She does not allege that she was injured bodily or that any
property belonging to her was damaged. Her pro se complaint on an in forma
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pauperis form comes no closer to asserting an actual claim for relief based on these
conclusory factual allegations than asking the district court “[t]o determine that
these officers deprived me of the right to be protected and free from guns and
violence.”
We must construe pro se complaints more liberally than those drafted by
attorneys. Hughes, 350 F.3d at 1160 (citation omitted). Having done so, we
conclude that Deshaney v. Winnebago Cy. DSS, 489 U.S. 189, 109 S. Ct. 998
(1989), and its progeny control this case.

There, the Court held under

circumstances far more egregious than what Taylor alleges here that governmental
agents had no affirmative duty to protect or aid someone injured while not in
government custody and under circumstances not created by the government. “As
a general matter … we conclude that a State’s failure to protect an individual
against private violence simply does not constitute a violation of the [substantive]
Due Process Clause.” 489 U.S. at 197; 109 S. Ct. at 1004. The Court recognized
in dicta that a “special relationship” might exist between the State and an
individual that would obligate the State to afford protection and care
commensurate with the individual’s State-deprived ability to afford his own (e.g.,
prisoners and involuntarily committed mental patients), but observed that “[t]he
affirmative duty to protect arises not from the State’s knowledge of the
individual’s predicament or from its expressions of intent to help him, but from the
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limitation which it has imposed on his freedom to act on his own behalf.” 489 U.S.
at 200; 109 S. Ct. at 1005-06 (citation omitted). See also Wyke v. Polk Cy. School
Bd., 129 F.3d 560 (11th Cir. 1997). Here, Taylor alleges no facts from which the
district court might have found the existence of the requisite “special relationship”
to which DeShaney alludes.
We further note Taylor’s failure to allege any state-law entitlement to the
sort of protection of which she contends the defendants deprived her. See Town of
Castle Rock v. Gonzalez, 545 U.S. 748, 756, 125 S. Ct. 2796, 2803 (2005)
(reasoning that procedural due process claims obligate the claimant to identify a
source of entitlement to a deprived interest independent of the Constitution, such as
state law). Under Florida decisional law, governmental entities never have had a
duty to exercise discretionary authority in favor of an individual or a group of
individuals. See Trianon Park Condo. Ass’n v. City of Hialeah, 468 So. 2d 912,
918 (Fla. 1985). Indeed, to hold otherwise potentially could run afoul of immunity
doctrines protecting governmental officials from suit for discretionary exercise of
their appointed functions. See Lewis v. City of St. Petersburg, 260 F.3d 1260, 1265
(11th Cir. 2001) (citation omitted).
We have reviewed Taylor’s pro se complaint, the district court’s order, and
Taylor’s brief, and we are satisfied that Taylor does not state a claim on which
relief may be granted. We affirm the district court’s dismissal of her complaint.
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AFFIRMED.

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