Seventh Circuit Recognizes Reckless Driving by Police Can Violate Fourteenth Amendment and Reinstates Failure-to-Train Monell Claim

Today, we focus primarily on an opinion handed down last week by the Seventh Circuit in Flores v. City of South Bend, which provided tremendous insight into the question of when may a police department be held liable for the utterly reckless conduct of an officer who causes an automobile wreck by unnecessarily driving at break-neck speeds down urban streets. But, before we take a deep dive into Flores, because it has been a bit since our last post, we pause to acknowledge some other recent decisions of note from both Indiana state and federal courts.

I. Other Notable Recent Decisions

Before we dive into this week’s primary case, we pause to acknowledge some notable decisions that have been handed down since our last post. First up is Logansport/Cass County Airport Authority v. Kochenower. Confronted by a split in authority, the Indiana Court of Appeals concluded “that, to successfully allege a meritorious claim or defense pursuant to Rule 60(B), a party seeking relief from a default judgment must state a factual basis for his purported meritorious claim or defense, but at this initial stage such a showing is not governed by the rules of evidence.”

A second notable decision, Arrendale v. American Imaging & MRI, LLC, built on the Indiana Supreme Court’s 1999 decision in Sword v. NKC Hospitals. Inc. As we have discussed, twice, Sword established a rebuttable presumption that the medical personnel who attend to a patient in the hospital setting, even if acting as independent contractors, are the apparent agents of the hospital unless specific steps have been taken to inform the patient that the personnel are not employees of the hospital. In Arrendale, the Indiana Court of Appeals was asked whether the principles announced in Sword are confined to the hospital setting. Given that Sword is premised on Restatement (Second) of Torts § 429, which is not even confined to the healthcare context, it should come as no surprise that the court of appeals concluded the principles of Sword are not so confined: “In short, just as it is reasonable for a hospital patient to believe that the doctors providing care in a hospital are employees or agents of the hospital, it is reasonable for a patient of a diagnostic imaging center to believe that the radiologists interpreting images for the center are employees or agents of the center, unless the center informs the patient to the contrary. We therefore hold Sword applies to diagnostic imaging centers.”

In a similar vein to Arrendale, Lake Imaging, LLC v. Franciscan Alliance, Inc. touched on Sword. Although the primary focus of the decision was on the question of whether the Indiana Medical Malpractice Act applies to a claim for indemnification between two healthcare providers, in defending the conclusion that not only does the Act apply to the indemnification action but in doing so left only two weeks to assert a claim for indemnification, the court observed:

That passage provides strong support for use of Sword and reminds that a healthcare provider has the burden to inform the patient that it is using contractors.

As to the court’s conclusion on the scope of the Medical Malpractice Act, it merits note that it may well have applied the most expansive scope any Indiana court has yet found. It is slightly reminiscent of the Texas Supreme Court’s extremely expansive view taken in Texas West Oaks Hospital, LP v. Williams, which applied the Texas Medical Liability Act to a healthcare provider’s worker’s compensation claim. That said, the Indiana Supreme Court’s forthcoming decision in the certified question from the Seventh Circuit in Cutchin v. Robertson will likely place a more definitive stamp on whose claims are properly drawn within the Act.

The hotly contested action in NCAA v. Finnerty provided a few important insights. First, the opinion stands as an important reminder of the deemed-denied provision of Indiana Appellate Rule 14(B)(1)(e), which dictates that a motion to certify an order for interlocutory appeal is deemed denied if not ruled upon or set for a hearing within thirty days of filing or, if a hearing was held, is not ruled upon within thirty days after the hearing. Second, a motion that merely parrots a prior motion—i.e. a repetitive motion—does not afford an opportunity to pursue the issue that should have been timely appealed following the ruling on the initial motion. Finally, in dicta, the majority appears to reject the apex-deposition doctrine.

Progressive Southeastern Ins. Co. v. B&T Bulk LLC, in addition to a thorough analysis of the implications of Section 30 of the Motor Carrier Act and whether an MCS-90 endorsement applies to intrastate trucking accidents, provided a useful look at the scope of Indiana Appellate Rule 48’s permission to file supplemental authority:

Turning to the Indiana Supreme Court, on certified question from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, in Branscomb v. Wal-Mart Stores E., L.P., the court ruled that a store manager who was not personally delegated control over a store’s premises may not be held personally liable for injuries to a person on the premises occasioned by a condition of the premises. For those wondering why anyone would even seek to hold a store manager liable, the answer is that it would otherwise serve as a basis for naming a defendant who could defeat diversity jurisdiction.

Finally, we look to the Supreme Court of the United States for its opinion in BP P.L.C. v. Mayor of Baltimore. Avoiding much of the procedural complexity, for our purposes, the important takeaway is that an appeal authorized under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d) permits the circuit court to review the district court’s entire remand order not just the aspects concerning 28 U.S.C. §§ 1442 & 1443.

II. Section 1983 Liability: Flores v. City of South Bend

We now return to our primary focus, the Flores decision. Let’s begin with what happened to cause there to be a case. The case stemmed from the death of Erica Flores following a collision with a car operated by a South Bend police officer:

Erica’s estate brought both state-law tort claims and federal claims arising under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to vindicate the deprivation of her constitutional rights by a government actor—i.e. Officer Gorny. The district court, finding that the complaint did not adequately state claims under federal law and, in the absence of federal claims, denying to continue to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over her state-law claims, dismissed the case. On appeal, the Seventh Circuit was confronted with two key questions: (1) whether Officer Gorny’s conduct could be found to be sufficiently reckless so as to amount to “subjective knowledge of an unjustifiable risk to human life and conscious disregard of that risk”; and (2) whether the City of South Bend could be held liable under a Monell theory of liability under a failure-to-train theory. Operating under the standard of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), the unanimous Seventh Circuit answered both questions in the affirmative.

As to the first question, following decisions from the Third and Tenth Circuits, the court observed, “An officer who is not responding to an emergency can act so recklessly that a trier of fact would be entitled to find subjective knowledge of an unjustifiable risk to human life and conscious disregard of that risk.”

As important as that portion of the court’s opinion is in holding reckless governmental actors responsible for the mayhem they occasion, the second key issue may be even more important in shaping the landscape of Section 1983 jurisprudence. Unlike matters of tort law in which the doctrine of respondeat superior may impute liability to an employer, claims for constitutional violations under Section 1983 do not lend themselves to that doctrine. Nevertheless, as established by Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York, there are circumstances in which the conduct of a governmental entity through its implementation policies or failures to adequately train its employees to avoid harm may be sufficient to directly impart liability.

Flores’s Estate made such a Monell argument against the City of South Bend for failure to properly train Officer Gorny. “[F]ailure-to-train liability is appropriate only when inadequate training ‘amounts to deliberate indifference to the rights of persons with whom the [employee] come into contact.’ In effect, by failing to train an employee whose conduct the municipality knows to be deliberately indifferent to the public, the municipality itself demonstrates deliberate indifference to that known risk.” Although liability is rarely found under that theory, it is not without precedent.

Confined to the allegations of the complaint under on appellate review, the court noted that the alleged facts were:

While the decision was unanimous, Judge Brennan authored a concurring opinion focusing on this second key issue. Judge Brennan sought to emphasize that such liability should remain rare. In his own words, his concurrence was just “so courts and litigants in the future recall the intricacies of Monell jurisprudence and do not misread precedent in this area.”

Regardless of whether Judge Brennan is correct that such Monell liability for failure-to-train should be the rare exception, there is no mistaking that Flores stands as an important vindication for the constitutional rights of those harmed by truly reckless and egregious conduct of government actors.

Join us again next time for further discussion of developments in the law.

Sources

• Flores v. City of South Bend, 997 F.3d 725 (7th Cir. 2021) (Wood, J.; Brennan, J., concurring).
• Logansport/Cass Cnty. Airport Auth. v. Kochenower, 169 N.E.3d 1143 (Ind. Ct. App. 2021) (Najam, J.).
• Arrendale v. Am. Imaging & MRI, LLC, 171 N.E.3d 1004 (Ind. Ct. App. 2021) (Vaidik, J.), trans. granted and opinion vacated.
• Sword v. NKC Hosps. Inc., 714 N.E.2d 142 (Ind. 1999) (Selby, J.).
• Lake Imaging, LLC v. Franciscan Alliance, Inc., 171 N.E.3d 619 (Ind. Ct. App. 2021) (Vaidik, J.), reh’g denied.
• Tex. West Oaks Hosp., LP v. Williams, 371 S.W.3d 171 (Tex. 2012) (Wainwright, J.).
• Cutchin v. Robertson, 986 F.3d 1012 (7th Cir. 2021) (Rovner, J.).
• NCAA v. Finnerty, 170 N.E.3d 1111 (Ind. Ct. App. 2021) (Robb, J.; Tavitas, J., dissenting), trans. granted and opinion vacated.
• Progressive Se. Ins. Co. v. B&T Bulk LLC, 170 N.E.3d 1125 (Ind. Ct. App. 2021) (Vaidik, J.), reh’g denied.
• Branscomb v. Wal-Mart Stores E., L.P., 165 N.E.3d 982 (Ind. 2021) (David, J.).
• BP P.L.C. v. Mayor of Baltimore, —U.S.—, 141 S. Ct. 1532 (2021) (Gorsuch, J.; Sotomayor, J., dissenting).
• Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs. of City of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978) (Brennan, J.; Powell, J., concurring; Rehnquist, J., dissenting).
• Sauers v. Borough of Nesquehoning, 905 F.3d 711 (3d Cir. 2018) (Jordan, J.; Ambro, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
• Browder v. City of Albuquerque, 787 F.3d 1076 (10th Cir. 2015) (Gorsuch, J.).
• Colin E. Flora, Court Finds Hospital Can be Liable Where Doctors were Apparent Agents and Claims Against the Doctors Could No Longer be Brought,, Hoosier Litig. Blog (Sept. 20, 2012).
• Colin E. Flora, Indiana Court of Appeals Reminds Hospital Can be Liable for Acts of Independent Contractors, Hoosier Litig. Blog (Oct. 2, 2020).
• Debra Cassens Weiss, Lawyer argues tort case over cow injury is governed by med-mal law, ABAJournal.com (Jan. 15, 2015).
• Joseph V. Schaeffer, The Apex Deposition: Practice Tips and Standards, Am. Bar. Assoc. (Apr. 29, 2018).
• Colin E. Flora, Federal Diversity Jurisdiction and the “Gaping Hole Problem”, Hoosier Litig. Blog (Jan. 25, 2013).
• Colin E. Flora, Employer Liability: Respondeat Superior Doctrine, Hoosier Litig. Blog (Apr. 26, 2013).

*Disclaimer: The author is licensed to practice in the state of Indiana. The information contained above is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice on any subject matter. Laws vary by state and region. Furthermore, the law is constantly changing. Thus, the information above may no longer be accurate at this time. No reader of this content, client or otherwise, should act or refrain from acting on the basis of any content included herein without seeking appropriate legal or other professional advice on the particular facts and circumstances at issue.