Harley v. Carman

585 F. Supp. 1353, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16437
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Ohio
DecidedMay 24, 1984
DocketCiv. A. No. C83-4792Y
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 585 F. Supp. 1353 (Harley v. Carman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Ohio primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Harley v. Carman, 585 F. Supp. 1353, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16437 (N.D. Ohio 1984).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

ANN ALDRICH, District Judge.

Michael Harley brings this civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, seeking damages from three Ohio State Highway Patrolmen. Harley alleges that the officers, individually and in their official capacities, deprived him of due process and equal protection by failing to provide him with medical treatment while he was in state custody in November of 1981. The defendants, represented by the State of Ohio, contend that the Eleventh Amendment and recent limitations on § 1983 actions require dismissal of Harley’s complaint. Finding no bar to this damage action against the state officials in their individual capacity, this Court denies their Motion. ' ‘ ’

Jurisdiction rests on 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and 1343(3) and (4).

I.

The allegations of the complaint must be taken as true and are to be construed in favor of the plaintiff. Westlake [1355]*1355v. Lucas, 537 F.2d 857, 858 (6th Cir.1976). The complaint is only to be dismissed if the plaintiff could prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief. Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 101-102, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957). Michael Harley’s allegations follow.

Harley was born in 1965. In late 1981, he resided at the Wymer Group Home for Boys, a state-licensed facility in Lisbon, Ohio. On November 28, 1981, he attended a group outing at the Waterford Park Racetrack. He and another resident of the Wymer Group Home, Kevin Ward, became separated from the group and eventually obtained a ride home with an adult female motorist.

After observing her erratic driving, the defendants — patrolmen Donald Carman, Donald Kubas, and Paul Newburn— stopped the motorist in Lisbon, then arrested her for possession and operation of a stolen automobile. Harley and Ward were arrested and taken into custody for being passengers in a stolen car. While in custody, Harley sustained a fracture of the cervical spine and quadraplegia. Harley informed the defendants of extreme neck pain, numb legs, and inability to move his extremities and asked for immediate treatment. Although he appeared injured to the defendants, they deliberately denied him medical care.

Harley seeks $10 million in damages, together with interest, costs, and attorney’s fees.

II.

The defendants’ first argument is that the Eleventh Amendment deprives a federal court of jurisdiction over claims asserted against them in their official capacities, because “[a]ny award of damages against them in their official capacity would obviously come from the state treasury.” Motion to Dismiss at 4.

The history of the Eleventh Amendment and the mysterious body of doctrine promulgated under it has been reviewed at great length by courts and scholars, most recently in Pennhurst State School v. Halderman, — U.S. -, 104 S.Ct. 900, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1984) (“Pennhurst”). Passed in response to Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. (2 Dall.) 419, 1 L.Ed. 440 (1793), in which the Supreme Court assumed original jurisdiction over a suit brought by a citizen of South Carolina against the State of Georgia, the amendment states:

The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.

Its language was later read to bar federal court jurisdiction over suits brought by a citizen against his own state. Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1, 10 S.Ct. 504, 33 L.Ed. 842 (1890). A state may, by unequivocal language, waive its Eleventh Amendment immunity, Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974), but no such waiver is to be inferred from a state’s waiver of sovereign immunity in its own courts. Pennhurst, 104 S.Ct. at 907 n. 9; Florida Department of Health v. Florida Nursing Home Ass’n., 450 U.S. 147, 150, 101 S.Ct. 1032, 1034, 67 L.Ed.2d 132 (1981). Ohio’s waiver statute, Ohio Rev.Code § 2743.02(A)(1),1 is not a waiver of its Eleventh Amendment immunity. State of Ohio v. Madeline Marie Nursing Homes, 694 F.2d 449, 460 (6th Cir.1982) (“there has been no constitutional statutory waiver of Ohio’s Eleventh Amendment rights”).

[1356]*1356Congress, in enacting legislation pursuant to section five of the Fourteenth Amendment, also may abrogate Eleventh Amendment immunity. Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U.S. 445, 96 S.Ct. 2666, 49 L.Ed.2d 614 (1976) (Title VII of Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., subjects state officials to suits in federal court). That argument is unavailable to Harley, however, since Quern v. Jordan, 440 U.S. 332, 99 S.Ct. 1139, 59 L.Ed.2d 358 (1979), explicitly held that § 1983 did not override state officials’ Eleventh Amendment immunity for acts taken in their official capacity.

However, because Harley seeks damages from the defendants in their individual as well as their official capacities, neither the limited scope of the Ohio waiver statute nor Quern conclusively resolves matters in favor of the defendants. Harley’s claim is predicated on the common law principle that an official who acts unlawfully may not claim the immunity of its sovereign if sued in his own name, a principle applied to avoid the bar of the Eleventh Amendment as early as Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 738, 6 L.Ed. 204 (1824) and articulated with lasting effect in Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908), which held that a federal court could enjoin a state official from enforcing an unconstitutional state statute.2

... There is a well-recognized irony in Ex parte Young; unconstitutional conduct by a state officer may be “state action” for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment yet not attributable to the State for purposes of the Eleventh. Nevertheless, the rule of Ex parte Young is one of the cornerstones of the Court’s Eleventh Amendment jurisprudence.

Florida Department of State v. Treasure Salvors, Inc., 458 U.S. 670, 685, 102 S.Ct. 3304, 3315, 73 L.Ed.2d 1057 (1982) ('‘Treasure Salvors”); Home Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. City of Los Angeles,

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Harley v. Carman
585 F. Supp. 1353 (N.D. Ohio, 1984)

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Bluebook (online)
585 F. Supp. 1353, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16437, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/harley-v-carman-ohnd-1984.