Linda Evans v. George Perry

578 F. App'x 229
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedJuly 11, 2014
Docket13-2256, 13-2294
StatusUnpublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 578 F. App'x 229 (Linda Evans v. George Perry) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Linda Evans v. George Perry, 578 F. App'x 229 (4th Cir. 2014).

Opinion

Vacated in part; dismissed in part by unpublished PER CURIAM opinion.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

PER CURIAM:

Linda A. Evans filed a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (2012) complaint against the Pitt County Department of Social Services (“DSS”), George Perry, Linda Million, Cynthia Ross, April Hanning, and Linda Curtis. The complaint alleged a series of events in which employees of DSS petitioned for and ultimately obtained guardianship of Evans’ elderly and infirm mother, also obtaining a court order freezing many of Evans’ assets. While Curtis filed an answer to the complaint, the remaining Defendants filed a Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss the complaint.

The magistrate judge recommended dismissing the claims against the DSS, dismissing Evans’ claims of violations of her First, Seventh, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights based on Medicaid planning and familial association, and dismissing Evans’ state law claims for abuse of process and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The magistrate judge also, however, recommended denying the motion to dismiss with respect to Evans’ claim against Ross and Million of a procedural due process violation based on the deprivation of her property when her assets were frozen, and the derivative claim against Perry of failure to train and supervise.

In their objections to the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation, Ross, Million, and Perry asserted that they were entitled to absolute immunity as to Evans’ procedural due process claim. The district court adopted the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation in all respects, and rejected the assertion of absolute immunity. Ross, Million, and Perry filed an interlocutory appeal of the district court’s order denying their claim of absolute immunity. Evans cross-appealed, and seeks to challenge in this appeal the dismissal of the remaining claims.

This court may exercise jurisdiction only over final orders, 28 U.S.C. § 1291 (2012), and certain interlocutory and collateral orders, 28 U.S.C. § 1292 (2012); Fed. R.Civ.P. 54(b); Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 545-46, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949). A “final decision” is “one which ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment.” Catlin v. United States, 324 U.S. 229, 233, 65 S.Ct. 631, 89 L.Ed. 911 (1945). An order is not final if it disposes of “ ‘fewer than all the claims or the rights and liabilities of fewer than all the parties.’ ” Robinson v. Parke-Davis & Co., 685 F.2d 912, 913 (4th Cir.1982) (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(b)).

A district court’s grant or denial of immunity is an immediately appealable order. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985). The court’s dismissal of Evans’ remaining claims, however, is not an immediately appealable interlocutory not dispose of all the claims, and there is still a Defendant, Curtis, against whom Evans’ claims remain pending in the district court.

We may exercise pendent appellate jurisdiction to review issues “that are not otherwise subject to immediate appeal when such issues are so interconnected with immediately appealable issues that they warrant concurrent review.” Rux v. *232 Republic of Sudan, 461 F.3d 461, 475 (4th Cir.2006) (citation omitted). Such “jurisdiction is available only (1) when an issue is inextricably intertwined with a question that is the proper subject of an immediate appeal; or (2) when review of a jurisdic-tionally insufficient issue is necessary to ensure meaningful review of an immediately appealable issue.” Id. (citing Swint v. Chambers Cnty. Comm’n, 514 U.S. 35, 50-51, 115 S.Ct. 1203, 131 L.Ed.2d 60 (1995)) (internal quotation marks omitted). We conclude, however, that the issues Evans seeks to raise on appeal are not inextricably intertwined with the immunity issue, and determination of the issues she seeks to raise is not necessary to meaningfully review the immunity issue, properly before this court. We therefore decline to exercise jurisdiction over the issues raised in Evans’ cross-appeal.

With respect to the narrow issue on appeal, we review de novo a district court’s ruling on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, accepting factual allegations in the complaint as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party. Kensington Volunteer Fire Dep’t v. Montgomery Cnty., 684 F.3d 462, 467 (4th Cir.2012). To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient “facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007).

Social workers are entitled to absolute immunity for actions taken in a prosecuto-rial rather than investigative or policing capacity. Vosburg v. Dep’t of Soc. Serv., 884 F.2d 133, 135 (4th Cir.1989). That immunity extends only to prosecutorial actions, however, including preparing and filing a removal'petition and prosecuting that action. Id. at 135-38.

To state a valid procedural due process claim, Evans was required to demonstrate “(1) that [she] had a property interest; (2) of which [the Appellants] deprived [her]; (3) without due process of law.” Tri County Paving, Inc. v. Ashe County, 281 F.3d 430, 436 (4th Cir.2002) (citation omitted). In determining whether there has been a procedural due process violation, a court must first determine whether the plaintiff has a property or liberty interest and whether such an “interest is within the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of liberty and property.” Smith v. Org. of Foster Families for Equal. & Reform, 431 U.S. 816, 841, 97 S.Ct. 2094, 53 L.Ed.2d 14 (1977).

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Bluebook (online)
578 F. App'x 229, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/linda-evans-v-george-perry-ca4-2014.