Lucas Ivers v. Brentwood Borough School District

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
• Decided: March 13, 2024
• Docket: 23-1799
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

No. 23-1799

LUCAS M. IVERS,

Appellant

v.

BRENTWOOD BOROUGH SCHOOL DISTRICT; FLOYD OLSAVICKY; AGGIE GREER; BRENTWOOD EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES; NOAH MADDEN

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania (D.C. Civil Action No. 2-20-cv-01244) District Judge: Honorable William S. Stickman, IV

Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) March 8, 2024

Before: SHWARTZ, CHUNG, and AMBRO, Circuit Judges

(Opinion Filed: March 13, 2024) OPINION *

AMBRO, Circuit Judge

Lucas Ivers sued Aggie Greer, a nurse at Brentwood High School in Allegheny

County, Pennsylvania, for her conduct in examining him after another student slammed

him to the ground during gym class. Ivers ultimately suffered injuries including

quadriplegia that resolved, spinal fracture, disc herniation, and spinal cord contusion.

He claims Greer’s actions violated his substantive due process rights per the

Fourteenth Amendment under a state-created danger theory, alleging that Greer created

or exacerbated the danger he faced by failing to examine or treat him adequately

following the incident. Before the District Court, Greer moved for summary judgment,

which the Court granted in her favor. Ivers appeals that judgment.

While what happened to Ivers is tragic, we agree with the District Court that Greer

is not liable under a state-created danger theory of substantive due process. Accordingly,

we affirm the District Court’s grant of summary judgment in her favor.

I

During gym class on June 5, 2018, Ivers and another student, Noah Madden, were

playing basketball when Madden became angry, lifted Ivers onto his shoulders, and

slammed him to the ground. Greer, the school nurse, reported to the gymnasium, where

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent.

2 she saw Ivers lying face down on the floor underneath one of the basketball hoops. Ivers

told Greer that Madden had slammed him to the ground and that he hurt all over his body.

Ivers also told Greer he could not move.

Greer felt Ivers’s shoulder for displacement and to see if anything was out of the

ordinary. She also performed a neurological head-to-toe assessment, examining his neck

and spine. Based on her examination, Greer did not believe Ivers had suffered a

concussion or spinal cord injury. She did believe, however, he may have suffered a

serious injury to his shoulder. Ivers testified that Greer told him he could get up by

himself and accused him of “faking it.” App. II at 319. Greer slid Ivers toward the wall

mats in the gym with her hand on his back. 1

Paramedics arrived roughly 20 minutes after Greer’s arrival to find Ivers

positioned against the wall mats. Greer told the paramedics she had checked his neck and

found no pain or deformities. The paramedics performed their own neurological exam

and concluded that Ivers could move all of his limbs. He also had normal motor and

sensory reactions. Based on their assessment, the paramedics concluded that he had not

suffered a spine injury and, as a result, stabilization or immobilization was unnecessary.

The paramedics nonetheless intended to transport him to a hospital. Ivers testified that

Greer told paramedics he was “being a baby” and that it would be fine to lift him up.

App. II at 322.

1 Greer disputes that she moved Ivers, but the District Court assumed for the purpose of summary judgment that she did so, construing the facts in Ivers’s favor. We do the same in our plenary review.

3 Ivers’s mother Catherine arrived and saw her son on the paramedics’ stretcher.

While she expressed concern that Ivers’s shoulder appeared crooked, the paramedics told

her that he was fine following their and Greer’s examinations. No one believed that he

had suffered a serious spine injury.

Catherine told her son to get off the stretcher and told the paramedics that they

would go to MedExpress on their own. So the paramedics left the school roughly 30

minutes after their arrival.

Ivers told his mother his arm and hand hurt as they made their way to

MedExpress. The two drove to the its parking lot but never went inside for treatment.

Catherine considered going to the hospital instead but ultimately decided against it and

drove home. While driving home, Ivers told her that nothing hurt, but once they arrived

home, he said his hand hurt. When Catherine attempted to remove Ivers from the car in

the driveway, he began to say he was hurting and then slid down her body and fell to the

ground. Catherine called 911 and an ambulance arrived a few minutes later.

As noted, Ivers sustained injuries including quadriplegia that soon resolved, a C5

fracture, C5-C6 traumatic disc herniation, and spinal cord contusion at C5 with edema.

He brought claims against Greer and other defendants not involved in this appeal. Before

the District Court, Greer moved for summary judgment on Ivers’s state-created danger

claim against her. The District Court granted summary judgment in her favor,

4 concluding that Ivers failed to produce sufficient evidence to support his substantive due

process claim. 2

II

Ivers claims that Greer violated his substantive due process right to bodily

integrity under a state-created danger theory. He brings the claim pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §

1983. Greer argues we should affirm the District Court’s grant of summary judgment in

her favor because Ivers has failed to support his state-created danger claim with sufficient

evidence to create a genuine dispute of material fact or, alternatively, because she is

entitled to qualified immunity.

We have recognized that the Fourteenth Amendment’s right of substantive due

process includes protection of an individual’s interest in personal bodily integrity.

Phillips v. Cnty. of Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 235 (3d Cir. 2008). At the same time, there

is generally no affirmative obligation on the State to protect individuals from private

violence. Sanford v. Stiles, 456 F.3d 298, 303-04 (3d Cir. 2006) (citing DeShaney v.

Winnebago Cnty. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 198-200 (1989)). There are two

exceptions to this general rule: (1) where a special relationship exists between the State

and the individual and (2) where a state-created danger is involved. Id. at 304. Ivers

relies on the latter, claiming that Greer created or exacerbated the danger he faced by

2 The District Court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331. Ivers filed a timely notice of appeal of the District Court’s order granting summary judgment. We thus have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Our review is de novo. Ellis v. Westinghouse Elec. Co., LLC, 11 F.4th 221, 229 (3d Cir. 2021).

5 failing to examine and/or treat him adequately following his encounter with the other

student. 3

The state-created danger theory allows a state actor to be liable under Section

1983 when it creates or enhances a danger that deprives a plaintiff of his or her

Fourteenth Amendment right to substantive due process. Id. (citing Kneipp v. Tedder, 95

F.3d 1199, 1201, 1205 (3d Cir. 1996)). As adopted by our Court, it requires a plaintiff to

show four elements:

(1) the harm ultimately caused was foreseeable and fairly direct;

(2) a state actor acted with a degree of culpability that shocks the

conscience;

(3) a relationship between the state and the plaintiff existed such that the

plaintiff was a foreseeable victim of the defendant’s acts, or a member of a

discrete class of persons subjected to the potential harm brought about by

the state’s actions, as opposed to a member of the public in general; and

(4) a state actor affirmatively used his or her authority in a way that created

a danger to the citizen or that rendered the citizen more vulnerable to

danger than had the state not acted at all.

Id. at 304-05 (citation omitted).

3 The parties do not dispute that Greer is a state actor for the purpose of Ivers’s Fourteenth Amendment claim brought pursuant to Section 1983. See Kach v. Hose, 589 F.3d 626, 646 (3d Cir. 2009) (a plaintiff seeking to hold an individual liable under Section 1983 must establish that he or she was deprived of a federal constitutional or statutory right by a state actor). 6 The District Court concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support that

the harm was the foreseeable or fairly direct result of Greer’s conduct or that Greer acted

with a degree of culpability that shocks the conscience. It also noted that Ivers failed to

introduce sufficient evidence to support the fourth prong. Having made those

conclusions, the Court did not reach whether Greer is entitled to qualified immunity but

noted that it “would have been inclined” to conclude she is. App. 19; Ivers v. Brentwood

Borough Sch. Dist., No. 2:20-CV-1244, 2023 WL 2759863, at *8 n.9 (W.D. Pa. Apr. 3,

2023). For the reasons that follow, we agree with the District Court’s conclusion that the

evidence is insufficient to support Ivers’s state-created danger claim.

To demonstrate foreseeability, Ivers must show that Greer’s awareness of the

potential harm “rises to [the] level of actual knowledge” or amounts to an “awareness of

[the] risk that is sufficiently concrete to put the actors on notice of the harm.” Phillips,

515 F.3d at 238. For causation, he must show that Greer’s actions “precipitated” or were

the “catalyst” for the ultimate harm. Morse v. Lower Merion Sch. Dist., 132 F.3d 902,

910 (3d Cir. 1997). Actions do not meet the “fairly direct” prong when they are

separated from the ultimate harm by “a lengthy period of time and intervening forces and

actions.” Henry v. City of Erie, 728 F.3d 275, 285 (3d Cir. 2013).

Here, Ivers’s ultimate injuries were neither foreseeable nor fairly direct with

respect to Greer’s actions. No one—including Greer or the paramedics—was aware that

Ivers had suffered a serious spine injury. Greer and the paramedics conducted

examinations of Ivers and all reached the conclusion that he did not suffer a spine injury.

Moreover, there were several intervening acts between Greer’s actions and the time when

7 Ivers’s injuries were discovered several hours later. For instance, the paramedics placed

Ivers on a stretcher without stabilizing him; his mother directed him to get up from the

stretcher and walk to her car; his mother attempted to lift him out of their vehicle; and

Ivers fell to the ground after she attempted to do so. Ivers does not present any evidence,

apart from speculation, directly linking any of Greer’s actions to his injuries.

Nor has Ivers demonstrated that Greer acted in a way that shocks the conscience.

While the standard of culpability required to demonstrate conscience-shocking action

varies depending on the exigencies of the situation—ranging from intent to cause harm to

deliberate indifference—Ivers has not met any applicable standard here. See Sanford,

456 F.3d at 309-10. Construing the evidence in the light most favorable to Ivers, Greer,

at most, did the following: asked Ivers to get up even though he said he could not move;

moved him to the gym wall mats by placing a hand on his back even after he said he was

injured and could not move; failed to stabilize his spine; and told the paramedics that he

was “being a baby” and that it would be fine to lift him. App. II at 322. These facts do

not support a conscience-shocking level of culpability, under any standard, in light of the

circumstances of this case, especially where Greer conducted a head-to-toe physical

assessment and concluded that Ivers did not suffer a spinal cord injury, a conclusion the

paramedics also reached.

Moreover, the District Court correctly concluded Ivers failed to present evidence

sufficient to support the fourth element of his state-created danger theory, which “asks

whether a defendant exercised his or her authority to create a foreseeably dangerous

situation.” Kaucher v. Cnty. of Bucks, 455 F.3d 418, 432 (3d Cir. 2006). Under this

8 element, “[t]here must be a direct causal relationship between the affirmative act of the

state and plaintiff’s harm.” Id. This is satisfied where the action is the but-for cause of

the danger faced by the plaintiff. Id. Here, no reasonable jury could conclude that Greer

directly caused Ivers’s ultimate injuries.

Throughout his briefing, Ivers contends that the District Court failed to consider

his own testimony which, in his view, raises a genuine issue of material fact precluding

summary judgment. But the District Court properly considered both Ivers’s and Greer’s

testimony and viewed the evidence in the light most favorable to Ivers. It nonetheless

concluded he failed to provide sufficient evidence in support of his state-created danger

claim. We agree with that assessment. 4

* * *

For these reasons, we affirm the District Court’s judgment.

4 Having concluded that Ivers has failed to support his state-created danger claim, there is no need to determine whether Greer is entitled to qualified immunity. 9