A federal judge from the Western District of Pennsylvania has granted a school district’s motion for summary judgment in a case in which it was sued by the parents of a high school football played, who claimed the injuries he suffered at a football training camp in 2009 were the result of “an unconstitutionally dangerous drill and (an) upperclassman’s excessively aggressive and tortious conduct.”
However, the court did grant leave for the parents to refile their claims against the South Fayette School District, based on the court’s guidance.
Zachary Robert Dorley was a 140-pound incoming freshman participating in a one-on-one blocking drill. The players performed the drill without helmets or other pads. Dorley participated in the drill against Steven McElhinny, a student and football player then in the 11th grade, who allegedly then weighed approximately 240 pounds. McElhinny hit Dorley, knocking him through the air and causing his arm to break. Dorley claimed he had nine surgical procedures on his arm, and has allegedly suffered both physically and emotionally as a result of this episode.
The plaintiff claimed that McElhinny’s conduct was not only lauded by the other players and the coaches, but that the school district “set up the drill in such a way that much smaller, inexperienced underclassmen would be pitted against larger, stronger, more experienced upperclassmen.”
Dorley first filed his complaint in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. It was then removed to federal court The complaint consisted of 11 counts, the first six of which were brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the school district for various Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause violations, specifically asserted claims for Injury to Human Dignity, Injury to Bodily Integrity, and Injury as a Result of a State Created Danger/Special Relationship.
The court noted that the Fourteenth Amendment provides procedural and substantive protections to citizens by ensuring that states shall not “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1. At issue is whether Dorley has adequately alleged a substantive due process violation against the school district defendants for the injuries he sustained while participating in a football training camp drill. Dorley alleges two (2) counts (one against the school district and one against the individual school district defendants) on each of three theories of liability under the Fourteenth Amendment: (1) a violation of the right to human dignity; (2) a violation of the right to bodily integrity; and (3) a deprivation based on the state-created danger doctrine.”
The court noted that as an initial matter, “our Court of Appeals has yet to expressly recognize or reject in a precedential opinion any claim which rises to the level of a substantive due process violation in regard to physical injuries caused by a fellow student in the interscholastic sports context. In light of that, this court is generally hesitant to federalize the nuances of the on-field conduct of interscholastic athletics, or to rush to endorse a view that such violations exist in the day-to-day conduct of high school sports, absent compelling circumstances.”
It then went to explain why.
“The Supreme Court expects lower federal courts to act as gatekeepers when it comes to defining or expanding substantive due process protections. See Collins v. City of Harker Heights, Tex., 503 U.S. 115, 125, 112 S. Ct. 1061, 117 L. Ed. 2d 261 (1992).” After citing several cases in support of this supposition, it then went on to note that “the teaching of these cases is that not every act of a public body or official allegedly underlying a physical injury generates a federal constitutional claim, even where the injuries alleged are most serious (as they are here), or their conduct and motive is asserted to be arrogant, dismissive, callous or harsh (as they are so alleged here).
“That said, as noted above, our Court of Appeals has not benched substantive due process claims involving injuries arising from school sports, and there is some support for them in its non-precedential opinions. See Patrick v. Great Valley Sch. Dist., 296 F. App’x 258, 262 (3d Cir. 2008) (reversing and remanding in part a grant of summary judgment on the grounds that a genuine issue of material fact existed as to whether a coach was deliberately indifferent under the state-created danger theory of liability for a substantive due process violation); Hinterberger v. Iroquois Sch. Dist., 548 F. App’x 50, 54 & n.2 (3d Cir. 2013) (holding qualified immunity protected coach from liability because the law was not clearly established without commenting on the propriety (or impropriety) of the substantive due process action asserted through the state-created danger theory) (‘We note that cases decided in this circuit after Hinterberger’s accident have not been models of clarity as to whether a state-created danger claim can be successfully maintained in the context of school sports.’).”
In light of these, the court “concludes that in the absence of a precedential Circuit opinion definitively holding whether school sports injury cases can or cannot (and if so, under what circumstances may) include a substantive due process claim, unpublished Court of Appeals cases do provide some guidance regarding the reasoning our Court of Appeals would counsel applies in similar circumstances. ,,, Recognizing the general tenor of Dorley’s allegations, though deficient as pled in their current form, the court concludes that a federal substantive due process claim could arise here.”
The court elaborated on the “deficient” nature of the allegations.
“The complaint falls short as to whether the drill and the manner in which the coaches implemented it actually presented a foreseeable and fairly direct risk of harm (Prong One), and/or whether the alleged conduct amounted to deliberate indifference such that the coaches’ conduct was patently egregious (Prong Two). On a football field (practices and games), larger players will be pitted against smaller players. Because of this reality, smaller players require (and will have) experience competing in some fashion against larger players. Such a structure is not inherently suspect, and a real world drill involving such disparate students, but that does not have such a foreseeable risk of serious injury to which the coaches and school district were deliberately indifferent, would not trigger Fourteenth Amendment ‘bodily integrity/state-created danger’ liability. On the other hand, a drill designed and/or conducted for no rational football purpose, in circumstances such that the ‘adults in the room’ were on notice that serious injuries were foreseeable from the drill because of the way they structured or conducted it, and that they demonstrated deliberate indifference to a serious risk of harm that was above and beyond the ordinary, objectively anticipated risks associated with voluntary participation in interscholastic football, would be a very different situation. Therefore, the claims asserted under § 1983 for injuries to the plaintiff’s bodily integrity under the state-created danger theory against the school district defendants (Counts II, III, IV, and V) will be dismissed, but without prejudice and with leave to amend.”
Zachary Robert Dorley v. South Fayette Township School District, et al; W.D. Pa.; Civil Action No. 2:15-cv-00214, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 118517; 9/4/15
Attorneys of Record: (for plaintiff) Jesse A. Drumm, Peter D. Friday, LEAD ATTORNEY, Friday & Cox LLC, Pittsburgh, PA. (for defendants) Joseph L. Luvara, LEAD ATTORNEY, Dickie, McCamey & Chilcote, Pittsburgh, PA; Linda V. Hernandez, LEAD ATTORNEY, Dickie McCamey, Pittsburgh, PA. Thomas A. McDonnell, LEAD ATTORNEY, Summers, McDonnell, Hudock, Guthrie & Skeel, Pittsburgh, PA.
