23-1214 Drawbridge v. Schenectady County Dept. et al.

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 18th day of March, two thousand twenty-four.

PRESENT: RICHARD C. WESLEY, ALISON J. NATHAN, SARAH A. L. MERRIAM, Circuit Judges. _____________________________________

Timothy Drawbridge,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

Timothy J. Drawbridge, Sr., Josephine T. Drawbridge,

Plaintiffs,

v. 23-1214 Schenectady County Department of Social Services, Schenectady County,

Defendants-Cross Claimants-Cross Defendants-Appellees,

Northeast Parent and Child Society, Inc., Northern Rivers Family Services, Inc., Parsons Child and Family Center,

Defendants. ∗

_____________________________________

FOR PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT: MARIO DAVID COMETTI, Cometti Law Firm, Delmar, NY.

FOR DEFENDANTS-APPELLLEES: WILLIAM T. O’CONNELL, Jonathan M. Bernstein, Goldberg Segalla LLP, Albany, NY.

Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Northern

District of New York (Scullin, J.).

∗ The clerk is respectfully directed to amend the case caption.

2 UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED,

ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court is

AFFIRMED.

Plaintiff-Appellant Timothy Drawbridge appeals from a decision of the

district court granting Defendant-Appellee Schenectady County’s (the County)

motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c). Drawbridge only

appeals the dismissal of Count One of the Amended Complaint, a

claim that the County violated his constitutional substantive due process rights by

interfering with his “parental rights, including the right to enjoy and participate

in the parenting of his child.” J. App’x at 87. On appeal, Drawbridge argues that

the district court erred by dismissing his § 1983 claim for failure to allege a

plausible basis for municipal liability under Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs. of City of

New York,

(1978).

We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, procedural

history, and issues on review, to which we refer only as necessary to explain our

decision.

3 I. Monell Liability

We review de novo the district court’s grant of relief under Rule 12(c),

“accepting the complaint’s factual allegations as true and drawing all reasonable

inferences in the plaintiff’s favor.” Graziano v. Pataki,

(2d Cir.

2012). “To survive a Rule 12(c) motion, the complaint must contain sufficient

factual matter to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’”

(quoting

Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly,

(2007)).

Drawbridge’s claim against the County rests on the County Department of

Social Services’ (County DSS) alleged failure to adequately train or supervise its

employees with respect to their responsibility to investigate and fact find before

filing “Neglect” petitions against him in Schenectady County Family Court in 2017

and 2018. Specifically, Drawbridge alleges a host of misconduct on the part of

County DSS employees charged with carrying out the investigation, including

fabricating accusations against Drawbridge without evidence, failure to maintain

investigative records, and conducting interviews with Drawbridge’s child in

contravention of accepted professional standards.

4 Drawbridge’s claim fails because, even assuming arguendo that a substantive

due process violation occurred, Drawbridge failed to allege that any such violation

resulted from a County DSS policy. A municipality can be liable for a

constitutional violation under Monell if the plaintiff can establish that “the

violation of his constitutional right resulted from a municipal custom or policy.”

DeCarlo v. Fry,

(2d Cir. 1998) (quotation marks omitted). “In

limited circumstances, a local government’s decision not to train [or supervise]

[its] employees [with respect to] their legal duty to avoid violating citizens’ rights

may rise to the level of an official government policy for purposes of [liability

under] § 1983.” Connick v. Thompson,

(2011). But a § 1983 claim

against a municipality “is at its most tenuous where a claim turns on a failure to

train” because the municipality’s failure to train “must amount to deliberate

indifference to the rights of persons with whom the untrained employees come

into contact.” Id. (cleaned up). Notably, “[a] pattern of similar constitutional

violations by untrained employees is ordinarily necessary to demonstrate

deliberate indifference for purposes of failure to train.” Id. at 62 (quotation marks

omitted). 5 Drawbridge’s allegations fall far short of such a showing. He argues that

the facts surrounding this isolated incident alone “evince[] a total and complete

lack of training.” Appellant’s Br. at 22. His arguments on appeal amount to the

claim that the individual misconduct alleged here was so grossly negligent that

the only explanation is the County DSS’s “lack of [a] policy to even convey the

substance of any policy.” Id. But such a conclusory allegation does not suffice

to state a claim of Monell liability. He has not, for instance, alleged “repeated

complaints of civil rights violations” or a pattern of unlawful conduct by

unsupervised employees that would give rise to deliberate indifference. Outlaw

v. City of Hartford,

(2d Cir. 2018) (quotation marks omitted). Nor

has he alleged that County policymakers failed to act in the face of other “actual

or constructive notice.” Hernandez v. United States,

(2d Cir. 2019)

(quoting Connick,

).

In short, Drawbridge did not set forth sufficient plausible, non-conclusory

allegations that, if proven, would establish that any County “custom or policy”

actually resulted in the alleged due process violations. Accordingly, the district

6 court was correct to dismiss Drawbridge’s substantive due process claim against

the County.

* * *

We have considered all of the arguments raised by Drawbridge and find

them to be without merit. For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the judgment

of the district court.

FOR THE COURT: Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court

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