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Badia v. City of Casa Grande3/16/1999
and Tena had used excessive force in violation of § 1983 when they "hobbled" and "hogtied" Perez and placed her face-down in the patrol car. After the parties stipulated to a change of venue from Pinal County to Pima County, the trial court granted defendants' motion. This appeal followed.
DISCUSSION
Summary judgment is proper "if the facts produced in support of the claim or defense have so little probative value, given the quantum of evidence required, that reasonable people could not agree with the Conclusion advanced by the proponent of the claim or defense." Orme School v. Reeves, 166 Ariz. 301, 309, 802 P.2d 1000, 1008 (1990). "On appeal from a summary judgment, we must determine de novo whether there are any genuine issues of material fact and whether the trial court erred in applying the law." Bothell, 192 Ariz. at , 965 P.2d at . We also review de novo statutory interpretation issues and constitutional claims, Little v. All Phoenix South Community Mental Health Center, Inc., 186 Ariz. 97, 919 P.2d 1368 (App. 1995), and will affirm the trial court's ruling if it is correct on any ground. Glaze v. Marcus, 151 Ariz. 538, 729 P.2d 342 (App. 1986).
I. Section 1983 Due Process Claim
Plaintiff first contends the trial court " ailed to address § 1983 due process claim under the explicit exception . . . for incarceration and commitment" recognized in DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dep't of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189, 109 S. Ct. 998, 103 L. Ed. 2d 249 (1989). That "exception," however, does not apply here.
In DeShaney, the Supreme Court held that government agents had no duty under the due process clause to affirmatively protect a child from his father's violence, even though state and local authorities were aware of ongoing abuse and failed to take steps to remove the child from the father's custody. The Court noted that "nothing in the language of the Due Process Clause itself requires the State to protect the life, liberty, and property of its citizens against invasion by private actors." Id. at 195, 109 S. Ct. at 1003, 103 L. Ed. 2d at 258. Rather, according to the Court, that clause is intended to limit the "State's power to act, not as a guarantee of certain minimal levels of safety and security." Id.
The Court recognized an exception to those principles, however, noting that the state has an affirmative duty to "assume some responsibility for safety and general well-being" of a person in the state's custody. Id. at 200, 109 S. Ct. at 1005, 103 L. Ed. 2d at 261. The Court explained the rationale for that exception as follows:
" hen the State by the affirmative exercise of its power so restrains an individual's liberty that it renders him unable to care for himself, and at the same time fails to provide for his basic human needs . . . it transgresses the substantive limits on state action set by the . . . Due Process clause. The affirmative duty to protect arises not from the State's knowledge of the individual's predicament or from its expressions of intent to help him, but from the limitation which it has imposed on his freedom to act on his own behalf. In the substantive due process analysis, it is the State's affirmative act of restraining the individual's freedom to act on his own behalf- through incarceration, institutionalization, or other similar restraint of personal liberty-which is the "deprivation of liberty" triggering the protections of the Due Process Clause, not its failure to act to protect his liberty interests against harms inflicted by other means." Id. at 200, 109 S. Ct. at 1005-06, 103 L. Ed. 2d at 261-62 (citations omitted).
Plaintiff asserts that the custodial excepti
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