F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
PUBLISH
MAY 15 2003
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
TENTH CIRCUIT
ROBERT BOOTH ROE, a minor child
by and through his adoptive parents,
Richard Roe and Janet Roe, and
Jennifer Brunetti, conservator,
No. 02-3167
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
MARY KEADY and WAYNE
SRAMEK, both as individuals and in
their official capacities as employees
of the Department of Social and
Rehabilitation Services for the State of
Kansas,
Defendants-Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS
(D.C. No. 00-CV-2232-CM)
Submitted on the briefs: *
Richard D. Loffswold, Jr., Girard, Kansas, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Deborah June Purce, Topeka, Kansas, for Defendant-Appellee Mary Keady, and
Matthew W. Boddington, Topeka, Kansas, for Defendant-Appellee Wayne
Sramek.
*
The case is unanimously ordered submitted without oral argument pursuant
to Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2) and 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G).
Before SEYMOUR , KELLY , and LUCERO , Circuit Judges.
LUCERO , Circuit Judge.
Richard and Janet Roe, adoptive parents to Robert Booth Roe, a minor
plaintiff, along with his conservator, brought suit under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981
and 1983 against defendants, employees of the Kansas Department of Social and
Rehabilitation Services (“SRS”), for failing to conduct a proper inquiry into abuse
by his natural parents, Terri and Booth Tuthill. They alleged that defendants had
a duty to investigate concerns about possible abuse voiced before and after
Robert’s birth, that defendants relied improperly on the Bureau of Indian Affairs
(“BIA”) to look into and respond to the matter, and that this conduct reflected
discrimination based on Robert’s status as a Native American. On cross-motions
for summary judgment, the district court held that the evidence did not show any
actionable discriminatory animus behind defendants’ conduct, and granted their
motion on the basis of qualified immunity. This appeal followed. On de novo
review, see Olsen v. Layton Hills Mall , 312 F.3d 1304, 1311 (10 th Cir. 2002),
we affirm.
-2-
I
There is little dispute about the events leading to Robert’s injury by his
biological father; this case turns on the proper assessment of the legal
significance of these events. Two months before Robert’s birth, an administrator
at a mental-health center where Terri Tuthill was being treated for chronic mental
illness sent a letter to SRS requesting a home study of the expectant parents.
Defendant Mary Keady was assigned to the case by her supervisor, defendant
Wayne Sramek, even though the requested home study was outside SRS policy,
which did not contemplate action on behalf of a fetus absent a court order. The
same day, after another party related concerns about drug use by the Tuthills,
Keady went to their home and met with Terri Tuthill. Terri seemed unreceptive
and alarmed by the visit, an impression confirmed to Keady by Terri’s case
manager at the mental-health center. On several subsequent occasions when
Keady went to the Tuthill home, she received no answer.
The day after Robert was born, Keady attended a meeting with staff from
both the mental-health center and the medical facility where Terri gave birth to
discuss the situation. Keady stated her understanding that, given Robert’s Native
American heritage, she had to refer him to the BIA for child welfare and
assessment services before any action could be taken by SRS. It was decided that
the Tuthills should keep the baby and be given intensive support services. Keady
-3-
contacted the BIA and arrangements were made for close supervision and frequent
home visits by a social worker to help with parenting skills. Defendant Sramek
concurred in Keady’s handling of the case. Apart from an incident in which the
social worker was unable on one occasion to reach the Tuthills (about which
Keady was consulted), nothing eventful was related to SRS for a month and a
half.
On a Friday in late September, Terri’s case manager at the mental-health
center informed SRS of a report of suspected child abuse based on Terri’s claim
that Booth had shaken the baby. Keady called the BIA but was unable to reach
her contact person there. Early the next week, she arranged to meet the BIA
social worker at the Tuthill home, but when she got there no one answered the
door. Keady called Terri’s case manager at the mental-health center, and her
notes recount that, by then, the case manager thought that the baby was all right,
that Booth appeared to treat him well, and that the shaking accusation may have
all been in Terri’s head. The case manager, however, denies telling Keady that
she disbelieved what Terri said about Booth shaking the baby.
The next week, the case manager called to let Keady know that Terri had
left the baby alone at home and refused to use a monitor, but that Booth had been
contacted and came home from work to take care of him. Shortly thereafter, the
case manager called to tell Keady that Terri had been sent to stay at a state
-4-
hospital for a couple of weeks and that Booth and a babysitter were providing
care for the baby. Four days later, Robert was taken to the University of Kansas
Medical Center where he was diagnosed with a skull fracture and shaken baby
syndrome. Ultimately, Booth admitted to shaking the baby.
II
In rejecting the § 1983 equal protection and § 1981 discrimination claims
brought on behalf of Robert for lack of a triable issue of discriminatory animus,
the district court noted:
[T]here is no evidence in the record that defendants refused to offer
or provide family services to [Robert] because of an intent to
discriminate. Instead, the evidence indicates that defendants thought,
perhaps mistakenly, that the BIA, rather than SRS, was the proper
agency to provide family services and, in fact, social workers from
the Seneca Cayuga Tribe provided family services such as visits to
the Tuthill home. . . . Defendants’ failure to provide family services
may be considered, at most, negligent, but there is no evidence from
which this court can infer that defendants acted with racial animus.
District Court Order at 12–13 (rejecting § 1983 claim); see id. at 14–15 (rejecting
§ 1981 claim). On appeal, the Roes advance two arguments: (1) the district court
applied an improper standard of proof by rejecting the discrimination claims
solely for lack of evidence showing similarly-situated but differently-treated SRS
clients; and (2) the evidence created a triable issue of actionable discrimination
against Robert. In so arguing, the Roes misread the district court’s rationale. As
the quoted passage reflects, the court did not peremptorily invoke a categorical
-5-
evidentiary rule; rather, in enforcing the essential legal requirement of an intent to
discriminate , the court discerningly invoked two interlinked principles that reveal
a fatal substantive deficiency in the plaintiff’s evidentiary showing.
The first focuses on the requirement of intentional conduct. It is hornbook
constitutional law that mere negligence or mistake resulting in uneven application
of the law is not an equal protection violation. See Sylvia Dev. Corp. v. Calvert
County , 48 F.3d 810, 825 (4 th Cir. 1995) (following Snowden v. Hughes , 321
U.S. 1, 8, 11–12 (1944)); Rickett v. Jones , 901 F.2d 1058, 1060–61 (11 th Cir.
1990) (“The Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected the contention that inequality
due to error violates equal protection.”); Shango v. Jurich , 681 F.2d 1091, 1104
(7th Cir. 1982). Thus, insofar as this case rests on defendants’ misjudgment of
the danger faced by Robert, or their alleged error in concluding that they had to
defer to the BIA in assessing and responding to that danger, the district court
properly held no equal protection or discrimination claim was implicated.
There may be some degree to which intentional conduct is involved
here—because of Robert’s ancestry and defendants’ understanding of its legal
impact on their duty to provide social services, defendants deliberately yielded
direct responsibility for Robert’s welfare to the BIA. This brings into play the
second principle alluded to above. To be actionable, defendants’ conduct must
have been imbued with or directed toward an impermissible discriminatory
-6-
purpose, 2 which “implies more than intent as violation or intent as awareness of
consequences. It implies that a decisionmaker singled out [the plaintiff] for
disparate treatment and selected [t]his course of action at least in part for the
purpose of causing its adverse effects .” Nabozny v. Podlesny , 92 F.3d 446, 454
(7th Cir. 1996) (quotation omitted and emphasis added); see Weixel v. Bd. of
Educ. , 287 F.3d 138, 151 (2d Cir. 2002) (holding class-based discrimination claim
requires intent to disadvantage plaintiff class); Edwards v. Johnson , 209 F.3d 772,
780 (5 th Cir. 2000) (holding class-based disparate treatment actionable if done
with “ purpose of causing its adverse effect on [plaintiff] group” (quotation
omitted)). On its face, defendants’ conduct reflects a persistent effort to monitor
the welfare of the newborn baby while adhering to a federal directive thought to
require deference to BIA handling of Native American family matters—neither of
which evinces or suggests any intention to disadvantage the plaintiff.
We do not mean to imply that a malicious intent to inflict harm is required,
as the Supreme Court disclaimed in Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic ,
506 U.S. 263, 269–70 (1993). Endeavoring to state a standard which required
something less than deliberate injury but something more than naked
2
Such purposeful discrimination is a critical element for the claims asserted
under both § 1981 and § 1983. See Gant ex rel. Gant v. Wallingford Bd. of
Educ. , 195 F.3d 134, 139–40 (2d Cir. 1999); Mustafa v. Clark County Sch. Dist. ,
157 F.3d 1169, 1180 (9 th Cir. 1998).
-7-
“volition”—in particular, a standard sensitive to the fact that “assertedly benign”
motives are sometimes invoked to excuse what are in fact repressive measures
directed at (and based on pernicious stereotypes of) particular groups, such as
paternalistic restrictions to “protect” a “vulnerable” group by denying its members
participation in activities others can freely choose to engage in—the Bray Court
used the phrase “objectively invidious discrimination” to capture the requisite
intent. Id. at 269–71; see also Nat’l Comm. of the Reform Party of the United
States v. Democratic Nat’l Comm. , 168 F.3d 360, 366 (9 th Cir. 1999). The Court
went on to cite with approval the definition of “invidious” as “tending to excite
odium, ill will, or envy, likely to give offense; esp., unjustly and irritatingly
discriminating.” Bray , 506 U.S. at 274 (quotation omitted); see Richland
Bookmart, Inc. v. Nichols , 278 F.3d 570, 577 (6 th Cir.), cert. denied , 123 S. Ct.
109 (2002). In this regard, it is significant that the pertinent classification here
implicates the historically-acknowledged and constitutionally-sanctioned
accommodation by Congress to the unique sovereign identity of the Native
American Tribes, 3
not an insulting or invidious stereotype. Moreover, the action
3
As the Supreme Court explained while approving (benevolent) differential
treatment of Native Americans in the employment context:
Literally every piece of legislation dealing with Indian tribes and
reservations, and certainly all legislation dealing with the BIA, single
out for special treatment a constituency of tribal Indians living on or
(continued...)
-8-
taken based on that classification involved deference to a culturally preferred
service provider, not a denial of services. There is nothing in such deference to
suggest it derives from inherently invidious discrimination.
In sum, “[w]hether one agrees or disagrees with [the promotion of Native
American social services for Native Americans], that goal in itself . . . does not
remotely qualify for such harsh description [as ‘invidious’], and for such
derogatory association with racism.” Bray , 506 U.S. at 274. The Roes have not
cited any contrary authority suggesting that the stated reason for defendants’
conduct reflects invidious discrimination.
That is not the end of the matter, as the Roes also contend that the stated
reason for defendants’ conduct was not, in any event, the real reason. They insist
that deference to the BIA was merely a pretext enabling defendants to evade their
responsibility to provide social services based on Robert’s Native American
3
(...continued)
near reservations. If these laws, derived from historical relationships
and explicitly designed to help only Indians, were deemed invidious
racial discrimination, an entire Title of the United States Code (25
U.S.C.) would be effectively erased and the solemn commitment of
the Government toward the Indians would be jeopardized.
Morton v. Mancari , 417 U.S. 535, 553 (1974); see , e.g. , Livingtson v. Ewing ,
601 F.2d 1110, 1113 (10 th Cir. 1979); United States v. Decker , 600 F.2d 733,
740–41 (9 th Cir. 1979).
-9-
heritage. The district court held that the record was devoid of probative evidence
to support this allegation, and we agree.
In repeated variations of the same argument, the Roes claim defendants’
asserted (mis)understanding of the relevant legal directives is itself evidence of
pretext. This is an unusual tack, in that it cites defendants’ non-discriminatory
explanation as evidence that this very explanation is a pretext for discrimination.
While there may be circumstances in which such an explanation is so facially
dubious that it provides affirmative evidence of pretext in this manner, nothing
like that is presented here. Right or wrong, it was not, for example, implausible
to deem reliance on Native American family services a proper means to monitor
the situation and gather information relevant to (and contraindicative of) the need
to pursue a preliminary inquiry regarding intervention under the state social-
services scheme. It appears the approach alarmed no one at the time, and, indeed,
was found appropriate by an expert witness who reviewed the record in this case.
We are referred to testimony from defendants’ co-worker, Vinnie Harmon,
a Native American who evidently filed an employment discrimination claim
against defendant Sramek, which the Roes contend constitutes indirect evidence
of a discriminatory animus operative in this case. Neither the details nor the
resolution of the complaint are explained and, as defendants point out, our record
does not contain materials relating to this complaint or transcripts of Harmon’s
-10-
testimony. We will not speculate about potential inferences conceivably drawn
from such vague, unsubstantiated, and collateral facts.
That brings us to what the Roes characterize as “the most damning direct
evidence of intent to discriminate on the part of Wayne Sramek.” (Appellant’s
Br. at 22.) In an interview with the Kansas Human Rights Commission,
apparently in connection with Harmon’s complaint, Keady related her perception
of Sramek’s attitude toward minorities: 4
Well, Wayne seemed to have it in for minorities. Blacks in particular
I would say. We had this meeting as we had these job positions
come open and he stated at that one meeting we got an Indian
applying so we have to have a minority sitting in on the interview.
I had a case where we had this Indian baby. I wanted to talk to
Vinnie about it and because I wanted to get ahold of the address and
telephone number for the bureau of indian affairs down there in
Oklahoma. Now that’s one thing Vinnie is up on. She’s up on her
indian stuff. My daughter-in-law is an indian. Well the thing that
got me about this is that I know Vinnie keeps up on this stuff and I
went to Wayne (Sramek) and told him about how I was going to go to
Vinnie to ask about this indian baby and he said to leave Vinnie
alone that he would make a call and get the address and telephone
number himself. Well you know, like I said, it’s something I don’t
understand because Vinnie keeps up on this and if he didn’t know
she would have probably been the easiest person to have gotten the
information from.
4
The Roes failed to include this statement in the appellate record, though the
district court clearly reviewed it. The quotation above is from the “Additional
Statements of Uncontroverted Fact” included in a response to defendants’ motion
for summary judgment. We do not condone reliance on such derivative sources;
however, under the circumstances, we consider the statement and conclude that it
would not, in any event, affect our disposition of the appeal.
-11-
I don’t know he just said different things that you didn’t quite know
how to take.
(Appellant’s App. at 269.) The district court observed that this statement was
evidenced solely by an undated and unsigned loose typed sheet (marked “page
3”), and rejected it for non-compliance with evidentiary procedure. Discretionary
authority over the admission or exclusion of evidence on summary judgment lies
with the district court, Sports Racing Servs., Inc. v. Sports Car Club of Am., Inc. ,
131 F.3d 874, 894 (10 th Cir. 1997), and that discretion was not abused here. In
any event, as the district court noted, discriminatory intent cannot be inferred
simply because Sramek declined to call another SRS worker to get the address
and phone number of the BIA in Oklahoma.
Finally, we return to the Roes’ argument that the district court applied an
unduly rigid standard of proof in dismissing the plaintiff’s claims for lack of
evidence of similarly-situated but differently-treated SRS clients. Questions
of whether or when such proof may be a necessary condition for establishing a
cause of action for discrimination are certainly important in the abstract, but are
simply not pertinent in the context of the present appeal. The district court
clearly gave consideration to alternative means of proof; notably, the “foremost”
reason cited for granting summary judgment was not the absence of specific
comparisons to other SRS clients, but the failure of any other means of direct or
circumstantial proof to demonstrate the required invidiously discriminatory intent.
-12-
As we have discussed at some length, we agree with that assessment. Thus, we
need not and do not address the abstract legal issue regarding the role of
comparative proof that the Roes inaptly characterize as dispositive of this appeal.
III
The judgment is AFFIRMED .
-13-
Roe Ex Rel. Roe v. Keady
Court: Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
Date filed: 2003-05-15
Citations: 329 F.3d 1188
Copy Citations