FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
March 23, 2010
PUBLISH Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
ELVIN ROSS, SR.; JERRY ROSS;
TOM ROSS; KEN ROSS; CYNTHIA
ROSS; GREG ROSS,
Plaintiffs-Appellants
v. No. 08-2253
THE BOARD OF REGENTS OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO;
THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW
MEXICO and the OFFICE OF THE
MEDICAL INVESTIGATOR;
MERRILL HINES, M.D.; REBECCA
IRVINE, M.D.,
Defendants-Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW MEXICO
(D.C. No. 07-CV-01037-RB-ACT)
Clayton E. Crowley of Crowley & Gribble, P.C., Albuquerque, New Mexico, for
Plaintiffs-Appellants.
Meena H. Allen of Simone, Roberts & Weiss, P.A., Albuquerque, New Mexico,
for Defendants-Appellees.
Before LUCERO, McKAY, and HARTZ, Circuit Judges.
McKAY, Circuit Judge.
In this case, the plaintiffs appeal the district court’s grant of summary
judgment on various state and federal claims arising from an autopsy conducted
by state officials. Because we believe the plaintiffs’ claims fail as a matter of
law, we affirm the district court’s decision.
BACKGROUND
On July 6, 2005, Elvin Ross, Jr., (“the decedent”) a San Carlos Apache of
one-half sanguinity, passed away at the Lovelace Medical Center in New Mexico
where he had been a patient in the Intensive Care Unit for close to a month. The
attending physician at Lovelace referred the matter of the decedent’s proximate
cause of death to the Office of the Medical Investigator at the University of New
Mexico (“OMI”). The following day, a representative of the OMI contacted the
Ross family to collect background information on the decedent and learned that
the decedent had sustained several past instances of head trauma. The OMI
determined these instances constituted potential homicides and an autopsy was
necessary. 1 The Ross family raised no objections to this autopsy.
On July 8, Dr. Merrill Hines called the Ross family on behalf of the OMI
with the preliminary results of the autopsy which, he believed, indicated the
decedent’s paralysis was both the immediate and proximate cause of death.
1
Under N.M. Stat. § 24-12-4 (2007), the OMI is authorized to conduct an
autopsy when it “suspects the death was caused by a criminal act or omission or if
the cause of the death is obscure.”
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However, during the conversation Cynthia Ross, the decedent’s sister who was
speaking on behalf of the Ross family, related another violent incident in which
the decedent sustained head trauma, possibly at the hands of law enforcement
officials. Dr. Hines then stated he would need to conduct an extended
examination, which would require the removal of a portion of the decedent’s
brain and spinal cord. He suggested the OMI could remove the tissues it needed
for the examination and then release the decedent’s body to the funeral home; the
OMI would then cremate the tissues once the examination was completed. At this
point, Ms. Ross indicated that the removal of the tissues and its subsequent
cremation might conflict with her family’s Native American religious beliefs.
She told Dr. Hines she would talk to the other members of the family about the
examination and call him back in a few days.
Nevertheless, before Ms. Ross had called Dr. Hines back, the OMI
mistakenly released the decedent’s body to a mortuary on July 9 but retained
those portions of the decedent’s brain and spinal cord necessary to conduct the
extended evaluation. Upon learning of the error, Ms. Ross contacted Dr. Hines at
the OMI and was told that the mistake was caused by a clerical error. Dr. Hines
further told Ms. Ross that the OMI would send the tissues taken from the
decedent’s body to the mortuary by Federal Express following the completion of
the examination. On July 20, Dr. Hines sent the tissues to the mortuary, where
they were inserted into the decedent’s chest cavity—not in the anatomically
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correct locations.
Following these events, Elvin Ross, Sr., the decedent’s father, and the
decedent’s siblings filed suit asserting, inter alia, claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983
for violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and state law claims under both the
New Mexico Torts Claims Act and the New Mexico Religious Freedom
Restoration Act (“RFRA”). The district court granted summary judgment in favor
of the defendants on all claims. The court first ruled that the defendants were not
“persons” subject to suit under § 1983. The court then determined the decedent’s
siblings lacked standing to assert any state law claims under New Mexico
Supreme Court precedent and dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims under the Tort
Claims Act as barred by sovereign immunity and the Eleventh Amendment.
Finally, the court dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims under RFRA, holding that Elvin
Ross, Sr., (the only plaintiff with standing) had failed to state a claim upon which
relief could be granted.
DISCUSSION
“We review the district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo,
applying the same legal standards used by the district court.” Garrison v.
Gambro, Inc., 428 F.3d 933, 935 (10th Cir. 2005). “When applying this standard,
we view the evidence and draw reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most
favorable to the nonmoving party.” Id. Summary judgment is appropriate “if the
pleadings, the discovery and disclosure materials on file, and any affidavits show
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that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is
entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(2).
We first address the plaintiffs’ Fourteenth Amendment claims under §
1983. Section 1983 provides a claim for relief against “any person who, under
color of state law, deprives another of rights protected by the Constitution.” Ellis
ex rel. Estate of Ellis v. Ogden City, 589 F.3d 1099, 1101 (10th Cir. 2009)
(emphasis added). However, in Will v. Mich. Dep’t of State Police, the Supreme
Court held that, in suits for damages, “neither a State nor its officials acting in
their official capacities are ‘persons’ under § 1983.” 491 U.S. 58, 71 (1989) 2;
see also Howlett v. Rose, 496 U.S. 356, 365 (1990) (holding that “the State and
arms of the State . . . are not subject to suit under § 1983”). It is undisputed that
this suit names only agencies of the State of New Mexico and state employees in
their official capacities. Thus, we conclude that the district court was correct in
holding that the plaintiffs have failed to state a constitutional claim upon which
relief can be granted.
Next we must consider whether the plaintiffs are barred from bringing
claims under the New Mexico Tort Claims Act by the doctrine of sovereign
2
On appeal the plaintiffs argue that their § 1983 claims included a claim
for prospective injunctive relief. See Will, 491 U.S. at 71 n.10 (stating that “[o]f
course a state official in his or her official capacity, when sued for injunctive
relief, would be a person under § 1983”). We have reviewed the plaintiffs’
original complaint, as well as their filings in response to the defendants’ motion
for summary judgment, and find no such claim.
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immunity and the Eleventh Amendment. The Eleventh Amendment bars suits for
damages against a state or state agency absent congressional abrogation or waiver
and consent by the state. Ruiz v. McDonnell, 299 F.3d 1173, 1181 (10th Cir.
2002). Under New Mexico law, the state’s “[c]onsent to be sued may not be
implied, but must come within one of the exceptions to immunity under the Tort
Claims Act.” Begay v. State, 723 P.2d 252, 256 (N.M. Ct. App. 1985), rev’d on
other grounds sub nom. Smialek v. Begay, 721 P.2d 1306 (N.M. 1986). The
plaintiffs argue that the OMI should be considered a “like facility” under an
exception to the Tort Claims Act that waives immunity for suits arising from the
negligence of public employees working in “any hospital, infirmary, mental
institution, clinic, dispensary, medical care home or like facilities.” N.M. Stat. §
41-4-9(A) (2004). However, we note that the New Mexico Court of Appeals
specifically refused in Begay to read “the operation of the state medical
investigator’s office” into this exception. Begay, 723 P.2d at 256. Although this
case was reversed by the New Mexico Supreme Court, the reversal was based on
other grounds, and we believe that this decision provides sufficient evidence of
how New Mexico’s courts would rule on this issue. Accordingly, the district court
correctly dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims under the Tort Claims Act.
Finally we turn to the plaintiffs’ claims under New Mexico’s RFRA, which
waives the state’s immunity for suits alleging that the state “restrict[ed] a
person’s free exercise of religion.” N.M. Stat. § 28-22-3 (2004). Although there
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are no New Mexico court decisions interpreting this statute, the district court
relied on the New Mexico Supreme Court’s decision in Smialek v. Begay, 721
P.2d 1306 (N.M. 1986), a case decided before New Mexico passed its RFRA
statute but addressing facts similar to those in this case. In Smialek, the mother
and siblings of a deceased man filed suit based on their assertion that an autopsy
conducted by the state violated their Navajo religious beliefs. Id. at 1306. The
court dismissed the siblings’ claims, citing to concerns that granting them
standing could interfere with the state’s need to conduct autopsies, and then held
that “the mother . . . was the only proper remaining survivor with standing to
assert an alleged violation of the free exercise of her religious beliefs.” Id. at
1308. Based on this decision, the district court in the instant case dismissed the
siblings’ claims for lack of standing and also held that Elvin Ross, Sr., lacked
standing to assert a violation of the decedent’s—rather than his own—religious
rights. The court then dismissed Elvin Ross Sr.’s claim because he is not a San
Carlos Apache and the record did not contain any evidence of his own religious
beliefs.
On appeal, the plaintiffs argue that, while RFRA did not overrule Smialek,
it sufficiently broadens the protections over the free exercise of religion available
under New Mexico law so as to allow their claims to go forward. However, after
a careful reading of the RFRA statute, we see no language that would grant the
siblings a cause of action for a violation of their brother’s religious beliefs.
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Additionally, we agree with the district court that the record contains no evidence
to support a cause of action for a violation of Elvin Ross Sr.’s religious beliefs.
Finally, we agree with the district court that Elvin Ross, Sr., cannot invoke RFRA
on behalf of his son in this case. However, we do not decide that a representative
would never have standing to invoke RFRA on behalf of a decedent.
Free exercise of religion is defined in the RFRA statue as “an act or refusal
to act that is substantially motivated by religious belief.” N.M. Stat. § 28-22-2
(2004). Although there is some evidence in the record the decedent may have
held beliefs that would have been violated by the autopsy, in this case the
decedent did not “act” or “refus[e] to act” before his death. Thus, a
representative of the decedent cannot assert a violation of the decedent’s right to
freely exercise his religious beliefs, as defined by the statute, because the state
never prevented him from acting or refusing to act based on those beliefs. 3 We
echo the sentiments of the district court, in that we do “not wish to denigrate the
legitimate concerns of members of the Ross family that their religious traditions
be taken into account.” (Appellant’s App. at 177.) However, under the
3
We note that we are not deciding whether an executor could ever have
standing to bring an RFRA claim on behalf of a decedent based on the decedent’s
express wishes, which he made known by will or other means generally
recognized by law before his death. In such a case, the suit, based on an act by the
decedent prior to his or her death, might fall under the language of the RFRA
statute if it was motivated by the decedent’s religious beliefs. But that is not the
case before us today.
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circumstances of this case, we agree with the district court that Elvin Ross, Sr.,
cannot bring an action on the decedent’s behalf under New Mexico’s RFRA
statute.
For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district’s court grant of
summary judgment in favor of the defendants.
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