Murguia v. Langdon

“If affirmative conduct on the part of a state actor places a plaintiff in danger, and the officer acts in deliberate indifference to that plaintiff’s safety, a claim arises under §1983.” Penilla v. City of Huntington Park, 115 F.3d 707, 710 (9th Cir. 1997).

The Plaintiffs appealed the district court’s dismissal with prejudice of their 42 U.S.C. §1983 liability claim resulting from a welfare check gone wrong, finding that no federal claims had been stated and declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claims because the decedents had remained in their mother’s custody for the duration of the officer’s involvement. Ninth Circuit precedent has interpreted §1983 to mean that “if affirmative conduct on the part of a state actor places a plaintiff in danger, and the officer acts in deliberate indifference to that plaintiff’s safety, a claim arises under §1983.” Penilla v. City of Huntington Park, 115 F.3d 707, 710 (9th Cir. 1997). The Court found that the district court erred in evaluating custody of the decedents, because state-created danger under §1983 does not require that the state actor have custody of the plaintiffs, only that there was affirmative conduct by the state which placed the plaintiff in danger, and the state acted with deliberate indifference to a known or obvious danger. Patel v. Kent Sch. Dist., 648 F.3d 965, 974 (9th Cir. 2011). The Court reversed the district court’s dismissal of the §1983 claims against two state actors and vacated the district court’s dismissal of the §1983 claims against two other state actors and remanded with instructions to allow the Plaintiffs to amend. REVERSED in part, VACATED and REMANDED in part.