First Circuit Court Of Appeals Finds No Constitutional Violation Where Corrections Officer Was Made To Wear Handcuffs During Academy Training.

In the case of Mark J. Fournier v. Charles Reardon, et al., C.A. No. 98-1316 (November 10, 1998), the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ordered the dismissal of a correctional officer's claim for damages under federal and state civil rights laws where plaintiff Mark J. Fournier ("Fournier") alleged that correctional officer academy staff had compelled him to wear handcuffs during academy training in violation of his rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The Court's ruling was significant, among other things, for its application of the test for analysis of alleged unconstitutional bodily seizures set forth in United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544 (1980), in the context of a claim for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and for its treatment of the interplay between alleged violation of state law and substantive due process.

The claimant, Mark Fournier, was employed by the Essex County Sheriff's Department as a correctional officer at its Middleton, Massachusetts facility. Although Fournier had been a corrections officer for more than ten years prior to May 1, 1995, he had not completed a basic training academy for correctional officers, which was a prerequisite to full time employment for correctional officers employed by the Essex County Sheriff's Department. On May 1, 1995, Fournier and twenty other correctional officers or correctional officer recruits enrolled and entered the correctional academy for a nine week basic training course staffed by other correctional officers, who acted as drill instructors at the academy. The academy was offered on the grounds of the facility where Fournier was regularly employed. Academy studies had both classroom and physical training components.

As with other regimented police and military-style training programs, strict adherence to superior officers' orders and compliance with chain of command and academy protocol were emphasized as a means of instilling discipline, focusing attention and building esprit de corps. Recruits were taught to follow orders of superior officers and were taught protocol for addressing such officers/instructors during academy training.

Protocol taught and enforced at the academy required that Fournier, an academy recruit: (1) knock outside the instructors' office door; (2) announce his presence; and (3) request permission to enter before entering the instructors' office. During the second day of academy training, Fournier was ordered to leave classroom training to report to the academy training staff office. Fournier breached academy protocol when he failed to follow this regimented procedure by entering the instructors' office unannounced. To punish Fournier for his breach of academy protocol, a drill instructor placed handcuffs on Fournier's wrists and informed him that he was being placed under "house arrest" for entering the instructors' office without having first requested permission. The drill instructor then ordered Fournier to return to the classroom in handcuffs, which Fournier did. Within minutes, Fournier attempted to retake his seat in the classroom, missed his chair and fell to the ground, sustaining personal injury.

Fournier sued each of the academy drill instructors who had placed him in handcuffs or failed to intervene on his behalf, the Director of the academy, the Sheriff of Essex County and the Commissioners of Essex County alleging that each was liable under the federal Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C., § 1983, and the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, M.G.L. c. 12, § 11I, for depriving him of rights protected under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Specifically, Fournier charged that placing him in handcuffs constituted an unconstitutional "seizure" under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Fournier further charged that the actions of his drill instructors violated a Massachusetts law which forbade hazing of police academy recruits and violated academy regulations containing specific procedures for disciplinary action against correctional academy trainees. Finally, Fournier claimed that the defendants deprived him of his right to equal protection of the laws by reason of the defendants' disparate treatment of correctional officer recruits at the academy in relation to their treatment of the public at large. The defendants moved for dismissal of the Complaint based upon the defense of qualified immunity, which motion was denied by the United States District Court. The defendants appealed the denial of their motion. See Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 311-312, 115 S.Ct. 2151, 2155-2156 (1995).

1. The Plaintiff's Alleged "Seizure" Under The Fourth Amendment.
   In evaluating and rejecting Fournier's claim that his right under the Fourth Amendment to be free of unreasonable seizures had been violated, the Court examined the facts and circumstances of Fournier's Complaint under the test formulated by Justice Stewart in United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 554 (1980) and subsequently adopted by the United States Supreme Court: "a person has been 'seized' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment only if, in view of all the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave." Mendenhall, 446 U.S. at 554. Although the Court found that Fournier was handcuffed, there was no evidence presented to the Court to support the finding that he was not free to leave at any point during the "house arrest." The Court found that Fournier understood that "house arrest" was part of the basic training academy course, that he submitted to being handcuffed and then returned to class. The Court concluded, in view of all the circumstances surrounding the incident, that a reasonable observer might conclude that Fournier had been the subject of improper hazing, but would not believe that Fournier was not free to call an end to the "house arrest" and to have the handcuffs removed at any time.

2. Fourteenth Amendment Claims.
   The Court read Fournier's Fourteenth Amendment claims as substantive due process claims having two aspects: (1) Fournier's claim that he "had a constitutionally protected liberty interest in being disciplined only as set forth in the Essex County Sheriff's Department Training Manual"; and (2) Fournier's claim that Essex County owed him and others similarly-situated a constitutional right to safe conditions and freedom from bodily restraint. The Court found that Fournier had not alleged a constitutional violation under either theory.

   In analyzing Fournier's assertion of a protected liberty interest in being disciplined as set forth in Essex County Sheriff's Department's Training Manual, the Court relied on the well settled principle that a state actor's failure to observe a duty imposed by state law, standing alone, is not sufficient to establish a claim under 42 U.S.C., § 1983. See Martinez v. Colon, 54 F.3d 980, 989 (1st Cir. 1995). Fournier had argued that cases which recognized that states may create federally protected liberty rights by altering the conditions of confinement for inmates under custodial situations provided authority for his claimed liberty interest in adherence to a scheme of discipline contained in the Training Manual. The Court, however, implicitly rejected this argument, holding that whether Massachusetts law was violated or the Department failed to follow its own discipline and procedures mattered little because the alleged violation of state law and internal regulations were insufficient to state a violation sufficient to support a claim under 42 U.S.C., § 1983.

   The Court, similarly, made quick work of Fournier's contention that Essex County owed him a constitutional duty to provide safe conditions. See DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189, 195, 202 (1989). Although the Court noted that the Supreme Court had extended substantive due process protection to certain unenumerated rights, tort law is one area that remains largely outside substantive due process jurisprudence. See Skinner v. City of Miami, 62 F.3d 344, 346 (11th Cir. 1995). The Court viewed Fournier's claim as appropriately falling within the scope of state tort law.

   Finally, the Court rejected Fournier's attempt to state a violation of his right to Equal Protection based on his status as a correctional officer recruit. The Court stated summarily that it "[did] not find that such a distinction rises to the level of an Equal Protection violation."