Estate of Te’Juan Johnson v. Amanda Rakes, Administrator of the Estate of Amylyn Slaymaker and Next Friend to the Minor Children G. C. and M. C.

Faced with a Section 1983 substantive due process claim under a “state-created danger” exception to the general rule that there is no constitutional duty to protect a private citizen from harm, the three appellate judges on the Seventh Circuit panel issued three separate opinions with three different outcomes. The disparate reasonings of the three judges on the Seventh Circuit panel, and similar divisions within the circuit courts, highlight the serious need for this Court to clarify the limitations of the remedies available under the Due Process Clause as well as the application of qualified immunity where constitutional rights are uncertain. To that end, the questions presented for review are:

1. Whether a theory of liability under the Fourteenth Amendment based on “statecreated danger” is incompatible with the purpose of the Due Process Clause “to protect the people from the State, not to ensure that the State protect[s] them from each other?” DeShaney v. Winnebago Cnty. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189 (1989); see also Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748, 768 (2005) (“[T]he benefit that a third party may receive from having someone else arrested for a crime generally does not trigger protections under the Due Process Clause, neither in its procedural nor in its ‘substantive’ manifestations.”).

2. If a theory of liability under the Fourteenth A mendment based on “state- created