United States Second Circuit

In case involving plaintiffs who performed search, rescue, and clean-up work at the World Trade Center site after 9/11, with allegations that federal officials' knowingly false statements about the air quality safety violated plaintiffs' right to substantive due process, dismissal of complaint is affirmed as the allegations do not shock the conscience even if the defendants acted with deliberate indifference. When agency officials decide how to reconcile competing governmental obligations in the face of disaster, only an intent to cause harm arbitrarily can shock the conscience in a way that justifies constitutional liability.

Appellate Information

• Decided 04/19/2007
• Published 04/19/2007

Judges

• JACOBS, Chief Judge., Before JACOBS, Chief Judge, SACK, and RAGGI, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Stephen J. Riegel, Weitz & Luxemberg, P.C., New York, NY, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Mark B. Stern, Appellate Staff, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice (Peter D. Keisler, Assistant Attorney General of the United States, Alisa Klein, Scott A. Hershovitz, on the brief), Washington, DC, for Defendants-Appellees.