United States Fourth Circuit

In a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 against action brought by survivors and estate of a new recruit for the Baltimore City Fire Department, who tragically died during a "live burn" training exercise, alleging substantive due process violations for staging the exercise with deliberate indifference to the decedent's safety, so as to shock the conscience, the District Court's grant of defendants' motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) is affirmed where because the complaint does not purport to allege that the Fire Department staged the live burn training exercise with the purpose of causing harm to decedent or to any other recruit, it falls short of alleging a substantive due process violation in the context of the facts alleged, even though it might well allege causes of action under state law, as the complaint purports to do in other counts.

Appellate Information

• Decided 06/07/2012
• Published 06/07/2012

Judges

• NIEMEYER

Court

• United States Fourth Circuit

Counsel