Colvin v. Plymouth Police Department

Background

In March 2019, a Plymouth police officer responded to a report that children were alone in Brenda Calloway Colvin’s home. Plymouth police referred the matter to Hennepin County officials, who filed a Child in Need of Protection or Services petition involving Colvin’s six children. The state proceeding was still pending when Colvin filed this federal lawsuit.

Colvin amended her complaint to assert claims under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983, and 1985, along with state-law claims. The opinion says she appeared to seek declaratory and injunctive relief for herself and damages for her children. Colvin proceeded without a lawyer and did not respond to the Hennepin County defendants’ motion to dismiss or attend the hearing. The Plymouth Police defendants also told the court they had not answered because they had not been properly served.

Hennepin County defendants

The Hennepin County defendants asked the court to abstain under the Younger doctrine because the related state child-protection proceeding was ongoing. Abstention is a decision not to exercise federal jurisdiction in circumstances where federal relief would interfere with a pending state matter.

The court applied three factors: whether a state proceeding was ongoing, whether it involved important state interests, and whether the state proceeding gave Colvin an adequate opportunity to raise her federal questions. The court found all three factors satisfied. The child-protection proceeding was ongoing; child welfare was an important state interest; and Colvin had not shown that the state proceeding would fail to provide an adequate way to address her constitutional concerns.

Because Colvin was representing herself, the court also ruled that she could not bring claims on behalf of her minor children. It therefore summarily dismissed that request for relief, which did not affect the Younger analysis. The court dismissed Colvin’s claims for declaratory and injunctive relief without prejudice under the Younger doctrine.

The court declined to decide the Hennepin County defendants’ other arguments, including that Hennepin County Child Protection was not a legal entity subject to suit, that service was improper, that the individual defendants were immune, and that Colvin failed to state a claim. In a footnote, the court stated that the result would have been the same if it had reached those issues, but those grounds were not the basis of the ruling.

Plymouth Police defendants

The court found nothing in the record showing that Colvin had properly served the Plymouth Police defendants within the required period. Proper service is the formal delivery of the lawsuit papers required to give a defendant notice and establish the court’s authority over that defendant.

Rather than dismissing the claims against the Plymouth Police defendants immediately, the court gave Colvin 30 days from the order to complete proper service. The order required her to file an affidavit showing proper service by November 6, 2019. The court stated that failure to do so would result in dismissal of her complaint against those defendants without prejudice for failure to prosecute.

Disposition

Judge David S. Doty ordered that the motion to dismiss was granted, that the Hennepin County defendants were dismissed from the action without prejudice, and that Colvin file proof of proper service on the Plymouth Police defendants by November 6, 2019.