Thomas v. Neenah Joint School Dist.

Dist. Ct. did not err in dismissing plaintiff’s Monell claim in her section 1983 action against defendant-school district, alleging that several school staff members violated plaintiff’s daughter’s Fourth Amendment rights when disciplining her. Plaintiff alleged that: (1) plaintiff’s daughter, who attended sixth grade, had multiple developmental and cognitive disabilities and had operative I.E.P. plan; (2) daughter attempted to use school’s elevator, but was told not to do so by special education teacher; (3) when daughter persisted, special education teacher pushed daughter into wall and held her there for several minutes, with assistance by another school official; (4) after school resource officer arrived, officer grabbed daughter by arm, forced her onto floor and pinned her face down while handcuffing daughter’s hands behind her back; (5) when two other officers arrived several minutes later, they lifted daughter into wheelchair while daughter was still handcuffed, took daughter to different floor, took daughter out of wheelchair and bound her legs, and then placed daughter back in wheelchair until her mother came; and (6) entire incident lasted 34 minutes. While plaintiff asserted for Monell purposes that defendant had practice or protocol of utilizing excessive punitive and retaliatory force or threats of force to punish disabled students, plaintiff could cite to only two isolated incidents where arguable excessive force was used, which was insufficient to establish “widespread” practice required for establishing Monell liability.