Ferguson v. United States — Apr. 2016 (Summary)

SEARCH AND SEIZURE

Ferguson v. United States
Civil Action No. 14-6807 (E.D. Pa. Apr. 18, 2016)

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania refused to dismiss the claims brought against the hospital employees and Custom and Border Protection (“CBP”) agents who allegedly violated a woman’s Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights.  After returning from a visit to the Dominican Republic, the woman was interrogated by CBP agents at the airport.  Suspecting her of drug trafficking, the agents took the woman to a nearby hospital.  The woman repeatedly refused medical treatment while at the hospital and hospital employees noted that she did not display symptoms of “drug packing.”

The CBP agents never obtained a warrant to search the woman.  Instead, they were able to convince a physician at the hospital to involuntarily commit her so that a warrant was no longer needed prior to conducting medical tests/searches.  Following the commitment, the hospital allegedly tied the woman to a bed, forcibly cut her clothing from her body, and performed an invasive visual and physical search of her body.  Hospital employees then allegedly administered two drugs to the woman intravenously, a sedative and an anti-psychotic, and proceeded to conduct numerous tests, including an electrocardiogram, a CT scan, a urine analysis, and an X-ray of the woman’s abdomen.  None of the tests revealed the presence of foreign objects and the woman was released later that day.  CBP agents returned the woman to the airport and set her free.  On her way home from the airport, the woman was involved in a car accident and sustained physical injuries.  She brought suit against a number of individuals, including the hospital and its employees, for injuries relating to the car accident, the invasive search, and unwanted medical procedures.

The district court rejected the hospital employees’ argument that they were private actors and could not be sued in a “Bivens” action (an action for damages, where there has been a violation of constitutional rights by someone acting under the color of federal authority).  The court found dismissal improper because the woman alleged a sufficiently “close nexus” between the CBP agents and the hospital employees.  Specifically, the CBP agents allegedly guarded the woman while she was at the hospital and conferred with the hospital staff with regard to the woman’s treatment and whether she was to be involuntarily committed.  Additionally, the woman alleged the CBP agents conducted a close visual inspection of her body after hospital employees restrained her and forcibly removed her clothing.  Taken together, the court found these alleged facts could support an inference that there was a close nexus between the government and private actors in this case.