Equal protection claim under 42 USC § 1983; Standing; Whether plaintiff had third-party standing; Personal representative (PR)

[This appeal was from the WD-MI.] The court held that plaintiff, PR of his decedent’s mother’s (Henry) estate, lacked standing to bring an equal-protection claim against defendants-Benzie County and sheriff’s deputies where the complaint failed to allege that Henry personally experienced discriminatory treatment. Henry was killed by her neighbor, S (who was subsequently found to be mentally ill), after two years and at least 10 reports to police of S’s “threatening behavior towards women and girls.” The PR sued under § 1983 and state law, alleging that defendants had a pattern of “providing inferior protective services in response to threats of violence against women as compared to men[,]’” violating the right to equal protection and resulting in Henry’s death. The district court dismissed the federal claims for lack of standing and failure to state a claim. It declined jurisdiction over the state claims. Only the federal equal-protection claims were at issue on appeal. The court agreed with the district court that plaintiff lacked standing, noting that the claims were “not based on Henry’s own legal rights.” The complaint did “not allege that Henry ever made any report about [S] to the Sheriff’s Office. In fact, during the 2019 incident when” S tried to break into her home, Henry did not call the police because she “did not believe that the Sheriff’s Office would help based on her past experiences.” The only report “the Sheriff’s Office ever received regarding a ‘risk of imminent harm’ to Henry was the 911 call from her son” on the day of her “murder. Nowhere in the complaint is there an allegation that Defendants ignored, minimized, or failed to respond to that report.” The claims were not based on Henry’s “equal-protection rights, but rather on the alleged violation of those rights possessed by” two other females (L and TW). And the court found that the claims did not fall “within the ‘limited’ exception for third-party standing.” This requires that three elements be met, and the court held that plaintiff failed to satisfy this test. “Henry lacked any ‘close relationship’ to [L] or TW,” and there was no indication they “are hindered from vindicating their own equal-protection rights.” Affirmed.