Date: Feb 6, 2026

No Fourth Amendment “Seizure” or Fourteenth Amendment Medical-Care Duty in Voluntary Police-Cadet Training Absent Willful Restraint or Custody

Introduction

In Kennedy v. City of Arlington, Texas (5th Cir. Feb. 4, 2026), Brittney Kennedy sued the City of Arlington and multiple officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 after her husband, Marquis Kennedy, a police-academy cadet, suffered cardiac arrest following a mandatory defensive-tactics self-defense simulation (Gracie Survival Tactics) and died two days later.

The appeal presented three core constitutional questions: (1) whether the training exercise involved a Fourth Amendment “seizure” (framed as excessive force); (2) whether the instructors’ conduct amounted to a Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process violation (bodily integrity); and (3) whether the officers owed Marquis a constitutional duty to provide medical care under the Fourteenth Amendment (deliberate indifference), notwithstanding the non-custodial employment/training setting. The case also raised important pleading-stage procedure: whether the district court could consider a video recording of the simulation on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion.

Summary of the Opinion

The Fifth Circuit affirmed dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6), holding:

The district court properly considered the City’s video because it was referenced in and central to the complaint.
No plausible Fourth Amendment seizure was alleged: a seizure requires a termination of freedom of movement through means intentionally applied, and the complaint did not plausibly allege willful restraint in a training scenario conducted for instructional purposes.
No plausible substantive due process violation was alleged: in a government employment/training context, due process liability generally requires conscience-shocking conduct, typically intent to injure unjustifiable by any government interest; deliberate indifference is not enough here.
No constitutional medical-care duty attached because Marquis was not in custody; absent custody or a “special relationship,” delayed or inadequate medical response is a matter for state tort law, not substantive due process.
Derivative bystander and municipal (failure-to-train) claims failed for lack of a predicate constitutional violation, and the court also noted Collins forecloses using Monell to constitutionalize workplace safety/training decisions.

Analysis

1) Precedents Cited

A. Pleading standards and Rule 12(b)(6) methodology

Allen v. Hays (de novo review): anchored the appellate standard for reviewing dismissal.
Ashcroft v. Iqbal and Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly (plausibility): required “sufficient factual matter” rather than labels and conclusions, which was critical to the court’s repeated rejection of conclusory intent and consent allegations.
White v. U.S. Corr., L.L.C. and Harmon v. City of Arlington: the court accepts well-pleaded facts and favorable inferences, but not legal conclusions or “naked assertions.” Harmon’s video rule mattered to the consent theory (when video “blatantly contradict[s]” the complaint, the video controls).

B. Considering video evidence at the motion-to-dismiss stage

Dorsey v. Portfolio Equities, Inc.: set the general rule limiting review to the complaint and attachments.
Inclusive Cmtys. Project, Inc. v. Lincoln Prop. Co. and Winder v. Gallardo: created the pathway to consider materials referenced in the complaint and central to the claims—including videos. Here, Kennedy referenced the recording and relied on it via her affidavit; that made the video “central.”
Scott v. Harris (via Harmon v. City of Arlington): supplied the “blatantly contradicts” framework, used to reject the “officer in distress” card theory.

C. Qualified immunity framework

Mullenix v. Luna: reiterated qualified immunity’s protective scope (“all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law”).
Arnold v. Williams and Backe v. LeBlanc: demanded specificity at the pleading stage both on liability and on defeating qualified immunity.
Pearson v. Callahan, Cloud v. Stone, and Garcia v. Blevins: confirmed courts may address either prong first and may resolve on a single prong. Practically, the panel focused on whether any constitutional violation was plausibly alleged.

D. Fourth Amendment seizure doctrine applied to training exercises

United States v. Mendenhall: provided the familiar “not free to leave” formulation for seizures under totality of circumstances.
Brower v. County of Inyo: supplied the crucial limitation—no seizure occurs unless the termination of movement is accomplished through “means intentionally applied.”
Gorman v. Sharp: the Fifth Circuit’s key analogue. In Gorman, an accidental shooting during training was not a seizure because it was not willful restraint; that precedent directly undercut Kennedy’s argument that intent to commit the act (here, applying force during the drill) suffices.
Graham v. Connor: foreclosed the notion of a free-standing constitutional “right to be free from excessive force” untethered to a specific constitutional protection (here, the Fourth Amendment seizure requirement).
Feirson v. District of Columbia (D.C. Cir.): persuasive authority rejecting a seizure theory in mandatory police training even where disobedience might risk one’s career. The Fifth Circuit used Feirson to reinforce that “job pressure” does not equal Fourth Amendment restraint where the participant submitted to training and nothing suggests the instructors would refuse to stop upon request.

E. Substantive due process and workplace/training harms

County of Sacramento v. Lewis: established the “shocks the conscience” standard and the high bar for constitutionalizing executive action outside custody.
Collins v. City of Harker Heights: the foundational workplace-safety decision—no Due Process Clause duty to provide a safe working environment for government employees. Collins framed Kennedy’s allegations as, at most, state-law negligence rather than constitutional violation.
Slaughter v. Mayor & City Council (4th Cir.): applied Collins/Lewis to training death (firefighter recruit) and emphasized that in the employment/training setting, deliberate indifference is insufficient; the complaint must plausibly allege intent to injure (or similarly conscience-shocking purpose).
Carty v. Rodriguez (5th Cir., per curiam): reinforced that trainers were shielded where trainee died in defensive-tactics drills; again, no constitutional duty to provide safe training environment.

F. Medical-care duty and custody

DeShaney v. Winnebago Cnty. Dep't of Soc. Servs.: supplied the central rule that due process imposes affirmative medical-care/protection duties only when the state restrains liberty such that the person cannot care for himself—typically incarceration/detention/institutionalization.
Collins v. City of Harker Heights: reiterated that government employees are not “in custody” merely because they are at work or subject to workplace rules.

G. Derivative liability (bystander and municipal)

Joseph ex rel. Est. of Joseph v. Bartlett and Whitley v. Hanna: defined bystander liability elements, including knowledge of a constitutional violation. Without an underlying violation, bystander claims fail as a matter of law.
City of Los Angeles v. Heller: established that municipal liability cannot stand absent a predicate constitutional injury by an individual officer.
Collins v. City of Harker Heights: additionally used to reject constitutionalizing workplace training/safety decisions through Monell theories.

2) Legal Reasoning

A. Why the video mattered

The court’s procedural holding is practically significant: where a plaintiff references and relies upon video in the complaint (or pleadings) and it is central to the claims, the court may consider it at the motion-to-dismiss stage. Substantively, that enabled the panel to test Kennedy’s consent-withdrawal theory against what the video showed, and to apply the Scott v. Harris principle (via Harmon v. City of Arlington) when the video contradicted the pleaded narrative.

B. No Fourth Amendment seizure in the training context as pleaded

The opinion’s doctrinal centerpiece is that Fourth Amendment excessive-force claims presuppose a “seizure”, and a seizure requires willful restraint “through means intentionally applied” (Brower v. County of Inyo). The court treated Marquis’s participation as voluntary submission to training conditions for instructional purposes, not willful governmental restraint aimed at detaining him.

The panel rejected two reframings:

Intent to act ≠ intent to seize. Relying on Gorman v. Sharp, the court held that intending the underlying physical act (e.g., applying force during a drill) does not establish the intent necessary for a seizure; the willfulness requirement concerns the restraint/detention itself.
Consent withdrawal was not plausibly alleged. The “officer in distress” card theory was undermined by the video depiction, which showed the dropped item functioned as “ID” in the scenario rather than a distress signal. With no other nonconclusory allegations of withdrawal or refusal to stop, the court treated the exercise as consensual submission, not compelled detention.

The court also used Feirson v. District of Columbia to reject the notion that employment consequences (failing training, repeating the program) convert training into a seizure. In short, career pressure is not Fourth Amendment compulsion in this context absent willful restraint.

C. Substantive due process: “conscience shocking” is especially demanding outside custody

Turning to bodily integrity under the Fourteenth Amendment, the court applied the Lewis “shocks the conscience” standard and emphasized that, in an employment/training relationship, deliberate indifference does not suffice (as explained in Slaughter v. Mayor & City Council). Consistent with Collins v. City of Harker Heights, the Constitution does not convert unsafe workplace training into a due process violation.

The opinion thus draws a sharp boundary: absent plausible allegations the instructors intended to harm Marquis (or engaged in similarly egregious, unjustifiable conduct), the claim sounds in negligence and belongs to state tort remedies, not substantive due process.

D. No constitutional medical-care duty absent custody or a “special relationship”

Kennedy’s deliberate-indifference medical-care theory depended on establishing either custody or a seizure. With no seizure and no custodial arrangement, DeShaney controlled: due process duties to provide medical care arise where the state restrains liberty such that the person cannot care for himself. The panel treated Marquis as a cadet in workplace training, which Collins held is not custody. Thus, even if response times or decisions were flawed, they do not become federal constitutional violations on these facts.

E. Derivative claims fall with the predicate violation

Because the court found no plausible constitutional violation, bystander liability failed under Joseph ex rel. Est. of Joseph v. Bartlett / Whitley v. Hanna, which require knowledge of an ongoing constitutional violation. Municipal liability failed under City of Los Angeles v. Heller, and the court further invoked Collins to resist using failure-to-train theories to constitutionalize workplace safety and training design.

3) Impact

Training-related § 1983 claims face a reinforced “no seizure/no custody” barrier. The decision solidifies that force used for instructional purposes in voluntary training ordinarily does not constitute a seizure absent plausible allegations of willful restraint aimed at detention rather than training.
Video at the pleading stage will be increasingly decisive. Plaintiffs who reference or rely on video should expect courts to use it to evaluate plausibility and to reject factual assertions “blatantly contradicted” by the recording.
Substantive due process remains a narrow channel for workplace/training tragedies. By reiterating Collins and adopting the logic of Slaughter, the Fifth Circuit signals that even serious allegations of unsafe training, denial of breaks, or delayed EMS—without intent-to-harm or custody—will likely remain in state law.
Municipal “failure to train” theories are limited in the employment-training context. The opinion underscores that Monell is not a vehicle to constitutionalize workplace training/safety decisions where there is no predicate constitutional tort.

Complex Concepts Simplified

“Seizure” (Fourth Amendment): Not every government-caused loss of freedom of movement is a seizure. A seizure generally requires the government to intentionally apply means to restrain someone (e.g., detain/arrest), not merely engage in conduct that incidentally causes harm.
Qualified immunity: Even if harm occurs, officers are not liable for damages under § 1983 unless the plaintiff plausibly alleges a constitutional violation and the unlawfulness was clearly established at the time. Courts can dismiss early if the complaint does not plausibly allege a violation.
Substantive due process / “shocks the conscience”: A very high standard for executive misconduct. Outside custody, courts typically require conduct that is extraordinarily egregious—often intentional harm without legitimate governmental justification—rather than poor judgment or negligence.
Deliberate indifference (medical care): A constitutional medical-care claim usually arises in custody (e.g., jail), because custody prevents self-help. Without custody, delayed medical care is usually a state-law issue, not a due process violation.
Bystander liability: An officer can sometimes be liable for failing to intervene, but only if another officer is committing a constitutional violation and the bystander knows and has a reasonable chance to stop it.
Municipal liability (Monell): A city is not automatically liable for employee conduct. Typically there must be an underlying constitutional violation and a causal municipal policy/custom (including certain failures to train). Without a constitutional injury, municipal liability fails.

Conclusion

Kennedy v. City of Arlington, Texas reinforces a clear constitutional boundary: tragedies arising from government workplace training—absent willful detention-like restraint, custodial “special relationships,” or conscience-shocking intent to harm—do not ordinarily become federal constitutional torts under § 1983. The opinion’s most consequential takeaways are (1) instructional force during voluntary training is not, without more, a Fourth Amendment seizure; (2) Collins continues to foreclose constitutionalizing workplace safety through substantive due process; and (3) DeShaney limits medical-care duties to custody. The decision thus channels similar claims primarily toward state tort remedies and employment-related accountability mechanisms rather than constitutional litigation.