## Facts

- Toni E. Wideman, four months pregnant, experienced abdominal pain and was instructed by her obstetrician, Dr. John Ramsey, to go immediately to Piedmont Hospital.
- Wideman called DeKalb County’s 911 system and requested ambulance transport specifically to Piedmont Hospital.
- Three DeKalb County EMS employees responded; Wideman alleged they refused her request and transported her to Shallowford Community Hospital instead.
- At Shallowford, Wideman alleged a substantial delay occurred while the attending physician consulted Dr. Ramsey by telephone, after which Wideman was transferred to Piedmont.
- Upon arrival at Piedmont, Dr. Ramsey could not stop labor; Wideman delivered a premature infant, Ebony Laslun Wideman, who died four hours later.
- The Widemans alleged DeKalb County maintained a policy and practice of transporting patients only to hospitals that guaranteed payment of county EMS bills, and that Shallowford participated in this arrangement.

## Issues

1. Whether a county policy of routing EMS patients only to hospitals that guarantee payment deprives patients of a right secured by the federal Constitution, actionable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
2. Whether the federal Constitution confers (a) a general right to governmental provision of medical treatment or (b) a right to county ambulance transport to the hospital of a patient’s choice.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for DeKalb County, Shallowford Community Hospital, and the EMS employees sued in their official capacities.
- The court held that, even if the alleged policy and practice were proved, it would not violate any established constitutional right.
- Because no federally protected right was implicated, the plaintiffs failed to state a claim under § 1983, and the conspiracy allegations did not supply a basis for federal civil-rights liability absent an underlying constitutional deprivation.

## Legal Principles

- A claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 requires deprivation of a right secured by the Constitution or federal law; alleged misconduct is not actionable without an identified federal right.
- The Fourteenth Amendment does not impose a general affirmative duty on state or local government to provide medical treatment or emergency services to the public at large.
- Absent a recognized special relationship (such as custody), the Constitution does not guarantee ambulance transport to the hospital of a patient’s choice.
- An asserted policy governing allocation of emergency medical transport, without a corresponding constitutional entitlement, does not itself create § 1983 liability.

## Conclusion

The court held that the alleged decision to transport Wideman to a particular hospital based on payment arrangements, even if true, did not infringe any constitutional right to medical care or to transport to a chosen hospital; therefore, federal civil-rights claims could not proceed, and summary judgment for all defendants was affirmed.


Wideman v. Shallowford Cmty. Hosp., Inc., 826 F.2d 1030 (11th Cir. 1987)