Cadet complained of fatigue during drills but was denied water. Then everything went wrong
A police cadet died during training, but a federal court ruled his employer owed him no constitutional duty to keep him safe.
A federal appeals court handed down a decision that draws a sharp line between what employers must do under workplace safety laws and what the Constitution requires them to do, even when training turns fatal.
The ruling, issued February 4 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, dismissed all claims in a lawsuit brought by the widow of Marquis Kennedy, a police cadet who died after collapsing during a self-defense training exercise at the Arlington Police Academy in September 2022.
Kennedy was fifteen minutes into a mandatory training program called Gracie Survival Tactics when things went wrong. The exercise required him to endure four consecutive rounds of physical combat scenarios against trained officers, including choke holds, submission holds, and punches. According to court filings, Kennedy complained repeatedly that he felt lightheaded, thirsty, and tired, but was denied water and breaks because stopping meant failing the entire program.
During the fourth round, instructors finally halted the exercise and asked Kennedy if he needed an ambulance. He said yes. Two colleagues carried him to a break room and gave him water. Within minutes, he stopped breathing, lost consciousness, and fell from his chair. Officers began CPR and called for emergency help. Paramedics arrived sixteen minutes after the initial call, revived him using a breathing tube, and rushed him to a hospital. He never woke up. Two days later, he was dead.
The autopsy listed the cause as unknown but noted Kennedy had suffered cardiac arrest with no signs of trauma. Doctors suspected an underlying heart condition may have been the trigger.
His widow sued the city and fifteen officers, arguing they violated his constitutional rights by using excessive force and ignoring his medical distress. She claimed the training amounted to an unlawful seizure under the Fourth Amendment and that officers showed deliberate indifference to his deteriorating condition, violating his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process.
The courts disagreed. A district judge dismissed the case, and the Fifth Circuit upheld that decision.
Circuit Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan explained that the Constitution simply does not impose workplace safety duties on government employers. He pointed to a 1992 Supreme Court case that made clear the government has no constitutional obligation to provide employees with safe working conditions. That responsibility falls under workplace safety statutes and state laws, not the Bill of Rights.
The court found that Kennedy had voluntarily agreed to the physical training as a condition of becoming a police officer. Because he consented to the exercise and nothing suggested instructors intended to harm him, there was no constitutional violation. The judges compared the situation to an earlier case where an instructor accidentally shot a colleague during firearms training after forgetting to swap his real gun for a dummy weapon. Even that tragic mistake, the court had ruled, was not a constitutional seizure because there was no intent to restrain or harm.
Kennedy's widow argued her husband withdrew consent by dropping what she called an "officer in distress" card during the exercise. Video of the training told a different story. The footage showed the card was actually an identification card handed to Kennedy as part of the scenario, which he dropped to defend himself when the instructor began throwing punches. The court found no evidence he ever tried to stop the exercise.
On the medical care claim, the court said the Constitution requires the government to provide medical attention only when it has taken someone into custody and stripped them of the ability to care for themselves, such as prisoners or detainees. Kennedy was an employee participating in job training. That put him outside constitutional protection.
While the court dismissed all constitutional claims, it noted these allegations fall under state tort law and negligence, not federal civil rights protections. The ruling makes clear that federal civil rights statutes cannot be used to challenge workplace training conditions, even when training proves fatal.
For human resources teams managing physically demanding training programs, the ruling offers a cautionary lesson. While you may not face constitutional liability when training goes wrong, you remain exposed to other claims. The decision does not excuse poor safety protocols, inadequate medical screening, or ignoring requests to stop. It simply clarifies that the Constitution is not the legal tool employees can use to challenge those failures.
The Fifth Circuit made one thing unmistakably clear: keeping workers safe during training is a matter of good policy and state law, not constitutional mandate.
