A federal civil rights lawsuit filed against Dane County and a former 911 dispatcher by the parents of homicide victim Brittany Zimmermann should be dismissed because the county has no constitutional obligation to protect individuals from the acts of others, a response to the lawsuit states.

The response, written as a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, was filed late last month by private attorneys representing Dane County and former dispatcher Rita Gahagan. They were sued last month by Kevin and Jean Zimmermann in U.S. District Court over the response of the 911 center to a call made from their daughter's cell phone around the time of her death on April 2.

A brief supporting the dismissal motion cites U.S. Supreme Court and appeals court decisions in supporting its claim.

Robert Elliott, a Milwaukee attorney representing the Zimmermanns, could not be reached for comment Monday. A deadline to respond to the motion appeared to have been missed on Friday, but Joel Turner, acting clerk of U.S. District Court in Madison, said it seems likely that deadlines for responses to the motion will change when an updated pretrial schedule for the case is set.

According to the brief for the dismissal motion, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has said the U.S. Constitution "does not require municipalities to rescue persons in distress." Further, the court said negligence or gross negligence "cannot be the basis for a constitutional violation."

Zimmermann, 21, a UW-Madison student from Marshfield, was killed in her West Doty Street apartment. A source familiar with the case said she was stabbed. A 911 call from her cell phone was made around the time she was killed, police and county officials have said. Gahagan handled the call, but union officials have said she heard nothing on the other end. They have said Gahagan did not end the call and county officials have said they cannot determine how the call ended.

Kevin and Jean Zimmermann allege Gahagan hung up on their daughter and failed to call her back. According to their lawsuit, those actions deprived Zimmermann of her rights to life and liberty and the right to be free from emotional distress guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment and 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and ultimately caused her death.

The Zimmermanns' lawsuit alleges Gahagan received enough information during the 90-second call to dispatch police and rescue personnel to their daughter's apartment.

But Dane County's attorneys cited a 1988 appeals court decision involving a Racine dispatcher who declined to send an ambulance for a woman who was having trouble breathing. The court said that under the Constitution, the "government need not provide services, and if it does provide services it need not provide them competently."

The woman died in the Racine case. The dispatcher later said he did not believe the woman's problems were serious and that the man who called the dispatcher was known as a "jerk."

The U.S. Supreme Court reached a similar conclusion in a case involving allegations of child abuse, in which it said the Constitution's due process clause was intended to limit the state's power to act, not to guarantee certain minimal levels of safety and security.

"The allegations recited in the present complaint fall far short of demonstrating that the defendants intended for Brittany Zimmermann to be harmed," attorney Sheila Sullivan wrote on behalf of the county and Gahagan. "The allegations certainly give no indication that the defendants did not care whether Brittany Zimmermann lived or died. They do not even show that the defendants had any idea that her life was in danger."