VIRGINIA EMERSON HOPKINS, District Judge.
Plaintiff Kristopher Billingsley ("Mr. Billingsley") initiated this civil rights case on July 18, 2013, against Defendant Willie Orr ("Officer Orr"). (Doc. 1). Mr. Billingsley complains about how Officer Orr treated him during a law enforcement incident which occurred on or about June 1, 2012. (Doc. 1 at 3 ¶ 10). Mr. Billingsley's complaint contains one federal count and three other counts arising under Alabama law, all of which appear to be brought against Officer Orr solely in his individual capacity.
Count One is for deprivation of civil rights pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. More specifically, Mr. Billingsley contends that Officer Orr subjected him to "an unreasonable search and seizure as there existed no valid and supportable probable cause or reasonable suspicion that [he] had committed a crime" and violated his rights to due process. (Doc. 1 at 3-4 ¶ 13).
Count Two is for assault and battery. Count Three is for false imprisonment. Finally, Court Four is for the tort of outrage.
Pending before the court is a Motion for Summary Judgment (the "Motion") (Doc. 20) filed by Officer Orr on November 26, 2014. Officer Orr filed his supporting brief and evidentiary materials on this same date. (Doc. 21). Mr. Billingsley opposed the Motion on December 17, 2014. (Doc. 22). Officer Orr followed with his reply (Doc. 24) on December 31, 2014. Accordingly, the Motion is under submission and, for the reasons explained below, is
Officer Orr is a member of the Talladega Drug Task Force and was part of an anti-drug operation conducted on June 1, 2012. At 9:00 a.m. on that date, another agent, Jarred Tomlin ("Officer Tomlin"), received a tip by telephone call that James Pointer ("Mr. Pointer"), a known drug dealer, was selling drugs out of a white Dodge Durango near the corner of East Sloan Avenue and 19th Street in Talladega.
Officers Tomlin and Orr proceeded to the vicinity of 19th Street and spotted the white Durango with a couple of guys standing outside of it. Officers Tomlin and Orr tried to set up a surveillance spot, but lost sight of Mr. Pointer after they had circled the block in their vehicle.
Later on that same day, Officers Tomlin and Orr came across one of their informants who stated that she was supposed to buy some crack from Mr. Pointer who reportedly was getting the drugs ready for her at the Sunrise Apartments. Based upon this tip, Officers Tomlin and Orr went to the Sunrise Apartments and saw Mr. Pointer pull out from that residential area in the white Durango.
Officers Tomlin and Orr then ran Mr. Pointer's tag and name and learned that he had either a suspended or revoked driver's license. They decided to stop him for this offense, but when they turned on the blue lights to their vehicle, Mr. Pointer did not stop and, instead, drove away from them. An involved and dangerous vehicle chase ensued until Mr. Pointer crashed into two other cars and collided with a power pole.
Mr. Pointer then exited his vehicle and started running on foot. Eventually, Mr. Pointer caught up to Mr. Billingsley's vehicle at the intersection of East Street and Sloan Avenue. Mr. Pointer opened the rear driver-side door and got into Mr. Billingsley's car. Mr. Billingsley immediately put his car in park and exited the vehicle with his hands up above his head.
After raising his hands, Mr. Billingsley walked towards Officer Orr declaring that he did not know Mr. Pointer. As soon as Mr. Billingsley heard Officer Orr say "get on the ground," he adhered by lowering himself towards the ground. As Mr. Billingsley was moving his body to the ground in compliance with Officer Orr's command, Officer Orr struck him multiple times in the face and left side of the head. After being hit multiple times by Officer Orr, Mr. Billingsley fell to the ground and Officer Orr put him in handcuffs.
Mr. Billingsley suffered a bloody nose. Mr. Billingsley and his brother (who had been a passenger in Mr. Billingsley's car at the time Mr. Pointer entered it) were handcuffed and detained for approximately two hours without any explanation as to why they were in handcuffs.
After being released at the scene, Mr. Billingsley went to the Emergency Room at the Citizens Baptist Medical Center. The findings from the x-ray of his facial bones showed that his septum was mildly deviated to the left, but that his sinuses were clear and that he did not have any fractures or bony destruction. Dr. Fred A. McLeod operated on Mr. Billingsley's nose on June 7, 2012.
Summary judgment is proper only when there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c). All reasonable doubts about the facts and all justifiable inferences are resolved in favor of the nonmovant. See Fitzpatrick v. City of Atlanta, 2 F.3d 1112, 1115 (11th Cir. 1993). A dispute is genuine "if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510, 91 L. Ed. 2d 202 (1986). "Once the moving party has properly supported its motion for summary judgment, the burden shifts to the nonmoving party to `come forward with specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.'" International Stamp Art, Inc. v. U.S. Postal Service, 456 F.3d 1270, 1274 (11th Cir. 2006) (quoting Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 1356, 89 L. Ed. 2d 538 (1986)).
Finally "[i]f the movant bears the burden of proof on an issue, because, as a defendant, it is asserting an affirmative defense, it must establish that there is no genuine issue of material fact as to any element of that defense." International Stamp, 456 F.3d at 1274 (citing Martin v. Alamo Community College Dist., 353 F.3d 409, 412 (5th Cir. 2003)).
Officer Orr claims that qualified immunity bars Mr. Billingsley's federal constitutional claims brought against him in his personal capacity pursuant to § 1983 in Count One. (Doc. 21 at 27). "The defense of qualified immunity completely protects government officials performing discretionary functions from suit in their individual capacities unless their conduct violates `clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.'" Cottone v. Jenne, 326 F.3d 1352, 1357 (11th Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Gonzalez v. Reno, 325 F.3d 1228, 1233 (11th Cir. 2003)). "To receive qualified immunity, a government official first must prove that he was acting within his discretionary authority." Id.
This is a two-part test. Under the first step, "the defendant must [prove that he or she was] performing a function that, but for the alleged constitutional infirmity, would have fallen within his legitimate job description." Holloman ex rel. Holloman v. Harland, 370 F.3d 1252, 1266 (11th Cir. 2004). Next, the defendant must prove that he or she was "executing that job-related function." Id. at 1267. "Once a defendant establishes that he was acting within his discretionary authority, the burden shifts to the plaintiff to show that the defendant is not entitled to qualified immunity." Cottone, 326 F.3d at 1358.
Until 2009, the Supreme Court had required a two-part inquiry to determine the applicability of qualified immunity, as established by Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 2156, 150 L. Ed. 2d 272 (2001). Under the Saucier test, "[t]he threshold inquiry a court must undertake in a qualified immunity analysis is whether [the] plaintiff's allegations, if true, establish a constitutional violation." Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 736, 122 S.Ct. 2508, 2513,153 L. Ed. 2d 666 (2002).
If, under the plaintiff's allegations, the individual defendants would have violated a constitutional right, "the next, sequential step is to ask whether the right was clearly established." Cottone, 326 F.3d at 1358 (quoting Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201, 121 S. Ct. at 2156). The "clearly established" requirement is designed to assure that officers have fair notice of the conduct which is proscribed. Hope, 536 U.S. at 739, 122 S. Ct. at 2515. This second inquiry ensures "that before they are subjected to suit, officers are on notice their conduct is unlawful." Saucier, 533 U.S. at 206, 121 S. Ct. at 2158.
The "unlawfulness must be apparent" under preexisting law.
However, the Saucier framework was made non-mandatory by the Supreme Court in Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236, 129 S.Ct. 808, 818, 172 L. Ed. 2d 565 (2009), in which the Court concluded that, "while the sequence set forth [in Saucier] is often appropriate, it should no longer be regarded as mandatory." Thus, "judges of the district courts and the courts of appeals should be permitted to exercise their sound discretion in deciding which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed first in light of the circumstances in the particular case at hand." Id.
Despite the Supreme Court's modification of Saucier's analytical process, the substantive analysis remains unchanged; an officer is entitled to qualified immunity protection as long as he "could have believed" his conduct was lawful. Hunter v. Bryan, 502 U.S. 224, 227, 112 S.Ct. 534, 536, 116 L. Ed. 2d 589 (1991).Therefore, to deny immunity, a plaintiff must affirmatively demonstrate that "no reasonable competent officer would have" acted as the public official did. Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 1096, 89 L. Ed. 2d 271 (1986).
"All evidentiary decisions are reviewed under an abuse-of-discretion standard." See, e.g., General Elec. Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 141, 118 S.Ct. 512, 517, 139 L. Ed. 2d 508 (1997). "An abuse of discretion can occur where the district court applies the wrong law, follows the wrong procedure, bases its decision on clearly erroneous facts, or commits a clear error in judgment." United States v. Estelan, 156 F. App'x 185, 196 (11th Cir. 2005) (citing United States v. Brown, 415 F.3d 1257, 1266 (11th Cir. 2005)).
Moreover, as the Eleventh Circuit has made clear, not every incorrect evidentiary ruling constitutes reversible error:
Haygood v. Auto-Owners Ins. Co., 995 F.2d 1512, 1515 (11th Cir. 1993). Therefore, even the existence of many evidentiary errors does not guarantee the party appealing a new trial. Instead, such erroneous rulings by a district court must "affect the substantial rights of the parties" for reversible error to occur.
Both in his complaint and in his opposition, Mr. Billingsley makes it clear that he is pursing a "Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures" and that his excessive force claim springs from the injuries caused by Officer Orr's "use of force during th[is] unreasonable search and seizure." (Doc. 22 at 8); (see also Doc. 1 at 3-4 ¶¶ 13-14 (describing Mr. Billingsley's physical injuries from use of force as flowing from Officer Orr's violation of his "Fourth Amendment rights against an unreasonable search and seizure")). The Eleventh Circuit has explained the distinction between the use of excessive force during the course of an illegal stop as opposed to such a claim arising out of a legal detention by law enforcement:
Jackson v. Sauls, 206 F.3d 1156, 1170-71 (11th Cir. 2000) (footnote omitted) (emphasis added).
The Eleventh Circuit's decision in Williamson (as reinforced by Jackson) means that Mr. Billingsley's excessive force claim is subsumed by his illegal seizure one. Put differently,
Here, Officer Orr never formally placed Mr. Billingsley under arrest or charged him with a crime. However, "[i]t is quite plain that the Fourth Amendment governs `seizures' of the person which do not eventuate in a trip to the station house and prosecution for crime—`arrests' in traditional terminology. It must be recognized that whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has `seized' that person." Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 16, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1877, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889 (1968).
Under the Supreme Court's Terry decision, a different and less demanding constitutional standard applies when evaluating the Fourth Amendment lawfulness of an officer's seizure of a person for questioning in the absence of having probable cause to formally arrest him. As the Eleventh Circuit explained in United States v. Powell, 222 F.3d 913, 916-17 (11th Cir. 2000):
Powell, 222 F.3d at 917 (parallel references and some internal citations omitted).
In upholding the constitutionality of the Terry stop in Powell, the Eleventh Circuit drew from the Supreme Court's decision in Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 120 S.Ct. 673, 145 L. Ed. 2d 570 (2000). There, the Supreme Court explained that an evaluation of the reasonable articulable suspicion standard requires a common sense approach:
Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 124-25, 120 S. Ct. at 676 (citing United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 418, 101 S.Ct. 690, 695, 66 L. Ed. 2d 621 (1981)). Therefore, the key constitutional question is whether, under the facts in the light most favorable to Mr. Billingsley, Officer Orr had a reasonable articulable suspicion to stop him.
The court concludes that, even based on Mr. Billingsley's version of the facts, the lesser constitutional standard of reasonable articulable suspicion existed for Officer Orr to make a Terry stop. These fluid circumstances include Mr. Pointer's jumping into Mr. Billingsley's car in an effort to further elude his arrest after a dangerous vehicle chase which reasonably triggered the need for law enforcement to stop Mr. Billingsley and verify whether he was possibly an accomplice of Mr. Pointer.
Alternatively, the court finds that even if Officer Orr lacked a reasonable suspicion to stop Mr. Billingsley, he is still entitled to prevail on his qualified immunity defense. This is the case because, at minimum, he had an "arguable" reasonable suspicion to make the stop. See Williamson, 65 F.3d at 157 (holding that when an officer asserts qualified immunity, the issue is not whether reasonable suspicion existed in fact, but whether officer had arguable reasonable suspicion to support an investigatory stop); see also Jackson, 206 F.3d at 1165-66 ("A law enforcement official
Given this arguable reasonable suspicion framework, the court finds that Mr. Billingsley has not carried his burden of demonstrating that Officer Orr had fair and clear warning that his stopping and seizing Mr. Billingsley for questioning at the scene after Mr. Pointer, a fleeing suspect, had jumped into Mr. Billingsley's car, violated clearly established Fourth Amendment law.
As it concerns Mr. Billingsley's briefing more particularly, he does not contend much less attempt to show that Officer Orr's conduct in executing a Terry stop meets that narrow category of obvious clarity cases due to its flagrant egregiousness. See Santamorena, 147 F.3d at 1340 n.6 ("[T]hese exceptional cases
As for those authorities he does reference, Mr. Billingsley's opposition focuses unhelpfully upon inapposite civil rights decisions in which either an excessive force claim was squarely alleged separately from the wrongful detention or arrest count or in which the plaintiff did not contest the legality of the stop or arrest. See, e.g., Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 388, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 1868, 104 L. Ed. 2d 443 (1989) ("In this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, petitioner Dethorne Graham seeks to recover damages for injuries allegedly sustained when law enforcement officers used physical force against him during the course of an investigatory stop."); Lee v. Ferraro, 284 F.3d 1188, 1190 (11th Cir. 2002) ("After thorough review, we conclude that Ferraro is entitled to qualified immunity on Lee's wrongful arrest claim, but hold that the police officer is plainly not entitled to qualified immunity on the excessive force claim."); Bell v. City of York, No. 7:09-CV-0694-SLB, 2013 WL 1352022, at *20, *22 (N.D. Ala. Mar. 29, 2013) (analyzing federal unlawful arrest and excessive force claims as separately pleaded counts); Warren v. City of Birmingham, No. 2:09-CV-1025-JHE, 2013 WL 3994532, at *4 (N.D. Ala. July 31, 2013) (summarizing remaining counts of civil rights complaint, including a discrete one for excessive force); S.S. ex rel. Montgomery v. Bolton, 522 F. App'x 452, 455 n.4 (11th Cir. 2013) ("The search and seizure and excessive force claims are separate, and Bolton in entitled to qualified immunity on the search and seizure claim exclusive of the excessive force claim."); Bolton, 522 F. App'x at 453 (listing counts of civil rights complaint, including a discrete one for excessive force).
However, as explained above, Mr. Billingsley's lawsuit does not involve a discrete excessive force claim, but, instead, as driven by the Eleventh Circuit's binding opinion in Williamson, only a derivative, damages-related one. Further, none of the cases cited by him establishes that Officer Orr acted in violation of clearly established law in
The court reaches a different conclusion concerning Mr. Billingsley's assault and battery claim arising under Alabama law. Officer Orr's sole defense to this count is premised upon state agent immunity.
522 F. App'x at 454-55 (emphasis added).
Comparable to the defendant in Bolton, Officer Orr ineffectively "quibbles" with Mr. Billingsley's version of the facts and does not demonstrate how state agent immunity should apply to him given a view of the record in a light most favorable to Mr. Billingsley-he was not resisting Officer Orr's commands and, nonetheless, Officer Orr struck him several times causing his nose to bleed, deviating his septum, and resulting in him having to undergo nose surgery. Instead, Officer Orr implores this court to find Mr. Billingsley and his sworn testimony to be incredible as a matter of law due to
Officer Orr also fails to address the substance of the Bolton decision in his reply, even though: (1) he has a separate section within his reply brief entitled "
The Motion does not ever separately address the merits of or discuss any affirmative defense to Mr. Billingsley's false imprisonment claim. (See Doc. 22 at 27 ("Defendant argues that summary judgment should be granted in his favor on Count II and Count IV of Plaintiff's Complaint.")). Nonetheless, the Motion purports to seek summary judgment on Mr. Billingsley's entire case. Accordingly, to the extent that Officer Orr demands a dismissal of Count Three, the Motion is
As the Bolton panel explained in affirming the district court on its dismissal of the plaintiff's outrage claim under a very comparable fact scenario:
Bolton, 522 F. App'x at 455-56. Persuaded by Bolton as well as those cases cited by Officer Orr (Doc. 21 at 25-27), the court concludes that no reasonable jury could return a verdict in favor of Mr. Billingsley on the tort of outrage even if all of the facts favorable to him were believed by the jurors to be true.
Moreover, Mr. Billingsley offers no challenge to the dismissal of his outrage claim within his opposition brief. (See Doc. 22 at 27-30 (limiting discussion within brief's state law section to his assault and battery claim)). Consequently, Mr. Billingsley has waived his right to pursue tort of outrage as he has offered nothing to substantiate its validity. See, e.g., Wilkerson v. Grinnell Corp., 270 F.3d 1314, 1322 (11th Cir. 2001) (finding claim abandoned when argument not presented in initial response to motion for summary judgment); Bute v. Schuller International, Inc., 998 F.Supp. 1473, 1477 (N.D. Ga. 1998) (finding unaddressed claim abandoned); see also Coalition for the Abolition of Marijuana Prohibition v. City of Atlanta, 219 F.3d 1301, 1326 (11th Cir. 2000) (failure to brief and argue issue at the district court is sufficient to find the issue has been abandoned); Resolution Trust Corp. v. Dunmar Corp., 43 F.3d 587, 599 (11th Cir. 1995); Hudson v. Norfolk Southern Ry. Co., 209 F.Supp.2d 1301, 1324 (N.D. Ga. 2001); cf. McMaster v. United States, 177 F.3d 936, 940-41 (11th Cir. 1999) (claim may be considered abandoned when district court is presented with no argument concerning a claim included in the plaintiff's complaint); Road Sprinkler Fitters Local Union No. 669 v. Independent Sprinkler Corp., 10 F.3d 1563, 1568 (11th Cir. 1994) (concluding that a district court "could properly treat as abandoned a claim alleged in the complaint but not even raised as a ground for summary judgment").
Thus, consistent with the above reasoning, the Motion is
Buried within Officer Orr's reply is an objection to some of the evidence upon which Mr. Billingsley relies in opposition to the Motion. (Doc. 24 at 1-2). More specifically, Officer Orr contends that this court should disregard the affidavit of eyewitness, Lazreth Tywman, when evaluating the merits of the Motion. Id. This objection should have been presented to the court in the form of a motion so that the issue could be fully briefed by the parties consistent with the requirements of Appendix III to the Uniform Initial Order (Doc. 4) entered on July 19, 2013.
Instead, all the court has unhelpfully before it is one party's position. Consequently, the objection is
Alternatively, the objection is
The Motion is
Yeldell v. Cooper Green Hosp., Inc., 956 F.2d 1056, 1060 (11th Cir. 1992) (emphasis added). Mr. Billingsley makes no official policy or custom-based assertions. Further, nothing within his complaint suggests that he seeks to impose liability on any entity on account of Officer Orr's official acts.