Antwine v. Oklahoma City Police Department

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA

SHIRLEY ANTWINE, as administrator )

for the Estate of Ernest Eugene Antwine, )

)

Plaintiff, )

)

v. ) Case No. CIV-23-00359-JD

)

ROBERT A. BURTON, individually; )

ROBERT DUNN, an individual; and )

JOHN/JANE DOES, individually, as yet )

unidentified police officers, )

)

Defendants. )

ORDER

Before the Court is Defendant Robert Burton’s Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s

Second Amended Complaint (“Motion”). [Doc. No. 21]. The Motion seeks to dismiss

Plaintiff Shirley Antwine’s Second Amended Complaint (“SAC”) [Doc. No. 18] under

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Defendant Burton asserts that he is entitled to

qualified immunity on Plaintiff’s Fourteenth Amendment claim and is immune from

Plaintiff’s state-law negligence claim under the Oklahoma Governmental Tort Claims Act

(“GTCA”). Plaintiff filed a response in opposition (“Response”) [Doc. No. 22] to which

Defendant Burton replied (“Reply”) [Doc. No. 23]. For the reasons stated below, the

Court grants the Motion.

I. BACKGROUND

This case arises from the tragic death of Plaintiff’s son, Ernest Eugene Antwine.

Accepting as true the well-pleaded facts in the SAC, on August 4, 2021, at 1:21 p.m.,

Plaintiff called the police to report concerns about Mr. Antwine’s behavior. SAC ¶ 17. Mr.

Antwine had been banging on Plaintiff’s door with a stick and “trying to get into her

house.” [Doc. No. 18-5 at 5].1 “Mr. Antwine used and abused PCP and other drugs,” he

“had been diagnosed with mental health disorders like schizophrenia,” and he had a “long

history” with the Oklahoma City Police Department. SAC ¶¶ 13, 28. A warrant for Mr.

Antwine’s arrest was outstanding on August 4, 2021. Id. ¶ 16.

Officers with the Oklahoma City Police Department—including Defendant

Burton—responded to Plaintiff’s call at 1:33 p.m. Id. ¶ 18. Defendant Burton took

custody of Mr. Antwine and removed him from Plaintiff’s property. Id. ¶ 20. Then,

instead of taking Mr. Antwine to jail, Defendant Burton put Mr. Antwine in Burton’s

patrol vehicle and drove him to “a vacant lot on the corner of N.E. 10th Street and Sooner

Road.” Id. ¶¶ 20–21. Defendant Burton left Mr. Antwine at the vacant lot “so he could go

to a job interview,” and he called police dispatch at 2:00 p.m. to clear the incident. Id.

¶¶ 21–22.

Within minutes, Mr. Antwine was struck and killed by an automobile. Id. ¶¶ 23,

25–26. A witness called police at 2:05 p.m. to report the collision, which occurred north

of the vacant lot where Defendant Burton had left Mr. Antwine five minutes earlier. Id.

¶ 23. Officers found Mr. Antwine’s body lying in the street. Id. ¶ 25. During the

1 “In addition to the allegations contained in the complaint, the court may consider

attached exhibits and documents incorporated into the complaint, so long as the parties do

not dispute the documents’ authenticity.” Rosenfield v. HSBC Bank, USA, 681 F.3d 1172,

1178 (10th Cir. 2012).

investigation, Defendant Burton told investigating officers that Mr. Antwine “was a

known mental health consumer, PCP user, and homeless.” Id. ¶ 28. He stated that he

“dropped off” Mr. Antwine “in ‘no man’s land’ (referring to the gravel road on the west

side of the road at 1399 N. Sooner Rd.) after forcefully removing him from the front

porch of his mother’s home.” Id. ¶ 30. The medical examiner determined Mr. Antwine’s

cause of death to be “multiple blunt force injuries” he had sustained in an “accident.” Id.

¶ 34. In addition, the examiner “diagnosed acute phencyclidine (PCP) toxicity, as Mr.

Antwine’s concentration of PCP in his femoral blood was 620 ng/ml.” Id. ¶ 37.

Plaintiff sued Defendant Burton in his individual capacity.2 Id. ¶ 6. Plaintiff raises

two claims against Defendant Burton: First, she brings a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983,

alleging that Defendant Burton failed to provide Mr. Antwine with adequate medical care

in violation of the Eighth and/or Fourteenth Amendments. SAC ¶¶ 1, 39–46. “By failing

to call for medical care and by dumping him at an empty lot,” Plaintiff alleges, Defendant

Burton “was deliberately indifferent to Mr. Antwine’s serious and obvious health and

safety concerns.” Id. ¶ 41. Second, Plaintiff raises a negligence claim under state law,

alleging that Defendant Burton “negligently failed to call for medical assistance for

physical and/or mental health concerns or provide any first aid for Mr. Antwine,” instead

“shov[ing] Mr. Antwine into his patrol car, only to drop him off a few minutes later in ‘no

2 Plaintiff also named Defendant Robert Dunn, but she has settled and dismissed

her negligence claim against him with prejudice. [Doc. Nos. 24, 27]. Plaintiff further

listed “John and Jane Does” as unidentified police officers in the SAC, but she did not

plead any claims against the unidentified officers. Thus, the only remaining claims for

disposition are those against Defendant Burton.

man’s land’ by himself without any help or supervision.” Id. ¶¶ 49–50. For relief, Plaintiff

seeks compensatory and punitive damages in excess of $75,000, as well as costs and

attorney’s fees. Id. at 11.

II. LEGAL STANDARDS

A. Motions to Dismiss

“To survive a motion to dismiss” under Rule 12(b)(6), “a complaint must contain

sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its

face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly,

550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). “A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads

factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is

liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. Under this standard, the Court accepts the well-

pleaded facts alleged as true and views them in the light most favorable to the nonmoving

party. Peterson v. Grisham, 594 F.3d 723, 727 (10th Cir. 2010).

“Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere

conclusory statements, do not suffice,” and the Court must “draw on its judicial

experience and common sense” to determine whether a complaint states a plausible claim

for relief. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678–79. “In other words, dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) is

appropriate if the complaint alone is legally insufficient to state a claim.” Brokers’ Choice

of Am., Inc. v. NBC Universal, Inc., 861 F.3d 1081, 1104–05 (10th Cir. 2017).

B. Qualified Immunity

Section 1983 provides a federal cause of action against a person acting under color

of state law who “subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or

other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or

immunities secured by the Constitution and laws.” 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Under the doctrine

of qualified immunity, when an official is sued under § 1983 in their individual capacity,

they “generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does

not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable

person would have known.” Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982).

Once a defendant raises qualified immunity in a motion to dismiss, the burden

shifts to the plaintiff to show: (1) the plaintiff has alleged facts that make out a violation

of a constitutional right, and (2) “the right at issue was ‘clearly established’ at the time of

defendant’s alleged misconduct.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 232 (2009); see

Doe v. Woodard, 912 F.3d 1278, 1289 (10th Cir. 2019) (discussing the standard for

qualified immunity at the pleading stage). Judges are “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.” Pearson, 555

U.S. at 236.

“A Government official’s conduct violates clearly established law when, at the

time of the challenged conduct, the contours of a right are sufficiently clear that every

reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right.”

Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 741 (2011) (citation modified). “This exacting standard

‘gives government officials breathing room to make reasonable but mistaken judgments’

by ‘protect[ing] all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.’”

City & Cnty. of San Francisco v. Sheehan, 575 U.S. 600, 611 (2015) (alteration in

original) (quoting al-Kidd, 563 U.S. at 743). “A plaintiff may satisfy this standard by

identifying an on-point Supreme Court or published Tenth Circuit decision; alternatively,

‘the clearly established weight of authority from other courts must have found the law to

be as the plaintiff maintains.’” Quinn v. Young, 780 F.3d 998, 1005 (10th Cir. 2015)

(quoting Weise v. Casper, 593 F.3d 1163, 1167 (10th Cir. 2010)).

The “clearly established” standard “do[es] not require a case directly on point, but

existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond

debate.” al-Kidd, 563 U.S. at 741. The Supreme Court has “repeatedly told courts not to

define clearly established law at too high a level of generality.” City of Tahlequah v.

Bond, 595 U.S. 9, 12 (2021). Nevertheless, the “analysis is not a ‘scavenger hunt for prior

cases with precisely the same facts,’ and ‘a prior case need not be exactly parallel to the

conduct here for the officials to have been on notice of clearly established law.’” Est. of

Smart ex rel. Smart v. City of Wichita, 951 F.3d 1161, 1168 (10th Cir. 2020) (citations

omitted).

“Although qualified immunity defenses are typically resolved at the summary

judgment stage, district courts may grant motions to dismiss on the basis of qualified

immunity.” Thomas v. Kaven, 765 F.3d 1183, 1194 (10th Cir. 2014). “[T]he proper

standard for evaluating dismissal in a qualified immunity case is the normal standard

[courts] apply to dismissals generally.” Moya v. Schollenbarger, 465 F.3d 444, 455 (10th

Cir. 2006). At the pleading stage, that means that “plaintiffs must allege facts sufficient to

show (assuming they are true) that the defendants plausibly violated their constitutional

rights, and that those rights were clearly established at the time.” Robbins v. Oklahoma,

519 F.3d 1242, 1249 (10th Cir. 2008). Plaintiffs bear a lighter burden when attempting to

overcome qualified immunity raised in a motion to dismiss than they do at summary

judgment. At the pleading stage, “it is the defendant’s conduct as alleged in the complaint

that is scrutinized for ‘objective legal reasonableness,’” whereas, at summary judgment,

“the plaintiff can no longer rest on the pleadings and the court looks to the evidence

before it.” Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299, 309 (1996) (citation omitted). But see

Robbins, 519 F.3d at 1249 (reasoning that “[t]he Twombly standard may have greater

bite” in the context of § 1983 suits against individual state actors to reflect “the special

interest in resolving the affirmative defense of qualified immunity ‘at the earliest possible

stage of a litigation’” (quoting Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 646 n.6 (1987))).

III. ANALYSIS

A. Plaintiff has not shown that Defendant Burton violated Mr. Antwine’s

clearly established Fourteenth Amendment rights.3

Defendant Burton moves to dismiss Plaintiff’s claim that Burton was deliberately

indifferent to Mr. Antwine’s medical needs, arguing that he is entitled to qualified

3 The parties’ briefs also discuss whether Defendant Burton violated a

constitutional duty to execute the warrant for Mr. Antwine’s arrest, relying on the

Supreme Court’s decisions in DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social

Services, 489 U.S. 189 (1989), and Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005). See

Motion at 8–11; Response at 7–8; Reply at 5. However, the SAC—which was drafted by

an attorney and is not entitled to a liberal construction—does not raise a constitutional

claim on these grounds, and “[i]t is inappropriate to use a response to a motion to dismiss

to essentially raise a new claim for the first time.” Boyer v. Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs, 922 F.

Supp. 476, 482 (D. Kan. 1996), aff’d, 108 F.3d 1388 (10th Cir. 1997). Accordingly, the

Court only addresses Plaintiff’s claim for deliberate indifference under the Fourteenth

Amendment.

immunity. Motion at 5–8. Defendant Burton asserts that the SAC does not allege that Mr.

Antwine was suffering an objectively serious medical need such that it would have been

obvious to a layperson that Mr. Antwine required medical attention. Id. at 6. Moreover,

Defendant Burton argues, Plaintiff has not alleged that Defendant Burton knew of and

disregarded an excessive risk to Mr. Antwine’s health or safety. Id. at 7–8. Because

Plaintiff has not plausibly alleged that Defendant Burton violated Mr. Antwine’s clearly

established constitutional rights, Defendant Burton asserts that he is entitled to qualified

immunity. Id. at 8. In her response, Plaintiff argues that Mr. Antwine’s drug addiction and

his “[u]nderlying mental health problems” presented an objectively serious medical need.

Response at 5. Subjectively, Plaintiff asserts, Defendant Burton “knew Mr. Antwine had a

criminal history, mental illness, and a drug problem,” but he “did nothing about it except

to take him from Plaintiff’s porch and dump him in ‘no man’s land.’” Id. at 6–7. Thus,

Plaintiff argues, she has stated a claim for deliberate indifference under the Fourteenth

Amendment. Id. at 12.

“The Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause entitles pretrial detainees to

the same standard of medical care owed to convicted inmates under the Eighth

Amendment.” Rife v. Okla. Dep’t of Pub. Safety, 854 F.3d 637, 647 (10th Cir. 2017). A

prisoner states a claim under the Eighth Amendment for inadequate medical attention if

he “allege[s] acts or omissions sufficiently harmful to evidence deliberate indifference to

serious medical needs.” Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 106 (1976). Thus, pretrial

detainees can state a Fourteenth Amendment claim under the same standard. Pretrial

detainees may bring such claims against police officers as well as jail officials. See Rife,

854 F.3d at 647–49.

The Court elects to focus its analysis on the “clearly established” prong of the

qualified immunity inquiry. See Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236 (2009). For

Plaintiff to overcome Defendant Burton’s assertion of qualified immunity, she must

identify Tenth Circuit or Supreme Court precedent that would have put Defendant Burton

on notice that his conduct, as alleged, violated the Fourteenth Amendment. In other

words, Plaintiff must “identify a case where an officer acting under similar

circumstances” as Defendant Burton “was held to have violated” the Eighth or Fourteenth

Amendment. White v. Pauly, 580 U.S. 73, 79 (2017).

Plaintiff makes virtually no attempt to meet this burden. Plaintiff does not direct

the Court’s attention to any on-point decision of the Tenth Circuit or United States

Supreme Court that would place the contours of the asserted right beyond debate in the

factual context presented here. Plaintiff cites three Tenth Circuit cases involving

deliberate indifference claims: Strain v. Regalado, 977 F.3d 984 (10th Cir. 2020), Clark

v. Colbert, 895 F.3d 1258 (10th Cir. 2018), and Estate of Hocker ex rel. Hocker v. Walsh,

22 F.3d 995 (10th Cir. 1994).4 Those cases are all factually inapposite, as Strain and

Clark involved claims that nurses provided inadequate courses of treatment while

4 Plaintiff also cites Estate of Beauford v. Mesa County, 35 F.4th 1248 (10th Cir.

2022). However, because that decision “postdate[s] the conduct in question” and

therefore “could not have given fair notice” to Defendant Burton, it is “of no use in the

clearly established inquiry.” Brosseau v. Haugen, 543 U.S. 194, 200 n.4 (2004).

detainees were in jail, and the plaintiff in Hocker alleged that jail staff maintained an

unconstitutional policy of admitting intoxicated, unconscious individuals. None of these

cases would have put a police officer on notice that he had a constitutional obligation to

provide care to a conscious person in the officer’s custody who is schizophrenic and

under the influence of PCP.

Further, none of these cases would have put Defendant Burton on notice that his

conduct violated the Fourteenth Amendment because none of the defendants in those

cases were held to have violated the Eighth or Fourteenth Amendment. See Strain, 977

F.3d at 997 (“Although Plaintiff’s claims may smack of negligence, we conclude that

they fail to rise to the high level of deliberate indifference against any Defendant.”);

Clark, 895 F.3d at 1269 (“In short, neither the objective nor subjective requirements of a

medical needs claim can be met on these facts.”); Hocker, 22 F.3d at 999–1000

(affirming grant of summary judgment in favor of the sheriff and jail). Therefore,

Plaintiff has failed to meet her burden of showing Defendant Burton violated clearly

established law. “On this basis alone,” the Court could conclude that Plaintiff has not

“properly laid the groundwork” to overcome Defendant Burton’s assertion of qualified

immunity. Cox v. Glanz, 800 F.3d 1231, 1247 (10th Cir. 2015); cf. United States v.

Sineneng-Smith, 590 U.S. 371, 375 (2020) (explaining that “[i]n our adversarial system of

adjudication, we follow the principle of party presentation [and] . . . . rely on the parties

to frame the issues for decision”).

Nevertheless, the Court has reviewed the cases discussed by both parties and

conducted its own survey of the case law. See Cortez v. McCauley, 478 F.3d 1108, 1122

n.19 (10th Cir. 2007) (en banc) (“While it is true that Plaintiffs should cite to what

constitutes clearly established law, [the Court is] not restricted to the cases cited by them.

Whether law is clearly established is a legal question, reviewed de novo, with full

knowledge of the law.” (citing Elder v. Holloway, 510 U.S. 510, 513–14, 516 (1994))). In

light of this review, the Court concludes that on August 4, 2021, there was not clearly

established law that would have put Defendant Burton on notice that his conduct was

violative of the Fourteenth Amendment.

As Defendant Burton notes, it is not clearly established that an officer must

provide care to a person in custody who is under the influence of drugs or alcohol yet

remains conscious and responsive. The Tenth Circuit “has decided two key cases

concerning the treatment of intoxicated detainees.” Est. of Duke ex rel. Duke v. Gunnison

Cnty. Sheriff’s Off., 752 F. App’x 669, 673 (10th Cir. 2018) (unpublished). In the first

case, Garcia v. Salt Lake County, 768 F.2d 303, 308 (10th Cir. 1985), the court held that a

county jail’s “policy of admitting to jail unconscious persons suspected of being

intoxicated” violated the Fourteenth Amendment, as the evidence showed “gross

deficiencies and deliberate indifference in staffing and procedures to monitor” such

persons. In the second case, Martinez v. Beggs, 563 F.3d 1082, 1085–87 (10th Cir. 2009),

officers arrested an intoxicated man who later died in his jail cell of a heart attack

compounded by a toxic blood alcohol level. In contrast to the unconscious detainee in

Garcia, the detainee in Martinez “exhibited ‘characteristics that are common to many

intoxicated individuals’”: namely, he “was conscious, on his feet, argumentative, and

cognizant that he was being arrested.” Id. at 1091 (citation omitted). Thus, because the

detainee “was not unconscious and showed no obvious symptoms indicating a risk of

serious harm,” the court held that the jail officials were not deliberately indifferent to his

medical needs. Id.

Considering these precedents, the Tenth Circuit has held that officers are entitled

to qualified immunity when intoxicated pretrial detainees who are conscious and

responsive suffer serious injury or death while in custody. The pretrial detainee in Duke

died in his jail cell of a drug overdose; “[a] toxicology report showed the presence of

fentanyl, cocaine, benzodiazepines, and oxycodone” in his system. 752 F. App’x at 672.

Because the detainee, “like the detainee in Martinez, exhibited many common

characteristics of intoxicated individuals but was responsive and functioning,” the court

concluded that the jail officials did not violate clearly established law because “it is at

least reasonably debatable that Martinez rather than Garcia provides the controlling

precedent.” Id. at 674. Here, the SAC does not allege that Mr. Antwine was ever

unconscious while in Defendant Burton’s custody. Thus, as was the case in Duke, a

reasonable officer could believe that Martinez was the controlling precedent, so he did

not have a constitutional obligation to provide care to an intoxicated person in his custody

who is conscious and responsive.

Plaintiff has not identified a case in which the Tenth Circuit or Supreme Court held

that a defendant acting under similar circumstances as Defendant Burton violated the

Eighth or Fourteenth Amendment. The Court is aware of no such case. There is not a

clearly established weight of authority from other courts that would have put Defendant

Burton on notice that he was violating the Fourteenth Amendment. Therefore, the Court

grants Defendant Burton’s motion to dismiss Plaintiff’s § 1983 claim and dismisses that

claim with prejudice because Defendant Burton is entitled to qualified immunity. See

Clark v. Wilson, 625 F.3d 686, 692 (10th Cir. 2010) (instructing the district court to

dismiss a claim with prejudice because the defendants were entitled to qualified

immunity); see also Lamle v. Eads, 134 F.4th 562, 567 (10th Cir. 2025) (“[W]e affirm the

dismissal with prejudice because [defendant] is entitled to qualified immunity on the

claim for damages.”).

B. The Court declines to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over

Plaintiff’s remaining state-law negligence claim.

Plaintiff’s remaining claim is for negligence under state law. SAC ¶¶ 48–53.

Defendant Burton moves to dismiss Plaintiff’s negligence claim, arguing that he is

immune under Oklahoma’s GTCA. Motion at 12–15. Plaintiff argues that Defendant

Burton is not immune under the GTCA because he was not acting in good faith and was

therefore acting outside the scope of his employment as an officer of the Oklahoma City

Police Department. SAC ¶¶ 39–40, 43–44; Response at 8–13.

“When a federal district court has original jurisdiction over a civil cause of

action, [28 U.S.C.] § 1367 determines whether it may exercise supplemental jurisdiction

over other claims that do not independently come within its jurisdiction, but that form

part of the same Article III ‘case or controversy.’” Jinks v. Richland Cnty., 538 U.S. 456,

458 (2003). Section 1367(a) provides as follows:

Except as provided in subsections (b) and (c) or as expressly provided

otherwise by Federal statute, in any civil action of which the district courts

have original jurisdiction, the district courts shall have supplemental

jurisdiction over all other claims that are so related to claims in the action

within such original jurisdiction that they form part of the same case or

controversy under Article III of the United States Constitution.

28 U.S.C. § 1367(a).

But simply because a district court may exercise supplemental jurisdiction does

not mean that it should. Indeed, § 1367(c) “describe[s] situations in which a federal court

may or must decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction.” Jinks, 538 U.S. at 459.

Specifically, § 1367(c) provides:

The district courts may decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over a

claim under subsection (a) if—

(1) the claim raises a novel or complex issue of State law,

(2) the claim substantially predominates over the claim or claims over

which the district court has original jurisdiction,

(3) the district court has dismissed all claims over which it has original

jurisdiction, or

(4) in exceptional circumstances, there are other compelling reasons for

declining jurisdiction.

28 U.S.C. § 1367(c). In any of these situations, “federal law is not where the real action

is.” Royal Canin U.S.A., Inc. v. Wullschleger, 604 U.S. 22, 32 (2025). “So although

supplemental jurisdiction persists, the district court need not exercise it: Instead, the court

may (and indeed, ordinarily should) kick the case to state court.” Id.; see also Barnett v.

Hall, Estill, Hardwick, Gable, Golden & Nelson, P.C., 956 F.3d 1228, 1238 (10th Cir.

2020) (explaining that “[t]he Supreme Court has encouraged the practice of dismissing

state claims or remanding them to state court when the federal claims to which they are

supplemental have dropped out before trial,” and the Tenth Circuit “has followed suit”).

“[A] district court’s deferral to a state court rather than retaining and disposing of state

law claims itself” promotes principles of “judicial economy, fairness, convenience and

comity.” Ball v. Renner, 54 F.3d 664, 669 (10th Cir. 1995).

However, while dismissal is the preferred practice, “compelling reasons to the

contrary” may suggest that a federal court should exercise its “discretion to try state

claims in the absence of any triable federal claims.” Thatcher Enters. v. Cache Cnty.

Corp., 902 F.2d 1472, 1478 (10th Cir. 1990). Courts should exercise this discretion if,

“given the nature and extent of pretrial proceedings, judicial economy, convenience, and

fairness would be served by retaining jurisdiction.” Id.

Upon careful consideration, the Court declines to exercise supplemental

jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s state-law negligence claim under § 1367(c). The Court has

dismissed the sole federal claim over which it had original jurisdiction. There are no

unique compelling circumstances that would lead the Court to try Plaintiff’s state claim

in the absence of any federal claims. Defendant Burton’s arguments turn on application of

the GTCA, and Oklahoma’s courts are better poised to interpret and apply a statute

controlling the scope and extent of the state’s waiver of sovereign immunity. See United

Mine Workers of Am. v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 726 (1966) (“Needless decisions of state

law should be avoided both as a matter of comity and to promote justice between the

parties, by procuring for them a surer-footed reading of applicable law.”). The Court is

reluctant to engage in unnecessary determinations of state law when it otherwise has no

original jurisdiction, especially when such determinations involve the scope of the state’s

waiver of governmental immunity. See 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(1), (c)(3). Accordingly, the

Court dismisses Plaintiff’s negligence claim without prejudice. See Ball, 54 F.3d at 669

(“[T]he most common response to a pretrial disposition of federal claims has been to

dismiss the state law claim or claims without prejudice... .”).

IV. CONCLUSION

For these reasons, the Court GRANTS Defendant Burton’s Motion to Dismiss

Plaintiff’s Second Amended Complaint [Doc. No. 21]. Plaintiff Shirley Antwine’s § 1983

claim is DISMISSED with prejudice because Defendant Burton is entitled to qualified

immunity. Plaintiff’s state-law negligence claim is DISMISSED without prejudice. A

separate judgment will follow.

IT IS SO ORDERED this 18th day of June 2025.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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