single-incident liability applied when an unconstitutional search resulted from staff having had no Fourth Amendment training
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- single-incident liability applied when an unconstitutional search resulted from staff having had no Fourth Amendment training
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The opinion
Case: 25-30114 Document: 69-1 Page: 1 Date Filed: 01/05/2026
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals
____________ Fifth Circuit
FILED
No. 25-30114 January 5, 2026
____________ Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
Bilal Hankins,
Plaintiff—Appellant,
versus
Tyrone Martin; Demetrius Jackson; Tommy Mercadal;
Leontine Mullins,
Defendants—Appellees.
______________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Louisiana
Civil Action No. 2:21-CV-1129
______________________________
Before Elrod, Chief Judge, and Smith and Wilson, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam: *
Following a traffic stop by two off-duty police officers on a private
security detail, Plaintiff Bilal Hankins sued the officers, the officers’
employers, and the officers’ supervisors. Hankins alleged unlawful seizure
and excessive force claims against the officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Monell
liability claims against the employers, and § 1983 supervisory claims against
_____________________
*
This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 25-30114 Document: 69-1 Page: 2 Date Filed: 01/05/2026
No. 25-30114
the supervisors, as well as state law claims. This appeal concerns the
qualified immunity of the police supervisors of one of the officers. The
district court granted them summary judgment, concluding that Hankins had
failed to rebut the supervisors’ defense of qualified immunity on each claim
against them. We affirm.
I.
In June 2020, Bilal Hankins was searching for his neighbor’s lost dog.
Hankins, then eighteen years old, was joined in the search by Tahj Pierre, a
friend visiting from college, and L.M., the neighbor’s minor nephew. Pierre
drove the trio slowly through their neighborhood in his BMW as Hankins and
L.M. leaned out of the window to call for the dog. After a few blocks, the
group noticed Kevin Wheeler, an off-duty officer of the Orleans Levee
District Police Department (OLD-PD). At the time, Wheeler was working
for the Hurstville Security and Neighborhood Improvement District
(Hurstville), a private entity that hires off-duty police officers to patrol the
neighborhood. Hankins’s group pulled alongside Wheeler’s marked police
car and asked if he had seen the dog. Wheeler replied that he had not, and
after providing more details about the dog and their search, Hankins and his
companions rode on.
Wheeler suspected that the group was planning to break into cars in
the neighborhood and, after running the plates, discovered that the BMW
was registered to an address fifteen miles away. Wheeler began tailing the
group and called Officer Ramon Pierre for backup. Pierre was a police officer
for the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) and, like Wheeler, he
was working that night as a private patrolman for Hurstville. Together,
Pierre and Wheeler pulled the group over, and Wheeler asked them some
further questions. After checking Tahj Pierre’s license, Wheeler told the
group that he had been suspicious of “three young men, in a nice car, in this
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No. 25-30114
neighborhood.” While the parties contest some details of the stop, such as
Wheeler’s comments to the group and whether the officers displayed their
weapons, it is undisputed that the stop was brief, that Hankins remained in
the vehicle, and that no physical force was used.
In June 2021, Hankins initiated this action, alleging claims under
§ 1983 for unlawful seizure and excessive force against Wheeler and Pierre,
as well as § 1983 claims against the officers’ supervisors. Hankins further
alleged Monell liability 1 claims against Hurstville, HANO, and the Southeast
Louisiana Flood Protection Authority (the parent entity of OLD-PD).
Hankins also alleged state law claims, including negligent infliction of
emotional distress and negligent hiring, against various defendants.
In September 2023, the district court granted summary judgment to
all defendants on Hankins’s federal claims, concluding that Hankins had
failed to allege a constitutional violation. This court reversed, holding that
“material fact disputes” remained on the question of the officers’ reasonable
suspicion, and remanded for further proceedings. Hankins v. Wheeler, 109
F.4th 839, 846 (5th Cir. 2024).
On remand, the four officers at HANO who supervised Pierre filed a
renewed motion for summary judgment as to the three § 1983 claims Hankins
alleged against them: failure to supervise Pierre on his private detail; failure
to train Pierre; and failure to discipline Pierre. HANO did not join their
motion. The only question before the district court was whether the
supervisors were entitled to qualified immunity.
The court decided they were and granted summary judgment. While
presuming that Hankins had sufficiently alleged a violation of a clearly
_____________________
1
See Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978).
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established right, the district court concluded that Hankins had not
demonstrated that the supervisors’ actions were objectively unreasonable.
Hankins now appeals. 2
II.
“We review de novo the district court’s grant of summary judgment
based on qualified immunity.” Stidham v. Tex. Comm’n on Priv. Sec., 418
F.3d 486, 490 (5th Cir. 2005). Summary judgment is proper “if the movant
shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant
is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). When,
as here, an officer invokes qualified immunity, that “alters the usual
summary-judgment burden of proof, shifting it to the plaintiff to show that
the defense is not available,” Joseph ex rel. Joseph v. Bartlett, 981 F.3d 319,
329–30 (5th Cir. 2020) (quoting Orr v. Copeland, 844 F.3d 484, 490 (5th Cir.
2016)):
As is normal for summary judgment, the plaintiff must show
that there is a genuine dispute of material fact and that a jury
could return a verdict entitling the plaintiff to relief for a
constitutional injury. However, unique to the qualified
immunity context, to overcome qualified immunity, the
plaintiff’s version of those disputed facts must also constitute
a violation of clearly established law.
Spiller v. Harris Cnty., 113 F.4th 573, 576 (5th Cir. 2024) (internal brackets,
citations, and quotation marks omitted) (quoting Joseph, 981 F.3d at 330).
_____________________
2
The district court directed entry of final judgment on its partial grant of summary
judgment to the supervisors, making the judgment appealable. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b);
Elizondo v. Green, 671 F.3d 506, 509–10 (5th Cir. 2012).
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III.
Under § 1983, “supervisory officials are not liable for the actions of
subordinates on any theory of vicarious liability.” Hicks v. LeBlanc, 81 F.4th
497, 504 (5th Cir. 2023) (quoting Thompkins v. Belt, 828 F.2d 298, 303 (5th
Cir. 1987)). A “supervisory official may be held directly liable ‘only if he
affirmatively participates in the acts that cause the constitutional
deprivation.’” Id. at 504–05 (quoting Porter v. Epps, 659 F.3d 440, 446 (5th
Cir. 2011)). To overcome the defense of qualified immunity under § 1983,
Hankins must establish that the supervisors’ conduct was not “objectively
reasonable under clearly established law at the time the conduct occurred.”
Hampton v. Oktibbeha Cnty. Sheriff’s Dep’t, 480 F.3d 358, 363 (5th Cir. 2007).
A constitutional right is clearly established for qualified immunity purposes
where “the contours of the right in question are sufficiently clear that a
reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that
right.” Crane v. City of Arlington, 50 F.4th 453, 466 (5th Cir. 2022) (internal
quotation marks omitted).
A.
We turn first to Hankins’s failure-to-supervise claim. A “supervisory
official may be held liable . . . for the wrongful acts of a subordinate when the
supervisory official breaches a duty imposed by state or local law, and this
breach causes plaintiff’s constitutional injury.” Tuttle v. Sepolio, 68 F.4th
969, 975 (5th Cir. 2023) (internal brackets and quotation marks omitted). If
such a duty existed, “the plaintiff must show that: (1) the supervisor either
failed to supervise or train the subordinate official; (2) a causal link exists
between the failure to train or supervise and the violation of the plaintiff’s
rights; and (3) the failure to train or supervise amounts to deliberate
indifference.” Goodman v. Harris Cnty., 571 F.3d 388, 395 (5th Cir. 2009)
(internal quotation marks omitted).
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It is undisputed that the HANO supervisors did not supervise Pierre
on private details. But as the district court observed, Louisiana law does not
impose any duty to do so. The state law empowering HANO to appoint
police officers does not communicate such a duty. See La. Rev. Stat.
§ 40:456. And Louisiana courts have consistently held that off-duty officers
are employees of the company paying for the detail. See, e.g., Brasseaux v.
Town of Mamou, 99-1584 (La. 1/19/00), 752 So. 2d 815, 820 (A municipal
employer “will not be liable for the substandard conduct of the [officer]
unless the latter can be fairly said to be within the course and scope of his
employment[.]”); Wright v. Skate Country, Inc., 98-0217 (La. App. 4 Cir.
5/12/99), 734 So. 2d 874, 881 (collecting cases). Put briefly, no Louisiana
law clearly established a duty of HANO supervisors to supervise Pierre
during his private details. 3
Hankins grounds his claim on the HANO Police Department
Operations Manual, which provides “guidelines for the working of paid
details by department employees.” Hankins notes that the Manual describes
HANO’s responsibility for reviewing and approving private details for
officers and points to the requirement that officers continue to “be governed
by all Department rules, orders, and procedures” while on paid details. From
_____________________
3
Alternatively, Hankins argues that Pierre was within the scope of his employment
as a police officer during the detail. However, Louisiana courts have held that officers in
similar circumstances were private employees while working paid details. See Duryea v.
Handy, 96-1018 (La. App. 4 Cir. 10/3/97), 700 So. 2d 1123, 1127–28 (city not liable for an
officer working private parade security); Luccia v. Cummings, 94-416 (La. App. 5 Cir.
11/16/94), 646 So. 2d 1142, 1144 (city not liable for a uniformed officer working as a
bouncer). Given this precedent, Hankins fails to show the supervisors’ conduct was
objectively unreasonable. And we may hold that the officers are entitled to qualified
immunity without definitively deciding whether Pierre acted in the scope of his
employment, a question of state law. See LeBrane v. Lewis, 292 So. 2d 216 (La. 1974).
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this, Hankins asserts that the Manual implies a duty to supervise Pierre on
his paid details.
The district court rejected this argument, relying on Powers v. United
States, 783 F.3d 570 (5th Cir. 2015). In Powers, this court held that a New
Orleans police officer, though still “governed by all Department rules, orders
and procedures,” was no longer a public employee for wage-setting purposes
during his private details. Id. at 582–83. Hankins suggests that Powers is
irrelevant because HANO uses a different manual, or that the decision, in
recognizing the city’s power to regulate private details, “implies” a duty to
supervise officers during those details.
Not so. The district court recognized, as Powers confirms, that the
text of the HANO manual did not imply a duty to supervise Pierre’s private
details. In fact, the record reflects that Hurstville took responsibility for his
supervision and appointed its own officer to oversee him, facts Hankins
acknowledges. Because there was no duty to supervise Pierre on his private
details, the HANO supervisors’ conduct was not objectively unreasonable,
and they were thus entitled to qualified immunity.
But even if the supervisors had breached a duty to supervise Pierre,
they would still be entitled to qualified immunity. To overcome immunity,
Hankins must show the supervisors’ conduct was objectively unreasonable
in light of clearly established law, which here includes the requirement that
supervisors not be “deliberately indifferent” to violation of his rights. 4
_____________________
4
As our court has explained, “the analysis for objective reasonableness is different
from that for deliberate indifference. Otherwise, a successful claim of qualified immunity
in this context would require defendants to demonstrate that they prevail on the merits,
thus rendering qualified immunity an empty doctrine.” Hare v. City of Corinth, 135 F.3d
320, 328 (5th Cir. 1998). However, “the subjective deliberate indifference standard serves
. . . to demonstrate the clearly established law in effect at the time of the incident.” Id.
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Goodman, 571 F.3d at 395. “[D]eliberate indifference is a stringent standard
of fault.” Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51, 61 (2011) (internal quotation
marks omitted). It is not “inept, erroneous, ineffective, or negligent”
conduct, but rather “more than negligence or even gross negligence.” Estate
of Davis ex rel. McCully v. City of N. Richland Hills, 406 F.3d 375, 379 (5th Cir.
2005). Typically, officials must consciously ignore “objective exposure to a
substantial risk of serious harm.” Damond v. City of Rayville, 127 F.4th 935,
940 (5th Cir. 2025).
Hankins urges that the supervisors were deliberately indifferent to the
harm Pierre might cause if unsupervised, but he offers only vague complaints
of “misconduct” and “antagonistic” behavior, citing no actions by Pierre
that would have alerted HANO to a “substantial risk of serious harm.”
Damond, 127 F.4th at 940. Hankins draws on Ball v. LeBlanc, 792 F.3d 584
(5th Cir. 2015), to argue that no specific evidence indicating a risk of harm is
necessary. But our court straightforwardly requires plaintiffs to show that a
defendant was aware of facts indicating a substantial risk of serious harm. See
Pinkston v. Kuiper, 67 F.4th 237, 241 (5th Cir. 2023) (citing Cleveland v. Bell,
938 F.3d 672, 676 (5th Cir. 2019)). In no way does Ball relax this
requirement. See 792 F.3d at 593–94 (merely restating precedent holding
that evidence of prior harm is unnecessary for prison officials to be aware of
the risk that certain prison conditions could harm inmates). And Hankins
provides insufficient evidence to meet it.
In sum, Pierre’s HANO supervisors had no duty to supervise his
private details, and any failure to supervise was not objectively unreasonable
in any event. The supervisors were therefore entitled to qualified immunity,
and summary judgment was appropriate.
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B.
Hankins also alleges that the HANO supervisors failed properly to
train Pierre. There is no dispute that his supervisors had a duty to do so. To
succeed on a § 1983 claim for failure to train, Hankins must show that (1) the
supervisors failed to train Pierre, (2) a causal link exists between this lapse
and the violation of Hankins’s rights, and (3) the failure to train amounted to
deliberate indifference. Porter, 659 F.3d at 446. To rebut the defense of
qualified immunity, Hankins must show the supervisors’ failure to train was
objectively unreasonable. See Thompson v. Upshur Cnty., 245 F.3d 447, 460
(5th Cir. 2001). “[F]or liability to attach based on an inadequate training
claim, a plaintiff must allege with specificity how a particular training
program is defective.” Zarnow v. City of Wichita Falls, 614 F.3d 161, 170 (5th
Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Defeating qualified immunity in this case requires Hankins to show
that the supervisors knew of “a pattern of similar violations arising from
training or supervising that is so clearly inadequate as to be obviously likely
to result in a constitutional violation.” Brumfield v. Hollins, 551 F.3d 322, 329
(5th Cir. 2008) (internal quotation marks omitted). Hankins provides little
to substantiate any such obvious risk. He repeats allegations that Pierre was
“insubordinate” and “discourteous” with superiors, and he points to
undefined “complaints” about Pierre’s conduct during stops. But Hankins
does not proffer any behavior by Pierre that is even “fairly similar to what
ultimately transpired,” that is, the unlawful seizure and excessive force that
Hankins alleges. Sanders-Burns v. City of Plano, 594 F.3d 366, 381 (5th Cir.
2010). Hankins thus fails to demonstrate that the HANO supervisors’
training of Pierre was objectively unreasonable.
Alternatively, Hankins urges us to adopt a theory of “single incident
liability.” He offers that “specific areas of inadequate training” may indicate
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deliberate indifference based on a single incident of misconduct. See Littell
v. Hous. Indep. Sch. Dist., 894 F.3d 616, 627 (5th Cir. 2018) (single-incident
liability applied when an unconstitutional search resulted from staff having
had no Fourth Amendment training). Hankins asserts that because Pierre
had no training on “racial profiling, reasonable suspicion, and legal stops,”
the unconstitutional stop at the core of this case was the “highly predictable
consequence.”
True enough, in certain cases, plaintiffs “may establish deliberate
indifference by showing a single incident with proof of the possibility of
recurring situations that present an obvious potential for violation of
constitutional rights.” Burge v. St. Tammany Par., 336 F.3d 363, 370 (5th Cir.
2003); see also Brown v. Bryan Cnty., 219 F.3d 450, 459 (5th Cir. 2000). But
the district court correctly rejected this argument.
Single-incident liability “is generally reserved for those cases in which
the government actor was provided no training whatsoever.” Hutcheson v.
Dallas Cnty., 994 F.3d 477, 483 (5th Cir. 2021) (internal quotation marks
omitted). Hankins also may not manufacture a failure-to-train claim based
on his own particular injury. See Roberts v. City of Shreveport, 397 F.3d 287,
293 (5th Cir. 2005) (citing City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 391 (1989))
(“Plaintiffs cannot prevail by styling their complaints about the specific
injury suffered as a failure to train claim.”). Here, Pierre had completed all
training required by state law, including instruction on use of force, search
and seizure, and firearm use. And Pierre had completed state-required
training that included instruction on “de-escalation, bias policing
recognition, sudden in-custody death, and crisis intervention training.” La.
Rev. Stat. § 40:2404.2(c).
Plainly, Pierre’s training was not so deficient that the risks alleged by
Hankins could have been obvious. It follows that the supervisors’ conduct
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was not objectively unreasonable. Summary judgment on the basis of
qualified immunity was therefore proper.
C.
Hankins last alleges that the constitutional violations he suffered arose
from Pierre’s supervisors’ failure to discipline him. To establish their
liability under this theory, Hankins must demonstrate that (1) the supervisors
failed to discipline Pierre, (2) that failure to discipline amounted to deliberate
indifference, and (3) failure to discipline directly caused the constitutional
violations in question. Deville v. Marcantel, 567 F.3d 156, 171 (5th Cir. 2009).
As with his other claims, to rebut qualified immunity, Hankins must show
that the supervisors’ actions were objectively unreasonable. Hampton, 480
F.3d at 363.
Hankins suggests the “cursory” investigation of the incident by
HANO and a “pattern” of failures to discipline Pierre before the incident
spawned a “culture of impunity” that emboldened Pierre to violate
Hankins’s rights. This assertion fails. First, as the district court observed,
investigation of the incident after the fact cannot be a cause of the
constitutional violation that preceded it. See Deville, 567 F.3d at 171.
Moreover, as already described, any misconduct or insubordination by Pierre
prior to June 2020 does not resemble the harm Hankins alleges. Hankins
thus has not established any deliberate indifference or “causal link between
the failure to discipline and the violation of [his] rights.” Verastique v. City of
Dallas, 106 F.4th 427, 432 (5th Cir. 2024) (citing Armstrong v. Ashley, 60
F.4th 262, 277 (5th Cir. 2023)), cert. denied, 145 S. Ct. 772 (2024).
Accordingly, the supervisors’ discipline of Pierre was not objectively
unreasonable, and summary judgment was appropriate.
* * *
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Hankins fails to show that Pierre’s supervisors acted unreasonably in
their supervision, training, or discipline of Pierre. Thus, the supervisors were
entitled to qualified immunity on Hankins’s claims against them. The
judgment of the district court is
AFFIRMED.
12