Frakes

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA

WEST PALM BEACH DIVISION

CASE NO. 25-80396-CIV-CANNON/McCabe

NADINE FRANKES,

Plaintiff,

v.

CITY OF BOYNTON BEACH et al.,

Defendants.

/

ORDER ACCEPTING REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION IN PART; GRANTING

DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO DISMISS, AND DISMISSING WITH PREJUDICE

THIS CAUSE comes before the Court upon Magistrate Judge Ryon M. McCabe’s Report

and Recommendation, issued on October 17, 2025 (the “Report”) [ECF No. 35], in which

Magistrate Judge McCabe recommends granting Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s

Amended Complaint (the “Motion”), with leave to replead [ECF No. 23]. The Court has reviewed

the Report, the Motion, Plaintiff’s Response [ECF No. 25], Defendants’ Reply [ECF No. 31],

Plaintiff’s Objections to the Report [ECF No. 37], Defendants’ Notice of Non-Objection [ECF No.

36], Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint [ECF No. 20], and the full record. Upon review, the Court

ACCEPTS IN PART the Report and Recommendation. The Court GRANTS Defendants’

Motion to Dismiss and DISMISSES Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint with prejudice.

RELEVANT BACKGROUND

Neither party objects to Judge McCabe’s recitation of the facts, so, finding no clear error,

Court adopts that recitation. See Garvey v. Vaughn, 993 F.2d 776, 779 n.9 (11th Cir. 1993)

(“Because [the plaintiff] did not file specific objections to factual findings by the magistrate judge,

there was no requirement that the district court de novo review those findings.” (citations omitted));

see also Tonea v. Bank of Am., N.A., 6 F. Supp. 3d 1331, 1334 n.2 (N.D. Ga. 2014) (“The parties

have not objected to any facts set out in the [report], and finding no plain error in the Magistrate

Judge’s factual findings, the Court adopts them.” (citation omitted)).

To summarize, this case involves “an unfortunate encounter between police and a mother

whose daughter had just passed away during in-home hospice care” [ECF No. 35 p. 1]. On March

27, 2023, Plaintiff’s daughter passed away while at home in hospice care [ECF No. 35 p. 2].

Hospice called paramedics to declare Plaintiff’s daughter deceased [ECF No. 35 p. 2]. Later that

evening, paramedics and a hospice nurse arrived at Plaintiff’s home [ECF No. 35 p. 2]. Two police

officers from the Boynton Beach Police Department (“BBPD”), Officer Scott and Officer Paciello,

also arrived shortly afterwards [ECF No. 35 p. 2]. Officer Scott spoke with the paramedics and

nurse outside the home, during which the paramedics neither indicated nor suggested that anything

improper had incurred inside of Plaintiff’s home [ECF No. 35 p. 2].

Plaintiff did not grant Officers Scott and Paciello permission to enter her home, but they

nevertheless entered without knocking or seeking permission [ECF No. 35 p. 2]. Sergeant Haas

subsequently arrived and likewise entered without announcing, knocking, or seeking permission

[ECF No. 35 p. 3]. Paramedics pronounced the daughter deceased and left, while the police stayed

[ECF No. 35 p. 3]. The officers looked around Plaintiff’s house, and Officer Paciello, upon the

direction of Sergeant Haas, inspected the daughter’s body without any permission from Plaintiff

[ECF No. 35 p. 3]. As part of this inspection, Officer Paciello lifted one of the daughter’s eyelids

[ECF No. 35 p. 3].

Plaintiff repeatedly requested that the police leave her home [ECF No. 35 p. 3]. The

officers did not leave, instead telling Plaintiff that she was prohibited by law from keeping her

daughter’s body in her home overnight unless the temperature reached 32 degrees Fahrenheit

[ECF No. 35 p. 3]. In an effort to comply, Plaintiff lowered her air conditioner in an attempt to

get the temperature down to 32 degrees, but it was obvious to everyone present that no amount of

air conditioning would suffice given the hot outside temperature [ECF No. 35 p. 3]. Despite

Plaintiff’s repeated requests that the officers leave her home, the officers insisted that they had to

remain until the room reached the requisite temperature [ECF No. 35 pp. 3–4]. Officer Scott

described the room as a “crime scene” [ECF No. 35 p. 4].

As it turns out, the officers were mistaken as to the requirements of Florida’s corpse

handling law: “Florida law provides a 24-hour window before a dead human body must be

removed after death or pending final disposition, unless the body can be maintained under

refrigeration at 40 degrees Fahrenheit or lower” [ECF No. 35 pp. 18–19 (citing Fla. Stat.

§ 497.386(2), (7))]. In other words, under that correct understanding, Plaintiff would have had

additional hours before she would have been required to have her daughter’s body removed from

the house (assuming she could not maintain an inside temperature of at least 40 degrees (as

opposed to 32)).

Eventually, the officers left Plaintiff’s home. Sergeant Haas attempted to justify the

officers’ actions to Plaintiff by “explaining that someone in the home could have had a gun or that

it could have been a hostage situation” [ECF No. 35 p. 4 (quotation omitted)]. Nearly a month

later, on April 24, 2023, Captain Rivera of the BBPD visited Plaintiff at her home and offered

several justifications for the officers’ actions, including that officers suspected Plaintiff of

strangling her daughter and that the situation might “have been a hostage situation” [ECF No. 35

p. 4 (quoting ECF No. 20 ¶ 92)].

LEGAL STANDARDS

Review of a Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendation

To challenge the findings and recommendations of a magistrate judge, a party must file

specific written objections identifying the portions of the proposed findings and recommendation

to which objection is made. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b)(3); Heath v. Jones, 863 F.2d 815, 822

(11th Cir. 1989); Macort v. Prem, Inc., 208 F. App’x 781, 784 (11th Cir. 2006). “Frivolous,

conclusive, or general objections need not be considered by the district court.” United States v.

Schultz, 565 F.3d 1353, 1361 (11th Cir. 2009) (quotation omitted). A district court reviews de

novo those portions of the report to which objection is made and may accept, reject, or modify in

whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made by the magistrate judge. 28 U.S.C.

§ 636(b)(1). To the extent a party fails to object to parts of the magistrate judge’s report, the Court

may accept the recommendation so long as there is no clear error on the face of the record. Macort,

208 F. App’x at 784.

Rule 12(b)(6) Motions to Dismiss

Rule 8(a)(2) requires complaints to provide “a short and plain statement of the claim

showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). To avoid dismissal under

Rule 12(b)(6), a complaint must allege facts that, if accepted as true, “state a claim to relief that is

plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007); see Fed. R. Civ. P.

12(b)(6). A claim for relief is plausible if the complaint contains factual allegations that allow

“the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.”

Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). “The plausibility standard is not akin to a ‘probability

requirement,’ but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.”

Id. (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 545). “[C]onclusory allegations, unwarranted deductions of

facts or legal conclusions masquerading as facts will not prevent dismissal.” Oxford Asset Mgmt.,

Ltd. v. Jaharis, 297 F.3d 1182, 1188 (11th Cir. 2002).

Fourth Amendment Search and Seizure

Under the Fourth Amendment, “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons,

houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . . .”

U.S. Const. amend. IV. Warrantless searches “are per se unreasonable under the Fourth

Amendment—subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.” E.g.,

Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357 (1967) (footnotes omitted). “One exception to the warrant

requirement is that the police may enter a private premises and conduct a search if exigent

circumstances mandate immediate action.” Roberts v. Spielman, 643 F.3d 899, 905 (11th Cir.

2011) (quotation omitted). Examples of exigent circumstances include “danger of flight or escape,

loss or destruction of evidence, risk of harm to the public or the police, mobility of a vehicle, and

hot pursuit.” United States v. Holloway, 290 F.3d 1331, 1334 (11th Cir. 2002). “One of the most

compelling events giving rise to exigent circumstances is the occurrence of an emergency

situation.” Id. at 1335. “The most urgent emergency situation excusing police compliance with

the warrant requirement is, of course, the need to protect or preserve life,” and thus, “emergency

situations involving endangerment to life fall squarely within the exigent circumstances

exception.” Id. at 1335, 1337.

“For this exception to apply, the officer must have both exigent circumstances and probable

cause.” Roberts, 643 F.3d at 905. “[I]n an emergency, the probable cause element may be satisfied

where officers reasonably believe a person is in danger.” Holloway, 290 F.3d at 1338.

Monell Claims

Municipalities and local governments can be sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 “for their own

illegal acts,” but they “are not vicariously liable under § 1983 for their employees’ actions.”

Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51, 60 (2011) (quotation omitted). “Instead, to impose § 1983

liability on a municipality, a plaintiff must show: (1) that his constitutional rights were violated;

(2) that the municipality had a custom or policy that constituted deliberate indifference to that

constitutional right; and (3) that the policy or custom caused the violation.” McDowell v. Brown,

392 F.3d 1283, 1289 (11th Cir. 2004). “Generally, random acts or isolated incidents are

insufficient to establish a custom or policy.” Khoury v. Miami-Dade Cnty. Sch. Bd., 4 F.4th 1118,

1131 (11th Cir. 2021) (quotation omitted). These types of claims are known as Monell claims,

named after the Supreme Court case Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978).

Under “limited circumstances,” a “failure to train amounts to deliberate indifference to the

rights of persons with whom the police come into contact.” City of Canton, Ohio v. Harris, 489

U.S. 378, 388 (1989) (footnote omitted). A city, however, “is not automatically liable under

section 1983 even if it inadequately trained or supervised its police officers and those officers

violated [a person’s] constitutional rights.” Gold v. City of Miami, 151 F.3d 1346, 1350 (11th Cir.

1998). Rather, the Supreme Court has limited these circumstances to “where the municipality

inadequately trains or supervises its employees, this failure to train or supervise is a city policy,

and that city policy causes the employees to violate a citizen’s constitutional rights.” Id. Thus, “a

plaintiff must present some evidence that the municipality knew of a need to train and/or supervise

in a particular area and the municipality made a deliberate choice not to take any action.” Id.

“[W]ithout notice of a need to train or supervise in a particular area, a municipality is not liable as

a matter of law for any failure to train and supervise.” Id. at 1350–51.

“A pattern of similar constitutional violations by untrained employees is ordinarily

necessary to demonstrate deliberate indifference for purposes of failure to train.” Connick, 563

U.S. at 62 (quotation omitted). An exception to this ordinary requirement exists where “the need

to train and supervise in a particular area is so obvious that liability attaches for a single incident.”

Weiland v. Palm Beach Cnty. Sheriff’s Off., 792 F.3d 1313, 1329 (11th Cir. 2015) (quotation

omitted). Such a need is obvious “in a narrow range of circumstances” where “a violation of

federal rights may be a highly predictable consequence of a failure to equip law enforcement

officers with specific tools to handle recurring situations.” Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs of Bryan Cnty.,

Okl. v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 409 (1997). These circumstances involve “likelihood that the

situation will recur and the predictability that an officer lacking specific tools to handle that

situation will violate citizens’ rights.” Id.

Supervisory Liability under § 1983

Separate and apart from Monell liability, a party may also assert § 1983 claims against

supervisors, subject to an “extremely rigorous” standard. Myrick v. Fulton Cnty., Georgia, 69

F.4th 1277, 1297 (11th Cir. 2023) (quotation omitted). This standard requires a plaintiff to “allege

facts that show a causal connection between [the supervisor’s] actions and the alleged

constitutional deprivation.” Id. at 1297–98 (quotation omitted).

A causal connection may be established when: (1) a history of widespread abuse

puts the responsible supervisor on notice of the need to correct the alleged

deprivation, and he or she fails to do so; (2) a supervisor’s custom or policy results

in deliberate indifference to constitutional rights; or (3) facts support an inference

that the supervisor directed subordinates to act unlawfully or knew that

subordinates would act unlawfully and failed to stop them from doing so.

Id. at 1298 (quotation omitted).

For the first circumstance to apply, “deprivations that constitute widespread abuse

sufficient to notify the supervising official must be obvious, flagrant, rampant and of continued

duration, rather than isolated occurrences.” Id. at 1298. Establishing the second circumstance

“requires showing a persistent and wide-spread practice,” and “[a] single incident of a

constitutional violation is insufficient to prove a policy or custom even when the incident involves

several subordinates.” Id. at 1299. Finally, to establish the third circumstance, the supervisor must

have “personally directed the Officers to act unlawfully” or have known “they would do so and

failed to stop them.” Id. at 1298.

Qualified Immunity

Qualified immunity “protects government officials performing discretionary functions

from civil litigation and liability if their conduct does not violate clearly established constitutional

or statutory rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Aguirre v. Seminole Cnty.,

158 F.4th 1276, 1296 (11th Cir. 2025) (citation omitted). “It accomplishes this protection by

granting officials immunity from suit, meaning an entitlement not to stand trial or face the other

burdens of litigation.” Id. (quotations omitted). As such, “[a] district court must adjudicate a

defense of qualified immunity at whatever stage it is raised.” Miller v. Palm Beach Cnty. Sheriff’s

Off., 129 F.4th 1329, 1334 (11th Cir. 2025); see also Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 646

n.6 (1987) (“[Q]ualified immunity questions should be resolved at the earliest possible stage of a

litigation.”). In fact, a district court errs when it fails to rule “on [an official’s] entitlement to

qualified immunity upon a motion to dismiss,” and thus, “an entitlement to qualified immunity

raised on a motion to dismiss will be granted if the complaint fails to allege the violation of a

clearly established constitutional right.” Miller, 129 F.4th at 1333–34 (alterations adopted)

(quotation omitted).

“When an official asserts qualified immunity, the district court must consider the issue on

a claim-by-claim and defendant-by-defendant basis.” Id. at 1333. “The district court must first

decide whether the defendant was engaged in a discretionary function.” Id. (quotation omitted).

In making this determination, the court asks, “whether the government employee was

(a) performing a legitimate job-related function (that is, pursuing a job-related goal), (b) through

means that were within his power to utilize.” Holloman ex rel. Holloman v. Harland, 370 F.3d

1252, 1265 (11th Cir. 2004).

If the government official was engaged in a discretionary function, “the burden shifts to

the plaintiff to show that the defendant is not entitled to qualified immunity.” Id. at 1264. “To

overcome qualified immunity at the motion-to-dismiss stage, the plaintiff must plead sufficient

facts to allege that: (1) the defendant violated a constitutional right; and (2) the right was clearly

established at the time of the alleged violation.” Wall-DeSousa v. Fla. Dep’t of Highway Safety &

Motor Vehicles, 691 F. App’x 584, 589 (11th Cir. 2017); see also Holloman, 370 F.3d at 1264.

As to that second prong, “the contours of a right must be sufficiently clear such that every

reasonable officer would have understood his conduct to violate that right.” Aguirre, 158 F.4th at

1296. “The law must not be defined at a high level of generality[] but rather be particularized to

the facts of the case.” Id. at 1297 (citation omitted).

A right may be clearly established for qualified immunity purposes in one of three

ways: (1) case law with indistinguishable facts clearly establishing the

constitutional right; (2) a broad statement of principle within the Constitution,

statute, or case law that clearly establishes a constitutional right; or (3) conduct so

egregious that a constitutional right was clearly violated, even in the total absence

of case law.

Lewis v. City of W. Palm Beach, Fla., 561 F.3d 1288, 1291–92 (11th Cir. 2009).

DICUSSION

I. The Court accepts the Report’s conclusion that the officers did not conduct an

unlawful search.

Both the Report and Defendants’ Motion cite a litany of cases all holding that a report of a

dead body constitutes an exigent circumstance [ECF No. 35 pp. 9–11; ECF No. 23 pp. 15–17].

Based upon this authority, the Report concludes that the report of a dead body is an exigent

circumstance [ECF No. 35 pp. 9–11]. This exigent circumstance, the Report reasons, permitted

the officers to make warrantless entry into Plaintiff’s home, along with a cursory protective sweep

and inspection of the body [ECF No. 35 pp. 8–11]. The Report also determines that all of the

officers’ actions were “discretionary functions” for purposes of qualified immunity [ECF No. 35

pp. 7–8]. The Report thus “finds no Fourth Amendment violation, let alone a ‘clearly established’

Fourth Amendment violation, in Defendants’ initial entry into, and search of, Plaintiff’s home”

[ECF No.35 p. 11].

Pla intiff objects, attempting to distinguish these cases. According to Plaintiff, because she

alleged that “there was no question that no one in the home needed immediate aid and that there

was no reasonable basis to believe otherwise,” there was no emergency and thus “a clear difference

between the facts alleged by Plaintiff” and the cases cited the Report [ECF No. 37 p. 4]. Plaintiff

further argues that her “burden was to plausibly allege that . . . her Fourth Amendment right to be

free from a warrantless search was violated” [ECF No. 37 p. 4]. Plaintiff thus submits that the

officers’ sweep of her home also violated the Fourth Amendment, and that even if exigent

circumstances existed, the officers went beyond the scope of a permissible sweep when they lifted

the daughter’s eyelids and manipulated the daughter’s bedsheets [ECF No. 37 pp. 5–6]. As for

qualified immunity, Plaintiff takes issue with the Report’s conclusion that the police were engaged

in a discretionary function and argues that the officers were not engaged in a discretionary function

because “BBPD officers always enter a home after a report of a dead body” and thus “entry into

Plaintiff’s home was not discretionary, but was carried out as part of their City-mandated orders”

[ECF No. 37 p. 3].

Upon de novo review, the Court disagrees with Plaintiff and agrees with the Report. First,

as both the Report and Defendants’ Motion correctly note, numerous cases hold that the report of

a dead body is an exigent circumstance [see ECF No. 35 pp. 9–11; ECF No. 23 pp. 15–17]. This

includes binding Eleventh Circuit precedent:

Acting in response to reports of ‘dead bodies,’ the police may find the ‘bodies' to

be common drunks, diabetics in shock, or distressed cardiac patients. But the

business of policemen and firemen is to act, not to speculate or meditate on whether

the report is correct. People could well die in emergencies if police tried to act with

the calm deliberation associated with the judicial process. Even the apparently dead

often are saved by swift police response.

E.g., Holloway, 290 F.3d at 1340 (quotation omitted). While Plaintiff tries to distinguish these

cases by saying that no one actually needed aid in this case, Plaintiff fails to understand that the

emergency is the report of a dead body and the chance that the “dead” person is not actually dead,

not whether or not the body actually turns out to indeed be a deceased person. See id. (“The fact

that no victims are found, or that the information ultimately proves to be false or inaccurate, does

not render the police action any less lawful.”). Significantly, Plaintiff provides no cases holding

that the report of a dead body is not an exigent circumstance—a notable omission in light of all

the aforementioned precedent holding that such reports do constitute exigent circumstances. In

fact, the one case Plaintiff cites to argue that there was no “emergency situation” did not involve

a dead body whatsoever [see ECF No. 37 p. 4 (quoting Moore v. Pederson, 806 F.3d 1036, 1045

(11th Cir. 2015))].

Second, even if the report of a dead body here did not constitute an exigent circumstance,

the officers are entitled to qualified immunity on the facts alleged. Plaintiff’s argument regarding

discretionary functions misunderstands the definition of “discretionary” in the qualified immunity

context as defined by the Eleventh Circuit in Holloman. There, the Eleventh Circuit explained

that, in the qualified immunity context, a “discretionary function” is not “an activity requiring the

exercise of independent judgment” but rather “include[s] actions that do not necessarily involve

an element of choice. Holloman, 370 F.3d at 1265 (footnote omitted) (quotation omitted). When

officers are “performing a legitimate job-related function . . . through means that were within

[their] power to utilize,” they are performing a discretionary function. Id. at 1265. Thus, the

Report rightly concluded that the officers engaged in a discretionary function.

The burden therefore shifted to Plaintiff to demonstrate that qualified immunity does not

apply. Id. at 1264. Given the foregoing cases—and especially given Plaintiff’s failure to cite any

contrary authority—Plaintiff has, at a minimum, failed to meet her burden to show that a “clearly

established” Fourth Amendment violation took place so as to overcome qualified immunity. Id.

at 1265. For the same reason, it cannot be said that the law “clearly established” that warrantless

entry upon the report of a dead body violates the Fourth Amendment.

Third, Plaintiff’s challenges to the protective sweep fail. As the Report correctly notes

(and Plaintiff does not challenge), when officers enter a home without a warrant pursuant to exigent

circumstances, the officers may do a protective sweep [ECF No. 35 p. 10]. Because exigent

circumstances existed in this case, the officers permissibly did a cursory sweep of the house and

the daughter’s body. Plaintiff objects that the “manipulation of bedding . . . objectively went

beyond a ‘plain view’ search” [ECF No. 37 pp. 5–9]. But the law simply requires that this sweep

be “strictly circumscribed by the exigencies which justify its initiation.” Mincey v. Arizona, 437

U.S. 385, 393 (1978) (quotation omitted). Here, the exigency involved the report of a dead body

and potential danger to life. Checking the body in the sheets is directly related to ensuring that the

deceased body is not actually alive and does not go beyond exigent circumstances at hand.

Therefore, the Court overrules these objections and accepts the Report and

Recommendation to dismiss Counts 10, 11, and 12.1

1 Though not clearly asserted, Plaintiff also seems to object to the Report’s conclusion that the

officers reasonably believed a n exigent circumstance existed [ECF No. 37 p. 5]. For the reasons

stated above, the Court agrees with the Report that the report of a dead body is an exigent

circumstance. The Report notes (with no dispute or objection from Plaintiff) that the officers had

a report of a dead body inside Plaintiff’s home [ECF No. 35 p. 2]. Thus, given this report, the

II. The Court accepts the Report’s conclusion that the officer’s seizure of Plaintiff is

protected by qualified immunity.

The Report concludes that the officers seized Plaintiff within the meaning of the Fourth

Amendment because “a reasonable person in Plaintiff’s position would not have felt free to leave

her home and/or terminate the encounter with police” [ECF No. 35 p. 15]. Neither party objects

to this finding. The Report then determines that Plaintiff’s seizure amounted to a Terry stop—i.e.,

“detain[ing] a person briefly for an investigatory stop” when police “have a reasonable, articulable

suspicion based on objective facts that the person has engaged in, or is about to engage in, criminal

activity.” United States v. Powell, 222 F.3d 913, 917 (11th Cir. 2000).2 The Report finds that “the

Amended Complaint suggests two types of criminal activity” [ECF No. 35 p. 17]: first, the

reasonable and articulable suspicion that Plaintiff’s daughter may not have died from natural

causes [ECF No. 35 p. 17], and second, the officers’ (mistaken) suspicion that Plaintiff was

committing a violation of Florida’s corpse-storage laws [ECF No. 35 pp. 18–19]. As to that second

suspicion, while the officers were wrong as a matter of Florida law, the Report explains that

qualified immunity still protects officers who make reasonable mistakes of law [ECF No. 35

pp. 19–20]. The Report concludes that the officers mistake “was not so unreasonable as to trigger

a loss of qualified immunity,” noting that the officers’ were mistaken on merely two areas: “(1) the

omission of the 24-hour waiting period, and (2) the difference between 32 and 40 degrees

Fahrenheit” [ECF No. 35 p. 20].

officers had probable cause to believe an exigent circumstance existed. See Roberts, 643 F.3d at

905; Holloway, 290 F.3d at 13 38. Plaintiff resists this conclusion by asserting that she “plausibly

allege[d] the lack of exigent circumstances” [ECF No. 37 p. 5]. As the Report properly notes,

however, a court need not accept these legal conclusions as true [see ECF No. 35 pp. 10–11].

See also Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678–79.

2 The name “Terry stops” stems from the Supreme Court case which established the

constitutionality of such stops: Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968).

Plaintiff objects to the Report and maintains that “[t]here was never a basis for a Terry stop

of Plaintiff in her own home” [ECF No. 37 p. 7]. She argues that (1) there were no exigent

circumstances to justify an initial entry into Plaintiff’s home and thus no exigent circumstances to

justify a Terry stop; (2) a Terry stop cannot be initiated on facts unrelated to the exigent

circumstances justifying warrantless entry; (3) the officers had no reasonable articulable suspicion

because any such suspicion was created as “excuses” with “zero basis in the facts (in their totality

or isolated) that were present to BBPD” in response to Plaintiff’s becoming “upset with their

refusal to leave”; and (4) the officers’ conduct was not “reasonable” and was “plainly

incompetent” as to be determined following discovery (not on the pleadings) [ECF No. 37 pp. 7–

8].

Upon de novo review, the Court agrees with the Report that the officers are entitled to

qualified immunity for making a Terry stop within Plaintiff’s home. The Eleventh Circuit has held

that Terry stops can take place within a home when exigent circumstances are present, see Moore

v. Pederson, 806 F.3d 1036, 1039 (11th Cir. 2015)—and that principle applies here based on the

underlying exigency warranting entry into the home (as discussed supra) [see ECF No. 35 p. 16;

ECF No. 37 p. 7]. It is true, as the Report observes, that the Eleventh Circuit has not addressed

“whether police may conduct a Terry stop inside a home after they have entered the home based

on exigent circumstances but thereafter encounter facts, unrelated to the initial exigency, that give

rise to a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity” [ECF No. 35 p. 16 n.1]. Ultimately, however,

as the Report correctly notes and Plaintiff fails to even address, “to the extent the Eleventh Circuit

has not yet decided this precise issue, qualified immunity would protect the officers’ conduct”

[ECF No. 35 p. 16 n.1]. Thus, at the very least, Plaintiff has not shown the law is “clearly

established” on this issue, so Plaintiff has not met her burden to overcome qualified immunity.

See Holloman, 370 F.3d at 1264; Miller, 129 F.4th at 1333–34.

Second, the Report rightly finds that the officers had reasonable articulable suspicion that

Plaintiff’s daughter died from unnatural, criminal causes. In examining whether the police had

reasonable articulable suspicion, the Court views this question “from the standpoint of a reasonable

police officer at the scene . . . based on the totality of the circumstances.” Evans v. Stephens, 407

F.3d 1272, 1280 (11th Cir. 2005) (citations omitted). And, where “an officer asserts qualified

immunity, the issue is not whether reasonable suspicion existed in fact, but whether the officer had

arguable reasonable suspicion to support an investigatory stop.” Jackson v. Sauls, 206 F.3d 1156,

1166 (11th Cir. 2000) (quotation omitted). This is a “low bar.” E.g., United States v. Black, No.

24-CR-113, 2025 WL 2418485, at *4 (M.D. Fla. Aug. 21, 2025).

When viewing the totality of the circumstances as laid forth in the Amended Complaint

[ECF No. 20], taking all facts as true and drawing all inferences in Plaintiff’s favor, the officers

had arguable reasonable suspicion that the daughter died from unnatural causes. As the Report

notes, “the Amended Complaint alleges that Defendants arrived at the scene pursuant to a medical

call and that they found a dead human body inside the home” and the “deceased was in her late

thirties or early forties at the time of death” [ECF No. 35 p. 17 (citing ECF No. 20 ¶¶ 10–11, 27–

28, 35, 84)]. These facts overcome the low bar of providing arguable reasonable suspicion to the

officers, and Plaintiff is thus incorrect to assert that any suspicion had “zero basis in the facts (in

their totality or isolated)” [ECF No. 37 p. 8].3 Accordingly, the Report correctly concludes that

“Defendants clear the low bar of arguable reasonable suspicion of death by non-natural causes”

3 While Plaintiff argues that this suspicion was made up in response to her refusal to allow the

officers to remain in her home [ECF No. 37 p. 8], these facts—as pled by the Complaint—existed

and were evident to the officers independent of her refusals [see ECF No. 20 ¶¶ 10–11, 27–28,

35, 84]. Again, all that is necessary for qualified immunity to apply is “arguable reasonable

suspicion,” which these facts provide. See Jackson, 206 F.3d at 1166.

[ECF No. 35 p. 18].

Third, even apart from the reasonable articulable suspicion that the daughter’s death was

from unnatural causes, the Court agrees with the Report that the officers’ mistake of law—i.e., that

they had reasonable articulable suspicion to detain Plaintiff under Florida’s corpse storage law—

was not so unreasonable or plainly incompetent so as to overcome qualified immunity [ECF No. 35

pp. 19–20]. “The protection of qualified immunity applies regardless of whether the government

official’s error is a mistake of law, a mistake of fact, or a mistake based on mixed questions of law

and fact.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009) (quotation omitted). Still, any such

mistake must be “reasonable.” E.g., Hardigree v. Lofton, 992 F.3d 1216, 1227–28 (11th Cir.

2021); see also Eves v. LePage, 927 F.3d 575, 588 (1st Cir. 2019) (“[A] reasonable mistake of law

does not defeat qualified immunity.”). The Court agrees that the officer’s mistake of law, having

fallen short “in only two material respects,” was not “so unreasonable as to trigger a loss of

qualified immunity” [ECF No. 35 p. 20].

As a final point in this section, Plaintiff is mistaken to assert that the question of an officers’

reasonableness should not be adjudicated “at the pleadings stage” [ECF No. 37 p. 8]. “[A]n

entitlement to qualified immunity raised on a motion to dismiss will be granted if the complaint

fails to allege the violation of a clearly established constitutional right.” Miller, 129 F.4th at 1333–

34 (alterations adopted) (quotation omitted). Additionally, the question of reasonableness is a

question of law, as Plaintiff concedes [ECF No. 37 p. 8]. See also Stone v. Peacock, 968 F.2d

1163, 1166 (11th Cir. 1992) (“The law is now clear, however, that the defense of qualified

immunity should be decided by the court, and should not be submitted for decision by the jury.”);

Curley v. Klem, 499 F.3d 199, 211 (3d Cir. 2007) (“[W]hether an officer made a reasonable

mistake of law and is thus entitled to qualified immunity is a question of law that is properly

answered by the court, not a jury.” (citation omitted)). Thus, Plaintiff’s allegations of law—such

as her allegation that the officers were “plainly incompetent”—need not be taken as true. See

Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678–79. Rather, the question is whether, at the pleading stage, Plaintiff has met

her burdens: to allege facts that one, when taken as true, plausibly state a claim for relief, see id.,

and two, overcome qualified immunity, see Wall-DeSousa, 691 F. App’x at 589; Holloman, 370

F.3d at 1264; Miller, 129 F.4th at 1333–34. In other words, Plaintiff must allege facts that, when

taken as true, that “plausibly give rise” to the “reasonable inference” that the officers’ mistake of

law was unreasonable and plainly incompetent. See Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678–79. Plaintiff has not

met this burden; Plaintiff has failed to plead facts showing a Fourth Amendment violation or a

clearly established violation of the Fourth Amendment so as to overcome qualified immunity.

The Court therefore accepts the Report and Recommendation, overrules Plaintiff’s

objections, and dismisses Counts 4, 5, and 6.

III. The Court accepts the Report’s recommendation that the Monell failure-to-train

claim should be dismissed.

The Report determines that Plaintiff failed to allege “any materially similar constitutional

violations, prior to the events of Plaintiff’s own case, that would have put the City [of Boynton

Beach] on notice of a need for officer training regarding this [corpse storage] statute” [ECF No. 35

pp. 21–24]. The Report also rejects Plaintiff’s argument that the need for training on Florida’s

corpse storage was obvious [ECF No. 35 pp. 21–24]. Plaintiff objects to the Report, maintaining

that the need to train was “obvious” [ECF 37 pp. 8–10].4 But she cites only a single incident—

4 Plaintiff also states that her Monell claim survives as it pertains to the officers’ entry. The Court

has already determined in th is Order, however, that the officers’ entry was constitutionally

permissible. Thus, Plaintiff cannot state a Monell claim predicated upon that injury. See

McDowell, 392 F.3d at 1289 (noting that, for a Monell claim, “a plaintiff must show . . . that [her]

constitutional rights were violated”).

this case—to support an erroneous application of Florida’s corpse storage law [ECF No. 21 p. 7].

Without more, Plaintiff has failed to plead facts that show any “likelihood that the situation will

recur” or “predictability that an officer lacking specific tools to handle that situation will violate

citizens’ rights.” See Bryan Cnty., 520 U.S. at 409. Thus, the Report correctly determines that

Plaintiff has not alleged a high likelihood that “BBPD officers will repeatedly encounter dead

bodies and thereafter predictably make unlawful Terry stops and full-scale arrests due to their lack

of training on Florida corpse-storage law” [ECF No. 35 p. 23]. Plaintiff’s objection to the Report’s

recommended dismissal of Count 1 is overruled.

IV. The Court accepts the Report’s recommendation that the individual-capacity claim

against Chief DeGiulio should be dismissed.

The Report also concludes that Plaintiff fails to establish a causal connection between the

Terry stop and Chief DeGiulio so as to state a claim for § 1983 supervisory liability [ECF No. 35

p. 25]. As the Report notes, Plaintiff does not “allege, for example, facts that show a history of

widespread misapplication of Florida corpse-storage law by BBPD officers, sufficient to put Chief

DeGiulio on notice of a need for correction or training in this area” or “personal participation by

Chief DeGiulio” [ECF No. 35 p. 25]. Plaintiff objects to this conclusion, offering the general

allegation that “it was Chief DeGiulio’s responsibility to ensure that protocols and guidelines

applicable to BBPD were promulgated, and that training in connection with same was adequate”

[ECF No. 37 p. 10].

On de novo review, the Court rejects Plaintiff’s objection. Causal supervisory liability

under § 1983 would exist in this case only if Plaintiff had alleged facts showing a causal connection

between Chief DeGiulio’s actions and the alleged constitutional deprivation.” Myrick, 69 F.4th at

1298. Plaintiff has not done so here—at all—relying simply on conclusory and general allegations

that Chief DeGiulio had “oversight” and “responsibility” for promulgating “protocols and

guidelines” [ECF No. 37 p. 11]. Even accepting that proposition as true, that allegation reveals

Chief DeGuilio’s supervisory role and certainly does not show “a causal connection” under any of

the three circumstances enumerated in Myrick. See 69 F.4th at 1298. Plaintiff has thus failed to

“allege facts” that show either constitutional “deprivations” of “obvious, flagrant, rampant and of

continued duration, rather than isolated occurrences” by BBPD, “a persistent and wide-spread

practice” of such deprivations in BBPD, or any personal direction or knowledge by Chief

DeGiulio. See id. at 1298–99.

V. The Court agrees with the Report and dismisses the official capacity claims.

The Report determines that Plaintiff’s official capacity claims are duplicative of her Monell

claim against the City [ECF No. 35 p. 26]. While Plaintiff concedes that her official capacity claim

against Chief DeGuilio is duplicative, Plaintiff maintains that the other official capacity claims

should survive, objecting that “those claims are not predicated upon a failure to train but a direct

violation of the Fourth Amendment” [ECF No. 37 p. 11].

Plaintiff’s argument fails. Plaintiff fails to acknowledge that her official-capacity claims

are “only another way of pleading an action against an entity of which an officer is an agent.” See

Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159, 165 (1985). For these suits to go forward then, Plaintiff must

allege facts that, if taken as true, would be sufficient to state a claim against the entity—here, the

City of Boynton Beach (the “City”). As noted supra, however, the City is “not vicariously liable

under § 1983 for [its] employees’ actions.” Connick, 563 U.S. at 60 (quotation omitted). Thus, to

bring a claim against the City based upon the officers’ conduct, Plaintiff must proceed under a

theory of Monell liability—i.e., that the City had “a custom or policy that constituted deliberate

indifference to [Plaintiff’s] constitutional right[s]” and that “the policy or custom caused the

violation.” See McDowell, 392 F.3d at 1289.

The only policy or custom Plaintiff argues, however, is that of a failure to train; she does

not point to any other policies or customs that she claims caused her a Fourth Amendment injury

[see ECF No. 20 ¶¶ 217–269, 310–349; ECF No. 25 p. 8; ECF No. 37 p. 11]. Either Plaintiff relies

on the failure to train theory, in which case her official capacity claims are duplicative, or Plaintiff

has failed to plead any other types of policy or custom, in which case her official capacity claims

fail to state claims under Monell. Thus, the Court accepts the Report and Recommendation and

dismisses Counts 2, 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, and 15.

VI. The Court dismisses the Complaint with prejudice.

While the Report recommends granting leave to replead [ECF No. 23 pp. 26–27], and

neither party objects to this recommendation [see ECF Nos. 36, 37], the Court sees no basis for

repleading and rejects the Report’s recommendation on that issue. See 28 U.S.C.A. § 636(b)(1)

(“A judge of the court may accept, reject, or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or

recommendations made by the magistrate judge.”).

“A district court is not required to grant a plaintiff leave to amend his complaint sua sponte

when the plaintiff, who is represented by counsel, never filed a motion to amend nor requested

leave to amend before the district court.” Wagner v. Daewoo Heavy Indus. Am. Corp., 314 F.3d

541, 542 (11th Cir. 2002); see also Ounjian v. Globoforce, Inc., 89 F.4th 852, 862 (11th Cir. 2023)

(“A district court may dismiss a complaint with prejudice where the plaintiff fails to request leave

to amend, or where the complaint could not be more carefully drafted to state a valid claim.”); Pop

v. LuliFama.com LLC, 145 F.4th 1285, 1298 (11th Cir. 2025) (holding that “because [the plaintiff]

failed to properly request leave to amend, the district court did not err in dismissing his complaint

with prejudice”).

Here, Plaintiff has not filed a motion for leave to amend. While Plaintiff does request leave

to amend “on the last page of [her] response in opposition to the defendants’ motions to dismiss,”

CASE NO. 25-80396-CIV-CANNON/McCabe

it is not sufficient to embed the request within an opposition memorandum. See Pop, 145 F.4th at

1298 (alteration adopted) (quotation omitted). Moreover, even if such a request were sufficient to

preserve a proper request to amend, which it is not, Plaintiff still does not say in her embedded

statement what facts she could plead to state a claim or to overcome qualified immunity. On top

of that, Plaintiff already amended her complaint once before under Fed. R. Civ. P. 15 [ECF Nos.

1, 20], and she has not explained how a third complaint in this case could overcome the factual

and legal barriers to her claim identified by the Court supra. Accordingly, the Court rejects the

Report’s recommendation and dismisses Plaintiff's Amended Complaint with prejudice.

CONCLUSION

Accordingly, it is ORDERED AND ADJUDGED as follows:

1. The Report and Recommendation [ECF No. 35] is ACCEPTED IN PART.

2. Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff's Amended Complaint [ECF No. 23] is

GRANTED.

3. Plaintiff's Amended Complaint [ECF No. 20] is DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE.

4. Final Judgment to enter by separate order.

ORDERED in Chambers in Fort Pierce, Florida, this 5th day of February 2026.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

cc: counsel of record

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