Broadus

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT March 17, 2026

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS Nathan Ochsner, Clerk

GALVESTON DIVISION

CHRISTOPHER BROADUS, §

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Plaintiff. §

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V. § CIVIL ACTION NO. 3:25-cv-00350

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CITY OF TEXAS CITY, et al., §

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Defendants. §

OPINION AND ORDER

On October 22, 2025, Plaintiff Christopher Broadus instituted this action

against eight officers of the Texas City Police Department (“TCPD”), in their

individual and official capacities, and the City of Texas City.1 The operative

pleading is Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint, in which Broadus asserts several

claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983: (1) Fourth Amendment unreasonable seizure;

(2) Fourth Amendment unreasonable search; (3) Fourteenth Amendment

violation of medical privacy and informational due process; and (4) municipal

liability against the City. See Dkt. 11.

The facts of Broadus’s case are simple. On December 28, 2023, TCPD

officers initiated a traffic stop when the vehicle that Broadus was driving registered

as stolen based on a license-plate-reader (“LPR”) alert. During the stop, Defendant

Vela “contacted the rental company associated with the vehicle identified by the

LPR alert,” who “requested only recovery of the vehicle” and did not seek criminal

charges. Id. at 5. Despite the rental car company’s disinterest in pressing criminal

charges, officers searched Broadus’s vehicle, and Vela “claimed to have located

marijuana and a digital scale inside the vehicle.” Id. at 8. Officers subsequently

arrested Broadus. Broadus contends that the inventory search of his vehicle and

1 The eight TCPD officers are Defendants Eric Vela (incorrectly named as “Velo”), Juan

Vazquez, Zachary Bright, Michael Kelemen, Brandon Shives, Richard Dricks, and TCPD

Chief of Police Landis Cravens.

his subsequent arrest violated his Fourth Amendment rights to be free from

unreasonable search and seizure.

At some point during the arrest and transport, Vela allegedly told Broadus’s

girlfriend that Broadus had herpes. See id. at 9. Broadus contends that this

disclosure violated his Fourteenth Amendment right to medical privacy and

informational due process.

Vela is the only officer against whom Broadus makes specific allegations.

Broadus seeks to hold the remaining officers liable based on their failure to

intervene. Broadus also seeks to hold the City liable based on its alleged failure to

train and supervise. Defendants moved to dismiss all claims on February 12, 2026,

arguing that Broadus fails to state a claim against them, and that the eight officers

are all entitled to qualified immunity. See Dkt. 17. Broadus’s response to

Defendants’ motion to dismiss was due on March 5, 2026. Broadus, who is

represented by counsel, has not responded to Defendants’ motion to dismiss.

At the risk of stating the obvious, no constitutional violation is committed

when officers stop and search a vehicle that has been reported stolen and then

arrest the driver of the reportedly stolen vehicle. According to his own allegations,

Broadus was stopped and searched “on the basis of a [LPR] alert indicating that

the vehicle had been reported stolen.” Dkt. 11 at 4. Broadus does not contest that

the LPR alert provided probable cause to stop the vehicle that he was driving,

making the stop lawful. Rather, Broadus believes that the traffic stop should have

ended after the rental car company’s representative told Vela that the company

would not press charges. Yet, “[Broadus] cites no authority, and [I am] aware of

none, that a complainant’s desires affect the probable cause analysis.” Davis v. City

of Andrews, 850 F. App’x. 281, 282 (5th Cir. 2021). “A person present in a stolen

automobile at the time of the search may not object to the lawfulness of the search

of the automobile.” Byrd v. United States, 584 U.S. 395, 409 (2018) (cleaned up).

Thus, the traffic stop and the subsequent search of the reportedly stolen vehicle

that Broadus was driving were supported by probable cause and lawful, as was

Broadus’s subsequent arrest.2 Broadus presumably did not respond to Defendants’

motion to dismiss in recognition of this basic legal proposition.

As for Broadus’s Fourteenth Amendment claim, I will assume for the sake of

argument that Vela violated Broadus’s right to medical privacy and informational

due process when Vela “falsely stated to [Broadus]’s girlfriend that [Broadus] had

herpes, despite the absence of any medical documentation or disclosure by

[Broadus].” Dkt. 11 at 13 (emphasis added). Even so, to overcome Vela’s claim to

qualified immunity, Broadus must show: “(1) that [Vela] violated a statutory or

constitutional right, and (2) that the right was clearly established at the time of

the challenged conduct.” Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 735 (2011) (emphasis

added) (quotation omitted). Even if I assume that Vela violated Broadus’s right to

medical privacy and informational due process, Broadus cannot show that such a

right was clearly established at the time of the challenged conduct.

A right is clearly established only if relevant precedent has “placed the

statutory or constitutional question beyond debate.” Id. at 741. “There is no Fifth

Circuit authority on what types of disclosures are personal enough to trigger the

protection of the confidentiality branch, and, as the Third Circuit notes, ‘the

contours of the confidentiality branch are murky.’” Zaffuto v. City of Hammond,

308 F.3d 485, 490 (5th Cir. 2002) (quoting Scheetz v. The Morning Call, Inc., 946

F.2d 202, 206 (3d Cir. 1991)), on reh’g in part, 313 F.3d 879 (5th Cir. 2002). “In

order for liability to be imposed on public officials, . . . the right the official is

alleged to have violated must have been clearly established in a more

particularized, and hence more relevant, sense.” Wyatt v. Fletcher, 718 F.3d 496,

2 Broadus acknowledges that Vela “claimed to have located marijuana and a digital scale

inside the vehicle.” Dkt. 11 at 8. Broadus complains that the “alleged digital scale is not

visible on body-worn camera footage and was inconsistently documented in reports and

evidence records.” Id. Yet, Broadus makes no allegations regarding the veracity of Vela’s

claim that he found marijuana in the reportedly stolen vehicle that Broadus was driving.

Whether there was marijuana in the vehicle that Broadus was driving, however, is

ultimately irrelevant. The facts show that Broadus was driving a reportedly stolen

vehicle—that alone gave the officers probable cause to stop, search, and arrest Broadus.

506 n.14 (5th Cir. 2013) (quotation omitted). The Fifth Circuit has held that no

constitutional right to privacy is violated when a state correctional officer shows

nude photographs of an inmate’s wife to other inmates. See Davis v. Bucher, 853

F.2d 718, 721 (5th Cir. 1988). Nor is a student’s constitutional right to privacy

violated by “the unauthorized disclosure by school coaches of a student’s sexual

orientation to the student’s mother.” Wyatt, 718 F.3d at 505–06. It is Broadus’s

burden to provide this court with specific authority establishing that his

constitutional right to privacy was violated when Vela falsely told Broadus’s

girlfriend that Broadus had herpes. Broadus has failed to point this court to such

authority. Accordingly, Vela is entitled to qualified immunity on Broadus’s

Fourteenth Amendment claim that his rights to medical privacy and informational

due process were violated.3

As for the remaining officers, Broadus seeks to hold them liable based solely

on their failure to intervene. See Dkt. 11 at 6, 11, 12. Broadus also seeks to hold the

City liable for the officers’ actions. Because, as discussed above, Broadus has not

established a constitutional violation, his claims against the remaining officers and

the City must be dismissed. See Davis, 850 F. App’x at 282.

Defendants’ motion to dismiss (Dkt. 17) is granted. I will issue a final

judgment separately.

SIGNED this __ day of March 2026.

______________________________

ANDREW M. EDISON

UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

3 Broadus’s allegations that Vela provided false information to Broadus’s girlfriend are

better suited to a defamation claim. See Zaffuto, 308 F.3d at 491 (“Federal cases limiting

the scope of the confidentiality branch suggest that the proper remedy for less serious

privacy violations is state tort law.”).