Henry Davis v. Michael White

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

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No. 14-1722

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Henry M. Davis

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellant

v.

Michael White; City of Ferguson, Missouri; John Beaird; Kim Tihen

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants - Appellees

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Appeal from United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Missouri - St. Louis

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Submitted: April 16, 2015

Filed: July 28, 2015

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Before RILEY, Chief Judge, LOKEN and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.

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LOKEN, Circuit Judge.

After a fight with police officers at the Ferguson, Missouri, jail, Henry M.

Davis brought this civil action. He asserted 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims against officers

Michael White, John Beaird, and Kim Tihen for using excessive force; the City of

Ferguson for municipal liability; and Beaird for violating Davis’s substantive due

process rights by filing false complaints against him. Davis also asserted assault and

battery claims against the officers individually under Missouri law. Officer White

suffered a broken nose in the altercation and filed an assault and battery counterclaim.

Davis appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment on the excessive force,

assault and battery, and municipal liability claims; the grant of judgment as a matter

of law dismissing the substantive due process claim against Beaird at the close of

Davis’s case at the jury trial of that claim and White’s counterclaim; and three pretrial

procedural rulings regarding the counterclaim, which the court dismissed without

prejudice following resolution of the final federal claim. We reverse the district

court’s grant of summary judgment on the excessive force and assault and battery

claims, vacate the dismissal without prejudice of the White counterclaim, and remand.

On all other issues, we affirm.

I. Background

Davis was stopped for speeding and arrested for driving while intoxicated

between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. on September 20, 2009. Officer Beaird transported Davis

to the crowded Ferguson jail. When Officer Christopher Pillarick was unable to

complete the booking process, Pillarick and Beaird escorted Davis to a cell where the

only bunk was occupied. Davis requested a mat from a nearby stack. Pillarick

refused because Davis was not cooperating. Davis refused to enter the cell. Beaird or

Pillarick radioed for backup. White, Tihen, and Sergeant William Ballard responded.

The deposition testimony differs dramatically concerning what happened next. It is

undisputed that White pushed Davis into the cell and a short, bloody fight ensued.

After it ended, White was treated at a hospital emergency room and eventually

required surgery for a broken nose that had bled profusely. Davis was taken to the

emergency room, where scalp bleeding was noted but he refused treatment. After his

release two days later, Davis went to another emergency room where he was

diagnosed with a concussion and a scalp laceration.

There is no video of the incident. The summary judgment record included

testimony supporting a claim that White, Beaird, and Tihen each beat or kicked Davis

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after he was handcuffed and subdued on the floor of the cell. After the incident,

Beaird completed four complaints charging Davis with the offense of “Property

Damage” for transferring blood onto the uniforms of Beaird, Tihen, White, and

Pillarick. Other charges relating to the traffic stop were also filed. Davis eventually

pleaded guilty to careless driving, speeding, non-moving violations, and two counts

of Destruction of City Property.

II. Excessive Force Claims

Davis was a post-arrest detainee at the time of the incident. He alleged that

White, Beaird, and Tihen used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment,

consistent with our cases holding that the Fourth Amendment’s “objective

reasonableness” standard applies to excessive-force claims that arise before the end

of a detainee’s booking process. See, e.g., Hicks v. Norwood, 640 F.3d 839, 842 (8th

Cir. 2011). In Kingsley v. Hendrickson, the Supreme Court recently held that the

objective reasonableness standard applies to excessive force due process claims by

pretrial detainees. No. 14-6368, 2015 WL 2473447, at *5-6 (U.S. June 22, 2015).

The Court has not decided whether the Fourth Amendment applies to claims by

detainees in custody. See id. at *13 (Alito, J., dissenting). But Kingsley confirms that

we have properly applied the objective reasonableness standard to these claims.1

1

In applying the objective reasonableness standard to detainees in jail, the Court

“explained that a court must take account of the legitimate interests in managing a jail,

acknowledging as part of the objective reasonableness analysis that deference to

policies and practices needed to maintain order and institutional security is

appropriate.” 2015 WL 2473447, at *7. Kingsley did not overrule cases applying a

different, subjective standard to Eighth Amendment excessive force claims by

convicted prisoners. Id. at *9; see Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 320-21 (1986).

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The district court granted summary judgment dismissing these claims on a

narrow ground. “Qualified immunity shields police officers from liability for civil

damages where their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or

constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Wertish v.

Krueger, 433 F.3d 1062, 1066 (8th Cir. 2006) (quotation omitted). Noting that, until

recently, some of our decisions suggested that an excessive force claim will not lie if

the plaintiff suffered only “de minimis injuries,” the court concluded that the police

officers were entitled to qualified immunity because, “as unreasonable as it may

sound, a reasonable officer could have believed that beating a subdued and compliant

Mr. Davis while causing only a concussion, scalp laceration, and bruising with almost

no permanent damage did not violate the Constitution.” We disagree.

Our prior cases acknowledging that “some minimum level of injury”may be

required to prove a Fourth Amendment excessive force claim concluded that “the

necessary level of injury is actual injury.” Dawkins v. Graham, 50 F.3d 532, 535 (8th

Cir. 1995); accord Lambert v. City of Dumas, 187 F.3d 931, 936 (8th Cir. 1999).

Other cases noted, consistent with the proper standard as clarified in Kingsley, 2015

WL 2473447, at *6-7, that the infliction of only de minimis injuries “supports the

conclusion that [the officer] did not use excessive force.” Wertish, 433 F.3d at 1067;

accord Copeland v. Locke, 613 F.3d 875, 881 (8th Cir. 2010); Cook v. City of Bella

Villa, 582 F.3d 840, 850 (8th Cir. 2009); cf. Wilkins v. Gaddy, 559 U.S. 34, 36-38

(2010) (same principle applies to Eighth Amendment excessive force claims).

No case acknowledging this issue has held that serious injuries such as “a

concussion, scalp laceration, and bruising” can be considered de minimis as a matter

of law for qualified immunity purposes. See, e.g., Small v. McCrystal, 708 F.3d 997,

1005 (8th Cir. 2013) (three lacerations above eye treated without stitches not de

minimis); Copeland, 613 F.3d at 881-82 (same for lacerations from handcuffs and

chronic knee injury); Irving v. Dormire, 519 F.3d 441, 448 (8th Cir. 2008) (blow to

the face not de minimis); Lambert, 187 F.3d at 936 (same for “single small cut of the

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. . . eyelid and small scrapes of the . . . knee and upper calf”); Dawkins, 50 F.3d at 535

(same for bruises and facial laceration); compare Bishop v. Glazier, 723 F.3d 957, 962

(8th Cir. 2013) (light cut on neck de minimis); Wertish, 433 F.3d at 1067 (“relatively

minor scrapes and bruises” de minimis); Andrews v. Fuoss, 417 F.3d 813, 816, 818

(8th Cir. 2005) (soreness and bad headache de minimis). We conclude the district

court erred in granting summary judgment on this ground.

Accordingly, we remand for further proceedings on these claims with directions

to apply the proper objective reasonableness standard as defined in Graham v. Connor,

490 U.S. 386, 396-97 (1989), Chambers v. Pennycook, 641 F.3d 898, 905-06 (8th Cir.

2011), and, most recently, Kingsley, 2015 WL 2473447, at *5-7. As § 1983 liability

for damages for a federal constitutional tort is personal, each defendant’s conduct

must be independently assessed. See Cross v. Mokwa, 547 F.3d 890, 898 (8th Cir.

2008).

There is one further aspect of this problem that warrants consideration at this

time. The decision in Kingsley turned on the Supreme Court’s conclusion that the

district court erred in defining “excessive force” in its jury instructions. 2015 WL

2473447, at *9-10. But the Court did not overrule its prior decision that, “[i]n

determining whether a Fourth Amendment violation occurred we draw all reasonable

factual inferences in favor of the jury verdict, but . . . we do not defer to the jury’s

legal conclusion that those facts violate the Constitution.” Muehler v. Mena, 544 U.S.

93, 98 n.1 (2005). None of the four separate opinions in Kingsley mentioned this

issue. Both Muehler and Kingsley were 5-4 decisions. Justice Kennedy was the only

Justice in both majorities. We see nothing in the Kingsley opinion suggesting that

Justice Kennedy has departed from his concurring opinion in Muehler, which we read

as treating the question of whether force was constitutionally excessive as an issue of

law. 544 U.S. at 103-04. Obviously, this is a question of great significance in

deciding issues of qualified immunity and in conducting trials of Fourth Amendment

excessive force claims.

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III. Assault and Battery Claims

Davis’s state law assault and battery claims arose out of the same altercation.

Under Missouri law, “public officials acting within the scope of their authority are not

liable in tort for injuries arising from their discretionary acts or omissions.” Seiner v.

Drenon, 304 F.3d 810, 813 (8th Cir. 2002) (quotation omitted). The district court

correctly concluded that a police officer’s decision to use force in the performance of

his duties is discretionary rather than ministerial. See Davis v. Lambert-St. Louis Int’l

Airport, 193 S.W.3d 760, 763 (Mo. banc 2006) (“An act is discretionary when it

requires the exercise of reason in the adaption of means to an end, and discretion in

determining how or whether an act should be done or a course pursued.”) (quotation

omitted); Conway v. St. Louis Cnty., 254 S.W.3d 159, 165 (Mo. App. 2008); Seiner,

304 F.3d at 813. Accordingly, the court concluded, Officers White, Beaird, and Tihen

are entitled to official immunity from these claims “because they . . . acted within their

discretion [and] caused only de minimis injuries.”

On appeal, Davis argues the district court erred in granting summary judgment

on these claims because the court failed to consider the well-established principle that

official immunity “does not apply to discretionary acts done in bad faith or with

malice.” Blue v. Harrah’s North Kan. City, LLC, 170 S.W.3d 466, 479 (Mo. App.

2005), citing State ex rel. Twiehaus v. Adolf, 706 S.W.2d 443, 446 (Mo. banc 1986).

We agree. “A defendant acts with malice when he wantonly does that which a man

of reasonable intelligence would know to be contrary to his duty and which he intends

to be prejudicial or injurious to another.” Adolf, 706 S.W.2d at 447 (quotation

omitted). “Bad faith” means “conscious wrongdoing” or “breach of a known duty

through some ulterior motive.” Id. (quotation omitted). That an officer’s conduct

caused only de minimis injuries does not necessarily establish the absence of malice

or bad faith as a matter of law. Accordingly, we reverse the grant of summary

judgment on this ground.

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IV. The Municipal Liability Claim

Davis seeks to hold the City of Ferguson liable for the three officers’ alleged

use of excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The district court

concluded, consistent with many Eighth Circuit decisions, that the failure of Davis’s

excessive force claims against the individual officers foreclosed his claim against the

City. See, e.g., Reed v. City of St. Charles, 561 F.3d 788, 792 (8th Cir. 2009). Our

decision to reverse the grant of summary judgment in favor of the officers means that

this is no longer a sufficient basis to grant summary judgment in favor of the City.

We may, however, affirm on any basis supported by the record. Brooks v. Roy, 776

F.3d 957, 959 (8th Cir. 2015).

Davis argues there is sufficient evidence in the summary judgment record to

support his claim that the Ferguson Police Department, at the time of this incident,

employed a record-keeping system that made it difficult for the police chief to

determine how many times a particular officer had been the subject of a citizen’s

complaint, or how often that officer had employed nonlethal force. Davis relies for

this assertion on dubious evidence -- a retired former police chief’s failure to recall the

Department’s system for reporting complaints of nonlethal force. But even assuming

that evidence was probative, Davis “must show that the municipal action was taken

with the requisite degree of culpability and must demonstrate a direct causal link

between the municipal action and the deprivation of federal rights.” Bd. of Cnty.

Comm’rs of Bryan Cnty. v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 404 (1997). Where a claim is based

upon municipal failure to adopt or follow a needed policy or practice, “a plaintiff

must show that his alleged injury was caused by municipal employees engaging in a

widespread and persistent pattern of unconstitutional misconduct that municipal

policymakers were either deliberately indifferent to or tacitly authorized.” Russell v.

Hennepin Cnty., 420 F.3d 841, 849 (8th Cir. 2005).

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Here, Davis failed to present evidence showing how the Police Department’s

allegedly poor record keeping directly caused his injury. His reliance on our decision

in Parrish v. Luckie is misplaced because in that case the record included

“overwhelming evidence to support the jury’s finding that North Little Rock police

officers operated in a system where reports of physical or sexual assault by officers

were discouraged, ignored, or covered up.” 963 F.2d 201, 205 (8th Cir. 1992). As

there is no such evidence in this case, we affirm the grant of summary judgment

dismissing this claim.

V. The Substantive Due Process Claim

Davis alleged that Beaird violated his substantive due process rights by

executing four complaints falsely charging Davis with committing “property damage”

by transferring blood onto the uniforms of Beaird, Tihen, White, and Pillarick. At

trial, Beaird testified that he saw Davis and White bleeding during the altercation. He

saw blood on his uniform and the uniforms of Pillarick and White but was not sure

whose blood it was or how it got there. He did not personally observe blood on

Tihen’s uniform, though he assumed Davis got blood on her when he was struggling

in her lap on the floor of the cell. He relied on Sergeant Ballard’s instructions in

filling out the complaints -- a routine practice -- and had “no problem” doing so

because of the blood he personally observed. Ballard testified that he instructed

Beaird to fill out the complaints because Ballard had seen blood on all of the officers’

uniforms, but he admitted he did not observe how the blood got there. Other

witnesses testified that they saw blood on the officers’ uniforms and that there was “a

lot of blood” at the scene -- even Davis stated that he was “bleeding everywhere.” At

the close of the plaintiff’s evidence, the district court granted Beaird judgment as a

matter of law, concluding that the facts, viewed in Davis’s favor, did not establish

conscience-shocking behavior, an element of a substantive due process claim that is

an issue of law for the court. See Akins v. Epperly, 588 F.3d 1178, 1183 (8th Cir.

2009). Reviewing that issue de novo, we agree.

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“Only the most severe violations of individual rights that result from the brutal

and inhumane abuse of official power rise to” the conscience-shocking level. White

v. Smith, 696 F.3d 740, 757-58 (8th Cir. 2012) (quotation omitted). In an extreme

case, a police officer’s intentional or reckless failure to investigate before making a

complaint can support a substantive due process claim, but neither negligent nor

grossly negligent failure to investigate amounts to a constitutional violation. See

Amrine v. Brooks, 522 F.3d 823, 833-34 (8th Cir. 2008). Davis’s proof at trial did not

come close to meeting this rigorous standard. Though the evidence at trial cast some

doubt on how many uniforms were splattered with whose blood, Beaird’s personal

observations and his commanding officer’s instructions more than justified signing

four complaints, leaving to a prosecuting official whether to bring criminal charges

to which Davis ultimately, in part, pleaded guilty. We affirm the district court’s grant

of judgment dismissing this claim.

VI. White Counterclaim Issues

White attached his counterclaim for battery to defendants’ answer to Davis’s

initial complaint. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 13(a). Davis filed interrogatories addressing the

counterclaim. After a lengthy stay due to state criminal proceedings, Davis filed an

amended complaint in February 2013. Defendants’ answer did not replead White’s

counterclaim. White nonetheless answered Davis’s interrogatories, Davis moved to

compel supplemental responses, the district court granted that motion in part, and

White served supplemental responses. At Davis’s July 2013 deposition, defense

counsel introduced himself as representing “counterclaim plaintiff Mike White,” and

asked Davis if he understood that he was “named as a defendant in a counterclaim.”

Davis answered, “Yes.” As trial approached, Davis moved the district court to deem

the counterclaim abandoned because it was not included in defendants’ answer to the

amended complaint. He appeals the court’s denial of that motion.

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In our view, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure clearly give a district court

discretion to grant or deny a motion to deem a counterclaim abandoned in these

circumstances. Rule 15(a)(3) provides that, “[u]nless the court orders otherwise, any

required response to an amended pleading must be made within the time remaining

to respond to the original pleading or within 14 days after service of the amended

pleading, whichever is later” (emphasis added). Rule 15(a)(2) provides that the

district court “should freely give leave [to amend] when justice so requires.” Though

Rule 13(a)(1) requires that a compulsory counterclaim be stated in “a pleading,” that

term was used to clarify that counterclaims could be asserted in pleadings other than

“the answer.” See 6 Wright, Miller & Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1401,

at 6-7 (3d ed. 2010). Rule 1 requires that the Federal Rules “be construed and

administered to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action

and proceeding.” Where, as here, plaintiff is given sufficient notice that defendant

is continuing to pursue a compulsory counterclaim, and plaintiff would not be unfairly

prejudiced if the counterclaim proceeds, an inflexible rule that counterclaims are

always abandoned if not repleaded would not serve the interests of justice. See

Ground Zero Museum Workshop v. Wilson, 813 F. Supp. 2d 678, 706 (D. Md. 2011).

In this case, the district court adopted an equitable approach in determining

whether White’s counterclaim should be deemed abandoned, concluding that Davis

had lengthy notice White was pursuing the counterclaim, undertook discovery on the

counterclaim, and therefore would not be prejudiced by denial of the motion to deem

it abandoned. This was the proper approach. There was no abuse of discretion.

After the district court dismissed Davis’s federal excessive force claims, Davis

moved to dismiss White’s counterclaim on the ground that the district court lacked

supplemental jurisdiction because it did not share a “common nucleus of operative

fact” with Davis’s remaining federal claim, the substantive due process claim against

Beaird. See generally United Mine Workers of Am. v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 725

(1966); Global NAPs, Inc. v. Verizon New Eng. Inc., 603 F.3d 71, 87-88 (1st Cir.

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2010). In the alternative, Davis moved to bifurcate trial of the substantive due process

claim and White’s counterclaim. Although Davis appealed the district court’s denial

of both motions, he conceded that the issues would be rendered moot if we reversed

the district court’s grant of summary judgment to defendants on the Fourth

Amendment excessive force claims. The concession was clearly correct. After

dismissing the substantive due process claim against Beaird, the district court

exercised its discretion to dismiss White’s state law counterclaim without prejudice.

See 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3). When we reinstate the court’s original federal

jurisdiction by reversing the grant of summary judgment and remanding for further

proceedings on the federal excessive force claims, our proper disposition is to vacate

the dismissal of the state law counterclaim under § 1367(c)(3) and “leave the question

of how to handle the state claim to the District Court on remand.” Int’l Ass’n of

Firefighters, Local 2665 v. City of Ferguson, 283 F.3d 969, 976 (8th Cir. 2002).

VII. Conclusion

We reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment dismissing the

Fourth Amendment excessive force and state law assault and battery claims against

defendants White, Beaird, and Tihen, vacate the dismissal without prejudice of

White’s counterclaim, and remand for further proceedings not inconsistent with this

opinion. In all other respects, the rulings of the district court are affirmed.

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