Charles Stainback v. Ryan Dixon

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 08-3563

C HARLES STAINBACK,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

R YAN D IXON, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of Illinois.

No. 3:07-cv-03091-JES-BGC—Jeanne E. Scott, Judge.

A RGUED A PRIL 15, 2009—D ECIDED JUNE 30, 2009

Before F LAUM, R IPPLE and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

R IPPLE, Circuit Judge. Charles Stainback brought this

action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Deputy Ryan

Dixon, Deputy Douglas McFarland and Sheriff Donald

Albrecht (“the Officers”).1 He alleged that he suffered

shoulder injuries because the officers had used excessive

1

Another officer, Sergeant Tom Throne, was included in the

original complaint, but Mr. Stainback voluntarily dismissed

his claims against Sergeant Throne.

2 No. 08-3563

force while arresting him. The district court granted

summary judgment in favor of the Officers; it

concluded that their conduct was reasonable under the

circumstances. Mr. Stainback now challenges the district

court’s grant of summary judgment. He claims that the

district court employed, to his prejudice, a flawed method-

ology when it addressed, as an initial matter, whether

the Officers’ conduct violated his constitutional rights.

He also maintains that the district court erroneously

concluded that the Officers’ behavior was reasonable

and therefore did not violate the Fourth Amendment.

Upon examination of the record, we conclude, for the

reasons set forth in this opinion, that the district court

employed an acceptable methodology, that its approach

worked no unfairness to Mr. Stainback and that the

Officers did not employ excessive force in violation of

his Fourth Amendment rights. We therefore affirm

the judgment of the district court.

I

BACKGROUND

A. Facts

Mr. Stainback was visiting his sister at the senior citi-

zens’ building in Royal Lakes, Illinois, when an intoxicated

resident of that facility became angry with him

and threatened to call the police. A resident at the

senior citizens’ building did call the police to report the

disturbance, and the Officers, along with Sergeant

Tom Throne, responded to the call. When the Officers

No. 08-3563 3

arrived at the senior citizens’ building, they were told

that Mr. Stainback had been involved in the disturbance

but had left the area prior to the Officers’ arrival.

The Officers suspected that Mr. Stainback was at Al

Bauza’s2 residence. They went to Bauza’s house, knocked

on the door and asked for Mr. Stainback. Mr. Stainback

voluntarily left the house. Deputy Dixon asked him to

turn around and face the wall; Mr. Stainback complied

with the request. Deputy Dixon then informed

Mr. Stainback that he was being placed under arrest

because of an outstanding traffic warrant and asked

Mr. Stainback to put his hands behind his back.

Mr. Stainback did not do so. Instead, he asked the

Officers not to handcuff him because he believed he

would be hurt if he were handcuffed.3 He did not, how-

ever, inform the Officers of any preexisting injuries to

his arms or shoulders. Deputies Dixon and McFarland

grabbed Mr. Stainback’s arms, quickly pulled his arms

behind his back, handcuffed him and performed a pat-

down search.

After handcuffing Mr. Stainback, the deputies walked

him down the driveway toward Deputy McFarland’s

squad car. As they did so, they told Mr. Stainback that

he could be released upon paying a $200 bond. Mr.

2

At one point in the record, this name is spelled “Bowza.”

We shall assume, however, that the predominant spelling is

correct.

3

It is not clear from the record whether Mr. Stainback con-

veyed this belief to the Officers.

4 No. 08-3563

Stainback told the Officers that his daughter, who was

at his house, could post his bond. The Officers decided

to take Mr. Stainback to his home so that his daughter

could pay his bond, and they placed him in the back of

the squad car. After Mr. Stainback was seated, he com-

plained that the handcuffs were hurting his shoulders

and asked the Officers to remove them. The Officers

told Mr. Stainback that they would remove the handcuffs

in a few minutes. Deputy McFarland then drove

Mr. Stainback to his home.4 During the two- to three-

minute drive, Mr. Stainback again asked Deputy

McFarland to remove his handcuffs because they were

hurting his shoulders, but Deputy McFarland did not

do so.

When the Officers arrived at Mr. Stainback’s

residence, Deputy Dixon rang the doorbell and explained

the situation to Mr. Stainback’s daughter. She posted

Mr. Stainback’s bond. The Officers then removed

Mr. Stainback’s handcuffs. Mr. Stainback estimates that

he was in handcuffs for fifteen to twenty minutes. He

alleges that, as a result of the Officers’ conduct, he

suffered two torn rotator cuffs, which required surgery

and medical treatment.

4

The Officers drove to Mr. Stainback’s residence in separate

vehicles.

No. 08-3563 5

B. Proceedings in the District Court

Mr. Stainback filed a complaint in the United States

District Court for the Central District of Illinois; he alleged

that the Officers had used excessive force against him in

violation of his constitutional rights. In their answer to

Mr. Stainback’s complaint, the Officers asserted that they

were entitled to qualified immunity. The Officers later

filed separate motions for summary judgment: Deputies

Dixon and McFarland argued that summary judgment

was proper because they were entitled to qualified im-

munity; Sheriff Albrecht maintained that he was entitled

to summary judgment because he had not been

involved personally in the arrest.

The district court granted the Officers’ motions. It noted

that the Officers had a valid warrant to arrest Mr.

Stainback. It also recognized that, when the Officers

instructed Mr. Stainback to place his hands behind his

back, he had failed to do so. In light of these circumstances,

the court determined, it was reasonable for the Officers

to quickly move Mr. Stainback’s arms behind his back, to

handcuff him and to leave him in handcuffs for fifteen to

twenty minutes until they secured his bond. The court

reasoned that, because the amount of force used by the

Officers had been reasonable under the circumstances,

summary judgment in favor of the Officers was appro-

priate.

6 No. 08-3563

II

DISCUSSION

“Summary judgment is appropriate when there is no

genuine issue as to any material fact and the moving party

is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Antonetti v.

Abbott Labs., 563 F.3d 587, 591 (7th Cir. 2009) (citing Fed. R.

Civ. P. 56(c)). We review the district court’s grant of

summary judgment de novo, construing all facts and

reasonable inferences in favor of the non-moving party.

Marion v. City of Corydon, Ind., 559 F.3d 700, 704 (7th

Cir. 2009).

We first consider whether the district court applied

an acceptable methodology and then turn to the ques-

tion of whether the officers employed excessive force.

A.

To determine whether a defendant is entitled to

qualified immunity, courts must address two issues:

(1) whether the defendant violated the plaintiff’s con-

stitutional rights and (2) whether the right at issue was

clearly established at the time of the violation. Phelan v.

Vill. of Lyons, 531 F.3d 484, 487 (7th Cir. 2008). Mr.

Stainback claims that none of the Officers addressed

the first prong of this test—whether the Officers’ use of

force was excessive—in their motions for summary judg-

ment. Rather, Deputies Dixon and McFarland argued

only that they had not violated clearly established law;

Sheriff Albrecht claimed only that he could not be liable

No. 08-3563 7

for Mr. Stainback’s injuries because he did not physically

touch Mr. Stainback and therefore did not participate

directly in the allegedly unconstitutional conduct.

Mr. Stainback maintains that, because none of the defen-

dants addressed the first prong of the qualified im-

munity test, the district court erred by addressing the

issue.

At the time the district court entered summary judg-

ment, Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201 (2001) required

that courts begin their analysis by addressing the first

prong of the qualified immunity test and determining

whether the facts, taken in the light most favorable to the

plaintiff, demonstrated that the defendant’s conduct

violated the plaintiff’s constitutional rights. Id.; Phelan,

531 F.3d at 487. Only if a constitutional violation was

established could a court address the second inquiry:

whether the plaintiff’s right was clearly established at

the time of the violation. Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201; Phelan,

531 F.3d at 487. The Supreme Court now has concluded,

however, that “while the sequence set forth [in Saucier] is

often appropriate, it should no longer be regarded as

mandatory.” Pearson v. Callahan, 129 S. Ct. 808, 818 (2009).

Courts are now “permitted to exercise their sound dis-

cretion in deciding which of the two prongs of the qualified

immunity analysis should be addressed first in light of

the circumstances in the particular case at hand.” Id. In

this case, the district court understandably followed the

methodology mandated by Saucier and first addressed

whether the Officers’ actions violated Mr. Stainback’s

constitutional rights. Because it found that no violation

8 No. 08-3563

had occurred, it was unnecessary for it to address the

reasonableness of the Officers’ actions under the

second prong of the established inquiry.

Mr. Stainback maintains that the district court treated

him unfairly by addressing initially the first prong of

the qualified immunity test. In his view, he did not have

a fair opportunity to address the first prong of the test

because the Officers’ motions addressed only the second

prong and, consequently, he answered only the second

prong. We cannot accept this contention. Upon examina-

tion of the record, we must conclude that the Officers’

motions for summary judgment and supporting memo-

randa raised adequately both prongs of the qualified

immunity test. In their memorandum in support of their

motion, Deputies Dixon and McFarland argued explicitly

that “the manner and method of handcuffing [Mr.

Stainback] . . . was not an excessive use of force,” R.32 at 8-

9, and relied upon federal case law in support of that

contention. Thus, Deputies Dixon and McFarland specifi-

cally raised the issue of whether they had used excessive

force in their motion for summary judgment. Sheriff

Albrecht did not raise specifically the qualified immunity

issue. Instead, his supporting memorandum focused

primarily on his argument that he did not participate in

Mr. Stainback’s arrest. Notably, however, in his response

to Sheriff Albrecht’s motion, Mr. Stainback claimed that

Sheriff Albrecht was liable for failing to intervene to

prevent the Deputies from violating his constitutional

rights. R.34 at 5-7. Sheriff Albrecht then responded to

the merits of that argument and argued that it was im-

No. 08-3563 9

proper for Mr. Stainback to raise a failure-to-intervene

claim at that point in the litigation. R.38 at 1-4. The

success of Mr. Stainback’s failure-to-intervene claim,

therefore, was entirely dependent upon the issue of

whether a constitutional violation had occurred as a

result of the Deputies’ conduct—the issue squarely

raised by the submission of Deputies Dixon and

McFarland. Cf. Leaf v. Shelnutt, 400 F.3d 1070, 1093 (7th Cir.

2005) (“Because we have determined that the officers’

actions inside the apartment constituted neither an illegal

search nor an illegal seizure, we must conclude that the

Leafs do not have a cognizable claim against Deputy

Shelnutt for failing to intervene in Deputy Jacobs’ ac-

tions.”).

The parties’ submissions to the district court demonstrate

that both prongs of the qualified immunity test were

properly before the district court. Mr. Stainback had

adequate notice that the court might reach both prongs

of the qualified immunity test in the course of deciding

the summary judgment motion. Moreover, as we noted

earlier, Saucier, the controlling precedent at the time of

the motions for summary judgment, required the district

court to evaluate first whether the Officers’ conduct

violated Mr. Stainback’s constitutional rights before it

considered whether his rights were clearly established

at the time of the violation. Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201; Phelan,

531 F.3d at 487. Mr. Stainback therefore should have

expected that the district court would address first

whether the Officers’ conduct constituted a constitutional

violation.

10 No. 08-3563

B.

The Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness standard

governs our evaluation of a plaintiff’s claim that law-

enforcement officers employed excessive force during

an arrest, an investigatory stop or any other type of

seizure. Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 395 (1989). Assess-

ing whether the force used to effectuate a particular

seizure is reasonable “requires a careful balancing of the

nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual’s

Fourth Amendment interests against the countervailing

governmental interests at stake.” Id. at 396 (citations and

quotation marks omitted). Consequently, the use of

significant or even deadly force may be justified when

the Government has a significantly grave interest in

employing such force.5 The nature and extent of the force

that may be used depends upon the circumstances sur-

rounding the arrest, including “the severity of the crime

at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat

to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he is

actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by

5

Compare Marion v. City of Corydon, Ind., 559 F.3d 700, 706 (7th

Cir. 2009) (holding that it was reasonable for officers to dis-

charge their firearms in the plaintiff’s direction when they

reasonably could have believed that the plaintiff presented a

serious danger to the officers and innocent bystanders), with

Abdullahi v. City of Madison, 423 F.3d 763, 769-71 (7th Cir. 2005)

(rejecting a qualified immunity claim where an officer may

have used deadly force against an individual lying prone on

the ground with his arms behind him).

No. 08-3563 11

flight.” Id. at 396. We must view these factors as they

would have appeared to a reasonable officer at the

scene. In assessing the facts from that perspective, we must

recognize that officers often need to make split-

second judgments based on rapidly developing events.

Holmes v. Vill. of Hoffman Estates, 511 F.3d 673, 685 (7th

Cir. 2007).

An officer who has the right to arrest an individual also

has the right to use some degree of physical force or

threat of force to effectuate the arrest, Graham, 490 U.S. at

396, but that right is circumscribed by the Fourth Amend-

ment’s insistence on reasonableness. In this respect, our

cases indicate that an officer may not knowingly use

handcuffs in a way that will inflict unnecessary pain or

injury on an individual who presents little or no risk of

flight or threat of injury. See Herzog v. Vill. of Winnetka, Ill.,

309 F.3d 1041, 1043 (7th Cir. 2002). Of course, whether

an officer knows that a given action unnecessarily will

harm a particular individual will depend upon the cir-

cumstances of the arrest. In some cases, the fact that an

act will cause pain or injury will be clear from the nature

of the act itself. See, e.g., Payne v. Pauley, 337 F.3d 767, 779

(7th Cir. 2003) (concluding that it was not objectively

reasonable for the officer to twist the plaintiff’s arm,

force her arms behind her back and over-tighten her

handcuffs to the point of causing numbness and sig-

nificant injury when the plaintiff had not threatened

harm to anyone, was not resisting arrest and was charged

with a minor offense). In other cases, it may become clear

to an arresting officer that, although a particular action

12 No. 08-3563

would not ordinarily harm an arrestee, the action would

nevertheless cause pain or injury to the particular individ-

ual being placed under arrest. For example, an officer’s

otherwise reasonable conduct may be objectively unrea-

sonable when the officer knows of an arrestee’s medical

problems.6

However, a reasonable officer cannot be expected to

accommodate an injury that is not apparent or that other-

wise has not been made known to him. See Tibbs v. City

of Chicago, 469 F.3d 661, 666 (7th Cir. 2006) (concluding that

the arresting officer did not act unreasonably when he

fastened the plaintiff’s handcuffs too tightly, and the

plaintiff, whose injuries did not require medical care,

complained only once about his handcuffs “without

elaborating on any injury, numbness, or degree of pain”);

Estate of Phillips v. City of Milwaukee, 123 F.3d 586, 594

(7th Cir. 1997) (holding that it was not unreasonable for

the officers to place the arrestee in a prone position,

even though doing so resulted in his death, when the

6

See Frazell v. Flanigan, 102 F.3d 877, 885 (7th Cir. 1996) (noting,

in the alternative, that a reasonable jury could have found that

the officer knew of the plaintiff’s medical condition and “could

then have concluded that [the officer’s] conduct in the face of

that knowledge was unreasonable”), overruled on other grounds

by McNair v. Coffey, 279 F.3d 463 (7th Cir. 2002); Walton v. City

of Southfield, 995 F.2d 1331, 1342 (6th Cir. 1993) (“An excessive

use of force claim could be premised on [the officer’s]

handcuffing [the plaintiff] if he knew that she had an injured

arm and if he believed that she posed no threat to him.”),

superseded by court rule on other grounds.

No. 08-3563 13

officers were unaware of the arrestee’s medical problems).7

We must conclude that the record establishes that the

Officers’ actions were reasonable under the circum-

stances surrounding Mr. Stainback’s arrest. The Officers

did not use handcuffs in a manner that would clearly

injure or harm a typical arrestee. Furthermore, it was not

7

Unlike the plaintiff in Tibbs v. City of Chicago, 469 F.3d 661, 666

(7th Cir. 2006), Mr. Stainback did suffer an injury that required

medical treatment, and, he submits, an injury of such serious-

ness constitutes evidence from which a jury could find that

unnecessary force was used. Our cases make clear, however,

that, to survive summary judgment, a plaintiff must do more

than point to his injury or its seriousness; he must also “identify

the specific unreasonable conduct that caused his or her injuries.”

Abdullahi, 423 F.3d at 770-71 (emphasis supplied). In Abdullahi,

the fact that the arrestee ultimately died from his injuries,

together with the evidence that the defendant had knelt on his

back, presented a jury question as to whether the officer

reasonably applied slight pressure with his knee to prevent the

arrestee from squirming, as the officer claimed, or whether he

unreasonably pushed down onto the plaintiff’s back with his full

weight, as the plaintiff claimed. Id. at 771-73. The plaintiff’s

interpretation described unreasonable conduct which caused the

injury in question. Here, Mr. Stainback claims only that the

Officers “quickly” put his arms behind his back and handcuffed

him. As we shall explain, Mr. Stainback’s version of the events

does not describe conduct that was objectively unreasonable.

Therefore, evidence of the seriousness of Mr. Stainback’s injury

alone, without evidence of an objectively unreasonable act,

cannot create a genuine issue of fact as to whether the Officers’

actions were reasonable.

14 No. 08-3563

objectively clear to the Officers that Mr. Stainback

suffered from any infirmities, see Estate of Phillips, 123

F.3d at 594, nor did Mr. Stainback inform the Officers that

he had a preexisting injury or condition that would be

aggravated if he were handcuffed, see Frazell v. Flanigan,

102 F.3d 877, 885 (7th Cir. 1996). Had the Officers known

of a preexisting injury or medical condition that would

have been aggravated by handcuffing Mr. Stainback, or

had Mr. Stainback communicated to the Officers that

he suffered from such an infirmity, the Officers certainly

would have been obligated to consider that information,

together with the other relevant circumstances, in deter-

mining whether it was appropriate to handcuff

Mr. Stainback. The record does not support the conclu-

sion that the Officers knew or were informed of any such

infirmities. At most, the record shows that Mr. Stainback

said that he did not want to be handcuffed because he

thought it would hurt and that Mr. Stainback complained

generally about pain after he was handcuffed. These

generalized complaints, without any elaboration

regarding a preexisting injury or other infirmity, would

not have placed a reasonable officer on notice that Mr.

Stainback would be injured by these actions. We

therefore must conclude that the Officers’ actions were

reasonable under the circumstances and that no viola-

tion of the Fourth Amendment occurred.

No. 08-3563 15

Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district

court is affirmed.

A FFIRMED

6-30-09