Patricia Hagans v. Franklin Cnty Sheriff's Office

RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION

Pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206

File Name: 12a0280p.06

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

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PATRICIA HAGANS, Administratrix of the

Plaintiff-Appellee, --

Estate of Patrick Hagans, Deceased,

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No. 11-3648

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v.

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FRANKLIN COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE,

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Franklin County Hall of Justice; JAMES A.

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Franklin County, Ohio, Franklin County Hall -

KARNES, In His Capacity as Sheriff of

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In His Capacity As a Franklin County Deputy -

of Justice; JASON RATCLIFF, Individually and

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Sheriff, c/o Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, -

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Defendants-Appellants. -

Franklin County Hall of Justice,

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Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Ohio at Columbus.

No. 2:08-CV-850—Gregory L. Frost, District Judge.

Argued: July 17, 2012

Decided and Filed: August 23, 2012

Before: SUTTON and GRIFFIN, Circuit Judges; DOWD, District Judge.*

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COUNSEL

ARGUED: Mary Jane Martin, ASSISTANT PROSECUTING ATTORNEY, Columbus,

Ohio, for Appellants. Thomas Joseph O’Connell, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellee.

ON BRIEF: Mary Jane Martin, Arnold Paul Thies, ASSISTANT PROSECUTING

ATTORNEY, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellants. Thomas Joseph O’Connell, Columbus,

Ohio, for Appellee.

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*

The Honorable David D. Dowd, Jr., Senior United States District Judge for the Northern District

of Ohio, sitting by designation.

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No. 11-3648 Hagans v. Franklin Cnty. Sheriff’s Office, et al. Page 2

OPINION

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SUTTON, Circuit Judge. Invented by a NASA scientist more than fifty years

ago, the taser has become an ever-present tool of law enforcement. The device allows

officers to incapacitate resistant suspects for a brief period of time with relatively few

risks. Relatively few though those risks may be, they are not non-existent, as this case

illustrates. A police officer in Columbus, Ohio, used a taser to subdue Patrick Hagans,

a middle-aged man undone by cocaine and unwilling as a result to allow officers to

detain him. Hagans died three days after the incident. Because the officer did not

violate clearly established law by using the taser in this setting, qualified immunity

protects him from this lawsuit. We reverse the district court’s contrary decision.

I.

Patrick Hagans spent the early morning hours of May 13, 2007, smoking crack

cocaine with his girlfriend. Around 5:30 a.m., Hagans became paranoid and locked

himself in the bathroom, telling his girlfriend that “people were after him.” R. at 32.

Hagans broke the bathroom window, climbed outside and began running around his yard

screaming. The commotion woke up Hagans’ next door neighbor, Robert Bogard, who

saw Hagans kicking chairs around his deck and jumping on top of cars in his driveway.

Having “never seen another human in such a rage in [his] entire life,” Bogard called the

police around 5:35 a.m. Id. at 2. The dispatcher informed officers in the area that there

was an “unknown disturbance” at Hagans’ address.

Officer Nelson Frantz arrived first, around 5:42 a.m., and a shirtless Hagans

came running toward him. Frantz ordered Hagans to stop, but Hagans bolted for the

backyard, and Frantz gave chase. Frantz shot pepper spray at Hagans, but it hit Hagans’

backside, to no effect. Hagans raced back to the front of the house, where he

encountered Officer Troy Hughes, who had just arrived. Hagans ran to Hughes’ cruiser

and began yanking on the locked driver’s side door handle. Hagans did not obey

Hughes’ command to stop, prompting Hughes to grab him by the waist and wrestle him

to the pavement. Officer Frantz soon joined the scuffle and tried to subdue Hagans as

No. 11-3648 Hagans v. Franklin Cnty. Sheriff’s Office, et al. Page 3

well. Hagans refused to be handcuffed. He lay down on the pavement and locked his

arms tightly under his body, kicking his feet and continuing to scream.

While Officers Hughes and Frantz continued to struggle with Hagans on the

ground, a third officer, Jason Ratcliff, approached. Seeing that Hagans was still actively

resisting, Ratcliff unholstered his taser and applied it in drive-stun mode, pressing the

taser directly against Hagans’ upper back. The shock apparently did not faze Hagans,

as he reached back and tried to grab the taser. Ratcliff tased Hagans a second time, again

to no effect and again prompting Hagans to grab for the device. At this point, Ratcliff

tried to use the taser in dart mode, firing two electric probes at Hagans from a distance,

but the probes missed (how, from such a short distance, is not clear). Ratcliff tased

Hagans two to four more times in drive-stun mode. Realizing that the shocks were not

working, Ratcliff joined the other two officers in trying to subdue Hagans by hand.

After struggling for twenty or thirty seconds, the three officers finally secured Hagans’

wrists with handcuffs and put shackles on his legs to keep him from kicking or running.

A medical squad arrived. Alert at the time, Hagans lost consciousness and

stopped breathing about ten minutes later. Paramedics administered CPR in the

ambulance on the way to the hospital, restoring Hagans’ pulse and respiration. Yet

Hagans never regained consciousness, and he died three days later. The coroner found

cocaine in Hagans’ system and listed his cause of death as “bronchopneumonia due to

anoxic encephalopathy due to cocaine intoxication,” R. 51-7 at 6—which is to say, the

cocaine starved his brain of oxygen, leading to fatal respiratory complications. The

coroner’s report also listed “[c]oronary atherosclerosis”—hardening of the arteries in the

heart—as “a contributing factor.” Id.

In August 2008, Hagans’ estate filed this lawsuit in Ohio state court against the

Franklin County Sheriff’s Department and Officer Ratcliff. Hagans alleges that Ratcliff

used excessive force by tasing him repeatedly in violation of the Fourth (and Fourteenth)

Amendment and in violation of Ohio’s assault and battery laws. The defendants

removed the case to federal court. Following discovery, Officer Ratcliff moved for

summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. The district court denied

No. 11-3648 Hagans v. Franklin Cnty. Sheriff’s Office, et al. Page 4

Ratcliff’s motion, and Ratcliff filed this interlocutory appeal. See 28 U.S.C. § 1291;

Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530 (1985).

II.

This qualified-immunity case, like all qualified-immunity cases, presents two

questions: (1) whether the officer (Ratcliff) violated the claimant’s (Hagans’)

constitutional (Fourth Amendment) rights (by repeatedly tasing him after he actively

resisted arrest); and, if so, (2) whether that constitutional right was clearly established

at the time of the incident (in May 2007, when the tasing occurred). The first question

raises some complications. The second one does not. We opt to answer the easier of the

two questions, saving the harder one for another day. See Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S.

223, 236 (2009).

Qualified immunity spares Ratcliff from money-damages claims for his law-

enforcement work so long as he did not violate the clearly established constitutional

rights of Hagans at the time of the encounter. Reichle v. Howards, 566 U.S. ___, 132

S. Ct. 2088, 2093 (2012). It is one thing to overturn a conviction based on judicial

interpretations of a constitutional guarantee reached after officers make an arrest; it is

quite another to expose officers to the time, expense and risk of money-damages actions

based on interpretations not yet clearly established.

In deciding whether a right has been clearly established, the Supreme Court has

“repeatedly” warned lower courts not to define the right at “a high level of generality.”

Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. ___, 131 S. Ct. 2074, 2084 (2011). Hagans proposes a

lofty definition of the right (“the right to be free from excessive force,” R. 63 at 9), one

floor down from the words of the Fourth Amendment itself (“the right to be free of

‘unreasonable . . . seizures’”) and two floors down from the highest level of generality

possible (“the right to be free from a constitutional violation”). Yet these types of

inquiries do little to answer the question. “The general proposition” that the Fourth

Amendment prohibits police officers from using excessive force “is of little help in

determining whether the violative nature of [Ratcliff’s] particular conduct [was] clearly

established.” al-Kidd, 131 S. Ct. at 2084. It is sometimes worse than that: If a court

No. 11-3648 Hagans v. Franklin Cnty. Sheriff’s Office, et al. Page 5

does not carefully define the right, it risks collapsing the two qualified-immunity

inquiries into one, permitting the constitutional-violation inquiry always to answer the

clearly established inquiry. Precedent demands instead that we go down the stairs of

abstraction to a concrete, particularized description of the right. Though not too far

down: just as a court can generalize too much, it can generalize too little. If it defeats

the qualified-immunity analysis to define the right too broadly (as the right to be free of

excessive force), it defeats the purpose of § 1983 to define the right too narrowly (as the

right to be free of needless assaults by left-handed police officers during Tuesday

siestas).

Examples abound of an appropriate middle ground. In an excessive-force case,

that might mean asking whether “a disturbed felon, set on avoiding capture through

vehicular flight [that placed] persons in the immediate area . . . at risk” had a clearly

established right not to be shot. Brosseau v. Haugen, 543 U.S. 194, 200 (2004) (per

curiam). Or, closer to today’s case, it might mean asking “whether a misdemeanant,

fleeing from the scene of a non-violent misdemeanor, but offering no other resistance

and disobeying no official command, had a clearly established right not to be tased.”

Cockrell v. City of Cincinnati, 468 F. App’x 491, 495 (6th Cir. 2012).

Defined at the appropriate level of generality—a reasonably particularized

one—the question at hand is whether it was clearly established in May 2007 that using

a taser repeatedly on a suspect actively resisting arrest and refusing to be handcuffed

amounted to excessive force. The answer is no. Cases from this circuit and others,

before and after May 2007, adhere to this line: If a suspect actively resists arrest and

refuses to be handcuffed, officers do not violate the Fourth Amendment by using a taser

to subdue him. Consider cases from this circuit first. In Williams v. Sandel,

433 F. App’x 354 (6th Cir. 2011), officers confronted a suspect who was high on

ecstasy, nude and jogging along the interstate at midnight. Id. at 354. The suspect

refused to be handcuffed, prompting officers to tase him thirty-seven times (and to use

batons and pepper spray as well) until he stopped resisting. Id. at 362. We held the

officers’ use of force was reasonable. Id. at 363. Or consider Caie v. W. Bloomfield

No. 11-3648 Hagans v. Franklin Cnty. Sheriff’s Office, et al. Page 6

Twp., No. 11-1378, 2012 WL 2301648 (6th Cir. June 18, 2012). After two officers

wrestled the suspect to the ground, he refused to move his arms from under his body,

prompting a third officer to tase him. Id. at *2. The tasing was reasonable given the

suspect’s “active[] resist[ance] [to] the officers’ attempts to secure his arms behind his

back.” Id. at *4; see also Williams v. Ingham, 373 F. App’x 542, 548 (6th Cir. 2010)

(officers acted reasonably by tasing suspect who would not move his hands from under

his body).

By contrast, when we have found excessive force, the suspects were compliant

or had stopped resisting. In Kijowski v. City of Niles, 372 F. App’x 595 (6th Cir. 2010),

officers used excessive force by tasing a wedding guest who was sitting in his truck, not

disobeying police commands. Id. at 600–01. And in Landis v. Baker, 297 F. App’x 453

(6th Cir. 2008), officers used excessive force by repeatedly tasing a suspect who was

pinned on the ground with his face submerged in muddy water. Id. at 464; see also

Roberts v. Manigold, 240 F. App’x 675, 676 (6th Cir. 2007) (officers used excessive

force by repeatedly tasing suspect even though he was “completely pinned”); cf.

Champion v. Outlook Nashville, Inc., 380 F.3d 893, 901 (6th Cir. 2004) (officers used

excessive force by dousing suspect with pepper spray after he was immobilized with

handcuffs and leg shackles and stopped resisting).

A suspect’s active resistance also marks the line between reasonable and

unreasonable tasing in other circuits. Compare McKenney v. Harrison, 635 F.3d 354,

360 (8th Cir. 2011) (tasing suspect who bolted toward second-story window in an

attempt to escape was not excessive force); Draper v. Reynolds, 369 F.3d 1270, 1277–78

(11th Cir. 2004) (tasing suspect who acted belligerently and refused to provide his

license and registration after a traffic stop was not excessive force); and Hinton v. City

of Elwood, 997 F.2d 774, 781 (10th Cir. 1993) (tasing suspect three times who actively

resisted officers’ attempts to handcuff him was not excessive force); with Cavanaugh v.

Woods Cross City, 625 F.3d 661, 665 (10th Cir. 2010) (tasing non-resistant suspect was

excessive force); Oliver v. Fiorino, 586 F.3d 898, 906–07 (11th Cir. 2009) (tasing

suspect ten times was excessive force because he stopped resisting after the first shock);

No. 11-3648 Hagans v. Franklin Cnty. Sheriff’s Office, et al. Page 7

Brown v. City of Golden Valley, 574 F.3d 491, 498–99 (8th Cir. 2009) (tasing car

passenger who was not attempting to flee or resist arrest was excessive force); and Casey

v. City of Fed. Heights, 509 F.3d 1278, 1282 (10th Cir. 2007) (tasing a non-violent

misdemeanant who was not offering any resistance was excessive force).

One decision bucks this trend—kind of. In two consolidated cases, the en banc

Ninth Circuit held that officers used excessive force by tasing suspects who offered

minimal resistance. Mattos v. Agarano, 661 F.3d 433 (9th Cir. 2011) (en banc). In the

first case, a pregnant woman whom officers pulled over for speeding refused to sign a

citation and refused to get out of her car, leading the officers to tase her three times and

to handcuff her. Id. at 436–38. In the second case, an officer trying to arrest a domestic-

abuse suspect tased the suspect’s wife when she failed to move out of the way. Id. at

438–39. Whatever glimmer of hope the Ninth Circuit’s holdings on the constitutional

issue offer Hagans is closed by the reality that the court held the officers were entitled

to qualified immunity because the right was not clearly established at the time of the

encounters. Id. at 448, 452. If it did not violate clearly established law to tase a

pregnant mother who refused to sign a traffic citation in November 2004, how could it

violate clearly established law to tase an out-of-control, shirtless man strung-out on

drugs who was thrashing about with two officers on the ground in May 2007? Hagans

has not shown any changes in the law over that period or for that matter any law specific

to the Sixth Circuit that would clearly establish the illegality of this far more reasonable

use of a taser.

This line between suspects who actively resist arrest and those who comply with

officers’ commands may or may not hold as to the ultimate constitutional question. The

taser remains a relatively new technology, and courts and law enforcement agencies still

grapple with the risks and benefits of the device. Even as of a year ago, however, it

could be said that tasers carry “a significantly lower risk of injury than physical force”

and that the vast majority of individuals subjected to a taser—99.7%— suffer no injury

or only a mild injury. John H. Laub, Director, Nat’l Inst. of Justice, Study of Deaths

No. 11-3648 Hagans v. Franklin Cnty. Sheriff’s Office, et al. Page 8

Following Electro Muscular Disruption 31 (2011); see also Mattos, 661 F.3d at 454

(Kozinski, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

Acknowledging that he was actively resisting arrest, Hagans points out that some

factors relevant to the inquiry cut against Officer Ratcliff’s decision to employ the taser.

See Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989). As to whether Hagans posed “an

immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others,” id. at 396, Ratcliff testified that

he did not see Hagans land any kicks or punches on the other officers, the other officers

did not appear to be injured or bleeding, and he did not hear Hagans make any threats.

As to whether Hagans was “attempting to evade arrest by flight,” id., Ratcliff testified

that Hagans, who was on the ground and surrounded by officers, did not pose a risk of

getting away. And as to “the severity of the crime at issue,” id., Ratcliff knew only that

someone had reported a disturbance and had no idea what, if any, crime Hagans had

committed.

Yet these factors must be assessed together with, not apart from, the reality that

Hagans was out of control and continued forcefully to resist arrest. As the district court

recognized, the combination of factors presented Officer Ratcliff with a “close call,” R.

63 at 14, as some factors cut in favor of using the taser while other factors cut against

it. The essence of qualified immunity, however, is to give government officials cover

when they resolve close calls in reasonable (even if ultimately incorrect) ways. See al-

Kidd, 131 S. Ct. at 2085. The fact remains that, prior to May 2007 (and for several years

after), no case in any circuit held that officers used excessive force by tasing suspects

who were actively resisting arrest, even though many of them, like Hagans, were

suspected of innocuous crimes, posed little risk of escape and had not yet physically

harmed anybody.

That the taser shocks might have contributed to Hagans’ death does not

change things. Although the autopsy report concluded that Hagans died from cocaine

intoxication, Hagans’ expert opined that the taser shocks were “a substantial factor in

causing his death.” R. 52-5 at 3. Even if we credit Hagans’ causation evidence, as we

must on summary judgment, that does not override his standard-of-care problem. “In

No. 11-3648 Hagans v. Franklin Cnty. Sheriff’s Office, et al. Page 9

determining whether there has been a violation of the Fourth Amendment, we consider

not the extent of the injury inflicted but whether an officer subjects a detainee to

gratuitous violence.” Miller v. Sanilac Cnty., 606 F.3d 240, 252 (6th Cir. 2010) (citation

and internal quotation marks omitted). For the reasons just given, Officer Ratcliff did

not violate clearly established law when he tried—unsuccessfully, it turns out—to

subdue Hagans with the taser. Tragic though Hagans’ death assuredly is, that regrettable

fact cannot transform the state of the law in May 2007, and it cannot alter our duty to

grant qualified immunity when an officer has not violated clearly established law.

That leaves two other matters. Because Ratcliff did not violate a clearly

established right, it follows that his employer, the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, is

also entitled to summary judgment. To hold the Sheriff’s Office liable, Hagans must

show that its “failure to train” officers on the proper use of tasers “amounts to deliberate

indifference.” City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 388 (1989). But “a municipal

policymaker cannot exhibit fault rising to the level of deliberate indifference to a

constitutional right when that right has not yet been clearly established.” Szabla v. City

of Brooklyn Park, 486 F.3d 385, 393 (8th Cir. 2007) (en banc). The same is true with

respect to Hagans’ state-law claim for assault and battery. Officer Ratcliff did not

violate a clearly established right, and nothing else shows he otherwise acted “with

malicious purpose, in bad faith, or in a wanton or reckless character.” Ohio Rev. Code

§ 2744.03(A)(6)(b). Ohio’s statutory immunity applies.

III.

For these reasons, we reverse and remand for further proceedings.