Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-alsd-1_05-cv-00131/USCOURTS-alsd-1_05-cv-00131-2/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Civil Rights Act

---

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA

SOUTHERN DIVISION

WILLIAM JOSEPH PHILLIPS, )

 )

Plaintiff, )

 )

v. ) CIVIL ACTION 05-0131-WS-M

 )

OFFICER B.E. IRVIN, )

 )

Defendant. )

ORDER

This matter comes before the Court on the parties’ proposed jury charges.

On July 11, 2007, the undersigned entered an Order on Pretrial Conference (doc. 81),

delineating various pretrial and trial deadlines. In relevant part, that Order required the parties to

file “a jointly prepared jury charge covering the substantive issues in the case (i.e., the law

governing all claims, defenses and damages). ... The parties shall include in this submission a

jointly prepared proposed verdict form, including any requested special interrogatories.” (Order

on Pretrial Conference, ¶ 5.) What the parties submitted bears little resemblance to these

instructions. Rather than submitting a joint charge, each side submitted a separate proposed

charge, totaling in the aggregate some 49 proposed charges, and a separate proposed verdict

form. Thus, notwithstanding the numerous well-settled legal issues in this case (e.g., excessive

force, negligence, wantonness, compensatory damages, etc.), the parties are telling the Court that

they cannot agree on a single substantive charge that this jury should be given. Such total

disagreement is unprecedented and unacceptable, particularly given the paucity of novel legal

questions presented and the plethora of decidedly well-settled, black-letter legal principles at

work here.

Perhaps anticipating the Court’s reaction, plaintiff’s counsel have offered an explanatory

cover letter. With regard to the federal claim, plaintiff’s counsel explains that the parties agree

that the pattern charge should be the starting point, but disagree as to whether and to what extent

it should be modified. The problem is that both parties have submitted separate multi-page

Case 1:05-cv-00131-WS-C Document 106 Filed 07/26/07 Page 1 of 6
-2-

charges that largely track the same language. (Defendant’s Proposed Charge No. 14, Plaintiff’s

unnumbered charge labeled 2.2.) The Court is left to resort to word-by-word comparisons of a

four-page document to attempt to divine the areas of disagreement. To avoid such inefficiency,

the parties are ordered to resubmit their proposed excessive force charge as a single joint

charge, using underscoring, italics or other devices to delineate the specific areas in which the

parties differ. The Court will then resolve those particular areas of disagreement.

Plaintiff’s counsel’s letter also reflects a fundamental difference of opinion between the

parties as to whether and to what extent immunity issues should be submitted to the jury,

including both the defendant’s qualified immunity defense on the federal cause of action and

defendant’s state-agent immunity defense on the state causes of action. Because the parties

cannot see eye to eye on whether those defenses are even in the case, plaintiff’s counsel explains,

they cannot agree as to whether and to what extent the jury should be charged about them. The

Court will address these areas of confusion to give the parties the necessary guidance to resubmit

their proposed jury charge.

With respect to the federal claim, defendant would submit the issue of qualified

immunity to a jury, and proposes an instruction (Defendant’s Requested Charge No. 13) under

which the jury would decide whether “a reasonable police officer ... would hold an objectively

reasonable belief that his actions were constitutional” as a question of fact. In addition to being

unrealistic and unworkable without providing the jury a lengthy tutorial on Fourth Amendment

excessive force law, this charge is simply incorrect. Circuit precedent makes it absolutely clear

that whether a reasonable officer would believe that his actions are constitutional is purely a

question of law. See, e.g., Durruthy v. Pastor, 351 F.3d 1080, 1087 (11th Cir. 2003) (“Whether a

defendant is entitled to qualified immunity is a question of law, in other words, whether the law

at the time of the incident was clearly established so that a reasonable person should have known

that he was violating it.”); Koch v. Rugg, 221 F.3d 1283, 1295-96 (11th Cir. 2000) (“whether a

reasonable public official could have believed that the questioned conduct was lawful under

clearly established law” is a question of law within core qualified immunity analysis). By

contrast, only the “predicate factual element[s] of the underlying constitutional tort” are

questions of fact for qualified immunity purposes because they “involve the determination of

facts a party may, or may not, be able to prove at trial.” Koch, 221 F.3d at 1296.

Case 1:05-cv-00131-WS-C Document 106 Filed 07/26/07 Page 2 of 6
-3-

So, how, then, is a qualified immunity issue presented to a jury? The answer is, it isn’t,

at least not directly. As the Eleventh Circuit has explained, “the jury itself decides the issues of

historical fact that are determinative of the qualified immunity defense, but the jury does not

apply the law relating to qualified immunity to those historical facts it finds; that is the court’s

duty.” Johnson v. Breeden, 280 F.3d 1308, 1318 (11th Cir. 2002); see also Ansley v. Heinrich,

925 F.2d 1339, 1348 (11th Cir. 1991) (“[O]nce the defense of qualified immunity has been denied

pretrial due to disputed issues of material facts, the jury should determine the factual issues

without any mention of qualified immunity.”). Johnson teaches that the proper means of

submitting qualified immunity issues to a jury is through special interrogatories that “should be

restricted to the who-what-when-where-why type of historical fact issues” necessary to

determine whether the predicate factual elements justify the legal application of the qualified

immunity defense. 280 F.3d at 1318. This is the course that the Court urged the parties to

follow when the issue arose at the Final Pretrial Conference; however, they have not done so. It

is the responsibility of the parties to fashion special interrogatories that will elicit jury findings

on any evidentiary disputes upon which the qualified immunity defense turns. The parties are

therefore ordered to reexamine their proposed jury charges and verdict forms in light of the

principles outlined in Johnson.

The parties also are seemingly at loggerheads concerning the status of the State-agent

immunity defense applicable to the state-law causes of action. The Court understands that

plaintiff believes that issue is purely one of law that has already been decided by this Court,

while defendant would submit multiple jury charges to the jury bearing on that issue. As with

the qualified immunity issue, neither side has afforded the undersigned any citations to relevant

authority to support their position as to whether this issue is one for the Court or for the jury. 

Alabama Code § 6-5-338 provides that a duly appointed state, county or municipal peace officer

“shall have immunity from tort liability arising out of his or her conduct in performance of any

discretionary function within the line and scope of his or her law enforcement duties.” Id. The

Alabama Supreme Court refined its standard for entitlement to discretionary function immunity,

or more precisely State-agent immunity, in Ex parte Butts, 775 So.2d 173 (Ala. 2000), by

adopting the “restatement” of the law of State-agent immunity advanced by a plurality in Ex

parte Cranman, 792 So.2d 392 (Ala. 2000). Under the Cranman standard, a state agent is

Case 1:05-cv-00131-WS-C Document 106 Filed 07/26/07 Page 3 of 6
1 To be sure, the Alabama Supreme Court observed in Tuskegee that a law

enforcement officer is not entitled to absolute immunity for engaging in an arrest, and that no

immunity attaches where either (1) the officer failed to discharge the arrest pursuant to detailed

rules or regulations, such as those stated on a checklist; or (2) the officer carried out an arrest

that is beyond his authority, such as by attempting a warrantless arrest outside the county of his

-4-

immune from suit in his personal capacity for claims based upon “exercising judgment in the

enforcement of the criminal laws of the State, including, but not limited to, law-enforcement

officers’ arresting or attempting to arrest persons.” Cranman, 792 So.2d at 405. Such immunity

also covers acts of law enforcement officers in “serving as peace officers under circumstances

entitling such officers to immunity pursuant to § 6-5-338(a).” Hollis v. City of Brighton, 950

So.2d 300, 309 (Ala. 2006). No immunity is available, however, “if an officer acts with willful

or malicious intent or in bad faith.” Borders v. City of Huntsville, 875 So.2d 1168, 1178 (Ala.

2003); see also Cranman, 792 So.2d at 405 (no State-agent immunity if agent “acts willfully,

maliciously, fraudulently, in bad faith, beyond his or her authority, or under a mistaken

interpretation of the law”). Stated succinctly, then, “[i]n order to claim State-agent immunity, a

State agent bears the burden of demonstrating that the plaintiff’s claims arise from a function

that would entitle the State agent to immunity. If the State agent makes such a showing, the

burden then shifts to the plaintiff to show that the State agent acted willfully, maliciously,

fraudulently, in bad faith, or beyond his or her authority.” Ex parte Estate of Reynolds, 946

So.2d 450, 452 (Ala. 2006).

In the Court’s view, the question of whether Phillips’ state-law claims arise from a

function that would entitle Trooper Irvin to immunity is purely a question of law. Under

Cranman and Hollis, the exercise of judgment in enforcement of Alabama criminal laws,

including arresting of persons, and the performance of service as a peace officer are undoubtedly

functions that would entitle him to immunity under Alabama law. See Ex parte City of

Tuskegee, 932 So.2d 895, 906 (Ala. 2005) (defendants are entitled to immunity because

engaging in an arrest or attempted arrest is a discretionary function requiring the exercise of

judgment); Swan v. City of Hueytown, 920 So.2d 1075, 1079 (Ala. 2005) (similar); Hollis, 950

So.2d at 309 (State-agent immunity applies where officer was exercising judgment in discharge

of his law-enforcement duties).1

 Trooper Irvin’s conduct in this case falls squarely within those

Case 1:05-cv-00131-WS-C Document 106 Filed 07/26/07 Page 4 of 6
employment. See Tuskegee, 932 So.2d at 906 n.6. Here plaintiff has alleged no facts that would

fit either of these scenarios.

2 Contrary to plaintiff’s apparent belief, the undersigned did not definitively resolve

the State-agent immunity issue on summary judgment, but instead found that the evidence,

viewed in the light most favorable to the non-movant, “plainly raises a jury question of malice

sufficient to preclude a grant of summary judgment to Trooper Irvin on the state law force claims

on a state-agent immunity theory.” (Doc. 49, at 41.) As such, any suggestion that the Stateagent immunity issue was disposed of on summary judgment is inaccurate.

3 The parties should expect to be questioned at the charge conference about those

areas of disagreement, and to be ready with good-faith explanations (and supporting authorities,

where appropriate) of the reasons why they could not agree in each instance.

-5-

categories. As such, there is nothing for the jury to decide (and no reason to instruct the jury) on

the question of whether Trooper Irvin was performing a function that would fall within the

bounds of State-agent immunity. The only question for that immunity issue is whether Phillips

has satisfied his burden of showing by a preponderance of the evidence that Trooper Irvin acted

willfully, maliciously, fraudulently, in bad faith, or beyond his authority, so as to strip him of

that immunity. That question is clearly a mixed question of law and fact that is appropriately

referred to the jury on special interrogatories, as this Court suggested to the parties at the Final

Pretrial Conference.2

 Accordingly, the Court expects counsel to work together to fashion the

following: (a) agreed charges on the definitions of willfulness, maliciousness, and the like; and

(b) special interrogatories asking the jury to make determinations as to whether plaintiff has

satisfied his burden on these issues. No further instructions or questions concerning State-agent

immunity, the structure or operation of same are necessary.

Armed with the foregoing guidance, the parties are ordered to work together in good

faith to prepare a joint jury charge and special interrogatories. The parties are reminded that they

are responsible for submitting a joint charge that covers all substantive aspects of the case,

including claims, defenses and damages. Given the well-settled nature of the legal issues in

dispute here and the additional guidance provided above, the Court fully expects that the parties

should be able to agree in good faith on the vast majority of the proposed charges and special

interrogatories. To the extent that the parties cannot agree on a particular instruction or special

interrogatory, they may offer separate proposed submissions as to that particular item.3 To be

Case 1:05-cv-00131-WS-C Document 106 Filed 07/26/07 Page 5 of 6
-6-

clear, then, what the parties must submit is the following: (a) a jointly prepared jury charge

covering all substantive legal issues in the case; (b) a jointly prepared verdict form and/or special

interrogatories; and (c) in addition to (and not in lieu of) the foregoing, any specific proposed

charges or special interrogatories on which the parties have not been able to agree, clearly

delineating the specific areas of disagreement. The revised submission must be sent by e-mail to

efile_steele@alsd.uscourts.gov by no later than 5:00 p.m. on July 30, 2007.

DONE and ORDERED this 26th day of July, 2007.

s/ WILLIAM H. STEELE 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Case 1:05-cv-00131-WS-C Document 106 Filed 07/26/07 Page 6 of 6