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Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

ORITBD STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

AUG 9 1991 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

JACK FRIEDMAN, BARBARA M. 

BARR, 

Plaintiffs-Appellees, 

v. 

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) 

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) 

JAMES L. JENSEN, JR., individually) 

and in his official capacity as ) 

Deputy Sheriff of the Adams ) 

County Sheriff's Department, ) 

Defendant-Appellant, 

and 

EDWARD J. CAMP, individually and 

in his official capacity as 

Sheriff of the County of Adams; 

TIMOTHY MCGWIRE, individually and 

in his official capacity as a 

Police Officer on the Commerce 

City, Colorado Police Department; 

NEAL A. WIKSTROM, individually 

and as Chief of the Commerce City, 

Colorado Police Department, 

Defendants. 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

ORDER ARD JODGHENT* 

No. 90-1319 

(D. Colorado) 

(D.C. No. 90-Z-410) 

Before ARDERSOR, T.ACHA, and BRORBY, Circuit Judges. 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

Appellate Case: 90-1319 Document: 010110131474 Date Filed: 08/09/1991 Page: 1 
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. The cause is therefore ordered 

submitted without oral argument. 

James L. Jensen, Jr., appeals from a denial of his motion for 

summary judgment, on qualified immunity grounds, seeking dismissal 

of plaintiffs' 42 u.s.c. § 1983 action against him. The plaintiffs, Jack Friedman and his daughter, Barbara M. Barr, brought 

this action against Jensen, a deputy sheriff of Adams County, 

Colorado, and others, alleging that Jensen used excessive force 

against them, in violation of their constitutional rights, during 

the execution of a valid search warrant on the premises of 

plaintiffs' business, A&J Rentals, Inc., d/b/a/ Derby Pawn Loans. 

The salient facts are as follows. On March 16, 1989, a 

Colorado state judge issued a search warrant for the following 

described property: 

Business records regarding the daily transactions made 

by Jack Friedman and/or employees at Derby Pawns between 

December 8, 1988 and February 4, 1989, any numerical 

register of the pawning of property as described and 

required by C.R.S. 12-56-103 between the dates of 

December 8, 1988 and February 4, 1989, photographs of 

pawned personal property in the premises to record model 

numbers, serial numbers, and brand numbers of the pawned 

property; rent receipts, utility receipts, cancelled 

envelopes, city licenses, county licenses, state 

licenses and any other documents that tend to indicate 

the control and ownership of the property and premises. 

Appendix to Defendant/Appellant's Brief, Tab B, Ex. A. The search 

warrant further stated: "YOU ARE HEREBY COMMANDED to search forthwith the place, person or vehicle above described for said 

property, and the said property and every part thereof to take, 

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Appellate Case: 90-1319 Document: 010110131474 Date Filed: 08/09/1991 Page: 2 
remove and seize, using such force as may reasonably be required 

in the performance of the acts and duties hereby commanded; . . . " 

Id. The validity of the warrant is not in question in this case. 

Pursuant to the warrant, on March 16, 1989, Deputy Jensen and 

other deputies from the Adams County Sheriff's Department, along 

with officers of the Commerce City Police Department, entered Mr. 

Friedman's business for the purposes outlined in the warrant, 

i.e., a seizure of business records, which records included pawn 

slips. The warrant would have permitted an immediate seizure of 

the pawn slips. However, alleging that he kept no copies of the 

pawn slips, Mr. Friedman requested permission to let his daughter 

hand copy information from the slips because he felt removal of 

such records would adversely impact his business. Jensen extended 

such permission and in fact allowed more than an hour for copying. 

Eventually, Jensen advised Mr. Friedman and Ms. Barr that he had 

given them as much time as he could to copy information from the 

daily pawn slips and reached over the counter to pick them up off 

the counter. At this point, Ms. Barr placed both of her hands on 

top of the pawn slips to stop him. 

In her deposition Ms. Barr described the facts at that point 

as follows: 

Q. He reaches for the pad--for the pile of papers 

that's in front of you? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Or off to your left a little? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And he picks up the papers? 

A. Yes. 

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Appellate Case: 90-1319 Document: 010110131474 Date Filed: 08/09/1991 Page: 3 
Q. And what do you do? 

A. What are you doing? 

Q. You turn and asked him what he's doing? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Do you take any physical movement to stop him from 

lifting up the papers? 

A. I may. No, I don't known. I slap--put my hands--

what are you doing? I may have gone, what are you 

doing? 

Q. And placed your hand on top of the papers? 

A. Yes. 

Q. At which time he did what? Pulled the paper--

A. He pulled the paper out, but he must not have done 

it with his right hand because he hit me with his arm. 

Q. He hit you with his arm? 

A. He went across me. Not like that. He pushed me 

with his arm when he went to get the papers. 

Q. So you're thinking he must have reached with his 

left hand? 

A. He must have because I'm sitting on a stool. 

Q. Okay. He picked up the papers? 

A. He pulled the papers out from here. 

Q. Out from under your hand? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And in doing so--

A. I was a little higher than this because he hit a 

little lower. It was there. 

Q. So are we talking a strike here or are we talking 

that he bumped your body as he was pulling the papers 

away? 

A. He bumped my body. He hit me. He didn't take a 

fist and slug me, no. 

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Appellate Case: 90-1319 Document: 010110131474 Date Filed: 08/09/1991 Page: 4 
Q. It was in the motion of pulling the papers away 

from you his arm came into contact with your body? 

A. Yes. 

Appendix to Defendant/Appellant's Brief, Tab E(b) at 92-94 

(emphasis added). 

next: 

Mr. Friedman's deposition testimony described what happened 

Q. All right. And what did you do? 

A. Well, at that time I--I wanted to stop him there 

from grabbing. I said, let them finish the tickets. 

What do you want to do, put me out of business? 

Q. And did you make a physical move at that point? 

A. Well, I reached over towards him there to try to 

get ahold of his hands and before then at that 

particular point, he jabbed me in the chest and knocked 

me up against the wall. 

Q. All right. When you say he jabbed you in the 

chest, that's with basically his left tricep and elbow? 

A. His left elbow. 

Q. Is that what struck you? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. And where do you recall it striking you? 

A. Right in my chest right here because I was standing 

over like that to try to reach him, right underneath my 

arms, hit me right there. 

Q. He is standing--you are standing to his left? 

A. I was standing to his left; that's right. 

Q. And you reached across to grab his hands? 

A. To stop him; to stop him. 

Q. All right. And it's at that point that he took his 

left arm--

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Appellate Case: 90-1319 Document: 010110131474 Date Filed: 08/09/1991 Page: 5 
.. 

A. He had his right arm to stop Barbara and took his 

left arm and hit me in the chest; that's right. 

Q. Okay. And that movement was done with sufficient 

force to cause you to move backwards? 

A. Yeah, hit this wall. 

A. No, I couldn't lean on the wall. I would hit the 

wall solid. It's narrow. It was too narrow, you know. 

Three feet isn't very wide, you know, especially if we 

got a gun rack along there too. 

Q. The gun rack makes it less? 

A. I might have hit my back on the gun rack. I don't 

know. 

Q. Okay. Can you describe the impact with the gun 

rack or the wall? 

A. I don't know what to describe. 

Q. What I'm asking is the force with which you hit it. 

I mean did you slam into it? Did the guns fall off the 

wall? Did you bump it? 

A. I bumped it. 

A. My--just above my hip, they hit the guns. They 

hit--this rack here. They hit the guns. 

Q. Okay. And your back hit the wall above the guns? 

A. Well, I can't recall whether my back hit the wall 

or whether the guns stopped me or--I was too--I was too 

upset by that time. 

Q. Okay. When your body impacted with whatever it 

was, did you experience any pain? 

A. No, no, not at that time. 

Q. What did you do? 

A. Well, my knees buckled a little bit and then I 

walked in to--called up Bob Gehler. 

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Appellate Case: 90-1319 Document: 010110131474 Date Filed: 08/09/1991 Page: 6 
Appendix to Defendant/Appellant's Brief, Tab E(a) at 126-27, 129, 

131 (emphasis added). Ms. Barr's description of Deputy Jensen's 

physical contact with Mr. Friedman is not significantly different 

from the account given by Mr. Friedman, although she indicates 

that he began to cry (apparently as much from anger and frustration as anything), and he rubbed his chest before going into his 

office to call his lawyer. Id., Tab E(b) at 96-100. 

In their brief in the district court in opposition to 

Jensen's motion for summary judgment, Friedman and Barr do not 

allege any version of the physical contact in question in this 

case which is significantly different from that described above; 

and, the attachments to their brief consisted of the depositions 

from which the foregoing quotes were taken. In other words, 

plaintiffs' own testimony eliminates any genuine issue as to the 

material facts they allege as the basis of their complaint, 

excepting the ultimate material fact of reasonableness. 

In its order denying the motion for summary judgment, the 

district court, addressing the qualified innnunity issue, stated 

"that officers may not use unreasonable force. Therefore, 

Defendant Jensen's motion for summary judgment, to the extent it 

is based on the doctrine of qualified immunity, will be denied." 

Appendix of Defendant/Appellant, Tab G at 2. The court did not 

explain why the alleged use of force was unreasonable, or why a 

jury question arose on the facts alleged. 

In Dixon v. Richer, 922 F.2d 1456 (10th Cir. 1991), we 

discuss the analysis to be used in civil rights cases alleging 

excessive force under the Fourth Amendment. Although the 

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4 complaint filed in this case did not specify a Fourth Amendment 

violation, the parties have subsequently treated the pleadings as 

having alleged a Fourth Amendment violation, so we do as well. In 

Dixon, we note that: 

[I]n excessive force claims asserted under the Fourth 

Amendment, the qualified immunity question is usually 

answered in the Fourth Amendment inquiry. This is 

because, in the excessive force context, the Fourth 

Amendment inquiry asks directly whether the police 

officer reasonably could have believed that the force 

was necessary under the circumstances. 

Id. at 1463 (footnote omitted). We also noted, however, the 

admonition in Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989), that 

The "reasonableness" of a particular use of force 

must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable 

officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision 

of hindsight. 

Id. at 1462 (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. at 20-22 (1968)). 

Such inquiries are, of course, highly fact specific and generally 

confined to a case-by-case evaluation. 

In this case, we hold that no reasonable jury could find that 

the Fourth Amendment was violated when Deputy Jensen "bumped" Ms. 

Barr while reaching to retrieve the pawn slips, which he had a 

lawful right to seize. "Not every push or shove," Graham v. 

Connor, 490 U.S. at 396, nor every incidental contact, in the 

course of lawful police business can give rise to a potential 

Fourth Amendment violation. Police work involves contact, and we 

refuse to countenance a rule of law that every time contact 

occurs, however slight, a jury may decide whether the contact was 

reasonable. Such a rule would paralyze law enforcement and be a 

virtual abdication of the court's duties to cut off litigation on 

motions for summary judgment in proper cases. 

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Mr. Friedman's claim presents a closer question. He is an 

individual more than 80 years of age, weighing approximately 175 

pounds, according to his deposition testimony. Deputy Jensen 

struck him with an elbow with sufficient force to propel him 

backwards and cause his knees to buckle. But Mr. Friedman was 

able to proceed immediately into his office to telephone his 

attorney, and did not complain of injury or need medical 

assistance at the time. Moreover, Deputy Jensen did not follow-up 

the blow. There is only one contact in question here. It is 

significant that the contact took place after Mr. Friedman, 

according to his own admission, initiated the confrontation by 

moving toward Deputy Jensen and attempting to grab his hands. 

Keeping in mind the admonition of the Supreme Court that "police 

officers are often forced to make split second judgments -- in 

circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving," 

Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. at 397, and that our "calculus of 

reasonableness" must embody an allowance for that fact, id. at 

396, we also rule that Deputy Jensen did not violate the Fourth 

Amendment of the Constitution when he fended off Mr. Friedman with 

his elbow. 

This is a case where police officers obviously made citizens 

very angry. But the officers had a lawful warrant which 

authorized them to seize the records in question, using whatever 

force was necessary at the time. We have no police beating here, 

no blows with fists, feet, or nightsticks, and no repeated 

"bumpings" or contact with elbow, or otherwise. Deputy Jensen 

touched each of the plaintiffs once, with each contact 

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substantially contributed to by the respective plaintiffs. That 

is, Ms. Barr attempted to hold down the records which Deputy 

Jensen was authorized to seize, and Mr. Friedman tried to grab the 

deputy when he sought physically to seize the documents from Ms. 

Barr. 

Accordingly, we REVERSE the district court's denial of 

Jensen's motion for summary judgment on qualified immunity 

grounds, and REMAND this case with directions that the district 

court grant Jensen's motion for summary judgment as outlined 

herein. The mandate shall issue forthwith. 

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ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

Stephen H. Anderson 

Circuit Judge 

Appellate Case: 90-1319 Document: 010110131474 Date Filed: 08/09/1991 Page: 10