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Nature of Suit Code: 555
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Prison Condition
Cause of Action: 

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In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

Nos. 13-3079, 14-1041

WILLIAM N. GERHARTZ,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

DAVID RICHERT and

BILL TYSON,

Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Eastern District of Wisconsin.

No. 2:12-cv-00731-RTR — Rudolph T. Randa, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED OCTOBER 1, 2014 — DECIDED MARCH 5, 2015

____________________

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and RIPPLE and TINDER, Circuit 

Judges.

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge. William Gerhartz brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Deputy David Richert 

and Sergeant Bill Tyson, two officers of the Calumet County 

Sheriff’s Department. He alleged that the officers had violated his Fourth Amendment rights by ordering that his blood 

be drawn, for evidentiary purposes, without a warrant. The 

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2 Nos. 13-3079, 14-1041

district court granted summary judgment for the officers. It 

determined that the natural dissipation of alcohol from 

Mr. Gerhartz’s bloodstream was an exigent circumstance 

sufficient to justify the officers’ warrantless blood draw.

Mr. Gerhartz later filed a Rule 59(e) motion to alter and 

amend the judgment, which the district court denied. 

Mr. Gerhartz now appeals both the district court’s grant of 

summary judgment as well as its denial of his Rule 59(e) motion. For the reasons set forth in the following opinion, we 

affirm the judgment of the district court. 

I

BACKGROUND

A.

On the night of February 16, 2006, Mr. Gerhartz was driving south on a rural highway toward Stockbridge, Wisconsin, when he lost control of his vehicle and struck an oncoming car. Four officers from the Calumet County Sheriff’s Department were dispatched to the scene. Deputy Richert was 

the first to arrive. He spoke to Paramedic Kent J. Katalinick 

who had been treating Mr. Gerhartz. Katalinick advised the 

Deputy that he believed Mr. Gerhartz had been drinking alcohol. 

Sergeant Tyson was the last officer to arrive at the scene. 

After making contact with his fellow officers, he instructed 

Deputy Richert to follow Mr. Gerhartz to the hospital and to 

continue his investigation there; Deputy Richert did so. After 

Mr. Gerhartz’s ambulance left, Sergeant Tyson spoke to 

Aimee Zeinert, a member of the first responder team and, 

coincidentally, a bartender for a nearby Stockbridge bar. 

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Nos. 13-3079, 14-1041 3

Zeinert informed Sergeant Tyson that, earlier that evening, 

she had served Mr. Gerhartz “three or possibly four glasses 

of Bud Light beer.”1 Zeinert also stated that Mr. Gerhartz 

told her that he had smoked “too much pot tonight.”2 Sergeant Tyson relayed this information to Deputy Richert, who 

was still en route to the hospital. Sergeant Tyson also instructed Deputy Richert to arrest Mr. Gerhartz for driving 

under the influence and to obtain a blood sample from 

Mr. Gerhartz, either voluntarily or by force. 

Upon arriving at the hospital, another sheriff’s deputy 

told Deputy Richert that Paramedic Katalinick again had reported smelling alcohol on Mr. Gerhartz. Based on this information, Deputy Richert ordered, without a warrant, an 

evidentiary blood draw on Mr. Gerhartz pursuant to Wisconsin’s implied consent law.3 A laboratory technician con1 R.40-1 at 10.

2 Id.; R.35-9 at 2.

3 Wisconsin’s implied consent law provides that, under certain specified 

circumstances, any person who drives or operates a motor vehicle on a 

public highway in the state 

is deemed to have given consent to one or more tests of 

his or her breath, blood or urine, for the purpose of determining the presence or quantity in his or her blood or 

breath, of alcohol, controlled substances, controlled substance analogs or other drugs, when requested to do so 

by a law enforcement officer[.] 

Wis. Stat. § 343.305(2). Although the parties each mention this statute in 

their briefs, neither party asserts that it is relevant to our analysis on appeal. Accordingly, we do not consider it when evaluating Mr. Gerhartz’s 

claim.

 

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4 Nos. 13-3079, 14-1041

ducted the blood draw at 11:33 p.m., a little over two hours 

after the accident. Mr. Gerhartz was unconscious at the time. 

Test results later showed that his blood-alcohol content was 

.243g/100ml.4

As a result of the accident, Mr. Gerhartz was later 

charged and convicted in a Wisconsin court on one count of 

injury by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle and one count of 

operating a motor vehicle under the influence. 

B.

Mr. Gerhartz brought this action pro se under 42 U.S.C. 

§ 1983 against Deputy Richert and Sergeant Tyson, alleging 

that they had violated his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by ordering that his blood be drawn, for evidentiary purposes, without either his consent or probable cause. 

The officers moved for summary judgment. In their motion, 

they contended, among other things, that exigent circumstances justified their decision to order the warrantless blood 

draw and that, in any event, they were entitled to qualified 

immunity. 

The district court granted the officers’ motion for summary judgment. It first dismissed Mr. Gerhartz’s Fourteenth 

Amendment claim, concluding that his allegations were 

most appropriately analyzed under the more specific Fourth 

Amendment. Under that provision, the court determined 

4 In Wisconsin, it is illegal to drive or operate a motor vehicle with a 

blood-alcohol concentration of .08g/100ml or more. See Wis. Stat. 

§§ 340.01(46m)(a), 346.63(1)(b).

 

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Nos. 13-3079, 14-1041 5

that the natural dissipation of alcohol from Mr. Gerhartz’s 

bloodstream was an exigent circumstance sufficient to justify 

the officers’ warrantless blood draw. The court did not address the second prong of the officers’ qualified immunity 

defense.5

Notably, the district court’s grant of summary judgment 

came approximately four months after the Supreme Court’s 

decision in Missouri v. McNeely, 133 S. Ct. 1552 (2013), which 

held that the natural dissipation of alcohol from a person’s 

bloodstream, without more, does not constitute a per se exigency sufficient to justify a warrantless blood draw. See id. at 

1563.

Mr. Gerhartz subsequently filed a Rule 59(e) motion, asking the district court to alter and amend its judgment in light 

of McNeely. In particular, he submitted that, under McNeely, 

the district court erred in finding that exigent circumstances 

were present to justify a warrantless search. After initially 

noting that “Rule 59(e) motions are generally not vehicles to 

introduce new evidence or advance arguments that could or 

should have been presented to the district court prior to 

judgment,” the court ultimately concluded that, despite 

McNeely, exigent circumstances did, in fact, exist because 

“Officer Richert might reasonably have believed that he was 

confronted with an emergency situation in which the delay 

necessary to obtain a warrant threatened the destruction of 

5 See Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 232 (2009) (noting that qualified 

immunity entails a two-prong inquiry, the first, whether the facts as alleged by the plaintiff “make out a violation of a constitutional right,” and 

the second, “whether the right at issue was ‘clearly established’ at the 

time of defendant’s alleged misconduct”).

 

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evidence.”6 Accordingly, the court denied Mr. Gerhartz’s 

request to alter or amend the judgment. 

Mr. Gerhartz, now assisted by counsel, appeals both the 

district court’s grant of summary judgment as well as its denial of his Rule 59(e) motion as to his Fourth Amendment 

claim. 

II

DISCUSSION

We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment 

de novo, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to 

the nonmoving party. Powers v. USF Holland, Inc., 667 F.3d 

815, 819 (7th Cir. 2011). Summary judgment is appropriate 

where there is “no genuine dispute as to any material fact 

and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). Our review is not limited to the district 

court’s reasons for awarding summary judgment; instead, 

“we may affirm a grant of summary judgment on any alternative basis found in the record as long as that basis was adequately considered by the district court and the nonmoving 

party had an opportunity to contest it.” Best v. City of Portland, 554 F.3d 698, 702 (7th Cir. 2009).

A.

As a threshold argument, the defendants submit that 

Mr. Gerhartz has waived the issue of whether exigent cir6 R.71 at 3, 5.

 

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Nos. 13-3079, 14-1041 7

cumstances justified the blood draw. We do not consider it 

appropriate to rest our decision on the ground of waiver. As 

the matter comes to us, Mr. Gerhartz had filed a complaint 

in the district court in which he maintained that the defendants had procured a blood sample without probable cause. 

In moving for summary judgment, the defendants not only 

maintained that there was probable cause but that they were 

excused from having to demonstrate that probable cause before a judicial officer because of exigent circumstances. In 

particular, the defendants asserted that “exigent circumstances existed because of the nature of the dissipation of alcohol from a person’s bloodstream.”7 Mr. Gerhartz, proceeding pro se, did not address this argument in his response, 

instead asserting that the defendants lacked probable cause. 

Mr. Gerhartz’s failure to respond to the defendants’ exigency argument amounted to, at most, an admission to the 

facts on which the defendants’ claim of exigent circumstances was based. See Flynn v. Sandahl, 58 F.3d 283, 288 (7th Cir. 

1995). “[I]t [did] not constitute a waiver by [Mr. Gerhartz] of 

all legal arguments based upon those undisputed facts.” Id. 

As the moving party, the defendants still “ha[d] the burden 

to show that [they were] entitled to judgment under established principles.” Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 

161 (1970) (internal quotation marks omitted); accord Keeton 

v. Morningstar, Inc., 667 F.3d 877, 884 (7th Cir. 2012). A moving party who fails to discharge this burden is not entitled to 

summary judgment, even if the nonmovant entirely fails to 

7 R.55 at 8.

 

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respond.8 Thus, even though Mr. Gerhartz failed to address 

the defendants’ exigency argument, “the court still [had to] 

ascertain that judgment [was] proper as a matter of governing law.” Johnson v. Gudmundsson, 35 F.3d 1104, 1112 (7th 

Cir. 1994) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Applying these principles, we do not believe that 

Mr. Gerhartz waived his right to contest the district court’s 

finding of exigent circumstances. Here, the defendants’ 

summary judgment motion was premised on the same per 

se exigency theory, rejected by the Supreme Court in 

McNeely. The district court accepted this theory in awarding 

summary judgment. As the nonmovant, Mr. Gerhartz was 

under no obligation to point out the obvious legal error in 

the defendants’ exigency argument. See Flynn, 58 F.3d at 288; 

8 See Johnson v. Gudmundsson, 35 F.3d 1104, 1112 (7th Cir. 1994) (“Even if 

the opposing party completely fails to respond to a summary judgment 

motion, Rule 56(e) permits judgment for the moving party only if appropriate—that is, if the motion demonstrates that there is no genuine issue 

of material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of 

law.” (emphasis in original) (internal quotation marks omitted)); see also 

Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 161 (1970) (“No defense to an 

insufficient showing is required.” (internal quotation marks omitted)); 

Big O Tire Dealers, Inc. v. Big O Warehouse, 741 F.2d 160, 163 (7th Cir. 

1984) (“Where the moving party fails to meet its strict burden of proof, 

summary judgment cannot be entered even if the opposing party fails to 

respond to the motion.”); Yorger v. Pittsburgh Corning Corp., 733 F.2d 

1215, 1223 (7th Cir. 1984) (“[I]t would be a distortion of justice for a moving party to prevail on appellate review of a summary judgment in favor 

of the movant on the ground that, notwithstanding the movant’s failure 

to satisfy its burden of showing the non-existence of genuine issues of 

material fact, the non-movant did not in the court below dissect the movant’s incorrect affirmative defense.”). 

 

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Nos. 13-3079, 14-1041 9

Johnson, 35 F.3d at 1112; Glass v. Dachel, 2 F.3d 733, 739 (7th 

Cir. 1993); Tobey v. Extel/JWP, Inc., 985 F.2d 330, 332 (7th Cir. 

1993); Yorger v. Pittsburgh Corning Corp., 733 F.2d 1215, 1223 

(7th Cir. 1984). Thus, to the extent that Mr. Gerhartz challenges the district court’s award of summary judgment 

based on the court’s application of this erroneous legal 

standard, we do not believe that this challenge was waived. 

In any event, the district court’s decision to address the 

merits of Mr. Gerhartz’s exigency argument on a postverdict motion preserved the issue for appeal. Although an 

issue presented for the first time in a Rule 59(e) motion generally is not timely raised, “such an issue is subject to appellate review if the district court exercises its discretion to consider the issue on the merits.” Dyson v. District of Columbia, 

710 F.3d 415, 419 (D.C. Cir. 2013); accord Int’l Prod. Specialists, 

Inc. v. Schwing Am., Inc., 580 F.3d 587, 600 (7th Cir. 2009) 

(“[A]n issue first presented to the district court in a post-trial 

brief is properly raised below when the district court exercises its discretion to consider the issue.” (internal quotation 

marks omitted)); Armstead v. Frank, 383 F.3d 630, 633 (7th 

Cir. 2004) (recognizing that “[a]n issue presented for the first 

time in a [Rule 59(e)] motion...is not preserved for appellate 

review unless the district court exercises its discretion to excuse the party’s lack of timeliness and consider[s] the issue” 

(third alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted)).9 Here, following the entry of judgment, Mr. Gerhartz 

9 See also Fortress Bible Church v. Feiner, 694 F.3d 208, 216 n.3 (2d Cir. 2012) 

(noting that an argument first raised in a post-trial brief and considered 

by the district court is properly considered on appeal); Kleinsmith v. 

Shurtleff, 571 F.3d 1033, 1038–39 (10th Cir. 2009) (noting that an argument 

first raised in a motion for reconsideration is preserved for appeal so 

 

(...continued)

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10 Nos. 13-3079, 14-1041

filed a Rule 59(e) motion challenging the district court’s order as inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s decision in 

McNeely. Rather than treating this issue as waived, the district court addressed Mr. Gerhartz’s argument on the merits. 

The issue, therefore, is preserved for appellate review. 

B.

We turn now to the merits of Mr. Gerhartz’s Fourth 

Amendment claim. The Supreme Court first addressed the 

issue of warrantless blood draws in Schmerber v. California, 

384 U.S. 757 (1966). In Schmerber, the Court determined that 

probable cause alone could justify a blood draw so long as 

the officer ordering the test “might reasonably have believed 

that he was confronted with an emergency, in which the delay necessary to obtain a warrant, under the circumstances, 

long as the district court “exercise[s] its discretion to address that challenge”); Holland v. Big River Minerals Corp., 181 F.3d 597, 605 (4th Cir. 

1999) (“[A]n issue presented for the first time in a motion pursuant to 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) generally is not timely raised; accordingly, such an issue is not preserved for appellate review unless the 

district court exercises its discretion to excuse the party’s lack of timeliness and consider the issue.”); Quest Med., Inc. v. Apprill, 90 F.3d 1080, 

1087 (5th Cir. 1996) (“A district court has discretion to consider new theories raised for the first time in a post-trial brief, and an issue first presented to the district court in a post-trial brief is properly raised below 

when the district court exercises its discretion to consider the issue.” (citations omitted)).

 

(...continued)

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Nos. 13-3079, 14-1041 11

threatened the destruction of evidence.” Id. at 770 (internal 

quotation marks omitted). Such destruction, the Court explained, was a likely consequence of the natural dissipation 

of alcohol from the blood:

We are told that the percentage of alcohol in 

the blood begins to diminish shortly after 

drinking stops, as the body functions to eliminate it from the system. Particularly in a case 

such as this, where time had to be taken to 

bring the accused to a hospital and to investigate the scene of the accident, there was no 

time to seek out a magistrate and secure a 

warrant. Given these special facts, we conclude that the attempt to secure evidence of 

blood-alcohol content in this case was an appropriate incident to petitioner’s arrest.

Id. at 770–71. 

Following Schmerber, several courts read the Supreme 

Court’s decision as endorsing a per se exigency rule in 

blood-alcohol cases—that is, that the natural dissipation of 

alcohol from the blood constitutes a per se exigency. See 

McNeely, 133 S. Ct. at 1558 n.2 (collecting cases). Notably, the 

Supreme Court of Wisconsin was among those that took this 

view, declaring in State v. Bohling, 494 N.W.2d 399 (Wis. 

1993), that the exigency identified in Schmerber “was caused 

solely by the fact that the amount of alcohol in a person’s 

blood stream diminishes over time.” Id. at 402.

The Supreme Court rejected this understanding of 

Schmerber in McNeely. In McNeely, the Court clarified that, 

“while the natural dissipation of alcohol in the blood may 

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support a finding of exigency in a specific case, as it did in 

Schmerber, it does not do so categorically.” 133 S. Ct. at 1563. 

Thus, the Court explained, “[w]hether a warrantless blood 

test of a drunk-driving suspect is reasonable must be determined case by case based on the totality of the circumstances.” Id.

Mr. Gerhartz contends that the district court awarded 

summary judgment based on the same per se exigency theory rejected in McNeely and that, under McNeely, summary 

judgment was improper because there existed a genuine 

dispute as to whether exigent circumstances were present. In 

response, Deputy Richert and Sergeant Tyson contend, as 

they did before the district court, that their decision to order 

a blood draw on Mr. Gerhartz was lawful and that, in any 

event, they are entitled to qualified immunity. 

“The doctrine of qualified immunity protects government officials from liability for civil damages insofar as their 

conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have 

known.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). Accordingly, in order to defeat a 

properly raised qualified immunity defense, the plaintiff 

must establish two things: “first, that the facts alleged describe a violation of a protected right; and second, that this 

right was clearly established at the time of the defendant’s 

alleged misconduct.” Mordi v. Zeigler, 770 F.3d 1161, 1164 

(7th Cir. 2014). We have the discretion to decide which of 

these two prongs to address first. See Pearson, 555 U.S. at 236. 

Here, because of the undeveloped nature of the factual 

record, we start (and end) our analysis with the clearlyestablished prong. During the parties’ briefing of this case, 

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we decided a similar issue. In Seiser v. City of Chicago, 762 

F.3d 647 (7th Cir. 2014), we held that, prior to the Supreme 

Court’s decision in McNeely, the law was not clearly established on the issue of whether the natural dissipation of alcohol from the bloodstream constitutes a per se exigency. See 

id. at 658. In arriving at this conclusion, we noted that, prior 

to McNeely, courts were split over this issue and that many 

jurisdictions—like Illinois, where the search in Seiser took 

place—had adopted a per se exigency rule in blood-alcohol 

cases. See id. at 657–58. Given these circumstances, the court 

determined that a reasonable officer in the defendant’s position “would have believed...that so long as there was probable cause to justify a breathalyzer examination, there was 

no need to consider seeking a warrant first.” Id. at 658.

Seiser was decided sixteen days before Mr. Gerhartz filed 

his reply brief. In that brief, Mr. Gerhartz attempts to distinguish Seiser by arguing that its holding was limited to 

breathalyzer tests. In particular, he submits that since a 

blood draw is more intrusive than a breathalyzer test a reasonable officer would not have believed that probable cause 

alone was sufficient to justify a warrantless blood draw. 

Although the intrusiveness of a search is certainly relevant to its reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment, 

Mr. Gerhartz has not identified any clearly established authority that would have put the defendants on notice that 

their decision to order a warrantless blood draw (as opposed 

a breathalyzer test) was unlawful. Nor could he. At the time 

McNeely was decided, the law regarding exigent circumstances in blood-alcohol cases was just as unclear with regard to blood draws as breathalyzer tests. Indeed, both 

McNeely and Schmerber concerned warrantless blood draws 

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rather than breathalyzer tests. See McNeely, 133 S. Ct. at 1557; 

Schmerber, 384 U.S. at 758. Our reasoning in Seiser drew no 

distinction between the two. See 762 F.3d at 656–59. Accordingly, we cannot distinguish Seiser on these grounds.

Rather, we conclude that Seiser is controlling in this case. 

Here, the search at issue took place in Wisconsin on February 16, 2006. At this time, approximately seven years before 

McNeely, Wisconsin case law recognized a per se exigency 

rule in blood-alcohol cases. See Bohling, 494 N.W.2d at 402.10

Thus, Deputy Richert and Sergeant Tyson faced the same 

lack of clearly established law that confronted the defendants in Seiser. As such, they are entitled to qualified immunity.

Conclusion

Having decided that Deputy Richert and Sergeant Tyson’s conduct did not contravene any clearly established 

law, we need not decide whether their actions in fact violated Mr. Gerhartz’s Fourth Amendment rights. Because the 

defendants are entitled to qualified immunity, the judgment 

of the district court is affirmed. 

10 In highlighting the defendants’ reasonable reliance on State v. Bohling, 

494 N.W.2d 399 (Wis. 1993), we do not mean to suggest that a state supreme court decision always will prove sufficient to demonstrate the 

absence of clearly established law. Crucially, at the time of the defendants’ actions in this case, neither this court nor the Supreme Court had 

addressed whether Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757 (1966), created a 

per se exigency rule in blood-alcohol cases. 

 

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