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

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued April 15, 1997 Decided August 8, 1997 

No. 96-7060

EILEEN M. DEGRAFF,

APPELLANT

v.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 94cv01949)

Arthur B. Spitzer, with whom Stephen M. Block was on the 

brief, argued the cause for appellant. Charles H. Wilson, Jr.,

entered an appearance.

James C. McKay, Jr., Assistant Corporation Counsel, with 

whom Charles F.C. Ruff, Corporation Counsel at the time the 

brief was filed, and Charles L. Reischel, Deputy Corporation 

Counsel, were on the brief, argued the cause for appellees.

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Before RANDOLPH and ROGERS, Circuit Judges, and 

BUCKLEY, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the court filed by Senior Judge BUCKLEY.

BUCKLEY, Senior Judge: Plaintiff-Appellant Eileen M. DeGraff brought an action in district court alleging that the 

District of Columbia and two Metropolitan Police Department 

officers had committed a variety of torts and violated the 

Fourth Amendment based on her claim that, after the officers 

had arrested her for driving under the influence of alcohol, 

they used excessive force when they carried her down a 

street and handcuffed her to a mailbox. The district court 

granted the defendants' motions for summary judgment. 

There being insufficient facts in the record to support the 

court's conclusion, we reverse.

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Facts

Because we are reviewing a grant of summary judgment in 

favor of the defendants, we examine "the facts in the record 

and all reasonable inferences derived therefrom in a light 

most favorable to the plaintiff." Wardlaw v. Pickett, 1 F.3d 

1297, 1299 (D.C. Cir. 1993) (internal quotation marks and 

citation omitted). Accordingly, the following account reflects 

Eileen DeGraff's version of the events that gave rise to this 

litigation.

On December 17, 1993, Ms. DeGraff attended a Christmas 

party at her place of employment and then visited two bars. 

At approximately 2:45 a.m. the following morning, when 

driving home, she applied her brakes to avoid a car that had 

pulled in front of her. Ms. DeGraff's car fish-tailed to the 

right before coming to rest a few feet behind the other car.

Shortly thereafter, Ms. DeGraff observed the flashing 

lights of a D.C. Metropolitan Police scout car in her rearview 

mirror and pulled over to the curb. Two police officers, 

Ephraim Williams and Edward Ford, approached her car. 

On smelling alcohol, Officer Williams asked Ms. DeGraff if 

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she had been drinking. She answered that she had had 

"some wine." He then ordered Ms. DeGraff to step out of 

her car. As she was getting out, Officer Williams pulled her 

forcibly from the vehicle, calling her a "drunk" and "a murderer." Ms. DeGraff asked him whether she would be given 

a sobriety test. Officer Williams did not answer her question 

and walked her to the front of his scout car. Ms. DeGraff 

was steady on her feet and did not resist in any way as 

Officer Williams guided her to his car.

The officers pushed Ms. DeGraff onto the hood of the police 

car, pulled her arms behind her back, placed handcuffs on her 

wrists, and told her she was under arrest. When she continued to ask about the sobriety test, one of the officers stated, 

"This is all the test I need."

At that point, Ms. DeGraff became upset and began to cry. 

When she continued to question them, one officer mimicked 

her and the other laughed, but neither answered her. Finally, one officer said, "I've had it with these questions." The 

officers then lifted her off the ground and began to carry her 

in a horizontal position to some unknown destination even 

though she had had no difficulty standing on her own feet. 

When she asked what they were doing to her, they did not 

respond.

By that time, Ms. DeGraff was terrified and in pain. She 

screamed and cried; and when she tried to wrestle free of the 

officers' grips, one of them lost his balance and they all three 

fell to the ground. The officers picked Ms. DeGraff up again 

and resumed carrying her in a horizontal position. When 

they reached a mailbox, they sat her on the ground and, using 

a second set of handcuffs, shackled her to it. The officers 

then walked away toward their scout car, ignoring her pleas 

that they not leave her alone. She remained handcuffed to 

the mailbox until a Metropolitan Police Department transport 

vehicle arrived and took her to the Traffic Branch for processing.

After Ms. DeGraff was taken to the police station, two 

successive breathalyser tests found that she had blood alcohol 

levels of 0.16 and 0.17 percent. It is illegal, in the District of 

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Columbia, for a person with a blood alcohol level of 0.10 

percent or higher to operate a motor vehicle. D.C. Code 

§ 40-716(b)(1) (1990 & Supp. 1996).

B. The Proceedings before the District Court

This suit was filed on September 20, 1994. In her second 

amended complaint, Ms. DeGraff alleged, inter alia, that the 

officers had violated 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by depriving her of her 

right, under the Fourth Amendment, to be secure in her 

person against unreasonable seizures and that the District 

was in violation of the same statute because it had followed 

policies and practices that, by failing to provide police officers 

with adequate training and supervision, had caused her to be 

deprived of that right. She also alleged that the officers had 

committed the following common law torts against her: assault and battery, gross and ordinary negligence, and the 

intentional infliction of emotional distress. Because she admitted, in her deposition, that she had not suffered any 

physical injury as a result of the officers' actions, her primary 

common law claim appears to be for mental and emotional 

injuries.

The district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment on March 5, 1996. The court found that the 

officers had conducted a valid investigatory stop of Ms. 

DeGraff in light of her erratic driving and admitted intoxication. It also concluded that although their behavior in 

pulling Ms. DeGraff out of her car and handcuffing her was 

"possibly heavy-handed," it did not constitute excessive force. 

Nor did it find that their subsequent actions were inappropriate. According to the district court, it was

unclear to where the officers' [sic] originally intended to 

take her, but soon after being lifted, Plaintiff began to 

struggle in an effort to "escape from their grip." As a 

result, one of the officers lost his footing and the three of 

them fell to the ground. It was at this point that 

Plaintiff was carried and handcuffed to a U.S. Postal 

Service mailbox.

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Although the record does not reveal the reason the 

officers felt it necessary to lift Plaintiff off the ground, 

the Court does not find such force to have been excessive. As the Supreme Court found in Graham, the 

motivation or intent of the police officers (even if sadistic 

or malicious) is irrelevant to this analysis. Graham v. 

Connor, 490 U.S. [386,] 397 [(1989)]. While such conduct 

may have been physically coercive, it resulted in no 

physical injury to the Plaintiff. Even assuming that the 

officers had no cause to lift the handcuffed Plaintiff off 

the ground, and further assuming such force to be unnecessary, the Court finds that such excessiveness was not 

so apparent that a reasonable officer could have believed 

that his actions were unlawful....

... Although Plaintiff argues that she is slight of 

frame and therefore posed no threat to two male police 

officers, the facts indicate that Plaintiff's attempt to 

escape the officers' grip caused all three to fall to the 

ground. By this point, the officers were confronted with 

an individual actively resisting arrest. Despite her attempt to get free from the officers' grasp, neither officer 

struck Plaintiff or threatened to strike her. Instead the 

officers secured Plaintiff to the mailbox while they called 

for a transport vehicle.

The Court concludes, as a matter of law, that handcuffing Plaintiff to the mailbox, given the totality of the 

circumstances here, was not clearly excessive. It is not 

the job of this Court to determine, in perfect hindsight, 

whether the officers should have found a more hospitable 

manner in which to secure the Plaintiff. The officers' 

decision is precisely the type of split-second judgment, 

under rapidly evolving circumstances, contemplated by 

the Supreme Court in Graham. [Id.]

DeGraff v. District of Columbia, C.A. No. 94-1949, mem. op. 

("Mem. op.") at 20-22 (D.D.C. Mar. 5, 1996) (footnote incorporated in text). The court also concluded that the defendants 

were not subject to civil liability on the common law claims 

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because of their qualified immunity. Accordingly, the case 

was dismissed with prejudice. This appeal followed.

II. ANALYSIS

We review a district court's grant of summary judgment de 

novo. Tao v. Freeh, 27 F.3d 635, 638 (D.C. Cir. 1994). In 

doing so, we must bear in mind that

[s]ummary judgment should be granted only where there 

are no genuine issues of material fact, and all inferences 

must be viewed in a light most favorable to the nonmoving party. If material facts are at issue, or, though 

undisputed, are susceptible to divergent inferences, summary judgment is not available.

Id. (citations omitted).

A. Excessive Force

Police officers will not be found to have used excessive 

force in violation of the Fourth Amendment if their actions 

were " 'objectively reasonable' in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them, without regard to their underlying intent or motivation." Graham, 490 U.S. at 397 (citations omitted). In assessing the reasonableness of an act, a 

court must allow

for the fact that police officers are often forced to make 

split-second judgmentsin circumstances that are tense, 

uncertain, and rapidly evolvingabout the amount of 

force that is necessary in a particular situation.

Id. at 397. As the Supreme Court explained, "[n]ot every 

push or shove, even if it may later seem unnecessary in the 

peace of a judge's chambers," violates the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 396 (citation and internal quotation marks 

omitted).

Moreover, police officers are protected by a qualified immunity in section 1983 cases when they "perform[ ] discretionary 

functions ... insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly 

established ... rights of which a reasonable person would 

have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982) 

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(citations omitted). We have explained that "the scope of 

qualified immunity must be evaluated using the same 'objective reasonableness' criteria" employed in Graham to determine whether an officer has violated the Fourth Amendment. 

Wardlaw, 1 F.3d at 1303. Thus,

a defendant's motion for summary judgment is to be 

denied only when, viewing the facts in the record and all 

reasonable inferences derived therefrom in the light most 

favorable to the plaintiff, a reasonable jury could conclude that the excessiveness of the force is so apparent 

that no reasonable officer could have believed in the 

lawfulness of his actions.

Id. (citation omitted).

Unfortunately, it is impossible to determine, on the meager 

record before us, whether a reasonable jury could have 

concluded that any reasonable officer would have found the 

force employed by Officers Ford and Williams in this case to 

be lawful. In order to decide whether a jury could find in 

Ms. DeGraff's favor, one would have to know far more than 

the district court's opinion reveals about the surrounding 

circumstances and why the officers decided to carry rather 

than walk her to their destination and to handcuff her to the 

mailbox.

What can be said at this time is that based solely on her 

version of the facts, it would be hard to justify their actions. 

Ms. DeGraff testified that, prior to the time she was lifted off 

the ground, she was handcuffed with her upper body pressed 

against the hood of the police car. Although she may have 

been loquacious and may have cried, there was no evidence 

that she had resisted arrest or tried to free herself from the 

policemen's grip prior to that time. To the contrary, Officers 

Williams and Ford appear to have had her fully under their 

control and, according to her account of the events, she was 

steady on her feet and fully capable of walking to wherever 

the officers wished to take her.

In contrast to the circumstances in other cases in which we 

have found the use of significant force appropriate, these 

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officers were not faced with an evasive suspect, Martin v. 

Malhoyt, 830 F.2d 237, 262 (D.C. Cir. 1987), or an escaping 

prisoner, Scott v. District of Columbia, 101 F.3d 748, 759 

(D.C. Cir. 1996), cert. denied, 117 S. Ct. 1824 (May 19, 1997); 

nor was there any evidence that they feared for their safety. 

Wardlaw, 1 F.3d at 1304. Although we can readily imagine 

circumstances that would have justified their actions in this 

case, the record contains virtually no clues as to why they felt 

it necessary to carry Ms. DeGraff or to tether her to a 

mailbox.

The district court explicitly recognized that "the record 

d[id] not reveal the reason the officers felt it necessary to lift 

Plaintiff off the ground." Mem. op. at 7-8. It nevertheless 

found their actions to be reasonable because Ms. DeGraff 

struggled with them after they had begun to carry her. Her 

subsequent attempts to free herself, however, are irrelevant 

to the question of whether the officers used excessive force in 

violation of the Fourth Amendment when they hoisted her off 

the ground and carried her bodily down the street. See 

Dixon v. Richer, 922 F.2d 1456, 1463 (10th Cir. 1991) (plaintiff's resistance to "being choked and beaten does not retroactively justify" officers' actions in choking and beating him).

B. Municipal Liability

The district court's entry of summary judgment for the 

defendants reached all counts of the second amended complaint, including Ms. DeGraff's claim of municipal liability 

against the District of Columbia under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. 

Although the court did not address the issue, we may safely 

assume that it dismissed the claim on the theory that the 

District cannot be held liable for acts of its agents that the 

court had found to be acceptable. In light of our conclusion 

that summary judgment was inappropriate in the case of the 

section 1983 claim against the officers, however, we reinstate 

the municipal liability claim in order to enable the district 

court to address this issue in the first instance at the appropriate time.

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C. Common Law Claims

Ms. DeGraff also appeals the district court's grant of 

summary judgment on her common law claims. Because it 

appears that the parties had not completed discovery on these 

claims when the court granted the defendants' motions for 

summary judgment, we will not consider them at this time 

because they will be more appropriately addressed by the 

district court when a fuller record has been developed.

III. CONCLUSION

For the reasons set forth above, we reverse the district 

court's grant of the defendants' motion for summary judgment and remand the case for further proceedings consistent 

with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

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