Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-13-05308/USCOURTS-caDC-13-05308-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Ryan Barton Lash
Appellant
Jennifer Lemke
Appellee
Todd Reid
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued December 10, 2014 Decided May 15, 2015

No. 13-5308

RYAN BARTON LASH,

APPELLANT

v.

JENNIFER LEMKE, OFFICER, IN HER INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY AND 

TODD REID, SERGEANT, IN HIS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:12-cv-00822)

Jeffrey L. Light argued the cause and filed the briefs for 

appellant. Edward J. Elder entered an appearance.

Marina U. Braswell, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the 

cause for appellees. With her on the brief were Ronald C. 

Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, and R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant 

U.S. Attorney.

Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, and GRIFFITH and 

KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH.

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GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: 

Police officers tried to arrest Ryan Lash after he 

confronted them within the Occupy D.C. encampment at 

McPherson Square in downtown Washington, D.C. Lash 

actively resisted arrest, and one officer used a Taser to subdue 

him. Lash sued the officers alleging violations of his First and 

Fourth Amendment rights. The district court granted summary 

judgment to the officers, concluding they were protected by 

qualified immunity against Lash’s claims because the 

officer’s use of the Taser did not violate the Constitution. We 

also conclude that qualified immunity shields the officers 

from Lash’s Fourth Amendment claim, but on a different 

basis that does not require us to take up the constitutional 

issue the district court reached: A person actively resisting 

arrest does not have a clearly established right against a single 

use of a Taser to subdue him. We also grant summary 

judgment to the officers on Lash’s First Amendment claim 

because he failed to meaningfully advance the argument on 

appeal. 

I

During the winter of 2011 to 2012, participants in the 

Occupy D.C. movement took up residence in McPherson 

Square, living in tents and other shelters. On January 29, 

2012, United States Park Police (USPP) officers entered the 

square to post notices advising the protestors that USPP 

would begin enforcing anti-camping regulations the following 

day. The USPP officers were under the supervision of 

Sergeant Todd Reid, a defendant here. As the officers 

distributed notices through the park, they were followed by a 

crowd of protestors shouting objections and profanities. 

Several members of the crowd videorecorded this 

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confrontation. Those recordings are part of the record on 

appeal, and we rely on them as we describe what followed.

Lash, the plaintiff here, emerged from his tent in the 

encampment into this tense situation. He confronted the 

police officers, challenged their presence and purpose in the 

park, shouted profanities, and tore down some of the notices 

they had posted. The officers ordered Lash to stop removing 

the notices, and he complied. But as he walked away, Lash 

again shouted profanities at the police. 

A number of USPP officers followed him. Among their 

number were Officer Jennifer Lemke, also a defendant here, 

and Officers Frank Hilsher and Tiffany Reed. Lash, observing 

the officers walking after him, began to retreat through a 

group of tents, insisting with increasing agitation that he had 

“done nothing wrong” and demanding to know why they were 

“coming at” him. Some officers followed Lash’s route among 

the tents. Other officers surrounded the area of the park 

through which Lash was walking. Lash continued to retreat 

across the encampment and to protest his innocence.

Officer Tiffany Reed, who had been following Lash as he 

hurried through the tents, stepped up behind Lash and seized 

his arms from the rear. Lash pulled his arms away and held 

them in front of his body, continuing to walk away as he 

insisted that he was innocent. Reed again sought to restrain 

Lash from behind and Lash again pulled his arms away from 

her. Reed then took hold of Lash’s left arm while Hilsher 

approached and seized his right arm. Lemke approached at the 

same time and drew her Taser from its holster, holding it 

ready.

Though Lash’s arms were now held by two different 

officers, he continued to struggle to keep his feet while Reed 

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and Hilsher worked for several moments to gain control of 

him. Lemke, standing nearby and behind the trio, fired her 

Taser into Lash’s lower back. He fell to the ground, and the 

officers handcuffed him.

The officers carried Lash, now handcuffed, to a nearby 

police car. Lash refused to enter the police car, so the officers 

called for a police van. When the van arrived, the officers left 

the scene with Lash, who was charged with disorderly 

conduct. Lash contends that he has suffered a variety of 

painful and debilitating effects from being tased.

Lash filed the complaint in this action against Officer 

Lemke and Sergeant Reid in their individual capacities 

pursuant to Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal 

Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971). The complaint 

alleged that Lemke’s use of the Taser constituted excessive 

force in violation of Lash’s Fourth Amendment rights and 

was motivated by retaliatory animus against his protected 

expression in violation of his First Amendment rights as well. 

Reid, he alleged, was liable for failing either to supervise the 

situation adequately or to intervene to prevent Lemke’s use of 

excessive force.1

 1 Lash also alleged that his arrest, as distinct from the force 

used in effecting his arrest, constituted a separate First Amendment 

violation because it too was motivated by retaliatory animus. After 

Lash filed his complaint but before the district court ruled below, 

the Supreme Court held in Reichle v. Howards that “it was not 

clearly established that an arrest supported by probable cause could 

give rise to a First Amendment violation” even if also motivated by 

retaliatory animus. 132 S. Ct. 2088, 2097 (2012). Lash conceded 

below that probable cause existed for his arrest and so Reichle 

precludes any First Amendment claim arising on that score. He 

does not argue otherwise here.

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The officers moved to dismiss or, in the alternative, for 

summary judgment, arguing that qualified immunity should 

shield them from liability. The district court agreed and 

granted summary judgment, concluding that neither of Lash’s 

claims could survive because, under the circumstances, the 

use of the Taser was not excessive force. Lash v. Lemke, 971 

F. Supp. 2d 85, 93-98 (D.D.C. 2013). Lash appealed. We have 

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 

472 U.S. 511, 524-30 (1985).

II

We review the grant of summary judgment on the basis 

of qualified immunity de novo. Johnson v. District of 

Columbia, 528 F.3d 969, 973 (D.C. Cir. 2008). 

A

Because the officers’ conduct here did not violate any 

clearly established law, they have qualified immunity against 

Lash’s Fourth Amendment claim.2 Qualified immunity exists 

to protect officers “from undue interference with their duties 

and from potentially disabling threats of liability,” Harlow v. 

Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 806 (1982), and applies in Bivens 

actions as it does elsewhere, Atherton v. District of Columbia, 

567 F.3d 672, 689 (D.C. Cir. 2009). An official who asserts a 

qualified immunity defense can only be held liable if the 

plaintiff suing him establishes that the official “violated a 

constitutional right” that “was clearly established” at the time. 

Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201 (2001). 

 2 There is no question that Lash may pursue an excessive 

force claim under Bivens. 403 U.S. at 395-96.

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We have “discretion to decide which of the two prongs of 

qualified-immunity analysis to tackle first.” Ashcroft v. alKidd, 131 S. Ct. 2074, 2080 (2011). Determining that a 

constitutional right exists and has been abridged by official 

conduct is not only difficult at times, but asks much of a court 

that should resolve matters on constitutional grounds only 

when there is no other way to do so. See Pearson v. Callahan, 

555 U.S. 223, 241 (2009). In some cases, it is easier for a 

court to see that the claimed right, whether it exists or not, is 

by no means “clearly established.” Id. at 237. This is such a 

case and we will accept the invitation of the Court in Pearson 

to dispose of this suit by holding that the conduct of the 

officers in arresting Lash did not violate any clearly 

established law. Thus we need not consider whether the 

district court was right to conclude that the use of a Taser 

against Lash in these circumstances was constitutionally 

permissible.

1

Qualified immunity applies because the defendants’ 

conduct did not violate clearly established law. 

For a right to be clearly established, its “contours [must 

be] sufficiently definite that any reasonable official in the 

defendant’s shoes would have understood that he was 

violating it.” Plumhoff v. Rickard, 134 S. Ct. 2012, 2023 

(2014). “This is not to say that an official action is protected 

by qualified immunity unless the very action in question has 

previously been held unlawful, but it is to say that in the light 

of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent.” 

Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987) (internal 

citation omitted). In addition, the Court “‘ha[s] repeatedly told 

courts . . . not to define clearly established law at a high level 

of generality,’ . . . since doing so avoids the crucial question 

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whether the official acted reasonably in the particular 

circumstances that he or she faced.” Plumhoff, 134 S. Ct. at 

2023 (quoting al-Kidd, 131 S. Ct. at 2084). Thus the “clearly 

established” prong of qualified immunity analysis requires us 

to determine the right at issue “in light of the specific context 

of the case,” not simply as a statement of general legal 

principles. Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201.

Because this case was decided at summary judgment, we 

must draw reasonable factual inferences in the light most 

favorable to Lash, the nonmovant. Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 

372, 378 (2007). The Court has cautioned us that we “must 

take care not to define a case’s context in a manner that 

imports genuinely disputed factual propositions.” Tolan v. 

Cotton, 134 S. Ct. 1861, 1866 (2014) (internal quotation 

marks omitted). Nonetheless, our obligation to view the facts 

“in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party” only 

attaches “if there is a ‘genuine’ dispute as to those facts.” 

Scott, 550 U.S. at 380 (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)). “When 

opposing parties tell two different stories, one of which is 

blatantly contradicted by the record, so that no reasonable jury 

could believe it, a court should not adopt that version of the 

facts for purposes of ruling on a motion for summary 

judgment.” Id. And when a nonmovant’s account of the facts 

is “utterly discredited” by the clear evidence provided by a 

videorecording, the Court has instructed us not to rely on a 

“visible fiction” but rather “view[] the facts in the light 

depicted by” the video record. Id. at 380-81. 

The question of “context” here turns principally on 

whether Lash was resisting arrest at the time he was tased. 

Lash has averred by affidavit that he did not resist arrest. 

Because this case comes to us at summary judgment, we have 

a duty to draw all inferences “in favor of the nonmovant” and 

may not resolve disputed fact issues. Tolan, 134 S. Ct. at 

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1866. Thus Lash insists, relying on Tolan, that we cannot 

define the “context” for this case by concluding as a matter of 

law that he was resisting arrest. Doing so, he argues, would 

“import[] genuinely disputed factual propositions” into the 

qualified immunity analysis, exactly as Tolan forbids us to do. 

Id. We disagree: Here, there is no genuine dispute regarding 

Lash’s conduct. Multiple videorecordings of the episode make 

perfectly clear that Lash resisted the officers’ efforts to arrest 

him. He pulled his arms free from the officers’ efforts to 

restrain them twice in succession. The first of these, Lash 

argues in his affidavit, was no more than a natural reaction to 

being seized when he did not know who had seized him. But 

Lash does not even acknowledge, much less attempt to 

justify, the second occasion on which he pulled away. Much 

worse, Lash further claims that as soon as he realized that 

officers were trying to arrest him he immediately acquiesced 

and allowed them to put his arms behind his back. And in his 

brief he insists that the officers “began to place [his arms] 

behind his back” while he “continued to insist he had done 

nothing wrong.” But it is plain from multiple videorecordings 

that each of these claims is a “visible fiction.” Scott, 550 U.S. 

at 381. Even when each of Lash’s arms was firmly held by a 

uniformed USPP officer, Lash continued to resist, straining to 

remain upright despite the officers’ efforts to destabilize him 

and force him to the ground. Nor did Lash allow the officers 

to move his arms behind his back before handcuffing him. His 

arms remained extended even as the officers attempted to 

restrain him and were never pinned until after Lemke used her 

Taser. Just as in Scott, the video record here makes the normal 

factual solicitude for the nonmovant at summary judgment 

both unnecessary and inappropriate. No matter what Lash 

claims now, we know to a certainty that he resisted arrest 

because we can see him doing so.

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Lash argues that we may not rely on the videorecordings

in this way because they “cannot fully convey everything that 

people at the scene felt” such as “how much force one person 

is exerting” or “the level of detail a person will experience in 

the moment.” This is no argument at all. The Supreme Court 

has explained that we determine whether a right is clearly 

established based on the “objective legal reasonableness of an 

official’s acts,” Harlow, 457 U.S. at 819, protecting officers 

from liability unless “it would be clear to a reasonable officer 

that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted,” 

Saucier, 533 U.S. at 202. Subjective factors like those Lash 

identifies here cannot shed any light on whether a reasonable 

officer in these circumstances would have believed her 

actions violated Lash’s clearly established rights. It is that 

objective test, not Lash’s knowledge or Lemke’s thoughts, 

that determines the scope of qualified immunity. The 

videorecordings in the record provide us all we need to 

determine what a reasonable officer would have known at the 

scene. And we do not hesitate to conclude from the 

videorecording that there is “no genuine issue of material 

fact” regarding Lash’s active resistance. Scott, 550 U.S. at 

380 (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 

248 (1986)) (emphasis omitted). 

2

In light of the foregoing, we must determine whether it 

was clearly established that the single use of a Taser by 

arresting officers violated the Fourth Amendment rights of a 

person actively resisting arrest. A right is clearly established

when “‘existing precedent [has] placed the statutory or 

constitutional question beyond debate.’” Taylor v. Reilly, 685 

F.3d 1110, 1114 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (quoting al-Kidd, 131 S. Ct. 

at 2083). We find clearly established rights by looking “‘to 

cases from the Supreme Court and this court, as well as to 

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cases from other courts exhibiting a consensus view,’ . . . if 

there is one.” Bame v. Dillard, 637 F.3d 380, 384 (D.C. Cir. 

2011), as amended (Mar. 29, 2011) (quoting Johnson, 528 

F.3d at 976). “The facts of such cases need not be materially 

similar . . . but have only to show that the state of the law [at 

the time of the incident] gave [the officer] fair warning that 

[his alleged misconduct] . . . was unconstitutional.” Id.

(alterations in Bame) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

No such clearly established right existed. The officers 

could not have been on notice that using a Taser in these 

circumstances would violate Lash’s Fourth Amendment 

rights. Though there is no case from the Supreme Court or our 

court that is on point, consulting the decisions of our sister 

circuits reveals a telling pattern. The use of a Taser against a 

person who is not resisting arrest or merely passively resisting 

may violate that person’s rights. See, e.g., Brown v. City of 

Golden Valley, 574 F.3d 491, 499 (8th Cir. 2009). The use of 

a Taser may also violate an individual’s rights even in the 

face of resistance if the officer uses the Taser to excess, such 

as firing multiple times after the officers have gained control 

of the scene. See, e.g., Meyers v. Baltimore Cnty., Md., 713 

F.3d 723, 735 (4th Cir. 2013). But “[t]here is no clearly 

established right for a suspect who actively resists and refuses 

to be handcuffed to be free from a Taser application.” 

Goodwin v. City of Painesville, 781 F.3d 314, 325 (6th Cir. 

2015) (internal quotation marks omitted). The Seventh 

Circuit, surveying the state of the law, found that “[c]ourts 

generally hold that the use of a [T]aser against an actively 

resisting suspect either does not violate clearly established 

law or is constitutionally reasonable.” Abbott v. Sangamon 

Cnty., Ill., 705 F.3d 706, 727 (7th Cir. 2013). The Sixth 

Circuit reached the same result. See Hagans v. Franklin Cnty.

Sheriff’s Office, 695 F.3d 505, 509-10 (6th Cir. 2012) 

(observing that courts generally find that “[i]f a suspect 

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actively resists arrest and refuses to be handcuffed, officers do 

not violate the Fourth Amendment by using a [T]aser to 

subdue him”). See also Aldaba v. Pickens, 777 F.3d 1148, 

1158 (10th Cir. 2015) (finding that “where the subject 

actively resisted a seizure, whether by physically struggling 

with an officer or by disobeying direct orders, courts have 

held either that no constitutional violation occurred or that the 

right not to be tased in these circumstances was not clearly 

established”). And our own examination of the cases similarly 

has found that officers who tased individuals actively resisting 

arrest had qualified immunity against excessive force claims. 

See, e.g., De Boise v. Taser Int’l, Inc., 760 F.3d 892, 897 (8th 

Cir. 2014); Buchanan v. Gulfport Police Dep’t, 530 F. App’x 

307, 314 (5th Cir. 2013); Meyers, 713 F.3d at 733; Hoyt v. 

Cooks, 672 F.3d 972, 979-80 (11th Cir. 2012). Because this 

right is still not clearly established today, a reasonable officer 

in January 2012 would certainly have been justified in 

believing that she could use a Taser a single time against a 

resisting suspect.

Lash makes only one argument, raised for the first time in 

his reply brief, that the officers’ conduct violated clearly 

established law. He relies on a negative inference from a 2004 

decision of the Eleventh Circuit in which that court held that a 

single Taser discharge against a “hostile, belligerent, and 

uncooperative” suspect did not constitute excessive force. 

Draper v. Reynolds, 369 F.3d 1270, 1278 (11th Cir. 2004). 

Draper examined a traffic stop in which the driver, 

increasingly frustrated at an officer’s questions, became 

“belligerent, gestured animatedly, continuously paced, 

appeared very excited, and spoke loudly.” Id. at 1272-73. 

After the driver had disobeyed an order multiple times and 

ignored a warning that he was risking arrest, the officer tased 

him. Id. at 1273-74. The court found that the use of the Taser 

did not violate the Constitution because “the amount of 

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force . . . was reasonably proportionate to the need for force.” 

Id. at 1278. Lash seems to suggest that because he was less 

obstreperous than the arrestee in Draper and did not ignore a 

warning or refuse to comply with orders, Draper should have 

made it clear that Lash’s behavior did not warrant the use of a 

Taser. We think Draper counsels for our conclusion, not 

against it. Though Lash’s confrontation with the USPP 

officers was shorter than the standoff with police in Draper, 

Lash actively resisted arrest even after officers actually had 

their hands on him. Draper, in contrast, involved only 

aggressive conduct, agitation, and refusal to comply with 

police orders. There, police did not even attempt to subdue 

and handcuff the arrestee before discharging a Taser against 

him. The USPP officers here had already made multiple 

successive attempts to restrain Lash and were still struggling 

with his physical resistance when Lemke tased him. If 

anything, reading Draper could have led a reasonable officer 

to feel confident that the force used in this case was 

reasonable, not the opposite. At a minimum, Draper certainly 

did not establish beyond doubt that using a Taser a single time 

on someone behaving as Lash did would violate his rights. 

The strongest, though ultimately futile, argument we have 

found for the proposition that the officers’ conduct violated 

clearly established law comes from Mattos v. Agarano, 661 

F.3d 433 (9th Cir. 2011) (en banc). There the Ninth Circuit 

considered two consolidated cases regarding the use of a 

Taser during arrests. In the first case, a pregnant woman, 

pulled over as part of a traffic stop, refused to sign a citation 

and to get out of her car; officers tased her three times before 

handcuffing her. This arrestee, the Ninth Circuit concluded, 

“engaged in some resistance to arrest” when she “stiffened 

her body and clutched her steering wheel to frustrate the 

officers’ efforts to remove her from her car.” Id. at 445. In the 

second case, an officer trying to arrest an individual suspected 

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of domestic violence tased the suspect’s wife when she did 

not move out of the officer’s way. Id. at 449. This individual 

“minimally resisted . . . arrest” when she “extended [her] 

arm . . . to protect her own body” from contact with the 

advancing officer; the Ninth Circuit noted that this 

“minimal[]” resistance was more akin to “failure to facilitate 

an arrest,” not “active resistance to arrest,” because the 

advancing officer was seeking to arrest her husband, not the 

woman herself. Id. at 449-50. In both cases the Ninth Circuit 

held that using a Taser violated the arrestee’s rights, though it 

also concluded that at the time of the episodes (November 

2004 and August 2006, respectively) no clearly established 

law put officers on notice that using a Taser in those 

circumstances would violate the Constitution. Id. at 444-52.

Even if Mattos were manifestly contrary to the many 

cases we discussed above, such an outlier would not 

invalidate broad agreement among other circuits. The 

“‘consensus view’” we have found necessary to create a 

clearly established right for qualified immunity purposes 

requires more than a single decision departing from an 

otherwise consistent pattern. Bame, 637 F.3d at 384 (quoting 

Johnson, 528 F.3d at 976). But more to the point, Mattos does 

not actually contradict the other cases on which we rely. In 

Mattos the Ninth Circuit carefully noted that the level of 

resistance offered by both arrestees was quite limited: “some 

resistance” in one case and “minimal resistance,” ultimately 

more akin to “failure to facilitate an arrest” than “active 

resistance to arrest,” in the other. Lash’s case offers a 

different context. Lash twice evaded the officer’s efforts to 

seize him and, even after two officers held his arms, 

continued struggling between them and fighting against their 

efforts to force him to the ground. This was not “some” or 

“minimal” resistance, much less a failure to facilitate the 

arrest of another. As the video record makes clear, Lash was 

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actively resisting arrest in the face of increasing police efforts 

to control him without resorting to more substantial force. 

Mattos was a different case and in consequence the Ninth 

Circuit’s holding could not have put these officers on notice 

that using a Taser in this “specific context,” Saucier, 533 U.S. 

at 201, would violate Lash’s rights. And even if Mattos had 

dealt with closely analogous facts, that decision alone would 

be outweighed by the consensus position: No clearly 

established right is violated when an officer uses a Taser a 

single time against an individual actively resisting arrest.

Thus the force used here violated no clearly established 

law, regardless of whether it may have violated the Fourth 

Amendment. For that reason Lemke and Reid have qualified 

immunity as to Lash’s Fourth Amendment claim.

B

Lash’s First Amendment retaliatory force claim fares no 

better, though for the different reason that he simply did not

argue it on appeal. Because the officers have not argued on 

appeal that Bivens does not apply here, we will “assume, 

without deciding,” that Lash’s First Amendment retaliatory 

force claim “is actionable under Bivens.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 

556 U.S. 662, 675 (2009). Compare Wood v. Moss, 134 S. Ct. 

2056, 2066 (2014), with Hartman v. Moore, 547 U.S. 250, 

256 (2006). Even so, Lash’s First Amendment claim is 

doomed by his failure to provide any meaningful argument on 

appeal in support of it. His opening brief offers a single 

paragraph regarding the First Amendment with only two 

sentences devoted to legal argument. He insists that because 

the force used against him was, in his judgment, excessive, 

his First Amendment claim in connection with that force 

should survive. He did not refer to the First Amendment at all 

on reply. As a general matter, we decline to consider 

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arguments made in such a perfunctory fashion. See, e.g.,

Schneider v. Kissinger, 412 F.3d 190, 200 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 

2005) (“It is not enough merely to mention a possible 

argument in the most skeletal way, leaving the court to do 

counsel’s work.” (citation omitted)). 

Admittedly, Lash framed his First Amendment argument 

in the context of the district court’s decision dismissing that 

claim on the basis that the force used against him was not 

excessive. But even had we decided that the use of the Taser 

did constitute excessive force under the Fourth Amendment, 

Lash’s argument would have remained inadequate. A plaintiff 

pressing a First Amendment retaliatory force claim must 

show, among other things, that the officer who used force 

against him had “‘retaliatory animus.’” Trudeau v. Fed. Trade 

Comm’n, 456 F.3d 178, 191 n.23 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (quoting 

Hartman, 547 U.S. at 260). But Lash did not argue that a jury 

could reasonably find in his favor on the presence of a 

retaliatory motive. He drew our attention to nothing in the 

record, and we have found nothing ourselves, that suggests 

Lemke’s use of force was retaliatory. It is not this court’s 

obligation to resolve issues when the party concerned argues 

them so cursorily. Wash. Legal Clinic for the Homeless v. 

Barry, 107 F.3d 32, 39 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (“Because the 

District raises this issue in such a cursory fashion, we decline 

to resolve it.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). For this 

reason we grant summary judgment to the officers on Lash’s 

First Amendment claim as well.3

 3 Lash also argues that Sergeant Reid’s affidavit submitted 

in support of the officers’ motion for summary judgment suffered 

from various flaws. As we do not rely on that affidavit in our 

decision here, however, we need not consider whether, as Lash 

contends, Reid failed to provide support for his testimony or 

included inappropriate legal conclusions.

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III

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s 

grant of summary judgment for the defendants.

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