Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca3-15-02346/USCOURTS-ca3-15-02346-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
City of Philadelphia
Appellee
Thomas Dempsey
Appellee
Geraldine Johnson
Appellant

Document Text:

PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

_______________

No. 15-2346

_______________

GERALDINE JOHNSON, as Admnistratrix of the Estate of

Kenyado D. Newsuan, Deceased Plaintiff,

 Appellant

v.

 

CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, POLICE OFFICER THOMAS 

DEMPSEY, Badge # 1577

_______________

On Appeal from the U.S. District Court

for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. No. 2-14-cv-02331)

District Judge: Honorable William H. Yohn

_______________

Argued February 11, 2016

Before: FUENTES, KRAUSE, and ROTH, Circuit Judges

(Opinion Filed: September 20, 2016)

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Armando A. Pandola, Jr., Esq. [ARGUED]

Alan E. Denenberg, Esq.

Abramson & Denenberg, P.C.

1315 Walnut St., 12th Floor

Philadelphia, PA 19107

Attorneys for Appellants

Craig R. Gottlieb, Esq. [ARGUED]

City of Philadelphia Law Department

17th Floor

1515 Arch Street

One Parkway

Philadelphia, PA 19102

Attorneys for Appellees

_______________

OPINION OF THE COURT

_______________

FUENTES, Circuit Judge:

Kenyado Newsuan was standing in the street, naked, 

high on PCP, and yelling and flailing his arms. Philadelphia 

police officer Thomas Dempsey arrived on the scene and, 

without waiting for backup, ordered Newsuan to approach. 

What happened next is a matter of some dispute, but what 

happened at the end of the encounter is not: Newsuan 

attacked Dempsey, slammed him into multiple cars, and tried 

to remove Dempsey’s handgun. At that point, Dempsey shot 

and killed Newsuan. 

Case: 15-2346 Document: 003112413234 Page: 2 Date Filed: 09/20/2016
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The administratrix of Newsuan’s estate sued Dempsey 

and the City of Philadelphia under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for using 

unconstitutionally excessive force. The District Court 

granted summary judgment to the defendants. On appeal, 

Plaintiff argues that the shooting was unreasonable under the 

Fourth Amendment because Dempsey unnecessarily initiated 

a one-on-one confrontation with Newsuan that led to the 

subsequent fatal altercation. Whatever the merits of that 

liability theory in the abstract, we conclude that Newsuan’s 

violent attack on officer Dempsey was a superseding cause 

that severed any causal link between Dempsey’s initial 

actions and his subsequent justified use of lethal force. We

will therefore affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual Background

In the early morning hours of April 22, 2012, Officer 

Thomas Dempsey of the City of Philadelphia Police 

Department was on solo patrol in a radio car in North 

Philadelphia. Dempsey was armed with a baton, a taser, and 

a nine-millimeter Glock handgun. Around 2:00 a.m.,

Dempsey received a radio call that a naked man was standing 

in the street in the 5800 block of North Mascher Street. 

Dempsey and two other patrol officers responded to the call, 

but found no one. Around 5:30 a.m., Dempsey responded to 

another call about a naked man on the same block, but again 

found no one.

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At approximately 6:00 a.m., a passing motorist 

informed Dempsey that a naked man was in the street at the 

corner of North Mascher and Nedro Avenue. Dempsey 

radioed in the information and drove down North Mascher to 

the intersection. There, Dempsey saw a naked man, later

identified as Kenyado Newsuan, standing in front of a 

residence at 5834 North Mascher.

Accounts diverge as to what happened next. The 

record contains testimony from four eyewitnesses: Officer 

Dempsey, Juan Cruz, Raimundo Rivera, and Newsuan’s 

girlfriend, Christina La Torre. 

i. Testimony of Officer Dempsey

Dempsey testified that as he crossed Nedro Avenue 

into the 5800 block of North Mascher, he saw Newsuan 

standing in the middle of the street. Dempsey estimated 

Newsuan to be six feet tall and 220 pounds. As Dempsey 

pulled to a stop, Newsuan began walking out of the street 

toward a house (later determined to be La Torre’s residence). 

Dempsey did not radio to dispatch that he had encountered 

the subject or stopped his car. As Newsuan headed toward 

the house, Dempsey exited the car with his taser in his hand 

and told Newsuan to “come here.”1

 Newsuan began 

screaming obscenities at Dempsey and “flailing his arms 

around.”2

 Dempsey could see that Newsuan was completely 

naked and had nothing in his hands. Dempsey told Newsuan 

 1 J.A. 102.

2 Id. 103.

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to “[c]ome here” several more times, but Newsuan continued 

up the walkway to the house.3

 Newsuan entered the house for 

approximately two seconds and then emerged back onto the 

walkway. He was still naked, and Dempsey could see that he 

did not have a weapon. 

Upon emerging from the house, Newsuan began 

running toward Dempsey and yelling. Dempsey gave two 

verbal commands to stop. When Newsuan was five feet 

away, Dempsey fired his taser into Newsuan’s chest. 

Newsuan kept coming forward and grabbed Dempsey’s shirt. 

A violent struggle ensued. Newsuan struck Dempsey in the 

head multiple times, threw Dempsey up against a parked van, 

and then pushed him into a parked SUV. As they were 

wrestling against the SUV, Newsuan reached for Dempsey’s 

service weapon. Dempsey removed the gun from its holster, 

wedged it between his body and Newsuan’s, and, from a 

distance of no more than two inches, fired two shots into

Newsuan’s chest. Newsuan attempted to reach for the gun, 

and Dempsey shot him again in the chest. Still grappling, 

Newsuan reached for the gun again, and Dempsey shot him 

again. Newsuan collapsed face down and died. La Torre

then emerged from the house screaming and crying; 

according to Dempsey, this was the first time he encountered 

her. Dempsey was taken to a hospital, treated for minor 

injuries, and released the same night. 

ii. Testimony of Juan Cruz

Cruz lived in a street-facing apartment on North 

Mascher. At around 5:40 a.m., while Cruz was lying in bed, 

 3 Id. 104.

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he heard a commotion between two people. He looked out 

his window and saw Dempsey and Newsuan standing 

approximately eight feet apart and “screaming at each 

other.”4

 Newsuan “was approaching” Dempsey.5 When 

Newsuan closed within four feet of Dempsey, Dempsey shot 

him with a taser. After being hit with the taser, Newsuan 

“stopped, stuttered a little bit,” and then “just rushed”

Dempsey.6

 Newsuan lifted Dempsey up by his belt, began

“beating” Dempsey and “slamming” him onto the hood of the 

squad car, and then pushed Dempsey against a parked 

vehicle.7

 At that point “it looked like [Newsuan] was going 

for” Dempsey’s gun.8

 Cruz heard a series of gunshots, and 

Newsuan fell to the ground. 

iii. Testimony of Raimundo Rivera

Like Cruz, Rivera also lived in a street-facing 

apartment on North Mascher. In the early morning hours, he 

heard yelling outside his apartment and what sounded like a 

car door slamming. He also heard a man yelling, “I’m

Jehovah. The end is near.”9

 Rivera then heard (but did not 

see) someone being tased. Rivera testified that he did not 

hear “any statements or yelling or anything immediately 

preceding the taser,” and he never heard Dempsey issue any 

 4 Id. 145.

5 Id.

6 Id. 146.

7 Id. 140, 146-47.

8 Id. 147.

9 Id. 167, 172.

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commands to stop or get down on the ground.10 Rivera got 

up and went to the window, where he saw Newsuan 

“completely naked, rushing over to the police officer.”11 

Newsuan “slam[med] the officer against his patrol car and 

grab[bed] him by the neck and start[ed] pummeling his head 

against the car.”12 Newsuan “reach[ed] for” Dempsey’s 

gun.13 While Newsuan “had him by the neck,” Dempsey 

unholstered the gun and shot Newsuan three times at close 

range, at which point Newsuan fell to the ground.14

iv. Testimony of Christina La Torre

La Torre testified that on the night of April 21, 

Newsuan showed up at her house high on PCP15 and acting 

paranoid. Over the course of the night, Newsuan became 

progressively more agitated, running out of the house and into 

the street several times and yelling nonsensical phrases. At 

some point around sunrise, Newsuan removed his clothes and 

walked back onto North Mascher. Some minutes later, 

Dempsey’s cruiser started coming up the block. La Torre, 

who was standing near the doorway of her home, told 

Newsuan to go inside to avoid arrest. Newsuan began 

walking toward the house. According to La Torre, Dempsey 

pulled up and asked her “what’s the problem.”16 At this 

point, Newsuan was “standing right there and trying to go 

 10 Id. 168, 175-76.

11 Id. 168.

12 Id.

13 Id.

14 Id. 169.

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into the house.”17 La Torre told Dempsey, “he’s on PCP” and 

“he needs to be 302’d”—meaning, in police code, that 

Newsuan needed to be involuntarily committed to a mental 

health facility.18 Dempsey told her, “don’t worry about it, 

everything is under control.”19 He also instructed her not to 

let Newsuan into the house because there might be weapons 

inside. 

Dempsey began walking from the street toward the 

house. As he did so, he said to Newsuan, “hey you, come 

here.”20 Newsuan “didn’t say anything” but just “star[ed] at” 

Dempsey.

21 Dempsey walked up the path to the house and 

repeated the command “to come towards him.”22 According 

to La Torre, Newsuan “just look[ed] at” her.23 Dempsey 

backed up, stepped down onto the pavement, and asked 

 15 PCP is the common abbreviation for phencyclidine, “a 

controlled substance which causes hallucinations and serious 

psychological disturbances.” Guilbeau v. W.W. Henry Co., 

85 F.3d 1149, 1164 n.41 (5th Cir. 1996) (citing R. SLOANE, 

THE SLOANE-DORLAND ANNOTATED MEDICAL 

LEGAL DICTIONARY 545 (1987)).

16 Id. 203.

17 Id. 

18 Id.

19 Id.

20 Id. 204.

21 Id.

22 Id.

23 Id.

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Newsuan if he could hear him. Newsuan “started walking”

toward Dempsey.24 According to La Torre, “[a]s he started 

approaching the police officer, [Dempsey] tased him.”25 At 

the time Dempsey tased him, Newsuan was not running at 

Dempsey, but rather “walking in response to the officer 

telling him to come here.”26

Upon being tased, Newsuan’s “body started 

convulging [sic], like shaking.”27 Newsuan reached up and 

pulled the taser prongs from his body, at which point 

Dempsey drew his gun and began backing away from 

Newsuan. Newsuan was “just staring” at Dempsey.28 La 

Torre ran back into the house, grabbed her phone, and began 

calling Newsuan’s mother and brother. Through the window, 

she could see Dempsey with his gun still drawn, but could not 

see Newsuan. La Torre became frightened and ran into her 

bedroom, meaning that she did not see the physical 

altercation between Dempsey and Newsuan. While in the 

bedroom, she heard four gunshots in rapid succession. She 

went back out to the street and saw Newsuan lying in the 

street. Newsuan died shortly thereafter. 

 24 Id.

25 Id.

26 Id.

27 Id.

28 Id. 205.

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B. Procedural Background

Plaintiff Geraldine Johnson, as administratrix of 

Kenyado Newsuan’s estate, brought this action under 42 

U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that Officer Dempsey used excessive 

force against Newsuan in violation of the Fourth Amendment 

and that the City of Philadelphia was liable for Dempsey’s 

actions under Monell v. Department of Social Services,

29 

Plaintiff also brought state-law claims for assault and battery 

and wrongful death. After full discovery, the defendants 

moved for summary judgment. 

The District Court granted summary judgment to the 

defendants. It held that there was no genuine material dispute 

that Officer Dempsey reasonably used deadly force to defend 

himself from Newsuan’s attack. In response to Plaintiff’s 

argument that Dempsey should have retreated and awaited 

backup rather than confront Newsuan, the court held that 

Newsuan’s violent attack, and particularly his attempt to take 

Dempsey’s gun, severed any causal link between Dempsey’s 

initial actions at the scene and his subsequent use of lethal 

defensive force. Because Plaintiff’s state-law claims were 

either contingent on or required a higher showing than the 

excessive force claim, the District Court dismissed them as 

well. This appeal followed.

 29 436 U.S. 658 (1978).

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II. DISCUSSION30

A claim that a police officer used excessive force 

during a seizure is “properly analyzed under the Fourth 

Amendment’s ‘objective reasonableness’ standard.”31 There 

is no dispute that Officer Dempsey “seized” Newsuan for 

Fourth Amendment purposes when he shot and killed him.

32 

The only question is whether Officer Dempsey’s use of force

was objectively reasonable under the circumstances.

33 At the 

summary judgment stage, once we identify the relevant facts 

and draw all inferences in the non-movant’s favor, the

reasonableness of an officer’s actions “is a pure question of 

law.”34 

 30 The District Court had subject matter jurisdiction pursuant 

to 28 U.S.C. § 1331. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 

U.S.C. § 1291. “[O]ur review of a grant of summary 

judgment is plenary, and in making that review we use the 

same standard as a district court: whether there are genuine 

issues of material fact precluding entry of summary 

judgment.” Acumed LLC v. Advanced Surgical Servs., Inc., 

561 F.3d 199, 211 (3d Cir. 2009). A fact is “material” if it 

could affect the outcome, and an issue of material fact is 

“genuine” if the evidence is sufficient to permit a reasonable 

jury to return a verdict for the non-moving party. Anderson v. 

Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986); Celotex Corp. 

v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23 (1986).

31 Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 388 (1989). 

32 Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 7 (1985).

33 See Abraham v. Raso, 183 F.3d 279, 290 (3d Cir. 1999) 

(quoting Scott v. Henrich, 39 F.3d 912, 915 (9th Cir. 1994)). 

34 Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 381 n.8 (2007).

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Before proceeding, it is necessary to clarify our Fourth 

Amendment standard in deadly-force cases. Following the 

Supreme Court’s lead in Tennessee v. Garner,

35 we have 

previously suggested that an officer’s use of deadly force is 

justified under the Fourth Amendment only when (1) the 

officer has reason to believe that the suspect poses a 

“significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the 

officer or others,” and (2) deadly force is necessary to prevent 

the suspect’s escape or serious injury to others.

36 In Scott v. 

Harris, however, the Supreme Court clarified that “Garner

did not establish a magical on/off switch that triggers rigid 

preconditions whenever an officer’s actions constitute ‘deadly 

force.’”37 Rather, Garner was “simply an application of the 

Fourth Amendment’s ‘reasonableness’ test to the use of a 

particular type of force in a particular situation.”38 Scott

abrogates our use of special standards in deadly-force cases

and reinstates “reasonableness” as the ultimate—and only—

inquiry. “Whether or not [an officer’s] actions constituted 

application of ‘deadly force,’ all that matters is whether [the 

officer’s] actions were reasonable.”39 This is not to say that 

the considerations enumerated in Garner are irrelevant to the 

reasonableness analysis; to the contrary, in many cases, 

including this one, a proper assessment of the threat of injury 

 35 471 U.S. at 3.

36 See Abraham, 183 F.3d at 289.

37 550 U.S. 372, 382 (2007).

38 Id. (internal citations omitted).

39 Id. at 383; see also Acosta v. Hill, 504 F.3d 1323, 1324 (9th 

Cir. 2007) (under Scott, “there is no special Fourth 

Amendment standard for unconstitutional deadly force”).

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or the risk of flight is crucial to identifying the magnitude of 

the governmental interests at stake. But such considerations 

are simply the means by which we approach the ultimate 

inquiry, not constitutional requirements in their own right.

The reasonableness of a seizure is assessed in light of 

the totality of the circumstances.

40 We analyze this question

“from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, 

rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight,” making 

“allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to

make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are 

tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving—about the amount of 

force that is necessary in a particular situation.”41

We begin with a proposition that can scarcely be 

disputed: once Newsuan began reaching for Dempsey’s gun, 

Dempsey was justified in using deadly force to defend 

himself. Each of the three witnesses to the fight (Cruz, 

Rivera, and Dempsey) testified that Newsuan rushed at 

Dempsey, began violently grappling with him, and slammed 

Dempsey into multiple cars.

42 Dempsey and Rivera testified 

that Newsuan struck Dempsey in the head multiple times. All 

three witnesses agree that Newsuan then attempted to grab 

Dempsey’s gun out of its holster. At that point there was a 

serious risk that Newsuan would kill Dempsey, and no 

 40 Abraham, 183 F.3d at 289.

41 Graham, 490 U.S. at 396-97. 

42 The fourth witness, La Torre, had retreated to her bedroom 

and did not see the altercation.

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reasonable juror could conclude that it was unreasonable for 

Dempsey to deploy lethal force in response.43

This conclusion, however, does not end the inquiry. A 

proper Fourth Amendment analysis requires us to assess not 

only the reasonableness of Dempsey’s actions at the precise 

moment of the shooting, but the “totality of circumstances”

leading up to the shooting.44 Building out from this principle, 

Plaintiff argues that even if Dempsey was justified in using 

 43 Plaintiff claims that Dempsey was carrying his handgun in 

a department-issued holster that makes it difficult for 

someone who is not the officer to remove the gun. Whatever 

the precise likelihood that Newsuan would have been able to 

remove the gun, the unrebutted testimony is that Newsuan 

was violently assaulting Dempsey and striking him repeatedly 

in the head, despite having been shot point-blank with a taser.

Given that the two men were already engaged in a lifethreatening physical struggle, Newsuan’s attempt to wrest 

away Dempsey’s weapon was ample justification for the use 

of defensive deadly force in that instant.

44 See Abraham, 183 F.3d at 292 (recognizing that “events 

prior to a seizure” should “be considered in analyzing the 

reasonableness of the seizure”); see also id. at 291-92 (“[W]e 

want to express our disagreement with those courts which 

have held that analysis of ‘reasonableness’ under the Fourth 

Amendment requires excluding any evidence of events 

preceding the actual seizure. . . . [W]e do not see how these 

cases can reconcile the Supreme Court’s rule requiring 

examination of the ‘totality of the circumstances’ with a rigid 

rule that excludes all context and causes prior to the moment 

the seizure is finally accomplished.”).

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deadly force after he was attacked, the seizure as a whole was 

unreasonable because Dempsey should never have confronted 

Newsuan in the first place. In support of this argument, 

Plaintiff cites a Philadelphia Police Department directive that 

instructs officers who encounter severely mentally disabled 

persons (including persons experiencing drug-induced 

psychosis) to wait for back-up, to attempt to de-escalate the 

situation through conversation, and to retreat rather than 

resort to force.

45 Plaintiff points out that Dempsey knew or 

should have known that Newsuan was obviously disturbed;

46

 45 Philadelphia Police Directive 136 instructs patrol officers 

who encounter a severely mentally disabled person to, among 

other things, “[a]ssess the situation, attempt to de-escalate the 

situation through communication, take defensive measures, 

and attempt to maintain a zone of safety”; “[r]equest adequate 

back up”; “[r]equest a supervisor”; “avoid any immediate 

aggressive action unless there is an imminent threat to life or 

physical danger to the [subject], the police, or other civilians 

present”; and “[a]ttempt to place themselves in a position that 

does not require taking unnecessary or overly aggressive 

actions.” J.A. 24-25.

46 Officer Dempsey testified that on each of the five previous 

occasions he had encountered a naked person in the street, the 

person had been high on PCP. He could tell these persons 

were under the influence of PCP because he knew that, 

“[w]hen someone does PCP they get hot inside. . . . So they 

take off their clothing and they go outside, and then the 

appearance of being high. That’s what leads me to believe 

they’re on PCP.” J.A. 94. Dempsey could not recall whether 

he suspected that Newsuan was under the influence of PCP, 

but acknowledged that the radio description of Newsuan’s 

behavior “fits with the symptoms of PCP.” Id. 101.

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that Dempsey knew Newsuan was naked and unarmed; and 

that Dempsey also knew that he had responded to two prior 

calls to the same area without receiving any indication that 

the subject was endangering or threatening people. Plaintiff 

asserts that, under these circumstances, it was unreasonable 

for Dempsey to flout departmental policy by initiating a oneon-one encounter with Newsuan.

We do not automatically discount Plaintiff’s Fourth 

Amendment argument or the two presumptions on which it 

rests: that official police department policies may be 

considered among other things in the reasonableness inquiry47

and that a “totality of the circumstances” analysis should 

account for whether the officer’s own reckless or deliberate 

 47 Our sister circuits have split on the question of whether 

police department policies may be used to assess whether a 

seizure is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Compare

Stamps v. Town of Framingham, 813 F.3d 27, 32 n.4 (1st Cir. 

2016) (police training and procedures “do not, of course, 

establish the constitutional standard but may be relevant to 

the Fourth Amendment analysis”), and Drummond ex rel. 

Drummond v. City of Anaheim, 343 F.3d 1052, 1059 (9th Cir. 

2003) (“Although . . . training materials are not dispositive, 

we may certainly consider a police department’s own 

guidelines when evaluating whether a particular use of force 

is constitutionally unreasonable.”), with Tanberg v. Sholtis, 

401 F.3d 1151, 1163-64 (10th Cir. 2005) (“That an arrest 

violated police department procedures does not make it more 

or less likely that the arrest implicates the Fourth 

Amendment, and evidence of the violation is therefore 

irrelevant.”).

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conduct unreasonably created the need to use deadly force.48 

But there is no need for us to take up such constitutional 

considerations here, because Plaintiff’s claim founders on a 

more fundamental tort requirement: proximate causation. 

Whether or not Dempsey acted unreasonably at the 

outset of his encounter with Newsuan, Plaintiff must still 

prove that Dempsey’s allegedly unconstitutional actions 

proximately caused Newsuan’s death.49 Under ordinary tort 

principles, a superseding cause breaks the chain of proximate 

causation.50 In Bodine v. Warwick, we recognized that this

principle limits Section 1983 liability for an officer’s use of 

force even where the officer’s initial actions violate the 

Fourth Amendment:

Suppose that three police officers go to a 

suspect’s house to execute an arrest warrant and 

that they [enter illegally] . . . . Once inside, they 

 48 See Abraham, 183 F.3d at 292 (“[W]e think all of the 

events transpiring during the officers’ pursuit of [the suspect] 

can be considered in evaluating the reasonableness of [the 

officer’s] shooting.”); Jiron v. City of Lakewood, 392 F.3d 

410, 415 (10th Cir. 2004) (“The reasonableness of the use of 

force depends not only on whether the officers were in danger 

at the precise moment that they used force, but also on 

whether the officers’ own reckless or deliberate conduct 

during the seizure unreasonably created the need to use such 

force.” (internal quotation omitted)).

49 See Martinez v. California, 444 U.S. 277, 285 (1980). 

50 Lamont v. New Jersey, 637 F.3d 177, 185-86 (3d Cir. 

2011); Bodine v. Warwick, 72 F.3d 393, 400 (3d Cir. 1993).

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encounter the suspect, identify themselves, 

show him the warrant, and tell him that they are 

placing him under arrest. The suspect, however, 

breaks away, shoots and kills two of the 

officers, and is preparing to shoot the third 

officer when that officer disarms the suspect 

and in the process injures him. Is the third 

officer necessarily liable for the harm caused to 

the suspect on the theory that the illegal entry . . 

. rendered any subsequent use of force 

unlawful? The obvious answer is “no.” The 

suspect’s conduct would constitute a 

“superseding” cause that would limit the 

officer’s liability.51

While there is no precise test for determining when a 

civilian’s intervening acts will constitute a superseding cause 

of his own injury, relevant considerations include whether the 

harm actually suffered differs in kind from the harm that

would ordinarily have resulted from the officer’s initial 

actions; whether the civilian’s intervening acts are a 

reasonably foreseeable response to the officer’s initial 

actions; whether the civilian’s intervening acts are themselves 

inherently wrongful or illegal; and the culpability of the 

civilian’s intervening acts.52 

Although proximate causation is generally a question 

of fact,

53 it “becomes an issue of law when there is no 

 51 Id (citations omitted).

52 See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 442 (1965).

53 Rivas v. City of Passaic, 365 F.3d 181, 193 (3d Cir. 2004).

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evidence from which a jury could reasonably find the 

required proximate, causal nexus between the careless act and 

the resulting injuries.”54 Here, we conclude as a matter of 

law that Newsuan’s violent, precipitate, and illegal attack on 

Officer Dempsey severed any causal connection between 

Dempsey’s initial actions and his subsequent use of deadly 

force during the struggle in the street. Whatever harms we 

may expect to ordinarily flow from an officer’s failure to 

await backup when confronted with a mentally disturbed 

individual, they do not include the inevitability that the

officer will be rushed, choked, slammed into vehicles, and 

forcibly dispossessed of his service weapon. We therefore 

have little trouble concluding that Newsuan’s life-threatening 

assault, coupled with his attempt to gain control of 

Dempsey’s gun, was the direct cause of his death. 

Before continuing on, however, we sound a note of 

caution. The question of proximate causation in this case is 

made straightforward by the exceptional circumstances 

presented—namely, a sudden, unexpected attack that 

instantly forced the officer into a defensive fight for his life. 

As discussed above, that rupture in the chain of events, 

coupled with the extraordinary violence of Newsuan’s 

assault, makes the Fourth Amendment reasonableness 

analysis similarly straightforward. Given the extreme facts of 

this case, our opinion should not be misread to broadly 

immunize police officers from Fourth Amendment liability 

whenever a mentally disturbed person threatens an officer’s 

physical safety. Depending on the severity and immediacy of 

 54 Port Auth. of N.Y. & N.J. v. Arcadian Corp., 189 F.3d 305, 

318 (3d Cir. 1999) (quoting Gaines-Tabb v. ICI Explosives, 

USA, Inc., 160 F.3d 613, 620 (10th Cir. 1998)).

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the threat and any potential risk to public safety posed by an 

officer’s delayed action, it may be appropriate for an officer 

to retreat or await backup when encountering a mentally 

disturbed individual. It may also be appropriate for the 

officer to attempt to de-escalate an encounter to eliminate the 

need for force or to reduce the amount of force necessary to 

control an individual.55 Nor should it be assumed that 

mentally disturbed persons are so inherently unpredictable 

that their reactions will always sever the chain of causation 

between an officer’s initial actions and a subsequent use of 

force. If a plaintiff produces competent evidence that persons 

who have certain illnesses or who are under the influence of 

certain substances are likely to respond to particular police 

actions in a particular way, that may be sufficient to create a 

jury issue on causation. And of course, nothing we say today 

should discourage police departments and municipalities from 

devising and rigorously enforcing policies to make tragic 

events like this one less likely.56 The facts of this case, 

 55 See Martin v. City of Broadview Heights, 712 F.3d 951, 

958 (6th Cir. 2013) (reasonable jury could conclude that 

officers should have de-escalated encounter with distraught 

individual through verbal intervention rather than physical 

force); Deorle v. Rutherford, 272 F.3d 1272, 1282-83 (9th 

Cir. 2001) (holding that a civilian’s mental status must be 

considered in determining the reasonableness of a use of 

force, and observing that, with respect to emotionally 

disturbed persons, “a heightened use of less-than-lethal force 

will usually be helpful in bringing a dangerous situation to a 

swift end”). 

56 See Megan Pauly, How Police Officers Are (or Aren’t) 

Trained in Mental Health, The Atlantic, (Oct. 11, 2013)

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/10/howCase: 15-2346 Document: 003112413234 Page: 20 Date Filed: 09/20/2016
21

however, are extraordinary. Whatever the Fourth 

Amendment requires of officers encountering emotionally or 

mentally disturbed individuals, it does not oblige an officer to 

passively endure a life-threatening physical assault, regardless 

of the assailant’s mental state.

Finally, Plaintiff offers an alternative basis for Fourth 

Amendment liability. In addition to faulting Dempsey for the 

manner in which he initiated the encounter, Plaintiff suggests 

that it was also unreasonable for Officer Dempsey to shoot 

Newsuan with his taser during the lead-up to the fight. This

contention is buttressed by La Torre’s testimony that 

Newsuan was simply walking toward Dempsey in compliance 

with Dempsey’s orders when Dempsey tased him, as well as 

by Rivera’s testimony that he never heard Dempsey issue any 

commands before tasing Newsuan. But even if we were to 

deem this particular use of force unreasonable, the requisite 

causal connection between the taser strike and Dempsey’s 

later use of deadly force would still be lacking. 

According to La Torre, after Dempsey shot Newsuan 

with the taser, Newsuan reached up and pulled the taser 

prongs from his body. Dempsey then drew his gun and 

began backing away from Newsuan, while Newsuan “just 

star[ed]” at him.57 La Torre ran back inside and called 

Newsuan’s mother and brother on the phone. The last thing 

 

police-officers-are-or-aren-t-trained-in-mental-health/280485/ 

(last visited August 16, 2016) (discussing prevalence, 

success, and challenges of so-called Crisis Intervention 

Training for police officers).

57 J.A. 205.

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22

she saw from the window was Dempsey standing with his 

gun drawn. This testimony establishes that Newsuan was 

essentially unfazed by the taser strike. According to 

La Torre, Newsuan simply removed the taser prongs and 

stared at Dempsey in a continued standoff that lasted long 

enough for La Torre to place two phone calls from inside the 

house. Therefore, even after drawing all inferences in 

Plaintiff’s favor, no reasonable juror could conclude that 

Newsuan’s subsequent physical attack was an involuntary or 

foreseeable defensive response to the taser strike described by 

La Torre. 

More importantly, La Torre did not see any part of the 

physical fight, including who initiated it or how Dempsey and 

Newsuan went from a gun-drawn standoff, as recounted by 

La Torre, to a close-quarters fight. What this means is that 

the only evidence concerning how Newsuan and Dempsey 

came into physical contact is the unrebutted testimony of 

Dempsey, Cruz, and Rivera. Each of them testified that 

Newsuan rushed at Dempsey unprovoked and that the taser 

barely slowed Newsuan in his attempt to grab Dempsey. 

Each of them also testified that Newsuan slammed Dempsey 

into parked cars and reached for Dempsey’s gun. In the 

absence of a competing account, those undisputed actions are 

superseding causes that absolve Dempsey of any liability for 

his initial conduct.

III. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that Office 

Dempsey’s use of deadly force was reasonable under the 

circumstances, and that any allegedly unreasonable decisions 

he made during his initial encounter with Newsuan did not 

Case: 15-2346 Document: 003112413234 Page: 22 Date Filed: 09/20/2016
23

proximately cause Newsuan’s death. Our dismissal of 

Plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment claim requires the dismissal of 

her remaining Monell and state-law claims as well.

58 

We will therefore affirm the judgment of the District 

Court.

 58 See Pl. Br. 33-34 (“Plaintiff agrees that if there is no claim 

against Officer Dempsey under the Fourth Amendment then 

Plaintiff has no right to assert its state claims against 

Dempsey and its Monell claim against the City.”); Grazier ex 

rel. White v. City of Phila., 328 F.3d 120, 124 (3d Cir. 2003) 

(municipality cannot be held liable on a Monell claim absent 

an underlying constitutional violation); Renk v. City of 

Pittsburgh, 641 A.2d 289, 293 (Pa. 1994) (under 

Pennsylvania law, the “reasonableness of the force used in 

making the arrest determines whether the police officer’s 

conduct constitutes an assault and battery”); Sunderland v. 

R.A. Barlow Homebuilders, 791 A.2d 384, 390-91 (Pa. Super. 

Ct. 2002) (“A wrongful death action is derivative of the injury 

which would have supported the decedent’s own cause of 

action and is dependent upon the decedent’s cause of action 

being viable at the time of death.”).

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1

Johnson v. City of Philadelphia

No. 15-2346

_________________________________________________

ROTH, Circuit Judge, dissenting:

While the members of the majority may be satisfied 

that Newsuan’s attack on Officer Dempsey was sufficient to 

sever any causal chain, I believe that Newsuan’s reaction was, 

unfortunately, all too foreseeable. Directive 136—the police 

regulation that Officer Dempsey supposedly violated—states 

that its main objective “is to aid and protect the interests of 

the [mentally disturbed person], innocent bystanders, and 

family members in the immediate area, without 

compromising the safety of all parties concerned, including 

the police officers. This is best accomplished by DEESCALATING THE INCIDENT” (emphasis in original).1

 

The purpose of regulations like Directive 136 is clear—to 

reduce the risk of a deadly confrontation with an extremely 

vulnerable population. That such a regulation is necessary to 

reduce the risk of a deadly confrontation demonstrates that 

 1 While this directive is cited as “Directive 136” by both 

parties, as of January 9, 2015, the directive appears under the 

number 10.9. J.A. 21–29 (being cited as Directive 136); 

Severely Mentally Disabled Persons, Philadelphia Police 

Department (Jan. 9, 2015), available at

https://www.phillypolice.com/assets/directives/D10.9-

SeverelyMentallyDisabledPersons.pdf (being cited as 

Directive 10.9).

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2

deadly confrontations are a foreseeable result of ignoring the 

regulation.

Viewing the facts before us in a light most favorable to 

the non-movant, Officer Dempsey, ignoring the Philadelphia 

Police Department’s calculated use of caps lock, escalated the 

incident. Facing a naked, unarmed man who by all accounts 

had not been reported to the police as an “immediate threat to 

life or physical danger” to anyone, Officer Dempsey 

approached Newsuan and beckoned him to “come here,” 

without backup, in violation of police regulation. By 

Dempsey’s own account, his approach was not made to 

apprehend and secure Newsuan, but was made because 

Dempsey “wanted to see if [Newsuan] was in some type of 

distress. He obviously needed some type of care.”2

 By 

knowingly violating a police department regulation designed 

to keep mentally disturbed individuals safe, Dempsey set into 

motion the confrontation that ultimately led to Newsuan’s 

death – a confrontation whose foreseeability was the impetus 

for the establishment of Directive 136.

Our limited precedent on the issue of superseding 

causes in excessive force cases is instructive. In Lamont v. 

New Jersey, we held that an individual’s quick hand 

movement—perceived by officers as drawing a weapon—

occurring after officers had violated police procedures to 

pursue the individual, constituted a superseding cause.3

 In so 

holding, we noted that a contrary holding would “tend to 

deter police officers ‘from approaching and detaining 

 2 J.A. at 102-03.

3 637 F.3d 177, 186 (2011).

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3

potentially violent suspects.’”4 But the officers in Lamont

were pursuing an individual who, they expected, was armed 

and potentially dangerous. The officers were so informed 

when they chose to violate police procedures in pursuing him. 

Such cannot be said of Officer Dempsey here, as Newsuan 

was clearly unarmed and had not been exhibiting violent 

conduct prior to their interaction. There is an important 

distinction between these two types of cases—one in which 

an officer, through his conduct, creates the situation that calls 

for the use of force, and one in which the officer’s 

misconduct, while perhaps factually linked to the eventual use 

of force, does not contribute to the “dangerous situation.”5

 

Additionally, holding that Newsuan’s behavior was not a 

superseding cause would not create the perverse deterrent

effects we feared in Lamont: to the contrary, deterring police 

officers from approaching mentally disturbed suspects in a 

way that may compromise the safety of either the officer or 

the individual is an end we should seek to achieve, rather than 

avoid.

I am also not persuaded that Newsuan’s attack was an 

unforeseeable result of his being tased by Officer Dempsey. 

Taking the facts in the light most favorable to the nonmovant, Dempsey was aware that Newsuan was on PCP at 

the time of their encounter. The Philadelphia Police 

Department teaches its officers that a taser strike may fail to 

 4 Id. (quoting Hundley v. District of Columbia, 494 F.3d 

1097, 1105 (D.C. Cir. 2007)).

5 See Estate of Starks v. Enyart, 5 F.3d 230 (7th Cir. 1993) 

(officer who jumped in front of a speeding car, then used 

deadly force to stop driver, would not be entitled to qualified 

immunity).

Case: 15-2346 Document: 003112413234 Page: 26 Date Filed: 09/20/2016
4

subdue a suspect on PCP due to the drug’s effects on pain 

tolerance.6

 It was therefore foreseeable to Officer Dempsey 

that his taser would be ineffective against Newsuan. The 

most favorable account of the facts prior to Newsuan’s being 

tased is that Newsuan was “approaching” Officer Dempsey—

presumably in response to Dempsey’s request that Newsuan 

“come here.” A jury could reasonably conclude that Officer 

Dempsey, by firing his taser, took an “immediate aggressive 

action” in violation of police department regulations and in 

doing so escalated the situation and created a risk of harm to 

both himself and to Newsuan.

The death of individuals with mental health problems

at the hands of the police continues to occur across the 

country.7

 The first line of defense against these incidents is 

the establishment of police regulations designed to prevent 

interactions between police officers and mentally disabled 

people from escalating into deadly confrontations. Declaring 

that an officer who disregards such a regulation has not 

proximately caused a violent confrontation that the regulation 

is in place to prevent renders the regulation toothless. Given 

the available factual accounts of the events leading up to 

Newsuan’s eventual death, including the possible disregard of 

a regulation that was designed to guard against violent 

confrontations, I cannot say that “there is no evidence from 

which a jury could reasonably find the required proximate, 

 6 J.A. 244.

7 E.g., Kate Mather and James Queally, More Than a Third of 

People Shot by L.A. Police Last Year Were Mentally Ill, 

LAPD Report Finds, L.A. Times (Mar. 1, 2016), 

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-lapd-use-offorce-report-20160301-story.html.

Case: 15-2346 Document: 003112413234 Page: 27 Date Filed: 09/20/2016
5

causal nexus between the careless act and the resulting 

injuries.”8

For the above reasons, I respectfully dissent. I would 

reverse the judgment of the District Court and remand this 

case for further proceedings. 

 8 Port Auth. of N.Y. & N.J. v. Arcadian Corp., 189 F.3d 305, 

318 (3d Cir. 1999) (quoting Gaines-Tabb v. ICI Explosives, 

USA, Inc., 160 F.3d 613, 620 (10th Cir. 1998)).

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