Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-04-02291/USCOURTS-ca8-04-02291-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Gregory Dickel
Appellee
Gregory Frost
Appellee
Eugene Cortez Saunders
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 04-2291

___________

Eugene Cortez Saunders, *

*

Appellant, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the Southern

* District of Iowa.

Gregory Frost, sued as Officer *

Gregory Frost #942; Gregory Dickel, * [UNPUBLISHED]

*

Appellees. *

___________

Submitted: February 15, 2005

Filed: February 22, 2005

___________

Before MELLOY, HEANEY, and FAGG, Circuit Judges.

___________

PER CURIAM.

Eugene Cortez Saunders was stopped by Des Moines police officer Gregory

Frost. Saunders fled a short distance, then stopped. During Saunders’s arrest, Frost

struck Saunders with a baton on the back and right knee. Officer Gregory Dickel

arrived later and allegedly stood on Saunders. Saunders later brought this civil rights

action against the officers claiming excessive force. At his jury trial, Saunders

introduced his medical records, which showed significant pre-arrest problems with

his right knee, including a surgery nine years earlier. No expert testimony was

presented showing a connection between Saunders’s knee problems and the officer’s

Appellate Case: 04-2291 Page: 1 Date Filed: 02/22/2005 Entry ID: 1869935 
*

The Honorable James E. Gritzner, United States District Judge for the

Southern District of Iowa.

-2-

blows. At the close of Saunders’s case in chief, the district court*

 granted the officer

judgment as a matter of law on the issue of proximate cause. Saunders appeals

arguing he presented sufficient evidence of pain and injury to allow the case to go to

the jury. 

Although Saunders had surgery on his right knee months after his arrest to

remove a loose body, he was diagnosed with a right knee loose body secondary to

degenerative joint disease, right knee severe degenerative joint changes, and an ACL

deficient knee. Contrary to Saunders’s claim that the baton blows broke his knee and

caused the need for the surgery to remove broken bone, the medical records show the

piece of bone that was removed was not broken off anything. Instead, the loose mass

grew in Saunders’s knee because of joint disease. Saunder’s knee had a long medical

history marked by earlier traumas and an earlier surgery. Under the circumstances,

we agree with the district court that Saunders’s injury was sophisticated requiring

Saunders to prove causation by expert testimony. Robinson v. Hager, 292 F.3d 560,

564 (8th Cir. 2002); Turner v. Iowa Fire Equip. Co., 229 F.3d 1202, 1210 (8th Cir.

2000). Because Saunders failed to do so, no reasonable juror could have found in

favor of Saunders, and the district court properly granted the officers’ motion for

judgment as a matter of law. Robinson, 292 F.3d at 563-64. We decline to consider

Saunders’s argument that he should have been allowed to go the jury because he

showed pain and suffering. Saunders failed to raise the argument in the district court.

Accordingly, we affirm.

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Appellate Case: 04-2291 Page: 2 Date Filed: 02/22/2005 Entry ID: 1869935