United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

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No. 16-4110

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Thomas J. Ingrassia

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellant

v.

Keith Schafer;FelixVincenz;Julie Inman;AlanBlake;JayEnglehart;DavinderHayreh

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants

Unknown Kim, Psychiatrist/Physician, SORTS, in her individual capacity

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellee

Perry Bramhall; Keith Wilkey; Bob Wills; Gabriel Crawford; Joe Easter;

Marybeth Rowe; Tamra Archambo; Susan Kraemer

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants

Ron Moore, RN, SORTS, in his official and individual capacity

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellee

Penny Portel

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant

Kaylynn Reed, RN, SORTS, in her official and individual capacity

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellee
Ron Scharer

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant

David L. Easter, Sr., Security Officer, SORTS, in his official and individual

capacity; Eric Miller, SecurityOfficer, SORTS, in his official and individual capacity

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants - Appellees

Evan Miller

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant

Kristina Bender, Unit Program Supervisor, Hoctor 3 Ward, SORTS, in her official

and individual capacity; Mike Basler, Security Aide, SORTS, in his official and

individual capacity

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants - Appellees

Gary Bennett; Mark Brown; Chris Chamberlain; Andrew Cole; Wayne Cook;

Tony Crabtree; Robert Dolan

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants

Eric Edgar, Security Aide, SORTS, in his official and individual capacity; Brian

Gillespie, Security Aide, SORTS, in his official and individual capacity; Jacob

Hays, Security Aide, SORTS, in his official and individual capacity

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants - Appellees

John Hooker

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant

Brian Jones, Security Aide, SORTS, in his official and individual capacity

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellee

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Kaleb Juliette; Linda Knox

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants

Neil Koenig, Security Aide, SORTS, in his official and individual capacity

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellee

Larry Major; Jeff Miller

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants

Chuck Parmley, Security Aide, SORTS, in his official and individual capacity

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellee

Rodney Rangel; Chris Robert; Darrin Sheets; Bryan Smith; Connie Smith

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants

Micah Stewart, Security Aide, SORTS, in his official and individual capacity; Ben

Thurman, Security Aide, SORTS, in his official and individual capacity

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants - Appellees

Jason Vinson

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant

Bruce Weeks, Security Aide, SORTS, in his official and individual capacity

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellee

Brenda Swift; John Does

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants

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Lora Eckhert, RN, SORTS, in his official and individual capacity

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellee

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Missouri - St. Louis

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 Submitted: January 9, 2018

 Filed: April 20, 2018

[Unpublished]

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Before GRUENDER, MELLOY, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.

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PER CURIAM.

ThomasIngrassia brought suit against forty-fourindividuals working in various

capacities at the Missouri Department ofMental Health’s Sex Offender Rehabilitation

and Treatment Services (“SORTS”) facility. The facility houses individuals, like

Ingrassia, who have been civilly committed due to their predisposition to commit

sexually violent offenses. See generally Mo. Rev. Stat. §§ 632.480, 632.495. 

Ingrassia, who has been at the facility since his release fromprison in 2008, advanced

claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Missouri tort law.

After the district court dismissed most of the defendants from the case, 1

Ingrassia tried the case against the remaining defendants before a jury. The trial

concerned four incidents of alleged excessive force, failure to intervene, and assault

The Honorable Audrey G. Fleissig, United States District Judge for the

1

Eastern District of Missouri.

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and battery while restraining Ingrassia. The jury found for the defendants on every

claim. Ingrassia now appeals, alleging five errors by the district court in conducting

the trial. 

Ingrassia first argues that the district court abused its discretion in not

conducting a separate trial for each of the four incidents. See Athey v. Farmers Ins.

Exch., 234 F.3d 357, 362 (8th Cir. 2000) (noting standard of review). But Ingrassia

2

concedes that he never asked for separate trials, and we have held in similar

circumstances that the failure to raise the issue before the district court constitutes a

waiver. See O’Dell v. Hercules, Inc., 904 F.2d 1194, 1201-02 (8th Cir. 1990) (“We

find appellants constructively waived their right to contest bifurcation by failing to

raise an objection on the record below. Therefore, we need not reach the merits.”). 

Even assuming that he had preserved the claim, however, it would fail. At trial,

Ingrassia attempted to show a pattern of unlawful conduct by the defendants. Given

this theory, the district court did not abuse its discretion in conducting one trial for

all four incidents. See Athey, 234 F.3d at 362. That structure was efficient and fit

with Ingrassia’s theory of the case.

Ingrassia next argues that the district court abused its discretion in declining

to exclude references at trial to the nature of his commitment and to his prior bad acts. 

See Littleton v. McNeely, 562 F.3d 880, 888 (8th Cir. 2009) (noting standard of

review). He argues that this evidence was irrelevant and unduly prejudicial. See

United States v. Watson, 650 F.3d 1084, 1089 (8th Cir. 2011) (citing Federal Rules

of Evidence 401, 402, and 403). Yet the nature of his commitment was relevant to

the circumstances surrounding the incidents at issue, and discussion of his prior bad

Although Ingrassia does not identify the rule supporting his first claim, we 2

interpret his claim as being rooted in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 42 rather than

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 21. See Reinholdson v. Minnesota, 346 F.3d 847,

850-51 (8th Cir. 2003) (describing the difference and noting abuse-of-discretion

standard of review for Rule 21).

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acts was relevant to show the employees’ states of mind during those incidents. See

McCrary-El v. Shaw, 992 F.2d 809, 812 (8th Cir. 1993) (noting that prior bad acts of

plaintiff can be relevant to state of mind of defendants). Juror voir dire on the subject

of sex offenses also mitigated any unfair prejudice from the testimony. See United

States v. Poludniak, 657 F.2d 948, 957 (8th Cir. 1981). We therefore conclude that

the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the evidence. See

McCrary-El, 992 F.2d at 812. Moreover, even assuming the district court allowed

too much testimony on the above issues, the excess would not have had a “substantial

influence on the jury verdict.” See Harris v. Chand, 506 F.3d 1135, 1139 (8th Cir.

2007); see also Wilson v. City of Des Moines, 442 F.3d 637, 644 (8th Cir. 2006)

(“Improper admission of evidence which is cumulative of matters shown by

admissible evidence is harmless error.”). 

3

For his third contention, Ingrassia argues that the district court abused its

discretion in not declaring a mistrial after a defendant testified about his occupation

as a “registered nurse with the Sexually Violent Predator’s Unit,” thus violating a

court order against using the term “sexually violent predator.” “We review the denial

of a motion for a new trial for a clear abuse of discretion, with the key question being

whether a new trial is necessary to prevent a miscarriage of justice.” Maxfield v.

Cintas Corp., No. 2, 563 F.3d 691, 694 (8th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks

omitted). We find no clear abuse of discretion. The jury was already aware of

Ingrassia’s sexually-violent past, and to the extent the “predator” remark caused

unfair prejudice, juror voir dire on the subject of sex offenses mitigated it. See

Poludniak, 657 F.2d at 957. This “one passing comment” was “not of such a

magnitude” to warrant a new trial, see Smiley v. Gary Crossley Ford, Inc., 859 F.3d

We decline to separately address Ingrassia’s bare references to Federal Rules

3

of Evidence 608 and 609. See Butler v. Crittenden Cty., Ark., 708 F.3d 1044, 1051

(8th Cir. 2013).

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545, 556 (8th Cir. 2017), so the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining

to order one, see Fink v. Foley-Belsaw Co., 983 F.2d 111, 114-15 (8th Cir. 1993).

The remaining two alleged errors are also too insignificant to have prejudiced

Ingrassia. See McKnight By & Through Ludwig v. Johnson Controls, Inc., 36 F.3d

1396, 1405 (8th Cir. 1994) (noting harmless error standard). The alleged errors are

that: (1) the district court did not allow Ingrassia to elicit testimony regarding

SORTS’s failure to release any of its other residents during the times at issue in the

case; and (2) the district court did not allow Ingrassia to impeach a non-defendant

witness based on a different court’s finding, in a different case, that the witness

lacked credibility on a particular issue. 

Even assuming the district court erred on these rulings, the rulings were

peripheral to the question at trial: whether the defendants at SORTS used excessive

force or committed related tortsin restraining Ingrassia. In evaluating the defendants’

actions, the jury watched videos of the incidents in question and heard evidence that

Ingrassia was one of the most dangerous and threatening residents at SORTS. See

McCrary-El, 992 F.2d at 812. Ingrassia also testified and offered his own account of

the incidents. The trial lasted several days, and Ingrassia notes that the jury took less

than an hour to find for the defendants. Nothing suggeststhat admitting the two facts

noted above would have changed this result. We therefore conclude that any error

for the two remaining claims was harmless. See McKnight, 36 F.3d at 1405. 

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm.

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