United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

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No. 14-3326

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Marie Womack

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellant

v.

Paul Bradshaw; Howell County, Missouri

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants - Appellees

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Western District of Missouri - Springfield

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 Submitted: June 10, 2015

 Filed: July 24, 2015

[Unpublished] 

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Before GRUENDER, MELLOY, and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

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PER CURIAM.
This appeal asks whether Sergeant Paul Bradshaw can be liable for pushing

Marie Womack to the ground while she resisted arrest. The district court1

 granted

summary judgment to Sergeant Bradshaw based on qualified immunity. We affirm.

Womack’s blood alcohol content was over three times the legal limit when a

sheriff’s deputy pulled her over one night in April 2012. He handcuffed her and put

her in the back of his cruiser. She later got out. Sergeant Bradshaw, the other officer

present, told her to get back in the cruiser and tried to guide her back through the open

door. Womack refused and kicked the door shut, touching or kicking Sergeant

Bradshaw in the process. Sergeant Bradshaw then took her to the ground, fracturing

her jaw. Sergeant Bradshaw’s dashcam recorded the takedown. See Scott v. Harris,

550 U.S. 372, 378-80 (2007).

 

Reviewing de novo, we agree with the district court that Bradshaw is entitled

to qualified immunity. See Blazek v. City of Iowa City, 761 F.3d 920, 923-25 (8th Cir.

2014). Qualified immunity is appropriate “unless (1) the evidence, viewed in the light

most favorable to [Womack], establishes a violation of a constitutional or statutory

right, and (2) the right was clearly established at the time of the violation, such that

a reasonable official would have known that his actions were unlawful.” See id. at

922-23. Whether an officer’s use of force is reasonable, and thus constitutional,

depends on the totality of the circumstances, including the threat that the suspect

poses, the severity of the crime at issue, and whether the suspect is actively resisting

arrest or attempting to flee. Johnson v. Carroll, 658 F.3d 819, 825-26 (8th Cir. 2011).

The district court concluded that Womack’s claim failed both prongs of the

qualified-immunity test. As Womack’s arguments on appeal have not refuted the

court’s analysis, we agree that any right that Sergeant Bradshaw may have violated

was not clearly established in April 2012. Though Womack was not a serious threat

1

The Honorable David Gregory Kays, Chief Judge, United States District Court

for the Western District of Missouri. 

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and though her crime was a misdemeanor, she was on a road in the middle of the

night, forcibly, aggressively, and drunkenly resisting arrest. Her reliance on Meirthew

v. Amore, 417 F. App’x 494 (6th Cir. 2011), is misplaced. Not only is Meirthew

distinguishable—it involved a suspect surrounded by officers at a police station, id.

at 497—but as an unpublished case, it “provides little, if any, support for imposing

liability based on clearly established law,” Blazek, 761 F.3d at 925 n.3. Rather, the

controlling case is Blazek, in which we considered the takedown of a suspect whose

conduct, under the totality of the circumstances, was less serious than Womack’s. See

id. at 921-25. Blazek was not materially more threatening than Womack, had not

obviously committed a crime, and was not forcibly resisting arrest. See id. at 921-22. 

He was at home in the evening, wearing only a towel, when two officers took him

down to cuff him. Id. And we held that, in 2009, this takedown was not clearly

established as unconstitutionally excessive. Id. at 924. Womack’s more serious

conduct, including forcibly resisting arrest, prompted Sergeant Bradshaw’s takedown,

and Womack cites no intervening cases showing that such a takedown violates the

Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, the use of force here also was not clearly

established as excessive. 

We affirm the grant of summary judgment. See 8th Cir. R. 47B. 

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