Source: https://m.openjurist.org/954/f2d/960
Timestamp: 2020-01-29 19:15:43
Document Index: 261444976

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1985', '§ 1985', '§ 1983', '§ 1985', '§ 1985', '§ 1985', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1985', '§ 1985', '§ 1985']

954 F. 2d 960 - Gooden v. Howard County Maryland
954 F.2d 960
Theresa K. GOODEN, Plaintiff-Appellee,
HOWARD COUNTY, MARYLAND, c/o Elizabeth Bobo, County
Executive, Nancy Yeager, individually and in her capacity as
a police officer of the Howard County Police Department;
Frank N. Salter, individually and in his capacity as a
police officer of the Howard County Police Department;
William J. Pollack, individually and in his capacity as a
police officer of the Howard County Police Department,
Frederick W. Chaney, in his capacity as Chief of Police of
the Howard County Police Department, Unknown and
Unidentified Police Officers of the Howard County Police
Department, hereinafter referred to as John Doe I, John Doe
II, John Doe III, John Doe IV, and John Doe V, who were
present at and involved in the incidents complained of
herein, individually and in their capacity as Police
Officers of the Howard County Police Department, Defendants.
Here, the actions of the officers in taking Ms. Gooden into custody for an emergency psychiatric evaluation were reasonable, in light of the information they possessed. The officers acted on the basis of multiple complaints by Ms. Beck, an apartment resident whose veracity they had no reason to doubt. There is no question that Ms. Beck struck the officers as an ordinary citizen who had called them to the scene both because her peace of mind was disturbed by the violent nature of the screaming and because she feared that someone in the apartment was about to be hurt. The officers can hardly be faulted for attaching credence to such citizen complaints. As the Seventh Circuit has noted, the police cannot invariably be held under § 1983 as guarantors of every such report. Rather, "[i]f policemen arrest a person on the basis of a private citizen's complaint that if true would justify the arrest, and they reasonably believe it is true, they cannot be held liable for a violation of the Constitution merely because it later turns out that the complaint was unfounded." McKinney, 726 F.2d at 1187.
It is conceded in this case that the officers made a mistake. Ms. Gooden is not mentally ill and all concerned wish that she had not been detained in any fashion on the evening in question. The fact that a mistake was made, however, cannot be dispositive of the issue of qualified immunity in this lawsuit. The Supreme Court has "recognized that it is inevitable that law enforcement officials will in some cases reasonably but mistakenly conclude that probable cause is present" and "those officials--like other officials who act in ways they reasonably believe to be lawful--should not be held personally liable." Anderson, 483 U.S. at 641, 107 S.Ct. at 3040. If every mistaken seizure were to subject police officers to personal liability under § 1983, those same officers would come to realize that the safe and cautious course was always to take no action. The purposes of immunity are not served by a police force intent on escaping liability to the cumulative detriment of those duties which communities depend upon such officers to perform.
What makes the denial of qualified immunity even more troubling is the fact that even inaction in this case might not have spared the officers from liability under the law. Indeed, the officers here faced the prospect of a lawsuit whichever way they turned. Taking Ms. Gooden to be evaluated has exposed these officers to section 1983 liability. Yet it was also an open question at the time whether a failure to protect someone whose distressed condition had been pointedly revealed to the police would constitute a violation of due process. If the officers had failed to act and Gooden had injured herself or others, they would have faced the prospect of suit under section 1983 or state tort law for failure to safeguard someone as to whose unstable situation they had twice been placed on notice. See Estate of Bailey v. County of York, 768 F.2d 503, 508-11 (3rd Cir.1985) (where special relationship exists, agency owes duty of protection to persons not in custody); Jensen v. Conrad, 747 F.2d 185, 194-95 (4th Cir.1984). Lawsuits for such failures to protect were anything but an oddity. It is true that a federal district court had refused to find a due process violation by police officers who failed to take into custody a mentally ill man who subsequently shot himself, Gilchrist v. Livonia, 599 F.Supp. 260, 263 (E.D.Mich.1984), but the officers could hardly be confident that similar results would obtain where evidence of seemingly desperate outcries had occurred within their very presence. Subsequently, of course, the law has been clarified: a divided Supreme Court has ruled that an individual's due process rights are not violated by an official's failure to protect him against private violence when the official had notice of danger. DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189, 201-02, 109 S.Ct. 998, 1006-07, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989). Had the officers here been sued for failure to protect, they assuredly would have asserted the prior uncertainty in the law as a qualified immunity defense. However, it is hard to fault these officers for refusing to rest upon the shifting sands of qualified immunity and instead acting prudently to diffuse a dangerous situation in a way that might even have been constitutionally compelled.
Gooden further argues that the defendants did not act reasonably in light of clearly established law. She asserts that, by March 2, 1987, the law was clearly established that the Fourth Amendment prohibits the seizure of a person for psychiatric evaluation in the absence of probable cause of mental illness. We agree that the general right to be free from seizure unless probable cause exists was clearly established in the mental health seizure context. See Harris v. Pirch, 677 F.2d 681, 686 (8th Cir.1982); In re Barnard, 455 F.2d 1370, 1373 (D.C.Cir.1971); Gross v. Pomerleau, 465 F.Supp. 1167, 1171 (D. Maryland 1979); Williams v. Meredith, 407 A.2d 569, 574 (D.C.1979). Arguably, it was also clearly established in Maryland that a minimum requirement of the necessary probable cause was "some demonstration of overtly dangerous behavior." Gross, 465 F.Supp. at 1173.
However, "if the test of 'clearly established law' were to be applied at this level of generality,".... [p]laintiffs would be able to convert the rule of qualified immunity ... into a rule of virtually unqualified liability." Anderson, 483 U.S. at 639, 107 S.Ct. at 3039. Instead, for an official to lose his qualified immunity, "[t]he contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right." Id. at 640, 107 S.Ct. at 3039. "Harlow's 'clearly established' standard demands that a bright line be crossed." Barts v. Joyner, 865 F.2d 1187, 1194 (11th Cir.1989). "The right must be sufficiently particularized to put potential defendants on notice that their conduct probably is unlawful." Azeez v. Fairman, 795 F.2d 1296, 1301 (7th Cir.1986). Of course, "[t]his 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, 483 U.S. at 640, 107 S.Ct. at 3039 (citations omitted).
Here, the law was not clear and thus failed to put these officers on notice that their conduct was unlawful. We are aware of no cases that define "dangerousness" with the requisite particularity or explain what type or amount of evidence would be constitutionally sufficient to establish probable cause of a dangerous condition. None of the few cases evaluating detentions by police for the purpose of emergency evaluations could possibly have given these defendants any clear indication that their conduct was unlawful because none of the circumstances really resembled the situation in which the officers found themselves in this case. See Harris, 677 F.2d at 689 (officer entitled to good faith immunity for detaining woman for emergency evaluation where officer knew of woman's recent hospitalization, woman was upset and became angry when questioned, and officer feared woman had taken overdose); People v. Triplett, 144 Cal.App.3d 283, 192 Cal.Rptr. 537, 539-41 (1983) (officer had probable cause to detain apparently intoxicated woman with watering eyes and slashed wrist). In fact, looking at the Triplett case, the officers might well have felt reassured that their actions were appropriate. See, Triplett, 192 Cal.Rptr. at 541 ("It is sufficient if the officer, as a lay person, can articulate behavioral symptoms of mental disorder, either temporary or prolonged.... [such] disorder might be exhibited if a person's thought processes, as evidenced by words or actions or emotional affect, are bizarre or inappropriate for the circumstances.").
Certainly the concept of "dangerousness" which calls on lay police to make a psychological judgment is far more elusive than the question of whether there is probable cause to believe someone has in fact committed a crime. The lack of clarity in the law governing seizures for psychological evaluations is striking when compared to the standards detailed in other Fourth Amendment contexts, where probable cause to suspect criminal misconduct has been painstakingly defined. See, e.g., Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964); Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969); United States v. Harris, 403 U.S. 573, 91 S.Ct. 2075, 29 L.Ed.2d 723 (1971); Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983). Of course, the law in no way permits random or baseless detention of citizens for psychological evaluations, but that was hardly the case here. Under the circumstances, the officers were not provisioned with adequate legal guidance, and the protective measures taken by the police with regard to Ms. Gooden failed to violate a clearly established constitutional right.
Whether the claims arising from the challenged seizure are framed in terms of § 1983 or § 1985(3) is not the dispositive question, however. Such claims seek in essence to challenge the same conduct--the decision to take protective measures with respect to Ms. Gooden on March 2. The fact that section 1985(3) incorporates an element of subjective animus is also not determinative. To say simply that plaintiffs' subjective claims can only be met by official denials of subjective animus is to vitiate the entire concept of qualified immunity as we have come to understand it. See Martin v. D.C. Metropolitan Police Dept., 812 F.2d 1425, 1434 (D.C.Cir.1987). The Supreme Court has stressed emphatically that the test for qualified immunity is to remain an objective one. See Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818-19, 102 S.Ct. at 2738-39. We thus cannot permit a return to the discredited subjective view of immunity whenever challenges to police searches and seizures are artfully pled as violations of section 1985(3). Indeed, the protection afforded officials by an objective test would be illusory if the simple allegation of discriminatory animus sufficed to set it aside. "[I]n some instances, plaintiffs might allege facts demonstrating that defendants have acted lawfully, append a claim that they did so with an unconstitutional motive, and as a consequence usher defendants into discovery, and perhaps trial, with no hope of success on the merits." Hobson v. Wilson, 737 F.2d 1, 29 (D.C.Cir.1984). Clearly, "[t]he result would be precisely the burden Harlow sought to prevent." Id.
To avoid evisceration of the purposes of qualified immunity, courts have thus required that plaintiffs alleging unlawful intent in conspiracy claims under § 1985(3) or § 1983 plead specific facts in a nonconclusory fashion to survive a motion to dismiss. See Easter House v. Felder, 852 F.2d 901, 919 (7th Cir.1988), vacated on other grounds, 861 F.2d 494 (1988); Pueblo Neighborhood Health Centers v. Losavio, 847 F.2d 642, 649-50 (10th Cir.1988); Hobson, 737 F.2d at 29. Here, plaintiff fails to satisfy that requirement. The § 1985(3) claim was essentially an afterthought with little more to support it than the respective racial identities of the individuals involved. The mere statement, however, that the officers in question and Ms. Beck were white and Ms. Gooden was black cannot suffice to overcome the fact that the officers acted upon the basis of a citizen's complaint, confirmed repeatedly by their own observations, that Ms. Gooden was in distress. Nor has Ms. Gooden presented any evidence of a conspiracy of two or more persons as required to state a claim under § 1985(3). See Easter House, 852 F.2d at 919 ("This circuit has recognized the danger of litigants' adducing unfounded conspiracy allegations in order to block summary judgment against weak claims."). Therefore, the § 1985(3) claim must be dismissed.3 The state law claims are also dismissed, but without prejudice.
For the reasons expressed in the vacated panel majority opinion, 917 F.2d 1355 (4th Cir.1990), I dissent. The district judge correctly ruled that there were genuine issues of material fact which made summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity inappropriate. In the district court's words, "... if there was ever a case that cried for a trial, this is it.... On the face of everything I've read and everything I've heard, this is what juries are for." That assessment was an eminently correct one made by an experienced and careful trial judge fully aware of the important purposes served by the qualified immunity defense and that those purposes are not fully realized when resolution of the defense is deferred to trial, but also conscientiously aware of the ultimately limiting principle in summary judgment doctrine that made trial necessary here. The resulting denial of summary judgment should be affirmed.
* I rely on the vacated panel majority opinion as demonstrating the particular material facts relevant to the qualified immunity defense that remain in genuine issue and for its discussion of the "settled law" issue. I add here some more general observations about the danger-exemplified in the majority opinion--that in an excess of zeal to protect police officers from the rigors and "chilling effect" of trial, courts may be tempted to skew summary judgment doctrine in favor of the officers when immunity turns on the credibility of their accounts of the circumstances that led them to make mistakes of judgment. Heavily credibility--dependent immunity defenses can of course occur in various kinds of § 1983 cases, but they may be most prevalent where the existence of probable cause is determinative. In such cases, substantive immunity doctrine dictates that an objectively assessed state of mind--what a reasonable police officer in the circumstances knew or should have known about and deduced from the relevant events and conditions bearing upon the existence of probable cause--is likely to be wholly determinative of immunity. See Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640-41, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3039-40, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987). For this reason, in these cases more than most, police officers' accounts of the circumstances that led them into mistaken judgments are likely to be determinative. And because inevitably--liability being disputed--the officer's account will be favorable to himself, the credibility of that account is crucial. Frequently, given the nature of police investigations, the officer's account is not subject to direct refutation by anyone, and must therefore be accepted unless it is manifestly implausible in light of the physical facts, or is intrinsically contradictory, or is otherwise drawn in doubt by extrinsic evidence. Compare, e.g., Torchinsky v. Siwinski, 942 F.2d 257 (4th Cir.1991) (officer's directly unrefuted account of victim's false identification of assailant determinative of officer's immunity), with Sevigny v. Dicksey, 846 F.2d 953 (4th Cir.1988) (officer's erroneous perception shown to be unreasonable by failure to question available eyewitness who would have corrected it).
In these "probable cause" cases, it is therefore likely that the quite human temptation on the part of police officers to engage in post hoc rationalizations and justifications of their mistakes of judgment may be at its peak--for the very reason that direct refutations of their accounts of the basis for their perceptions of probable cause are so rarely possible. If this be even generally so, the only safeguard for claimants confronted with motions for summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds, when supported by such self-serving accounts, is a rigorous adherence by the courts to the rudiments of summary judgment doctrine. That means, very simply, keeping in mind that the burden is on the police officer as movant for summary judgment, and that where, as in this situation, the basis for the motion is an affirmative defense as to which the movant would have the burden of persuasion at trial, the summary judgment burden is a correspondingly heavy one. See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 330-31 & n. 2, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2556-57 & n. 2, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986).
The procedural burden thus imposed by summary judgment doctrine upon § 1983 defendants claiming qualified immunity obviously pushes against relevant substantive and procedural immunity doctrine. For immunity doctrine is heavily weighted, substantively and procedurally, in favor of the state actor--avowedly to protect her not only from ultimate liability, but from even having to go to trial. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2815, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985). This is done substantively by providing a defense that is broader--by excusing constitutional violations resulting from reasonable mistakes of judgment--than is the defense on the merits, see Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 817-18, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2737-38, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982), and procedurally, by permitting interlocutory review and reversal of trial court judgments rejecting the defense, in order to avoid trial. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985).
The conflicting thrusts of summary judgment and qualified immunity doctrine on this matter have led some courts to tinker somewhat with summary judgment practice to relieve its burden on defendant-movants. See, e.g., Pueblo Neighborhood Health Centers, Inc. v. Losavio, 847 F.2d 642, 647-49 (10th Cir.1988) (where § 1983 defendant's subjective intent an element of constitutional claim, heightened burden placed on non-movant to avoid summary judgment motion on qualified immunity grounds). But the great majority of courts, including the Supreme Court, see Harlow, 457 U.S. at 816, 102 S.Ct. at 2737, and this court, Turner v. Dammon, 848 F.2d 440, 443 (4th Cir.1988), have held--or simply assumed as an evident proposition--that summary judgment practice is not to be varied, but applied in the regular way in assessing a qualified immunity defense. See Note, Qualified Immunity and the Allocation of Decision-Making Functions Between Judge and Jury, 90 Col.L.Rev. 1045, 1052-53 & n. 49 (1990) (collecting and analyzing decisions).
The district court's denial of the officers' motions for summary judgment under § 1985(3) may thus readily be seen as tantamount to a denial of qualified immunity, and as such is reviewable upon appeal. See Gometz v. Culwell, 850 F.2d 461, 463 (8th Cir.1988) (denial of summary judgment based on qualified immunity held immediately appealable where issue presented was sufficiency of evidence to support conspiracy claim under § 1985(2)). Indeed, to hold the § 1985(3) claim unreviewable would be both to condemn official assertions of immunity to piecemeal appellate resolution and to undercut the mechanism for review established by Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985). In order to avoid such a piecemeal approach, a number of courts have disposed of closely related pendent issues in appeals such as this one. See Hill v. Department of Air Force, 884 F.2d 1318, 1320 (10th Cir.1989); Foster v. Walsh, 864 F.2d 416, 418 (6th Cir.1988); San Filippo v. U.S. Trust Co., 737 F.2d 246, 255-56 (2nd Cir.1984).