Opinion ID: 735432
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Directed verdict in favor of defendant Paul

Text: 18 In a second issue raised on appeal, the plaintiff challenges the propriety of the directed verdict entered by the district court in Officer Paul's favor on the question of excessive force in handcuffing. Defendant Paul responds that an arrestee's right to be free from too-tight handcuffing is not clearly established and, therefore, is not actionable under § 1983. 19 In Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982), the Supreme Court held that: 20 [G]overnment officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. 21 Because most legal rights are clearly established at some level of generality, immunity would be impossible to obtain if a plaintiff were required only to cite an abstract legal principle that an official had clearly violated. Hence, in Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3039, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987), the Court added that: 22 The contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. This 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. 23 The district court found that at the time of the plaintiff's arrest, the law was not clearly established that the overly tight application of handcuffs was a violation of an arrestee's constitutional right not to have excessive force applied during an arrest, citing conflicting cases from around the country. See, e.g., Howard v. Dickerson, 34 F.3d 978 (10th Cir.1994)(handcuffing despite known medical condition; qualified immunity denied); Palmer v. Sanderson, 9 F.3d 1433 (9th Cir.1993)(handcuffing tight enough to cause bruising; qualified immunity denied); Greiner v. City of Champlin, 816 F.Supp. 528 (D.Minn.1993)(failure to loosen cuffs; qualified immunity upheld), aff'd in part & rev'd in part, 27 F.3d 1346 (8th Cir.1994); Cooper v. City of Virginia Beach, 817 F.Supp. 1310 (E.D.Va.1993)(no serious or lasting injury from tight cuffs; qualified immunity upheld), aff'd, 21 F.3d 421 (4th Cir.1994); Grooms v. Dockter, 1996 WL 26917, 76 F.3d 378 (6th Cir.1996) (per curiam ) (handcuffing caused permanent damage to wrists, carpel tunnel syndrome; qualified immunity denied); Elrich v. Wright, 1987 WL 44485, 829 F.2d 38 (6th Cir.1987) (per curiam)(bruising; qualified immunity upheld), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 1030, 108 S.Ct. 761, 98 L.Ed.2d 772 (1988); McPherson v. Auger, 842 F.Supp. 25 (D.Me.1994)(cries of pain caused by too-tight cuffs; qualified immunity denied). 24 This circuit, however, has chosen to view an excessively forceful handcuffing claim under the general excessive force rubric. In Walton v. City of Southfield, 995 F.2d 1331, 1342 (6th Cir.1993), we denied qualified immunity to an officer who handcuffed a woman with a shoulder injury. Although Walton was decided in 1993, the incident occurred in 1988, and we confidently denied qualified immunity because the case presented a genuine issue of fact regarding whether excessive force was used. Because clearly established law in 1991, the time of the incident in this case, prohibited an officer's use of excessive force, and because a genuine issue of material fact exists as to whether Officer Paul used excessive force under the circumstances, the district court erred by granting Paul qualified immunity on the handcuffing issue. 25 Finding that the district court denied the plaintiff substantial justice by excluding relevant, non-cumulative evidence of the severity of the plaintiff's injuries, and that the court further erred by directing a verdict in favor of defendant Paul, we REVERSE the judgment and REMAND the case to the district court for retrial. 26