Opinion ID: 472982
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Directed Verdict for the District of Columbia

Text: 23 In Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978), the Supreme Court held that municipalities are subject to liability under Sec. 1983, not based on theories akin to respondeat superior, Oklahoma City v. Tuttle, --- U.S. ---, 105 S.Ct. 2427, 2433, 85 L.Ed.2d 791 (1985) (plurality opinion), but on a fault-based analysis. Id. at 2434. A city is answerable under Monell when an official policy or custom causes the complainant to suffer a deprivation of constitutional right. To hold a municipality accountable, the plaintiff must establish that the official policy or custom itself is the moving force of the constitutional violation. Monell, 436 U.S. at 694, 98 S.Ct. at 2038; Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U.S. 312, 326, 102 S.Ct. 445, 454, 70 L.Ed.2d 509 (1981). 24 Monell involved an express municipal policy alleged to violate due process and equal protection limitations--a requirement that pregnant employees take unpaid leave from their city jobs while still willing and able to work. Police misconduct cases such as this one, by contrast, do not involve express statements of policy and are not susceptible to such easy proof. Oklahoma City, 105 S.Ct. at 2436. To succeed, a plaintiff must show a course deliberately pursued by the city, as opposed to an action taken unilaterally by a nonpolicymaking municipal employee, id. at 2439 (concurring opinion), and an affirmative link between the [city's] policy and the particular constitutional violation alleged. Id. at 2436 & n. 8; see Grandstaff v. City of Borger, 767 F.2d 161, 169-70 (5th Cir.1985). 25 The district court directed verdicts for the city and police chief in this case because it found the evidence insufficient to prove that a municipal policy or established custom of deliberate indifference to police misconduct caused plaintiffs to be subjected to a deprivation of constitutional dimension. We agree that plaintiffs failed to show fault on the part of the city based on a course its policymakers consciously chose to pursue. 26 Plaintiffs charged that the city and Police Chief Turner so neglected to train, supervise, investigate, and discipline police officers as to acquiesce in pervasive misconduct. They sought to demonstrate: (1) misconduct similar to the events in suit so widespread that it would not have persisted without the city's tacit approval; (2) the unfamiliarity of top officials with complaints lodged against police force members, indicating the city's lack of concern with the constitutional rights of persons who encounter police officers in the District; and (3) the inadequate response accorded to complaints of police misconduct, which signaled to police officers that their misbehavior would not be treated by the city as a matter of large concern. 27 We catalog and consider in turn plaintiffs' evidence under each of these three headings.
28 Plaintiffs urge us to include and consider under this heading, inter alia, bare complaints, pleadings, and press clippings, unsubstantiated by testimony, concerning alleged incidents of the use of excessive force by police officers. As the district court recognized, these hearsay items could show no more than notice to the city that allegations had been made. The items were admitted for that limited purposes, and not for the purpose of establishing the truth of those [allegations.] Transcript (Tr.) 997; see also Tr. 320B-320C, 425-26, 703-04. We therefore cull out such items as failing to show actual, as distinguished from merely alleged, occurrences. 3 We deal infra at 19-35 with the impropriety of the manner in which the allegation evidence was introduced. 29 Plaintiffs' proof of actual occurrences reduces to: (1) the testimony of witness Craig Scott that in May 1982, police officers beat him repeatedly both at the scene of his arrest and after taking him into custody (Tr. 643-53); (2) the death of prisoner Darrell Rhones in police custody in December 1983, and the D.C. Medical Examiner's conclusion that the death was caused by a choke-hold administered by police officers (Tr. 756-59); (3) the death of seven persons, acknowledged by Police Chief Turner, in incidents involving D.C. police in a two-month period in late 1983 and early 1984 (Tr. 837-39); 4 (4) a fine imposed against officer Vanderbloemen for striking two persons without cause, and improperly arresting one of them (Tr. 727-40); (5) the reprimand of officer Markovich for looping a belt around the neck of a prisoner and taunting him (Tr. 562-63); 5 and (6) the police chief's admission that officer Anderson had kicked a handcuffed suspect (Tr. 964-69). 6 30 This catalog of disquieting events is not sufficient to demonstrate a pervasive pattern of police officer indulgence in the use of excessive force, persisting in the District because of the MPD's tacit approval. We can glean nothing from the seven deaths acknowledged by Police Chief Turner, because plaintiffs presented no detail at all on these incidents. The remaining occurrences are scattered and do not coalesce into a discernible policy. If the evidence plaintiffs presented here were adequate to make out a Sec. 1983 case, then practically every large metropolitan police force, it would seem, could be targeted for such liability. 31 It is instructive to contrast with the case at hand a paradigm case of pervasive misconduct subjecting a municipality to Sec. 1983 liability. In Webster v. City of Houston, 689 F.2d 1220 (5th Cir.1982), vacated, 735 F.2d 838 (5th Cir.) (en banc), aff'd in part and rev'd in part, 739 F.2d 993 (5th Cir.1984) (en banc), 75-80% of the municipality's police officers, the evidence showed, carried throw down guns: weapon[s] which police officers, having killed (or wounded) an unarmed suspect, [could] put at his side to justify the shooting. 689 F.2d at 1222. We do not mean to suggest by our citation to Webster that a numerical standard controls the determination whether incidents of wrongful behavior cumulatively show a pattern amounting to a custom or policy. Egregious instances of misconduct, relatively few in number but following a common design, may support an inference that the instances would not occur but for municipal tolerance of the practice in question. We can say with assurance, however, that the assorted actual instances of misconduct demonstrated in this case do not line up to compose a common or widespread pattern of police misbehavior adequate to establish Sec. 1983 municipal liability. 32
33 Police Chief Turner, plaintiffs showed, was unaware of several civil rights suits naming him as a defendant 7 and Lieutenant Jones, NTF supervisor, did not know of several citizen (administrative) complaints and lawsuits lodged against officers in his unit. Administrative complaints and lawsuit allegations are not readily available for a supervisor's surveillance, plaintiffs observed. Pending lawsuits are not noted in police officers' personnel files; moreover, the personnel files of NTF officers are not kept at the NTF. These facts, plaintiffs urge, support an inference of deliberate indifference by upper echelon officials to police misconduct that dishonors the constitutional rights of the citizenry. 34 Again, we find plaintiffs' case too thin to warrant submission to a jury. Chief Turner explained that all court complaints against officers, including the Chief, upon service, are referred to the MPD's General Counsel, who does keep the suit on file, but petitions the Corporation Counsel to provide the officer's representation. Tr. 901, 989. Complaints of all kinds eventually go to the Office of Community Relations for review. That Office watches out for officers who repetitiously get complaints, or need closer supervision, in-service training, or to get off the force. Tr. 989. By law, the filing of a complaint may not be noted in an officer's personnel file, but adverse action taken against him is recorded there. Tr. 901, 989. Because NTF officers are only detailed to that unit, their files remain in their home districts. Tr. 776-77. 35 The personnel and complaint handling procedures brought out at trial may fall some distance from the ideal, but, as the district court correctly indicated, they do not spell a deliberate see no evil policy.
36 Through statistical proof and evidence of specific instances, plaintiffs attempted to show that complaints of police brutality would languish at the MPD, so that officers could act in derogation of constitutional rights without fear of sanction. Plaintiffs' statistics, however, were too general to prove any pattern or policy, and their specific instances were too scattered and lacking in detail to build a case. We describe first plaintiffs' numerical submissions, and then consider the specific instances they presented. 37 Plaintiffs offered the following figures: (1) from 1974 to 1979, officers were exonerated in 92% of the misconduct investigations MPD conducted; (2) in 1983, the MPD Service Weapon Review Board cited 26 officers for using weapons unjustifiably, but the police chief took adverse action against only one of them and merely reprimanded the others; and (3) of 21 cases in which the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) recommended adverse action against police officers since 1982, the police chief took such action in only five cases. These statistics are conspicuously wanting in detail. They do not speak for themselves. The first item, for example, lumps together all investigations of whatever kind; it tells us nothing separately or specifically about excessive force complaints. The second does not inform us of the nature of the cases in which service weapons were improperly discharged. Concerning the CCRB's recommendations, Chief Turner explained that in 16 cases, the necessary proof was missing; he faced conflicting versions of the events, no fact findings, and no confirmation of the complainant's account. Tr. 867-68. 38 Turning to specific instances put forward by plaintiffs to show slack or superficial investigation, two involved officer Vanderbloemen. One was a charge that he had unjustifiably hit two persons with a nightstick; the other was a complaint that he had verbally abused an individual. The first took two years to conclude and ended with the Chief's reduction of the recommended penalty from 15 days suspension to five. The second resulted in a reprimand letter, although a more severe course had been recommended to Chief Turner. Explaining at least part of the delay in the first case, the MPD had initially referred the matter to the U.S. Attorney for prosecution--hardly a mild response to the complaint. The reduction of the suspension sanction occurred in that case, Chief Turner testified, because the complainants had not been located to testify under oath. Tr. 894-95. 39 Plaintiffs referred to other instances, including the death of Darrell Rhones in custody, the abuse of a prisoner by officer Anderson, and witness Scott's testimony about physical abuse upon his arrest. The first two matters, however, were referred to the U.S. Attorney for prosecution, again, not a tepid response, and Anderson ultimately was indicted for obstruction of justice. Tr. 970-71. Scott filed a lawsuit complaining of his treatment, and MPD responded in accordance with its standard practice; plaintiffs submitted no evidence on the outcome of Scott's action. 40 The very cases on which plaintiffs place primary reliance, we conclude, show what is missing here. In Fiacco v. City of Rensselaer, 783 F.2d 319 (2d Cir.1986), plaintiff presented a parade of witnesses, each an excessive force complainant before the police chief himself, each relating first hand and in detail both the brutal incident and the chief's stock response. 8 Grandstaff v. City of Borger, 767 F.2d 161 (5th Cir.1985), involved a catastrophic incident. The entire night shift of the city police had opened fire and recklessly killed an innocent man. In the aftermath, there were no reprimands, no discharges, and no admissions of error. The officers testified at trial that no changes had been made in their policies. Id. at 171. Fiacco and Grandstaff presented concentrated, fully packed, precisely delineated scenarios. The pattern or policy a trier could see etched sharply in those cases simply is not discernible here. Instead, the record shows scattered fire smouldering in smoke from which no policy or custom emerges.
41 The district judge correctly stated the governing law: to establish municipal liability under Sec. 1983, it was plaintiffs' burden to show a persistent, pervasive practice of the city officials and Police Chief Turner, which, although not officially adopted, was so common and settled as to be considered [a custom or policy]. Tr. 1136. He also correctly applied that law in granting defendants' motion for directed verdicts on the Monell, municipal responsibility claim: the Sec. 1983 claim against the city fails for want of proof of a persistent, pervasive practice, attributable to a course deliberately pursued by official policy-makers, one that caused the deprivation of constitutional rights plaintiffs experienced. See Tr. 1147. 42