Opinion ID: 69341
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Dougan’s Issues

Text: We now turn to Dougan’s appeal. Howell contends that Dougan violated his Fourth Amendment rights by using excessive force against him when he sprayed him with a blast of pepper spray.3 The amount of force used in a particular situation is judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene and not “‘with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.’” Post v. City of Ft. Lauderdale, 7 F.3d 1552, 1559 (11th Cir. 1993) (quoting Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 394, 109 S. Ct. 1865, 1871 (1989)). The reasonableness of an officer’s use of force is an objective inquiry. See id. In making that objective inquiry, we “evaluate a number of factors, 3 In his complaint, Howell claimed that Dougan arrested him without probable cause. In his brief to this Court, however, Howell advances only an excessive force claim against Dougan based on the pepper spraying. If Howell has an argument that Dougan arrested him without probable cause, he has waived it. See In re Egidi, 571 F.3d 1156, 1163 (11th Cir. 2009) (“Arguments not properly presented in a party’s initial brief . . . are deemed waived.”). 11 including the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.” Lee, 284 F.3d 1197–98 (quotation marks omitted). Other factors to be considered are the need for the application of force, the relationship between the need and amount of force used, and the extent of the injury inflicted. Id. at 1198. “[T]he force used by a police officer in carrying out an arrest must be reasonably proportionate to the need for that force, which is measured by the severity of the crime, the danger to the officer, and the risk of flight.” Id. Dougan testified that he saw Howell ball up his fists and take an aggressive stance. Wood also testified that he saw Howell ball up his fists. Howell and some other witnesses, however, testified that Howell took no aggressive action toward Dougan. “[W]e approach the facts from the plaintiff’s perspective because the issues appealed here concern not which facts the parties might be able to prove, but, rather, whether or not certain given facts showed a violation of clearly established law.” Id. at 1190 (alteration and quotation marks omitted). At this point in the proceedings, therefore, we must assume that Howell did not take aggressive action toward Dougan. Dougan was responding to a complaint about loud music, a relatively minor 12 offense, and his first words to Howell were confrontational. Before Howell finished his verbal response, Dougan sprayed him with pepper spray. The district court determined that any reasonable officer in Dougan’s situation would have known that under these circumstances the use of pepper spray was excessive force. The plaintiffs contend that even if we do not agree that “no reasonable officer could have had a mistaken understanding as to whether the particular amount of force was legal in the circumstances,” id. at 1200 (alterations and quotation marks omitted), the law was clearly established that in this situation Dougan’s use of pepper spray was gratuitous and constituted an excessive use of force. They argue that (under the facts viewed in their favor) Howell was doing nothing to resist Dougan and that after Dougan sprayed Howell, Dougan simply walked away and allowed Howell to be escorted into the house to have his face and eyes washed. According to the plaintiffs, those facts indicate that Dougan was not attempting to subdue or restrain Howell in order to arrest him. Instead, Dougan’s use of pepper spray was entirely unnecessary. The plaintiffs rely on Vinyard v. Wilson, 311 F.3d 1340 (11th Cir. 2002), in which a sheriff’s deputy grabbed an arrestee’s arm and sprayed her with pepper spray while she was handcuffed and being transported to jail. We applied the factors to determine if that use of force was excessive and concluded that the 13 factors “weigh[ed] heavily in [the plaintiff’s] favor.” Id. at 1347. We had this to say about the use of pepper spray: Courts have consistently concluded that using pepper spray is excessive force in cases where the crime is a minor infraction, the arrestee surrenders, is secured, and is not acting violently, and there is no threat to the officers or anyone else. Courts have consistently concluded that using pepper spray is reasonable, however, where the plaintiff was either resisting arrest or refusing police requests, such as requests to enter a patrol car or go to the hospital. Furthermore, as a means of imposing force, pepper spray is generally of limited intrusiveness, and it is designed to disable a suspect without causing permanent physical injury. Indeed, pepper spray is a very reasonable alternative to escalating a physical struggle with an arrestee. Id. at 1348 (citations, quotation marks, and footnotes omitted). In the present case, the crime involved was a minor infraction—violation of a noise ordinance. Taking the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, Howell responded to Dougan’s confrontational tone with an equally brash one, but he was not acting in a physically aggressive manner. No one contends that Howell displayed a weapon at that point, touched Dougan, or even made a move toward him. The fact that Dougan allowed Howell to be taken into the house after spraying him with pepper spray does suggest that Dougan was not attempting to subdue Howell, to stop him from resisting arrest, or to prevent him from fleeing. Dougan told Howell to turn the music down but did not require Howell to 14 physically submit to police authority or even request that he do so. Under the circumstances, Vinyard provided “materially similar facts or facts that gave a reasonable police officer in [Deputy Dougan’s] situation fair and clear warning that the conduct here, especially the use of pepper spray, violated the Constitution.” Id. at 1355. Although the use of pepper spray is often “a very reasonable alternative to escalating a physical struggle with an arrestee,” id. at 1348, the district court did not err in concluding that there was a genuine issue of material fact about whether that use of force was excessive under the particular facts the plaintiffs alleged in this case. Therefore, at this point in the proceedings, Dougan is not entitled to qualified immunity. AFFIRMED. 15