Opinion ID: 75710
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the special interrogatories issues

Text: 41 Because of the purpose served by the doctrine of qualified immunity, a valid defense based upon it must be recognized as soon as possible, preferably at the motion to dismiss or summary judgment stage of the litigation. See Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 2155-56, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001) (Where the defendant seeks qualified immunity, a ruling on that issue should be made early in the proceedings so that the costs and expenses of trial are avoided where the defense is dispositive.); Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 227, 112 S.Ct. 534, 536, 116 L.Ed.2d 589 (1991) (per curiam) ([W]e repeatedly have stressed the importance of resolving immunity questions at the earliest possible stage in litigation.); Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2815, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985) (stating that qualified immunity is an entitlement not to stand trial or face the other burdens of litigation). 42 Where it is not evident from the allegations of the complaint alone that the defendants are entitled to qualified immunity, the case will proceed to the summary judgment stage, the most typical juncture at which defendants entitled to qualified immunity are released from the threat of liability and the burden of further litigation. See generally Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299, 116 S.Ct. 834, 133 L.Ed.2d 773 (1996) (recognizing right to interlocutory appeal seriatim denial of motion to dismiss and denial of summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds). Even at the summary judgment stage, not all defendants entitled to the protection of the qualified immunity defense will get it. The ones who should be given that protection at the summary judgment stage are those who establish that there is no genuine issue of material fact preventing them from being entitled to qualified immunity. And that will include defendants in a case where there is some dispute about the facts, but even viewing the evidence most favorably to the plaintiff the law applicable to that set of facts was not already clearly enough settled to make the defendants' conduct clearly unlawful. But if the evidence at the summary judgment stage, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, shows there are facts that are inconsistent with qualified immunity being granted, the case and the qualified immunity issue along with it will proceed to trial. 43 Defendants who are not successful with their qualified immunity defense before trial can re-assert it at the end of the plaintiff's case in a Rule 50(a) motion. Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(a); Cottrell v. Caldwell, 85 F.3d 1480, 1488 (11th Cir.1996). That type of motion will sometimes be denied because the same evidence that led to the denial of the summary judgment motion usually will be included in the evidence presented during the plaintiff's case, although sometimes evidence that is considered at the summary judgment stage may turn out not to be admissible at trial. See generally Wright v. Southland Corp., 187 F.3d 1287, 1304 n. 21 (11th Cir.1999); McMillian v. Johnson, 88 F.3d 1554 (11th Cir.1996). Where there is no change in the evidence, the same evidentiary dispute that got the plaintiff past a summary judgment motion asserting the qualified immunity defense will usually get that plaintiff past a Rule 50(a) motion asserting the defense, although the district court is free to change its mind. See Abel v. Dubberly, 210 F.3d 1334 (11th Cir.2000)(collecting cases). 44 It is important to recognize, however, that a defendant is entitled to have any evidentiary disputes upon which the qualified immunity defense turns decided by the jury so that the court can apply the jury's factual determinations to the law and enter a post-trial decision on the defense. When the case goes to trial, the jury itself decides the issues of historical fact that are determinative of the qualified immunity defense, but the jury does not apply the law relating to qualified immunity to those historical facts it finds; that is the court's duty. Stone v. Peacock, 968 F.2d 1163, 1166 (11th Cir.1992) (The law is now clear, however, that the defense of qualified immunity should be decided by the court, and should not be submitted for decision by the jury.); Ansley v. Heinrich, 925 F.2d 1339, 1348 (11th Cir.1991) ([O]nce the defense of qualified immunity has been denied pretrial due to disputed issues of material facts, the jury should determine the factual issues without any mention of qualified immunity.). 45 A tool used to apportion the jury and court functions relating to qualified immunity issues in cases that go to trial is special interrogatories to the jury. Qualified immunity is a legal issue to be decided by the court, and the jury interrogatories should not even mention the term. Instead, the jury interrogatories should be restricted to the who-what-when-where-why type of historical fact issues. Cottrell, 85 F.3d at 1488 (internal citations omitted). In a proper case, the use of special jury interrogatories going to the qualified immunity defense is not discretionary with the court. As we said in Cottrell, [b]ecause a public official who is put to trial is entitled to have the true facts underlying his qualified immunity defense decided, a timely request for jury interrogatories directed toward such factual issues should be granted. Id. at 1487. In the same opinion, we explained: Denial of such a request would be error, because it would deprive the defendant who is forced to trial of his right to have the factual issues underlying his defense decided by the jury. Id. at 1487-88; see also See Willingham v. Loughnan, 261 F.3d 1178, 1184 n. 9 (11th Cir.2001)([W]hen the question of qualified immunity turns on specific questions of fact, the use of special interrogatories can be very helpful to a judge in determining the legal question of whether qualified immunity applies.) But the failure to give requested jury interrogatories may not be error, or if error may be harmless, where the jury verdict itself, viewed in the light of the jury instructions, and any interrogatories that were answered by the jury, indicate without doubt what the answers to the refused interrogatories would have been, or make the answers to the refused interrogatories irrelevant to the qualified immunity defense. That is the conclusion we reach in this case. 46 To explain our conclusion, we begin by setting out the interrogatories that the court actually gave the jury, and the jury's answers to them. Next we will discuss the applicable law and set out the special interrogatories that the defendants requested and the court refused to submit to the jury. And then we will explain why the failure to submit those interrogatories in this particular case did not matter.
47 Having rejected the defendants' request for special interrogatories going to the factual issues upon which their qualified immunity defense turned, the court submitted interrogatories of its own to the jury on the merits issue. Those interrogatories, and the jury's answers to them, were as follows: 48 Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence: 49 1. That the Defendants intentionally committed acts that violated the Plaintiff's constitutional right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment? 50 Answer Yes or No: Brian Breeden Yes Rudolph Gomez Yes Eduardo Luciano No Note: If you answered No to Question 1 as to each Defendant, you need not answer the remaining questions. 51 2. That the Defendants' acts were the proximate or legal cause of damages sustained by the Plaintiff? Answer Yes or No Yes 52 3. That the Plaintiff should be awarded damages to compensate for physical as well as emotional pain and mental anguish? 53 Answer Yes or No Yes If you answered Yes, in what amount? $25,000 Breeden & Gomez 54 4. That the Defendants acted with malice or reckless indifference to the Plaintiff's federally protected rights and that punitive damages should be assessed against the Defendants? 55 Answer Yes or No Yes If you answered Yes, Brian Breeden $30,000 in what amount? Indicate separate Rudolph Gomez $15,000 amounts as to each defendant. Eduardo Luciano $0 56 SO SAY WE ALL. 57 Those interrogatories are the Eleventh Circuit pattern ones for eliciting a verdict on the merits of a prisoner's excessive force claim. See Eleventh Circuit Pattern Jury Instructions (Civil) § 2.3.1 (West 2000). The answers the jury gave to them establish that the jury found Breeden and Gomez had intentionally used enough force to cause Johnson damage including physical pain as well as some emotional pain and mental anguish. The jury's answers also establish that the physical and emotional pain and the mental anguish Johnson suffered as a result of Breeden and Gomez's intentional, malicious, and sadistic acts was enough to justify $25,000 in compensatory damages. 58 The jury's answer to interrogatory no. 4 found the existence of either reckless indifference or malice. Because that interrogatory did not ask the jury to specify whether it was with reckless indifference or with malice that Breeden and Gomez acted, the jury's answer did not specify which of the two it found. None of the interrogatories the court submitted to the jury asked it to state explicitly whether the force the defendants used was applied sadistically and maliciously to cause harm. However, in its instructions the court told the jury that: Whether or not any force used in this instance was excessive is an issue for you to decide on the basis of whether such force, if any, was applied in a good faith effort to maintain or restore discipline, or whether it was used maliciously and sadistically to cause harm. Reading that instruction and the jury interrogatories and verdict together, the inference is inescapable that the jury implicitly found the defendants had acted with malice and sadistically to cause harm. After all, we must presume that juries follow their instructions. See Weeks v. Angelone, 528 U.S. 225, 120 S.Ct. 727, 733, 145 L.Ed.2d 727 (2000); Richardson v. Marsh, 481 U.S. 200, 206, 107 S.Ct. 1702, 1707, 95 L.Ed.2d 176 (1987)(referring to the almost invariable assumption of the law that jurors follow their instructions, which we have applied in many varying contexts(internal citation omitted)). 59 Therefore, the jury verdict and its answers to the submitted interrogatories, when read against the court's instructions, establish that Breeden and Gomez intentionally, maliciously, and sadistically inflicted pain and injuries upon Johnson, including physical and emotional pain and mental anguish, in an amount sufficient to justify $25,000 in compensatory damages.
60 McMillian v. Johnson, 88 F.3d 1554 (11th Cir.1996), involved a claim by a pretrial detainee plaintiff who had been transferred from a local jail to death row before he was tried on capital murder charges. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits punishment before conviction, and so if the defendants who transferred the plaintiff to death row did so for the purpose of punishing him (instead of for his own safety), they violated his constitutional rights. Id. at 1564. The district court concluded that there was a genuine issue of material fact as to the defendants' purpose, and accordingly denied their motion for summary judgment on the merits. Id. at 1564-65. The district court also denied the defendants' motion for summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds. 61 In McMillian we affirmed the denial of summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds, holding that prior decisions had clearly established the law that pretrial detention amounting to punishment violated due process, and we held that even though those prior decisions had involved different circumstances. Id. at 1565-66. They involved conditions such as double-bunking, mail restrictions, search policies, overcrowding, unsanitary food, and lack of adequate medical services. Id. at 1565 (internal citation omitted). There was no prior decision involving detention on death row instead of in a pre-trail facility. Nonetheless, we explained that:  Bell [ v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979)]'s prohibition on any pretrial punishment, defined to include conditions imposed with an intent to punish should have made it clear to all reasonable officials in [the defendants'] place that holding McMillian on death row to punish him before he was tried violated McMillian's due process rights. Id. at 1565 (emphasis in original). As a result, the defendants had violated McMillian's clearly established constitutional rights, if they acted with the purpose to punish him. 62 The defendants in McMillian contended that, for qualified immunity purposes, we should ignore their subjective purpose or motivation and only decide whether a reasonable official in the defendants' circumstances and acting without a bad purpose (a purpose to punish) could have believed that it was lawful to transfer McMillian to death row before trial. Id. at 1566. In rejecting that contention, we said this: 63 Our precedent compels us to reject [the defendant's] contention. Like every other circuit that has considered the issue, we have held that intent or motivation may not be ignored when intent or motivation is an essential element of the underlying constitutional violation. Edwards v. Wallace Community College, 49 F.3d 1517, 1524 (11th Cir.1995). A purpose to punish is an essential element of a pretrial punishment claim under the Fourteenth Amendment. Hence, [the defendants'] purpose must be considered in this case, just as discriminatory intent must be considered when an equal protection violation is asserted, see Ratliff v. DeKalb County, Ga., 62 F.3d 338, 341 (11th Cir.1995); Edwards, 49 F.3d at 1524, and intent or motivation must be considered when certain First Amendment claims are asserted, see, e.g., Tompkins, 26 F.3d at 607 (alleged retaliatory transfer of government employee); Losavio, 847 F.2d at 648 (alleged interference with speech); Musso, 836 F.2d at 743 (alleged content-based censorship at school board meeting). When [the defendants'] purpose to punish is considered, there is no question that their alleged conduct violated clearly established law. 64 Id. 65 The same is true in this case where the subjective element of the constitutional violation is that the force was used and the injury inflicted not in a good faith effort to maintain and restore discipline, but maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm to the plaintiff. Acting with that specific malevolent intent to cause harm, at least where (as here) more than de minimis injury results, violates the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the Eighth Amendment, and that was clearly established law at the time Breeden and Gomez entered Johnson's cell on August 22, 1995. See Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1, 112 S.Ct. 995, 117 L.Ed.2d 156 (1992); Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 106 S.Ct. 1078, 89 L.Ed.2d 251 (1986). 66 We are aware of Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001), but think that case is distinguishable, because it did not involve a constitutional tort with a subjective intent element. Instead, Saucier involved a Fourth Amendment claim of use of excessive force against an arrestee, and such claims are purely objective. They turn solely on the objective reasonableness of the amount of force used in the circumstances, regardless of the intent or other subjective state of mind of the defendant officer. See Graham v. M.S. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 395-98, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 1871-72, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989). It makes perfect sense to conclude, as the Supreme Court did in Saucier, that with such claims the merits issue and the qualified immunity issue are distinct, so that the existence of a valid Fourth Amendment excessive force claim is not inconsistent with qualified immunity. In other words, a defendant officer could use force in making an arrest that is later judged to be excessive enough that it violates the Fourth Amendment, but if prior decisions did not clearly establish that the use of that amount of force in those circumstances was constitutionally excessive, the defendant officer would be entitled to qualified immunity. That is what Saucier holds. 67 It is different with claims arising from the infliction of excessive force on a prisoner in violation of the Eighth Amendment Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause. In order to have a valid claim on the merits of excessive force in violation of that constitutional provision, the excessive force must have been sadistically and maliciously applied for the very purpose of causing harm. Equally important, it is clearly established that all infliction of excessive force on a prisoner sadistically and maliciously for the very purpose of causing harm and which does cause harm violates the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause. So, where this type of constitutional violation is established there is no room for qualified immunity. It is not just that this constitutional tort involves a subjective element, it is that the subjective element required to establish it is so extreme that every conceivable set of circumstances in which this constitutional violation occurs is clearly established to be a violation of the Constitution by the Supreme Court decisions in Hudson and Whitley. This is a different situation entirely from the one in Saucier, 533 U.S. at ___, 121 S.Ct. at 2160, where the Supreme Court said that, neither respondent nor the Court of Appeals has identified any case demonstrating a clearly established rule prohibiting the officer from acting as he did, nor are we aware of any such rule. 68 With this applicable law in mind, we turn now to the defendants' requested special interrogatories which the district court declined to submit to the jury.
69 The defendants requested that the following special interrogatories be given to the jury so that the district court could revisit the qualified immunity defense after the verdict was returned: 70 1. Prior to entering the cell in D Building, did Plaintiff verbally abuse any of the Defendants? 71 2. Do you find that it was necessary for any of the Defendants to escort Plaintiff into his cell? 72 3. Did any of the Defendants instruct Plaintiff to sit on the bed until they exited the cell? 73 4. Did Plaintiff get up off the bed contrary to the instructions given to him? 74
75 6. Do you find that force by any of the Defendants was necessary to subdue Plaintiff? 76 7. Did Plaintiff resist any of the Defendants as they attempted to subdue him? 77 8. Did Plaintiff intentionally strike any of the Defendants during this altercation? 78 9. Did Defendant Sergeant Breeden use excessive force against Plaintiff? 79 (a) If yes to above, was the force used malicious and sadistic, done for the very purpose of causing the Plaintiff harm? 80 10. Did Defendant Officer Gomez use excessive force against Plaintiff? 81 (a) If yes to above, was the force used malicious and sadistic, and done for the very purpose of causing the Plaintiff harm? 82 11. Did Defendant Officer Luciano use excessive force against Plaintiff? 83 (a) If yes to above, was the force used malicious and sadistic, and done for the very purpose of causing the Plaintiff harm? 84 12. Was Plaintiff injured during this altercation? 85 (a) If yes, what injuries did Plaintiff sustain as a result of this altercation? (please list) 86 13. If you find that Plaintiff suffered a laceration (cut) to his head above his left eye, was that injury caused by falling and hitting the heating unit? 87 14. If you find that Plaintiff suffered a laceration (cut) to his head above his left eye, was that injury caused by any Defendant striking the Plaintiff? 88
89
90 15. Were any of the injuries sustained by Plaintiff the result of excessive force? If so, which ones? 91 Obviously, requested interrogatory no. 11 is irrelevant because it involved a different defendant, one who received a jury verdict in his favor. Requested interrogatory nos. 6, 9 and 10, 12, and 15 are explicitly answered by the jury's verdict and its answers to the interrogatories that the court did submit. Requested interrogatories 1-5 and 7-8 go to the circumstances that preceded the defendants' use of excessive force. Preceding and attendant circumstances are relevant in any excessive force case, but to the extent of their relevance the answers to those requested interrogatories are implicit in the jury's verdict and its answers to the submitted interrogatories; to the extent they are not covered by the verdict and answers to the submitted interrogatories, the answers to the submitted interrogatories are irrelevant. 92 In other words, what force is excessive will depend upon the circumstances in which it is administered, but the jury in this case was instructed about that, and it found that the force used in this case was, in view of the circumstances, excessive. The jury also found that the force used was not administered to maintain or restore order or discipline but instead was inflicted maliciously and sadistically for the purpose of causing harm. No preceding circumstances could have justified excessive force administered for that specific purpose, at least not where it resulted in significant injury, which the jury found the force in this case did cause. 93 Requested interrogatories no. 13 and 14 go to the injuries Johnson suffered, but in answer to the interrogatories that were submitted the jury found that the excessive force Breeden and Gomez inflicted caused Johnson to suffer $25,000 worth of physical pain as well as emotional pain and mental anguish. To the extent, if any, that the answers to the requested interrogatories would have gone beyond those findings, they are not important to resolution of the qualified immunity issue. 94 In summary, given the jury's verdict, when read in light of the instructions, and its findings in response to the submitted interrogatories, it was not an abuse of discretion for the district court to refuse to submit the defendants' requested special interrogatories. The reason is that the answer to each requested special interrogatory was either covered by the verdict and jury findings, or it was irrelevant to the qualified immunity issue in light of the verdict and jury findings. 95 Having said that, we remind district courts that special jury interrogatories can play an important and even essential role in the proper disposition of a qualified immunity defense. Although the refusal to give the requested jury interrogatories was not reversible error in view of the particular circumstances of this case, including the nature of the constitutional violation claimed, the jury instructions, and the jury's answers to the interrogatories that were submitted, it will not always be so. Sometimes it will be reversible error not to submit requested jury interrogatories that will aid the district court in properly deciding a qualified immunity issue that survives the jury's verdict on the merits. For that reason, courts should proceed with caution before denying requested interrogatories that go to the factual circumstances of a case in which a qualified immunity defense has been asserted.