Opinion ID: 614115
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Excessive-Force Instruction

Text: The district court's excessive-force jury instruction was based on the Seventh Circuit pattern jury instruction and was adapted to conform to the evidence in the case. The court explained that excessive force means more force than is reasonably necessary under the circumstances shown by the evidence, and instructed the jury that if [Clarett] did in fact interfere with the arrest of her sons, then the defendant Roberts also had the right to use the degree of force necessary to arrest the plaintiff for that interference and for the offense of resisting her own arrest. The court also explained that to recover against Roberts on her excessive-force claim, Clarett had the burden of proving that he used excessive force, that she suffered injury or harm, and that his use of excessive force was the proximate cause of her injury or harm. Clarett argues that this approach to the excessive-force instruction improperly conflated her excessive-force claim with her false-arrest claim, making the former contingent on the latter. Not so. The district court simply explained that some degree of force may have been appropriate to arrest Clarett if the jury found she was actually obstructing the officers. The jury's consideration of the excessive-force claim was not improperly linked to its determination of the false-arrest claim. Put differently, the jury was free to conclude that Roberts used excessive force in subduing and arresting Clarett even if it found that the arrest itself was legal. Clarett also argues that the excessive-force instruction improperly required her to prove that injury or harm occurred as a result of the excessive force. She cites Briggs v. Marshall, 93 F.3d 355 (7th Cir.1996), for the proposition that injury need not be shown in order to prevail on a claim of excessive force. [3] But this was not a no injury excessive-force case. Everyone agreed that Clarett sustained injuries during the course of her confrontation with Roberts. In this situation, a nominal-damages instructionperhaps appropriate in a true no-injury casewould have been inappropriate here.