Opinion ID: 77695
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Refusing to Comply with an Order from an Officer Directing Traffic

Text: 42 Officer Brown proffers a second offense which, he says, provides a basis for arresting Skop: refusing to comply with an order from a law enforcement officer directing traffic. Under Georgia law, [n]o person shall fail or refuse to comply with any lawful order or direction of any police officer . . . with authority to direct, control, or regulate traffic. Ga.Code Ann. § 40-6-2. While this is arguably a closer question, on this record, again, taking the evidence in a light most favorable to Skop, we conclude that Brown possessed neither probable cause nor arguable probable cause to arrest. 43 The traffic offense, we are told, was based on Skop's alleged failure to follow Brown's order that she park her car on the side of the street and walk to her home. Under the terms of the Georgia statute, as we see it, Brown probably could have arrested Skop if she had refused to obey a lawful order that she park her car at the side of the road. However, we need not decide whether Skop's behavior gave Brown probable cause or arguable probable cause to arrest for failing to follow his order. The reason that summary judgment was inappropriate here is basic: Skop presented evidence sufficient to raise a genuine issue of material fact concerning whether Officer Brown ever actually ordered her to park her car on the side of the street. If Brown never gave Skop such an order, or if he did so but well knew 3 that Skop could not and did not hear him, Brown would not have had even arguable probable cause to arrest. Obviously, Skop could not be arrested for failing to obey an order she was never given. Thus, determining whether Brown actually ever gave the order, and, if he did, whether he had reason to believe that Skop heard it is, on this highly disputed factual record, exactly the sort of factual, credibility-sensitive task best left to the jury. 44 Skop denied ever hearing any command from Brown to park her car. Indeed, at the APD disciplinary proceedings against Brown, Skop testified that if Brown had asked, she would have parked [her] car. And gone in [her] house unless he told [her] not to go in [her] house. Civil Service Board Appeal 39 (Doc. 42, Ex. 57); see also id. at 46 (Q: Ms. Skop, did Officer Brown tell you on more than one occasion that you could park your car at the curb on the street? A: Huh-uh.); id. at 48 (The only thing he said to me when I walked around to the driver's side of his car and he lowered his driver's side window was, [']can't you see the power lines are down, the tree is down, this is a hazardous area.['] And he rolled the window back up. (emphasis added)). 45 Viewing the facts in a light most favorable to Skop, the order to park her car was never given. In fact, Skop argued that the traffic offense was manufactured by Officer Brown after the fact in order to buttress an unpersuasive obstruction charge. In support, beyond her own very different testimony on this point, Skop alludes to a number of basic inconsistencies in Brown's account itself. Among other things, Brown's statements about his contacts with other vehicles at the scene were squarely in conflict. Thus, at his deposition, Brown testified that he had not been in contact with any other vehicles before Skop arrived. But, on the night of the arrest, Brown told Sergeant Padgett, the APD watch commander, that he had been turning away other cars. This could readily support the inference that Brown, in an attempt to recharacterize the arrest as involving a refusal to obey lawful traffic instructions, misrepresented the facts to make it appear as if he had been actively engaged in directing traffic or giving traffic orders when Skop arrived on the scene. 46 Moreover, Brown's account of his rationale for the arrest — and how the arrest related to the traffic offense — is also arguably inconsistent, and given in a manner that supports Skop's claim. Thus, for example, Brown told Padgett that he was concerned about letting Skop walk down and get electrocuted — that part of the reason he arrested her was that she had placed herself in danger from the power lines at the end of the block by exiting her car. In other testimony, however, Brown said that he had instructed Skop to park the car and walk home, believing that it would be safer to have her get out of her car and walk to her house, which he purportedly believed to be further down the street near the downed power lines. 4 Whether Brown told Skop to park and walk down the street, or, rather, arrested her for her own safety because he thought she was going to do exactly that, is not at all clear. 47 Beyond this, Skop points to the fact that Brown, by his own account, was motivated by self-interest to misrepresent the circumstances of the arrest. During his deposition, Brown admitted that his post-arrest actions were shaped by the fear that he or the department could be liable for his arrest of Skop. Discussing his decision to make a custodial arrest, Brown testified at his deposition this way: 48 Q: [Y]ou had the discretion right then and there to issue citations and release her to walk inside her house, didn't you? 49 A: I had already placed my hands on her. 50 Q: . . . Are you trained, sir, that once you place your hands on . . . someone, you can't release them from your custody? 51 A: I can release them. 52 Q: So you had that discretion? 53 A: I can; but in the manner that this took place, I knew that I wouldn't have the — the discretion to do so. I knew that it was the best to — It was in the best interest to actually take her into custody. 54 Q: Well, now whose interests were served by taking her into custody, Officer Brown? 55 A: It would have — It would have been myself. 56 Q: Right. `Cause if you had arrested her and then released her you were afraid you were going to get sued — A: Absolutely 57 Q: — weren't you? 58 . . . 59 A: If I would have arrested her and then released her, it wouldn't have — it wouldn't have been beneficial for myself. 60 Q: It would not have been beneficial for yourself? 61 A: No. 62 Q: So you were looking out for your own interest? 63 A: No, I wasn't looking out for my own interests. 64 Q: Well, whose interests were you looking out for then? 65 A: The department's. 66 Q: How so? 67 A: For liability issues. 68 Brown Depo. 215-17 (emphasis added). 69 Brown squarely admitted that his decision to make a custodial arrest was shaped by his concern that he or the department could be liable for his arrest of Skop. Skop argues that Brown was likewise motivated to misrepresent the circumstances of the arrest itself, including whether any order to park was ever given. In light of Brown's admission that his post-arrest actions were at least partially motivated by a fear of liability and the inconsistencies in his account — inconsistencies evinced by the accounts of Skop's neighbors and admitted by Brown's supervisor 5 — the district court erred in failing to consider Skop's claim that Brown's version of the arrest was flatly untrue. See Kingsland v. City of Miami, 382 F.3d 1220, 1231-33 (11th Cir.2004) (holding that, given the presence of factual issues as to the honesty and credibility of the arresting officers, it was error for the district court to omit the plaintiff's allegations of falsification and knowing lack of probable cause from its analysis). 70 In the qualified immunity context, we must ask whether a reasonable officer, acting under these circumstances and possessing the knowledge the arresting officer actually possessed, could have believed he had probable cause to arrest. Lee v. Ferraro, 284 F.3d 1188, 1195 (11th Cir.2002). In reviewing the grant of qualified immunity at summary judgment, we are required to view the evidence and all factual inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, and resolve all reasonable doubts about the facts in favor of the non-movant. Kingsland v. City of Miami, 382 F.3d 1220, 1226 (11th Cir.2004). Quite simply, under Skop's version of the arrest — the version we are obliged to credit — Brown did not possess actual or arguable probable cause to arrest her. If Skop's account of the arrest is true, Brown's actions were, as the Atlanta Police Department's disciplinary proceedings found, an abuse of his authority. More important for present purposes, Brown's actions would have violated the Fourth Amendment. Thus, the answer to the first qualified immunity inquiry — whether Brown violated Skop's constitutional rights — is, when viewed through the appropriate summary judgment lens, that he did. Accordingly, we proceed to the second inquiry.