Opinion ID: 77657
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: District Court's Order Granting Officer Cute Judgment as a Matter of Law

Text: 20 Chaney argues that the district court erred in granting Officer Cute's renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law. We review a district court's ruling on a motion for judgment as a matter of law de novo. See Doe v. Celebrity Cruises, Inc., 394 F.3d 891, 902 (11th Cir.2004) (citation omitted). Under Rule 50, [a] party's motion for judgment as a matter of law can be granted at the close of evidence or, if timely renewed, after the jury has returned its verdict, as long as `there is no legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury to find' for the non-moving party. Lipphardt v. Durango Steak-house of Brandon, Inc., 267 F.3d 1183, 1186 (11th Cir.2001) (citing Fed.R.Civ.P. 50). 21 Regardless of timing, however, in deciding on a Rule 50 motion a district court's proper analysis is squarely and narrowly focused on the sufficiency of evidence. The question before the district court regarding a motion for judgment as a matter of law remains whether the evidence is legally sufficient to find for the party on that issue, Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(a)(1), regardless of whether the district court's analysis is undertaken before or after submitting the case to the jury. See Cleveland v. Home Shopping Network, Inc., 369 F.3d 1189, 1192 (11th Cir.2004) (stating that judgment as a matter of law should only be granted when there is no legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury to find for the party on that issue); Arthur Pew Constr. Co. v. Lipscomb, 965 F.2d 1559, 1563 (11th Cir.1992) (stating that the usual inquiry under Rule 50 is sufficiency, i.e. whether the evidence was sufficient to submit [the issue] to the jury); see also 9A Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2537 (2d ed.1995) (stating that [t]he standard for granting a renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law under Rule 50(b) is precisely the same as the standard for granting the pre-submission motion [under 50(a)]). Accordingly, we have stated that in ruling on a party's renewed motion under Rule 50(b) after the jury has rendered a verdict, a court's sole consideration of the jury verdict is to assess whether that verdict is supported by sufficient evidence. See Lipphardt, 267 F.3d at 1186 (citation omitted); Arthur Pew, 965 F.2d at 1563. 22 In this case, the district court, in ruling on Officer Cute's renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law, effectively based its conclusions on the jury findings contained in the special verdict form. In discussing Chaney's count for wrongful arrest, for example, the court observed that the jury had found that Officer Cute had probable cause that Chaney was resisting arrest, and then stated, [s]ince Officer Cute had probable cause [Chaney]'s cause of action for false arrest fails. R9-165 at 11. Likewise, in discussing Chaney's claim for excessive force, the court again observed the jury had found that Officer Cute had probable cause to arrest Chaney, and that therefore Officer Cute was entitled to use a reasonable amount of force in connection with that arrest. Id. at 18, 23. In light of the jury's finding that probable cause existed — as well as the court's separate conclusion that the force used was reasonable under the totality of the circumstances — the court granted qualified immunity to Officer Cute on the excessive force count. Finally, in assessing Chaney's malicious prosecution count, the court once again observed that the jury had found that Officer Cute had probable cause to effectuate the traffic stop. Relying on the jury finding that there was probable cause to initiate the traffic stop, the court concluded that Chaney's malicious prosecution claim also failed as a matter of law. Id. at 12. 23 The court's order granting Officer Cute's renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law was predicated almost entirely on the special findings that the jury had made on the verdict form, and not on an assessment of whether there was sufficient evidence from which a reasonable jury could have rendered a verdict in Chaney's favor. The court based its conclusions — in whole or in part — on the jury's determination that Officer Cute had acted with probable cause. In doing so, the court failed to comport with the proper legal standard for ruling on a motion pursuant to Rule 50 and impermissibly credited the jury's findings. 24 The fact that Rule 50(b) uses the word renew[ed] makes clear that a Rule 50(b) motion should be decided in the same way it would have been decided prior to the jury's verdict, and that the jury's particular findings are not germane to the legal analysis. See, e.g., Celebrity Cruises, 394 F.3d at 903 (This Court repeatedly has made clear that any renewal of a motion for judgment as a matter of law under Rule 50(b) must be based upon the same grounds as the original request for judgment as a matter of law made under Rule 50(a) at the close of the evidence and prior to the case being submitted to the jury.); Caban-Wheeler v. Elsea, 71 F.3d 837, 842 (11th Cir.1996) (stating that a Rule 50(b) motion may be used to renew consideration of issues initially raised in a pre-verdict motion [under Rule 50(a)], but that the court cannot consider matters not raised in the initial motion). The jury's findings should be excluded from the decision-making calculus on a Rule 50(b) motion, other than to ask whether there was sufficient evidence, as a legal matter, from which a reasonable jury could find for the party who prevailed at trial. 25 Here, in ruling on Officer Cute's renewed motion under Rule 50(b), the court should have limited its inquiry as to whether there was sufficient evidence in the record to support a jury's finding of excessive force and its imposition of liability on Officer Cute. By placing an undue emphasis on the jury's particular findings as to probable cause — and by repeatedly making decisions on the Rule 50 motion through the lens of what the jury found — the court engaged in an erroneous analysis in deciding Officer Cute's renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law. As a result, we conclude that the analysis of district court's judgment granting Officer Cute judgment as a matter of law was flawed and that the judgment must be reversed. We remand this case to permit the district court to address Officer Cute's renewed motion in a manner consistent with this opinion. 26