Opinion ID: 152878
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Evidence of McAllister's Hip Injury

Text: Price argues that the evidence of McAllister's hip injury was inadmissible because McAllister cannot establish proximate cause between the injury and Price's use of force. We have previously held that a jury may look to the type of injury suffered by a plaintiff to determine whether or not the amount of force used by law enforcement was reasonable. See Chelios v. Heavener, 520 F.3d, 678, 690 (7th Cir. 2008). However, Price argues that the plaintiff bears the burden of demonstrating proximate cause between the amount of force used and an injury, relying on Carter v. Chicago Police Officers, 165 F.3d 1071, 1077 (7th Cir.1998). Price suggests that a lay witness may only testify to the subjective existence of symptoms, not their cause, and notes that Dr. Thoma, the treating physician, was unable to testify to the probability that McAllister's injuries were caused by Price's actions rather than the earlier car accidents. He also argues that because McAllister's bones were more brittle than those of a young adult (McAllister was 58 years old at the time of this incident), an injury could have resulted from even a minimal use of force. Price's arguments miss the mark. First, we have never held that a plaintiff bears any burden (beyond relevance) before that plaintiff's injuries may be considered in an excessive-force case. In Carter, the issue was whether a jury should have received a definition of proximate cause for the state-law claims brought in conjunction with a § 1983 claim. Id. at 1077. Injury is not an element of an excessive-force claim; rather, it is evidence of the degree of force imposed and the reasonableness of that force. See Chelios, 520 F.3d at 690; Holmes v. Village of Hoffman Estates, 511 F.3d 673, 687 (7th Cir.2007). If McAllister had no evidence that his injuries were caused by Price, they would be irrelevant; but so long as there is some evidence connecting those injuries to the force used by Price, the evidence is relevant and the jury may draw reasonable inferences from the evidence presented. In fact, there is ample evidence to connect McAllister's injuries to the force used by Price. McAllister's admissible testimony about his subjective symptoms corroborates his claim that he was injured by Price, not the earlier car accidents. McAllister testified that he was not in pain before he was taken to the ground, but afterward he was unable to walk. While Dr. Thoma could not testify to the probability that McAllister's hip injury was caused by Price, he did testify that the most common reason for a hip injury is a fall and that the injury to McAllister's lung was consistent with a knee being forced into his back. Finally, even in tort cases where the plaintiff has the burden of establishing cause, the plaintiff may rely on lay testimony when causation is within the understanding of a lay person. Smith v. Beaty, 639 N.E.2d 1029, 1035 (Ind.App. 1994), relied on by McAllister, is an example of this principle. In Smith, the plaintiff sued a truck driver for injuries after his vehicle overturned and was then struck by a tractor-trailer. Smith's medical expert was unable to determine the cause of the injuries (whether it was the rollover or the subsequent collision with the truck), but the court held that the doctor's inability to determine the cause was not fatal to Smith's case, and allowed Smith to rely on his own testimony that he did not feel severe pain until after the truck hit his vehicle. Id. at 1034. Given the extent of McAllister's injuries and the evidence linking them to Price's conduct, the district court did not err in concluding that McAllister's injuries were relevant to determining whether Price used excessive force.