Court Opinion

ID: 9401934
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-14 18:00:38.027825+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:56.284039
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-30692         Document: 00516786654             Page: 1      Date Filed: 06/14/2023

              United States Court of Appeals
                   for the Fifth Circuit                                          United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                           Fifth Circuit

                                                                                         FILED
                                                                                      June 14, 2023
                                        No. 22-30692
                                                                                      Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                                           Clerk
   Kevin Cobbins,

                                                                      Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                             versus

   Christopher Sollie,

                                                                   Defendant—Appellant.

                      Appeal from the United States District Court
                          for the Middle District of Louisiana
                                USDC No. 3:21-CV-155

   Before Wiener, Southwick, and Duncan, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam:*
          The defendant law enforcement officer used a taser on the plaintiff
   during a traffic stop. The plaintiff brought suit for excessive force under the
   federal Constitution and for assault and battery under state law. The district
   court found there to be genuine disputes of material fact preventing summary
   judgment on the officer’s claim of qualified immunity. We agree and
   AFFIRM.

          *
              This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 22-30692       Document: 00516786654         Page: 2   Date Filed: 06/14/2023

                                    No. 22-30692

              FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
          In the early morning of March 12, 2020, Kevin Cobbins was driving to
   his home in Hammond, Louisiana, following a work shift in New Orleans.
   Cobbins was approaching an exit on Interstate 55 when a Tangipahoa Parish
   Sheriff’s Office (“TPSO”) unit activated its lights and siren behind him.
   Cobbins continued to the exit, stopped at the end of the off-ramp, and turned
   his car off. The TPSO unit stopped behind him. Two other TPSO units, as
   well as Defendant-Appellant Christopher Sollie, a Louisiana State Police
   (“LSP”) Trooper, soon arrived at the scene of the stop.
          Cobbins alleges he complied with instructions from officers to throw
   his car keys out of his window and raise his hands. Sollie’s dash camera foot-
   age confirms that Cobbins held his hands up. Sollie’s body camera footage
   shows the deputies commanded Cobbins to exit his vehicle with his hands
   up, but Cobbins did not exit his vehicle in response to the commands. Six
   TPSO officers (all named as co-defendants) then approached Cobbins’s ve-
   hicle with their weapons drawn. The TPSO officers opened the driver’s and
   passenger’s side front doors. They started pulling and pushing Cobbins out
   of the vehicle.
          Sollie, located behind four TPSO officers outside of Cobbins’s
   driver’s side door, then stated, “watch out. Taser. Taser.” Sollie did not
   tase Cobbins immediately after making those statements. Instead, the TPSO
   officers dragged Cobbins out of the car and threw him face-down onto the
   pavement. The TPSO officers swarmed around and on top of Cobbins. One
   officer straddled Cobbins’s legs, with his weight on Cobbins’s back and rear,
   while other officers leaned into Cobbins’s body and pushed him to the
   ground.
          The TPSO officers instructed Cobbins several times to put his hands
   behind his back so he could be handcuffed. Cobbins concedes he did not

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   comply. Instead, Cobbins repeatedly asked what he had done wrong. Cob-
   bins alleges that one of the TPSO officers punched him hard in the lower
   torso, but neither Sollie’s body camera footage nor his dash camera footage
   confirms this. Sollie then stated, “Taser. Taser. Watch out. Taser.” Sollie
   then delivered a single, brief taser stun to Cobbins’s back, resulting in Cob-
   bins finally placing his hands behind his back.
          Cobbins alleges no other use of force by Sollie. As the magistrate
   judge found in the Report and Recommendation, which the district court
   adopted, “[t]he parties agree that the only use of force by Sollie, the only LSP
   Defendant present at the scene, was when Sollie tasered” Cobbins.
          Hours after Cobbins’s arrest, Sollie filed a Use of Force Report stating
   the following:

       the “reason for violator contact” was “traffic stop” and the sever-
          ity of the crime/violation was “misdemeanor;”
       Cobbins was not “an immediate threat to the safety of any of-
        ficer(s)/others;”
       Cobbins did not “actively resist arrest/seizure by force;”
       Cobbins did not “attempt to evade arrest/seizure by flight;” and
       Cobbins was not armed.
          Cobbins was ultimately charged with “Improper Lane Usage” under
   Title 32, Section 79 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes. The bill of infor-
   mation filed against Cobbins on April 29, 2020, alleged that Cobbins, “being
   a driver of a vehicle upon a roadway designated for one-way traffic, did fail to
   drive said vehicle as nearly as practicable entirely within a single lane and did
   move from such lane before ascertaining that such movement could be made
   with safety.” The violation of this provision is a misdemeanor. La. R.S.
   32:57(A).

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          Cobbins filed an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Louisiana state
   law on March 12, 2021. He filed a First Amended Complaint on June 9, 2021.
   Sollie and five LSP supervisors named as defendants moved for summary
   judgment on September 16, 2021. The magistrate judge issued a Report and
   Recommendation on September 1, 2022, recommending that the motion for
   summary judgment be denied. The district court issued an order dated Sep-
   tember 23, 2022, denying the motion for summary judgment for the reasons
   stated in the Report and Recommendation. The order denied Sollie qualified
   immunity against Cobbins’s Section 1983 claim alleging use of force and de-
   nied summary judgment on the related state law claims of assault and battery.
   Sollie filed a timely Notice of Interlocutory Appeal on October 21, 2022.
          On October 17, 2022, after the district court’s ruling on the motion
   for summary judgment, Cobbins was convicted in a Louisiana state court for
   improper lane usage, possession of marijuana, and resisting an officer during
   the relevant arrest in violation of Title 14, Section 108 of the Louisiana Re-
   vised Statutes.
                                  DISCUSSION
          The applicability of qualified immunity is to be resolved at the earliest
   possible stage in litigation. Ramirez v. Guadarrama, 3 F.4th 129, 133 (5th Cir.
   2021). Officer Sollie did not move to dismiss. Instead, he filed a motion for
   summary judgment and included arguments about qualified immunity. The
   Supreme Court has explained that qualified immunity is “to ensure that in-
   substantial claims against government officials will be resolved prior to dis-
   covery.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009) (quotation marks and
   citation omitted). A district court that requires as a matter of course that
   qualified immunity be determined only at summary judgment, or that discov-
   ery always occur first, is not following our precedent. The only evidence
   here, though, is that the defendant chose this course. Further, there does not

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   appear to have been formal discovery, only disclosures, prior to the district
   court’s decision. At times, of course, there may be fact questions such that
   the issue cannot be decided on the pleadings. We leave the discussion of pro-
   cedure and move to the merits of the decision.
          On appeal from a district court’s denial of summary judgment prem-
   ised on qualified immunity, we “review[] materiality and legal conclusions de
   novo.” Amador v. Vasquez, 961 F.3d 721, 727 (5th Cir. 2020). “Where factual
   disputes exist in an interlocutory appeal asserting qualified immunity, we ac-
   cept the plaintiffs’ version of the facts as true.” Hampton v. Oktibbeha Cnty.
   Sheriff Dep’t, 480 F.3d 358, 364 (5th Cir. 2007) (quotation marks and citation
   omitted).
          Summary judgment is appropriate “if the movant shows that there is
   no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judg-
   ment as a matter of law.” FED. R. CIV. P. 56(a). Factual disputes are material
   if they “might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law,” and
   they are genuine “if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return
   a verdict for the nonmoving party.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S.
   242, 248 (1986). Where, as here, an individual defendant asserts qualified
   immunity, plaintiffs “must rebut the defense by establishing a genuine fact
   issue as to whether the official’s allegedly wrongful conduct violated clearly
   established law.” Vann v. City of Southaven, 884 F.3d 307, 309 (5th Cir.
   2018) (quotation marks and citation omitted).
          On appeal, Sollie challenges the district court’s denial of qualified im-
   munity as to Cobbins’s federal excessive force claim and denial of summary
   judgment on Cobbins’s battery and assault claims under Louisiana law.
          Cobbins asserts we lack jurisdiction over this interlocutory appeal.
   We begin with the threshold jurisdictional argument.

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          I.     Jurisdiction
          Cobbins argues we must dismiss this appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
   “Ordinarily, we do not have jurisdiction to review a denial of a summary
   judgment motion because such a decision is not final within the meaning
   of 28 U.S.C. § 1291.” Palmer v. Johnson, 193 F.3d 346, 350 (5th Cir. 1999).
   “However, the denial of qualified immunity on a motion for summary judg-
   ment is immediately appealable if it is based on a conclusion of law.” Perni-
   ciaro v. Lea, 901 F.3d 241, 250 (5th Cir. 2018) (quotation marks and citations
   omitted).
          The district court here, in denying qualified immunity, concluded that
   two Fifth Circuit opinions clearly established that Sollie’s use of his taser
   against Cobbins was unconstitutional. We will discuss those decisions later.
   Among Sollie’s arguments here is that those opinions do not create the
   “clearly established law” that a plaintiff must prove to defeat a defense of
   qualified immunity. The scope of “clearly established law” is a legal issue
   this court reviews de novo. Thompson v. Upshur Cnty., 245 F.3d 447, 456 (5th
   Cir. 2001). Therefore, we have jurisdiction to hear the legal issues raised
   about those opinions.
          Cobbins insists we lack jurisdiction over the appeal of the district
   court’s denial of summary judgment on Cobbins’s Louisiana claim for assault
   and battery. The doctrine of pendent appellate jurisdiction is “carefully cir-
   cumscribed” to the following situations:
          (1) the court will decide some issue in the properly brought in-
          terlocutory appeal that necessarily disposes of the pendent
          claim; (2) addressing the pendent claim will further the pur-
          pose of officer-immunities by helping the officer avoid trial; (3)
          the pendent claim would be otherwise unreviewable; or (4) the
          claims involve precisely the same facts and elements.

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   Escobar v. Montee, 895 F.3d 387, 391–93 (5th Cir. 2018) (footnotes omitted).
   Sollie’s briefs here do not explain how the Louisiana assault and battery claim
   fits into any of these categories. We conclude we should not accept review
   of the state law claims, and the appeal on those issues is dismissed.
          II.    Qualified immunity as to excessive force
           Sollie contends the district court erred in denying him qualified
   immunity as to his Section 1983 claim for excessive force. “Qualified
   immunity protects officers from suit unless their conduct violates a clearly
   established constitutional right.” Mace v. City of Palestine, 333 F.3d 621, 623
   (5th Cir. 2003). The test for qualified immunity involves two steps: “first we
   ask whether the officer’s alleged conduct has violated a federal right”;
   “second we ask whether the right in question was ‘clearly established’ at the
   time of the alleged violation, such that the officer was on notice of the
   unlawfulness of his or her conduct.” Solis v. Serrett, 31 F.4th 975, 981 (5th
   Cir. 2022) (quotation marks and citation omitted).
          “To be clearly established, a legal principle must have a sufficiently
   clear foundation in then-existing precedent. The rule must be settled law,
   which means it is dictated by controlling authority or a robust consensus of
   cases of persuasive authority.” District of Columbia v. Wesby, 138 S. Ct. 577,
   589–90 (2018) (quotation marks and citations omitted). “It is not enough
   that the rule is suggested by then-existing precedent. The precedent must be
   clear enough that every reasonable official would interpret it to establish the
   particular rule the plaintiff seeks to apply.” Id. at 590. The Supreme Court
   has clarified that its “‘clearly established’ standard also requires that the
   legal principle clearly prohibit the officer’s conduct in the particular
   circumstances before him.” Id. at 590 (emphasis added).
          The Supreme Court has also stated, though, that cases involving
   “fundamentally similar facts” are not always necessary to provide the “fair

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   warning” that officers require. Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 740–41 (2002).
   “‘[A] general constitutional rule already identified in the decisional law may
   apply with obvious clarity to the specific conduct in question.’” Taylor v.
   Riojas, 141 S. Ct. 52, 53–54 (2020) (quoting Hope, 536 U.S. at 741).
          We consider the following factors to assess whether a particular use of
   force is excessive in violation of the Fourth Amendment: “the severity of the
   crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety
   of the officers or others, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempt-
   ing to evade arrest by flight.” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989).
   “Officers may consider a suspect’s refusal to comply with instructions dur-
   ing a traffic stop in assessing whether physical force is needed to effectuate
   the suspect’s compliance. However, officers must assess not only the need
   for force, but also the relationship between the need and the amount of force
   used.” Deville v. Marcantel, 567 F.3d 156, 167 (5th Cir. 2009) (quotation
   marks and citations omitted).
          “The ‘reasonableness’ of a particular use of force must be judged
   from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the
   20/20 vision of hindsight.” Graham, 490 U.S. at 396. “The calculus of rea-
   sonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often
   forced to make split-second judgments — in circumstances that are tense,
   uncertain, and rapidly evolving — about the amount of force that is necessary
   in a particular situation.” Id. at 396–97. “If an officer reasonably, but mis-
   takenly, believed that a suspect was likely to fight back, for instance, the of-
   ficer would be justified in using more force than in fact was needed.” Saucier
   v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 205 (2001).
          Sollie does not challenge the district court’s finding that genuine fact
   disputes exist as to the first factor for qualified immunity — did Sollie’s con-
   duct violate Cobbins’s constitutional rights? We therefore focus our analysis

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   only on the second factor — was the alleged right that Cobbins argues was
   violated clearly established?
          The district court determined, “[i]t is clearly established that use of a
   taser against an arrestee who (1) was stopped for a minor traffic violation; (2)
   was not an immediate threat or flight risk; and (3) displayed only passive[]
   resistance, including asking what he had done wrong, is excessive force.” We
   examine the two precedents in which this clarity was found.
          In one of the precedents, an officer stopped a driver for a traffic viola-
   tion and requested that he produce a driver’s license and proof of insurance.
   Hanks v. Rogers, 853 F.3d 738, 741 (5th Cir. 2017). After the driver was una-
   ble to locate the insurance card, the officer instructed him to exit the vehicle.
   Id. at 741–42. After an argument in which the officer repeated his instruction
   six times, the driver eventually complied and walked to the rear of his vehicle,
   placed his hands on the trunk, and then put his hands behind his head. Id. at
   742. The officer then commanded the driver to “go to [his] knees,” and in
   response the driver asked, “for what?” Id. The officer did not respond and
   instead repeated his command twice. Id. The driver asked whether he was
   under arrest, to which the officer responded by repeating his command again.
   Id. The driver then made a “small lateral step” with his hands still behind
   his back. Id. The officer then used a “half spear” blow against the driver’s
   upper back/neck, knocking him onto the car and then to the ground. Id. at
   743.
          We held that federal law clearly established that where “an individual
   stopped for a minor traffic offense offers, at most, passive resistance and pre-
   sents no threat or flight risk, abrupt application of physical force rather than
   continued verbal negotiating (which may include threats of force) is clearly
   unreasonable and excessive.” Id. at 748. Hanks makes clear that mere failure

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   or refusal to obey an officer’s command is passive, not active, resistance. Id.
   at 742, 746; see also Deville, 567 F.3d at 167–68.
          It is immaterial that the officer in Hanks did not use a taser: “the
   ‘[l]awfulness of force . . . does not depend on the precise instrument used to
   apply it.’” Timpa v. Dillard, 20 F.4th 1020, 1035 (5th Cir. 2021) (quoting
   Newman v. Guedry, 703 F.3d 757, 763 (5th Cir. 2012)). Indeed, a fact-finder
   quite likely would find that use of a taser is an escalation in force from what
   occurred in Hanks. A jury could find that Cobbins’s response to the officers’
   orders was, at most, passive: a failure to immediately exit the vehicle and a
   failure to immediately put his hands behind his back while pinned by numer-
   ous officers to the ground. As Sollie recognized in his Use of Force Report,
   Cobbins did not “resist arrest/seizure by force” and did not “attempt to
   evade arrest/seizure by flight.” And as the district court found from the cam-
   era footage, “Plaintiff’s hands are not completely visible while he is pinned
   to the ground, so it is unclear if he actively resisted or whether he was effec-
   tively prevented from complying because he was pinned on the ground.”
          In the other precedent on which the district court relied, law enforce-
   ment officers conducted a no-knock entry into a house. See Darden v. City of
   Fort Worth, 880 F.3d 722, 725 (5th Cir. 2018). An officer threw one occu-
   pant, Darden, to the floor, tased him twice as he struggled to breathe, choked
   him, punched and kicked him in the face, pushed him into a face-down posi-
   tion with his face and neck pressed against the floor, and handcuffed him as
   his body went limp. Id. at 725–26. Darden died from those injuries. Id. The
   court further stated the officers’ body camera footage demonstrated “that
   Darden raised his hands when the officers entered the residence, and it ap-
   pears that he rolled over onto his face at one point after the officers instructed
   him to do so.” Id. at 730. Additionally, eyewitness testimony revealed “that
   Darden was thrown to the ground before he could react, that he complied
   with the officers’ commands, and that he did not resist arrest.” Id.

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          “We have previously suggested that a constitutional violation occurs
   when an officer tases, strikes, or violently slams an arrestee who is not ac-
   tively resisting arrest,” and therefore,
          if a jury finds that Darden was not actively resisting arrest, then
          a jury could likewise conclude that Officer Snow used excessive
          force by throwing Darden to the ground and tasing him twice.
          The facts the plaintiff has alleged therefore make out a viola-
          tion of a constitutional right.
   Id. at 731 (citing Ramirez v. Martinez, 716 F.3d 369, 377–78 (5th Cir. 2013);
   Newman, 703 F.3d at 762–63; Bush v. Strain, 513 F.3d 492, 501 (5th Cir.
   2008)). Importantly, Darden found that qualified immunity was not available
   to defeat an excessive force claim where the plaintiff did not resist by flight
   or force, and was thrown to the ground, punched, pushed into a face-down
   position with his body pressed into the ground, and tased. Id. at 731–32. The
   facts of the present situation are similar to those of Darden.
          Sollie relies on a later precedent in which the court found Darden to
   be “cited by every tasing plaintiff who sues under § 1983 in our circuit” but
   is an “extreme example[] that do[es] nothing to clearly establish the law for
   less-extreme tasings like Henderson’s.” See Henderson v. Harris Cnty., 51
   F.4th 125, 134 (5th Cir. 2022). Perhaps Darden is cited too much, but we
   have explained why it must be cited here. In Henderson, though, officers dis-
   covered Henderson breaking up marijuana into a shoebox. Id. at 128. Hen-
   derson then fled, and one of the officers, Garduno, caught up to him. Id. at
   128–29. The court summarized the facts leading up to the tasing as follows:
          Garduno made the split-second decision to deploy his taser af-
          ter Henderson had led him on a long chase by car and by foot
          and was still unrestrained. Henderson admits he suddenly
          stopped running, turned toward Garduno, and moved his arms
          in a manner that suggested to Garduno that Henderson was
          reaching for a weapon.

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   Id. at 135. Based on these facts, the court stated, “a suspect cannot refuse to
   surrender and instead lead police on a dangerous hot pursuit — and then turn
   around, appear to surrender, and receive the same Fourth Amendment pro-
   tection from intermediate force he would have received had he promptly sur-
   rendered in the first place.” Id. (quotation marks and citation omitted).
          Cobbins, unlike Henderson, did not lead Sollie on a “dangerous hot
   pursuit” during a “long chase.” Cobbins, unlike Henderson, was not “un-
   restrained” and did not “move his arms in a manner that suggested” he was
   reaching for a weapon. The only similarity between Henderson and this case
   is the use of a taser.
          In addition to Darden, we have reversed the grant of qualified immun-
   ity to officers in several other cases involving excessive force with tasers. See,
   e.g., Ramirez, 716 F.3d at 379 (tasing a restrained, subdued subject in prone
   position); Newman, 703 F.3d at 764 (tasing a subdued subject); Anderson v.
   McCaleb, 480 F. App’x 768, 773 (5th Cir. 2012) (tasing a subject who was no
   longer resisting); Massey v. Wharton, 477 F. App’x 256, 263 (5th Cir. 2012)
   (tasing a subject who was not resisting, was not a threat to the officers or oth-
   ers, and was not attempting to flee); Autin v. City of Baytown, 174 F. App’x
   183, 186 (5th Cir. 2005) (tasing a subdued subject who was not resisting).
          This precedent makes it clear to all reasonable officers that tasing a
   subject who is suspected of no more than a misdemeanor, is pinned to the
   ground, is surrounded by law enforcement officers and unable to escape, is
   unarmed, and is offering no more than passive resistance, amounts to exces-
   sive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The district court did not
   err in denying qualified immunity as to the excessive force claim.
          The appeal from the denial of summary judgment on the state law
   claims is DISMISSED. The denial of summary judgment as to the federal
   claims is AFFIRMED.

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