Court Opinion

ID: 9955569
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-28 19:02:04.560602+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:15:05.757344
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-11675   Document: 50-1     Date Filed: 03/28/2024    Page: 1 of 21

                                                             [PUBLISH]
                                  In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                No. 22-11675
                          ____________________

        MARIA DEL CARMEN MONTEFU ACOSTA,
        as Personal Representative of the Estate of
        Maykel Antonio Barrera, deceased,
                                                      Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
        versus
        MIAMI-DADE COUNTY,
        LAWRENCE BALLESTEROS,
        JORGE FERRER,
        CYNTHIA MEAD,
        GIOVANNI RODRIGUEZ, et al.,

                                                 Defendants-Appellees.

                          ____________________
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        2                         Opinion of the Court                      22-11675

                    Appeal from the United States District Court
                        for the Southern District of Florida
                       D.C. Docket No. 1:16-cv-23241-AMC
                             ____________________

        Before ROSENBAUM, NEWSOM, and LUCK, Circuit Judges.
        NEWSOM, Circuit Judge:
               When her son died following an interaction with police, Ma-
        ria Acosta sued (as relevant here) six Miami-Dade officers involved
        in his arrest, alleging both federal excessive-force claims and state
        wrongful-death claims. The district court granted summary judg-
        ment to the officers, and Acosta appealed that ruling. After consid-
        ering the parties’ contentions, and with the benefit of oral argu-
        ment, we hold that the district court erred in granting summary
        judgment (1) to five of the six officers on Acosta’s excessive-force
        claims and (2) to all of the officers on Acosta’s wrongful-death
        claims.
                                               I
              Here are the pertinent facts: 1 Late in the afternoon on Feb-
        ruary 27, 2014, Maykel Barrera arrived at the home of his

        1 Typically, at summary judgment, a court “view[s] all the evidence and

        draw[s] all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the non-moving
        party.” Marbury v. Warden, 936 F.3d 1227, 1232 (11th Cir. 2019) (quotation
        marks and citation omitted). As explained in text, a procedural wrinkle here
        alters the landscape slightly. See infra at 6–7. The district court found that
        Acosta’s statement of undisputed material facts violated Local Rule 56.1,
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        22-11675                  Opinion of the Court                               3

        girlfriend, Damaisy Rodriguez, acting “paranoid” and “restless.”
        Barrera took Rodriguez’s car and left without telling her where he
        was going. A few hours later, Rodriguez and Barrera’s mother, Ma-
        ria Acosta, went looking for him. Acosta called 911 seeking help
        because she feared that Barrera was “high on drugs.” When Bar-
        rera eventually returned to Rodriguez’s later that night, Acosta,
        who was still there, described him as “not okay.” After a confron-
        tation with Barrera, Acosta told Rodriguez to call 911 again. On
        the call, Rodriguez said, “Emergency, emergency! . . . Emergency,
        please!” and then hung up. When she called back a minute later,
        she could be heard exclaiming, “Hurry up, please! . . . Relax! . . .
        [D]on’t M[aykel]! . . . Get oﬀ me!” At that point, Barrera took the
        phone from Rodriguez and threw it at the sofa, and the call discon-
        nected.
               Oﬃcers were dispatched in “emergency mode” to Rodri-
        guez’s home for a “violent dispute on an open line” and a 911 hang-
        up. Oﬃcers Lawrence Ballesteros, Cynthia Mead, and Jorge Ferrer
        responded to the call. On arrival, Oﬃcer Mead saw a car parked
        “strangely” and a man peering out the window from Rodriguez’s
        apartment in an “unusual and erratic manner.” The oﬃcers ap-
        proached the apartment’s front door, where they had a tumultuous

        which governs the filing of such statements. Rather than accepting the offic-
        ers’ statement as the controlling version, however, see S.D. Fla. Local Rule
        56.1(c), the court said it would “rely[] on Defendants’ Statement to the extent
        Plaintiff fail[ed] to dispute it with record evidence or to offer contrary evi-
        dence.” Accordingly, we recount the facts as reported in the officers’ state-
        ment except where Acosta’s version departs from it.
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        4                      Opinion of the Court                22-11675

        verbal exchange with Barrera. Eventually, Barrera slammed the
        front door on Oﬃcer Ballesteros and ﬂed out the back. The oﬃc-
        ers chased Barrera through the neighborhood, yelling for him to
        stop and calling for backup.
               At some point during the chase, the three oﬃcers and Bar-
        rera came into sight of Demetrius McKenzie, one of Rodriguez’s
        neighbors. Around the same time, Oﬃcer Luis Gomez arrived and
        joined the eﬀort to apprehend Barrera. McKenzie later gave a dep-
        osition in which she described the oﬃcers’ pursuit and Barrera’s
        eventual arrest. In particular, she testiﬁed that the oﬃcers couldn’t
        handcuﬀ Barrera immediately because he was “ﬁghting them oﬀ”
        by using his elbows in a “jerking” motion. Indeed, she said that
        Barrera knocked one of the oﬃcers down. McKenzie reported that
        the oﬃcers eventually got Barrera on the ground by tasing him
        while Oﬃcer Ballesteros held him in a chokehold. Somehow, she
        said, Oﬃcer Ballesteros and Barrera ended up on the ground, at
        which point Oﬃcers Miguel Maldonado, Giovanni Rodriguez, and
        Enrique Noriega arrived and began to tase Barrera. Importantly
        here, McKenzie also recalled that Barrera stopped resisting once he
        was on the ground. With respect to that detail, she testiﬁed as fol-
        lows:
              What I don’t understand, when they got him on the
              ground and they put him in the yoke, why did they
              still have to—he was—once they got him on the
              ground, he was calm. He was okay. Once the other
              one came and they had him in the yoke and put it—
              they didn’t have to do all that, because the man was
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        22-11675               Opinion of the Court                         5

              gone. All they had to do was put the cuﬀs and stand
              him up. Instead, no, all them jumped out they car,
              about six of them, and they was Tasing the man.

                A second witness to the events, Gwendolyn Flowers, also
        gave a deposition describing what she saw. After the oﬃcers ini-
        tially tased Barrera, she testiﬁed, he fell, “and [the oﬃcers] went to
        kicking him and stuﬀ like that.” Flowers was uncertain how many
        oﬃcers kicked Barrera or how many times they did so, but she said
        that Barrera wasn’t resisting when he was on the ground and that
        “[h]e was just—he was just laying there.”
               Paramedics arrived on the scene a few minutes after the of-
        ﬁcers had handcuﬀed Barrera and placed him in a squad car. When
        the paramedics took Barrera’s vital signs at 11:30 p.m. and then
        again at 11:34 p.m., they measured his pulse and respiratory rates
        as well as his blood pressure. But at 11:36 p.m., Barrera went into
        respiratory arrest and lost his pulse. The paramedics took Barrera
        to Jackson Memorial Hospital, but the doctors there designated
        him “DNR” because they determined that he was unlikely to sur-
        vive—he had bruises all over his body as well as intracranial and
        anoxic brain injuries. Barrera died at the hospital.
                                       II
               Acosta ﬁled a complaint in state court against the oﬃcers in-
        volved in the incident as well as Miami-Dade County Police Chief
        J.D. Patterson Jr., the Miami-Dade Police Department, and Miami-
        Dade County. Speciﬁcally, Acosta alleged (1) that by tasing and
        kicking Barrera when he was on the ground and had stopped
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        6                         Opinion of the Court                      22-11675

        resisting the oﬃcers used excessive force in violation of the Fourth
        Amendment and (2) that all defendants were liable for Barrera’s
        death under Florida’s Wrongful Death Act, Fla. Stat. § 768.19.
               After timely removing Acosta’s action to federal court, the
        defendants moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim. The dis-
        trict court dismissed Sergeant Patterson, Miami-Dade Police De-
        partment, and Miami-Dade County, but it denied the individual of-
        ﬁcers’ motions.2
                Following discovery, the oﬃcers ﬁled a motion for summary
        judgment to which they appended a statement of undisputed ma-
        terial facts. Acosta opposed the oﬃcers’ motion and submitted her
        own statement of undisputed facts. 3 The district court found that
        Acosta’s statement violated Local Rule 56.1, which governs the ﬁl-
        ing and content of such statements. Rather than deeming the of-
        ﬁcers’ statement admitted, however, see S.D. Fla. Local R. 56.1(c),
        the court stated that it would consider “the entire factual record
        pertinent to summary judgment, relying on Defendant’s Statement
        to the extent Plaintiﬀ fail[ed] to dispute it with record evidence or
        to oﬀer contrary evidence.” Considering the entire record, and
        “constru[ing] it in a light most favorable to [Acosta],” the district

        2 Acosta had also brought a state-law negligence claim against the Miami-Dade

        Police Department and Miami-Dade County, but that claim evanesced when
        the district court dismissed those defendants. Acosta doesn’t seek to resurrect
        that claim on appeal.
        3 Acosta voluntarily dismissed Officer Gomez, whom Barrera had knocked to

        the ground.
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        22-11675               Opinion of the Court                          7

        court held (1) that the oﬃcers didn’t use excessive force in violation
        of the Fourth Amendment and were therefore entitled to qualiﬁed
        immunity and (2) that there were no genuine issues of material fact
        regarding Acosta’s wrongful-death claim and that Barrera’s death
        was caused by a drug overdose, not by the oﬃcers’ use of force.
               This is Acosta’s appeal.
                                          III
               “We review the district court’s grant of summary judgment
        de novo, viewing all the evidence and drawing all reasonable infer-
        ences in the light most favorable to the non-moving party.” Mar-
        bury v. Warden, 936 F.3d 1227, 1232 (11th Cir. 2019) (quotation
        marks and citation omitted and alterations adopted). “Summary
        judgment is warranted where the evidence in the record presents
        no genuine issue of material fact and compels judgment as a matter
        of law in favor of the moving party.” Id. (quotation marks and ci-
        tation omitted); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). More particularly, and
        signiﬁcantly here, we have held that we will “determine the legal
        question of whether the defendant is entitled to qualiﬁed immun-
        ity” using the plaintiﬀ’s version of the facts. Draper v. Reynolds, 369
        F.3d 1270, 1274 (11th Cir. 2004) (quotation marks and citation omit-
        ted). Of course, “[c]redibility determinations, the weighing of the
        evidence, and the drawing of legitimate inferences from the facts
        are jury functions, not those of a judge, so they are not appropriate
        determinations to make at the summary judgment stage.” Butler v.
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        8                      Opinion of the Court                  22-11675

        Gualtieri, 41 F.4th 1329, 1334 (11th Cir. 2022) (quotation marks and
        citation omitted).
                                       IV
                Acosta ﬁrst argues that the district court erred when it
        granted summary judgment to the oﬃcers on her excessive-force
        claim on the ground that they are entitled to qualiﬁed immunity
        from suit. In particular, Acosta contends that when the oﬃcers
        tased and kicked Barrera as he lay in a non-resistant state on the
        ground, they violated his “clearly established” Fourth Amendment
        rights. Taking the facts in the light most favorable to Acosta, we
        will ﬁrst assess whether the oﬃcers’ conduct violated the Constitu-
        tion. Concluding that they did, we will then analyze whether Bar-
        rera’s right not to be tased and kicked after he had been subdued
        and was no longer resisting was suﬃciently “clearly established” to
        put the oﬃcers on notice that their actions were unlawful.
                                       * * *
                In relevant part, the Fourth Amendment provides that “[t]he
        right of the people to be secure in their persons . . . against unrea-
        sonable searches and seizures . . . shall not be violated.” U.S. Const.
        amend IV. And while a police oﬃcer’s power to make an arrest
        “necessarily carries with it the right to use some degree of physical
        coercion or threat thereof to eﬀect it,” it is now well settled that
        the “[f ]reedom from unreasonable searches and seizures under the
        Fourth Amendment encompasses the right to be free from exces-
        sive force during the course of a criminal apprehension.” Mobley v.
        Palm Beach Cnty. Sheriﬀ Dep’t, 783 F.3d 1347, 1353 (11th Cir. 2015)
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        22-11675               Opinion of the Court                          9

        (quotation marks and citations omitted). We assess excessive-force
        claims using an objective-reasonableness standard. Id.
                The oﬃcers involved in Barrera’s arrest assert that they are
        entitled to qualiﬁed immunity. All here agree that the oﬃcers were
        acting within the scope of their discretionary authority when they
        apprehended Barrera. Accordingly, Acosta bears the burden of
        demonstrating both (1) that the oﬃcers “violated a statutory or
        constitutional right” and (2) “that the right was clearly established
        at the time of the challenged conduct.” Mikko v. City of Atlanta, 857
        F.3d 1136, 1144 (11th Cir. 2017) (quoting Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S.
        731, 735 (2011)). A reviewing court may consider the merits and
        clearly-established prongs in either order, and “an oﬃcial is entitled
        to qualiﬁed immunity if the plaintiﬀ fails to establish either.” Pi-
        azza v. Jeﬀerson County, 923 F.3d 947, 951 (11th Cir. 2019). For rea-
        sons we will explain, we hold that Acosta has met her burden with
        respect to both prongs.
                                       A
               We will ﬁrst consider whether Acosta has shown that the ar-
        resting oﬃcers violated Barrera’s Fourth Amendment right to be
        free from excessive force. At least at this stage of the proceedings,
        we conclude that she has.
                To determine whether an oﬃcer used excessive force under
        an objective-reasonableness standard, we consider a number of fac-
        tors: “[1] the severity of the crime at issue, [2] whether the suspect
        pose[d] an immediate threat to the safety of the oﬃcers or others,
        and [3] whether he [wa]s actively resisting arrest or attempting to
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        10                        Opinion of the Court                       22-11675

        evade arrest by ﬂight,” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1982),
        as well as “[4] the need for the application of force, . . . [5] the rela-
        tionship between the need and amount of force used, and . . . [6]
        the extent of the injury inﬂicted,” Mobley, 783 F.3d at 1353 (quota-
        tion marks and citation omitted). For better or worse, this multi-
        factor analysis entails an assessment of the totality of the circum-
        stances. See Lee v. Ferraro, 284 F.3d 1188, 1197–98 (11th Cir. 2002).
                Although not all of the factors here point in the same direc-
        tion, the totality of the circumstances—particularly taking the facts
        in the light most favorable to Acosta—leads us to conclude that the
        oﬃcers used excessive force when they tased and kicked Barrera
        while he was subdued, on the ground, and no longer resisting ar-
        rest. We will address the excessive-force factors in turn.4
                                               1
               Severity of the crime. This factor tends to support the oﬃcers,
        albeit only slightly. Even under the version of the facts most favor-
        able to Acosta, Barrera struck one oﬃcer with a door at Rodri-
        guez’s apartment and later resisted apprehension by knocking an-
        other oﬃcer to the ground. Both acts constitute felonies under
        Florida law. See Fla. Stat. §§ 784.03(1), 784.07(2). Even if we were
        to assume that the responding oﬃcers had no reason to believe a

        4 The parties agree that during the relevant timeframe, Officer Ballesteros had

        Barrera in a chokehold on the ground and, therefore, that he couldn’t have
        tased or kicked Barrera after he fell. See Oral Arg. at 30:44–31:00. Because
        Acosta’s excessive-force claim pertains to the tasing and kicking, we affirm the
        district court’s grant of summary judgment for Officer Ballesteros.
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        22-11675               Opinion of the Court                       11

        crime had been committed when they initially arrived at Rodri-
        guez’s apartment, see Doc. 71-10 at 62:5–9 (Oﬃcer Ballesteros: “I
        had no idea what had been committed inside the apartment.”), we
        think that, on balance, the severity factor favors them.
                                         2
               Threat to oﬃcer safety. On balance, this factor favors Acosta.
        To be sure, Barrera posed some threat to the oﬃcers early in the
        encounter, when he was slamming doors, throwing elbows, etc.
        But he posed no “immediate threat,” Graham, 490 U.S. at 396, at the
        time the oﬃcers administered the tases and kicks that underlie
        Acosta’s constitutional claim—which, construing the facts in the
        light most favorable to Acosta, occurred after Barrera had been
        taken to the ground and subdued and was no longer resisting.
                                         3
               Resisting or evading arrest. It’s true, as the district court
        noted, that the only way that the oﬃcers got Barrera on the ground
        was by tasing him. Even so, on the facts as we must construe them,
        Barrera wasn’t actively resisting arrest or attempting to ﬂee once
        he was taken to the ground and subdued. And the fact that it took
        tasing to get Barrera on the ground doesn’t justify additional tases
        or kicks once he was there and had stopped resisting. To be sure,
        our analysis must “embody allowance for the fact that police oﬃc-
        ers are often forced to make split-second judgments.” Graham, 490
        U.S. at 396–97. But if even witnesses watching from a distance
        could tell that Barrera was “calm,” “okay,” “just laying there,” and
        “gone” after he’d been subdued—as McKenzie and Flowers
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        12                     Opinion of the Court                22-11675

        testiﬁed—we have to assume that a reasonable oﬃcer would have
        seen and appreciated the same.
                                         4
               Need and amount of force used. The fourth and ﬁfth factors
        typically travel together. As for the fourth, taking the facts in the
        light most favorable to Acosta, even assuming that there was a
        “need” to use force in order to get Barrera to the ground, that need
        dissipated once he was on the ground and, again, was “calm,”
        “okay,” “just laying there,” and “gone.” The ﬁfth factor likewise
        favors Acosta. If at the critical juncture there was no need to use
        any meaningful force, then the “relationship” between that non-
        need and the amount of force used is zero. Any further tasing or
        kicking at that point was unnecessary.
                                         5
               Extent of injury. The ﬁnal factor is inconclusive. Although
        Barrera was hospitalized and died after his encounter with the of-
        ﬁcers, it remains an open question—at least at this point in the pro-
        ceedings—whether the tases and kicks they administered after he
        was taken to the ground caused his death. (More on that to come.)
                                      * * *
               Considering the totality of the circumstances, and viewing
        the facts in the light most favorable to Acosta, we hold that the ar-
        resting oﬃcers violated Barrera’s Fourth Amendment right to be
        free from excessive force.
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        22-11675               Opinion of the Court                        13

                                          B
                For qualiﬁed-immunity purposes, the question thus be-
        comes whether, in tasing and kicking Barrera once he was on the
        ground and had been subdued, the oﬃcers violated “clearly estab-
        lished law.” See Mikko, 857 F.3d at 1146. For the reasons that follow,
        we hold that they did.
               To determine whether a right was clearly established at the
        time an oﬃcer acted, we ask “whether the contours of the right
        were suﬃciently clear that every reasonable oﬃcer would have un-
        derstood that what he was doing violates that right.” Prosper v. Mar-
        tin, 989 F.3d 1242, 1251 (11th Cir. 2021) (citing al-Kidd, 563 U.S. at
        741). A plaintiﬀ can demonstrate that a right was “clearly estab-
        lished” by showing any of the following:
              (1) case law with indistinguishable facts clearly estab-
              lishing the constitutional right; (2) a broad statement
              of principle within the Constitution, statute, or case
              law that clearly establishes a constitutional right; or
              (3) conduct so egregious that a constitutional right
              was clearly violated, even in the total absence of case
              law.

        Id. (quotation marks and citation omitted).
               The district court observed in a footnote that Acosta hadn’t
        pointed to any precedent on the books as of February 2014 that
        would have put the oﬃcers on notice that their conduct was un-
        lawful. See Doc. 129 at 32–33 n.6. Respectfully, we disagree.
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        14                      Opinion of the Court                   22-11675

                The district court’s error, we think, resulted from its mis-
        framing of the governing constitutional principle. It’s true, of
        course, as the district court noted, that an oﬃcer may lawfully use
        force against a suspect who never submits or ceases to resist arrest.
        See id. (ﬁrst citing Bussey-Morice v. Gomez, 587 F. App’x 621, 624, 629–
        30 (11th Cir. 2014), and then citing Hoyt v. Cooks, 672 F.3d 972, 975,
        980 (11th Cir. 2012)). The problem is that, here—again, at least
        taking the facts in the light most favorable to Acosta—Barrera did
        cease resisting. To repeat, according to both McKenzie and Flow-
        ers, once Barrera was on the ground, he was “calm,” “okay,” “just
        laying there,” and (most emphatically) “gone.”
                The controlling question, therefore, is whether it was clearly
        established in February 2014 that a police oﬃcer is prohibited from
        using force against a non-resisting suspect. It was. Indeed, the dis-
        trict court seems to have recognized as much. In its order denying
        the oﬃcers’ motion to dismiss, the district court itself acknowl-
        edged that before February 2014, it was “established law that ‘gov-
        ernment oﬃcials may not use gratuitous force against a prisoner
        who has already been subdued’”—and, therefore, that “[n]o reason-
        able oﬃcer could have concluded that continued and prolonged vi-
        olence against Barrera was necessary once he had been subdued.”
        Doc. 37 at 7–8. For that proposition, the court (accurately) cited
        several of our decisions, all of which predated the events in ques-
        tion here. See id. (ﬁrst quoting Hadley v. Gutierrez, 526 F.3d 1324,
        1333 (11th Cir. 2008), then citing Priester v. City of Riviera Beach, 208
        F.3d 919, 927 (11th Cir. 2000), then citing Skrtich v. Thornton, 280
        F.3d 1295, 1304 (11th Cir. 2002), and then citing Lee, 284 F.3d at
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        22-11675               Opinion of the Court                       15

        1200). Even in its order granting the oﬃcers’ summary judgment
        motion, the district court acknowledged that “[t]he Eleventh Cir-
        cuit has ‘held a number of times that severe force applied after the
        suspect is safely in custody is excessive.’” Doc. 129 at 29 (quoting
        Mobley, 783 F.3d at 1356). Just so.
               Our decision in Smith v. Mattox, 127 F.3d 1416 (11th Cir.
        1997)—which was issued more than 15 years before the events in
        question here—is particularly instructive. In that case, a suspect
        had raised a bat at a police oﬃcer and then ﬂed before eventually
        becoming docile and submitting to arrest. Id. at 1418. In the pro-
        cess of handcuﬃng the suspect, an oﬃcer exerted enough force to
        break the suspect’s arm. Id. We characterized the circumstance
        that the case presented as one in which an oﬃcer “subjected a pre-
        viously threatening and ﬂeeing arrestee to nondeadly force after
        the arrestee suddenly became docile.” Id. at 1419. Like this case,
        Mattox arose on summary judgment, so the court there—as we
        must here—indulged the plaintiﬀ’s version of the facts. And be-
        cause the plaintiﬀ said that he hadn’t been resisting at the critical
        juncture, we held that the oﬃcer’s use of force was “obviously un-
        necessary to restrain even a previously fractious arrestee.” Id. at
        1420. So too here.
               Mattox, Priester, Lee, and Hadley control our decision. We
        hold that it was clearly established in February 2014 that an arrest-
        ing oﬃcer may not use gratuitous force on a non-resisting suspect
        who no longer poses a threat to his safety. In concluding otherwise,
        the district court misstepped.
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        16                     Opinion of the Court                  22-11675

                                       * * *
               We hold that the district court erred both in rejecting
        Acosta’s Fourth Amendment claim on the merits and in concluding
        that no then-existing law clearly established the unlawfulness of the
        oﬃcers’ conduct. Accordingly, we vacate that part of the district
        court’s order.
                                       V
               Acosta separately argues that the district court erred when it
        granted summary judgment to the oﬃcers on her state-law wrong-
        ful-death claim because, she says, there remain genuine issues of
        material fact about the cause of Barrera’s death.
                Under Florida law, a negligence-based wrongful-death claim
        entails four elements: “(1) the existence of a legal duty owed to the
        decedent, (2) breach of that duty, (3) legal or proximate cause of
        death was that breach, and (4) consequential damages.” Jenkins v.
        W.L. Roberts, Inc., 851 So. 2d 781, 783 (Fla. 1st Dist. Ct. App. 2003).
        The plaintiﬀ bears the burden of proving causation, see Aycock v. R.J.
        Reynolds Tobacco Co., 769 F.3d 1063, 1069 (11th Cir. 2004), but she
        needn’t necessarily submit expert testimony to do so, see Claire’s
        Boutiques v. Locastro, 85 So. 3d 1192, 1195 (Fla. 4th Dist. Ct. App.
        2012). Florida courts follow the “more likely than not” standard of
        causation and thus require proof that the defendant’s conduct
        probably caused the plaintiﬀ’s injury. Gooding v. University Hosp.
        Bldg., Inc., 445 So. 2d 1015, 1018 (Fla. 1984).
              With respect to an issue on which the plaintiﬀ will bear the
        burden of proof at trial—as Acosta will here with respect to
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        22-11675               Opinion of the Court                         17

        causation—the defendant bears the burden at summary judgment
        of showing either (1) that there is an “absence of evidence to sup-
        port the [plaintiﬀ’s] case” or (2) that the plaintiﬀ “will be unable to
        prove [her] case at trial.” Hickson Corp. v. Northern Crossarm Co., 357
        F.3d 1256, 1260 (11th Cir. 2004). To survive summary judgment,
        Acosta therefore “must come forward with enough evidence suﬃ-
        cient to withstand a directed verdict motion.” Id. And a plaintiﬀ
        can defeat a directed verdict when “there is substantial conﬂict in
        the evidence, such that reasonable and fair-minded persons in the
        exercise of impartial judgment might reach diﬀerent conclusions.”
        Christopher v. Florida, 449 F.3d 1360, 1364 (11th Cir. 2006) (quotation
        marks and citation omitted).
               The district court granted summary judgment for the police
        oﬃcers because it said that it was “left with the unrebutted opinion
        of three experts who attest[ed] that Barrera died from a drug over-
        dose.” Doc. 129 at 25. The court acknowledged that Acosta had
        oﬀered some evidence to the contrary but found it insuﬃcient. Ac-
        cording to the district court, Acosta oﬀered only “ﬁrst ‘impressions’
        from responding EMS personnel who did not opine on Barrera’s
        cause of death” and a “vague reference to a statement” made by
        Barrera’s treating physician. Id. at 24. Ultimately, the district court
        held that neither of these—nor a toxicologist whom Acosta’s law-
        yer had retained—provided legally suﬃcient evidence regarding
        Barrera’s cause of death. Id.
               On appeal, Acosta contends that, taken together, (a) Bar-
        rera’s medical records, (b) the expert witnesses’ opinions, and (c)
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        18                     Opinion of the Court                22-11675

        the eyewitness’ accounts suﬃce to preclude summary judgment.
        We agree. We will address each category of evidence in turn, keep-
        ing in mind that they must be understood in combination.
                                         A
               Acosta points to multiple entries in Barrera’s medical rec-
        ords that she says rebut the oﬃcers’ contention that they didn’t
        cause Barrera’s death. First, Barrera’s CT scan showed that he suf-
        fered a subdural hematoma—a fact that ﬂatly contradicted the of-
        ﬁcers’ expert witness’s testimony that while a subdural hematoma
        is a symptom of lethal beatings, Barrera didn’t have one. Second,
        Barrera’s records listed extensive injuries to his body, including
        probe marks on his chest and back and contusions all over his body.
        Third, his treating physicians reported that he had an “intracranial
        injury”—in particular, a “severe traumatic brain injury that was
        most likely nonsurviva[ble].” Finally, Barrera’s records indicated
        that his immediate cause of death was “[m]ultiple [b]lunt [f ]orce
        [t]rauma” and that the underlying cause was “[a]noxic [b]rain
        [i]njury.”
               It’s true, of course, that Barrera’s medical records were pre-
        pared without the beneﬁt of the post-mortem drug-toxicology
        analysis that a medical examiner later performed. And it’s true that
        Barrera’s anoxic brain injury could have been caused by a drug over-
        dose. Even so, when understood in the light of Barrera’s other
        physical injuries, we conclude that Acosta has carried her burden
        to show that the medical records support a reasonable inference
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        22-11675               Opinion of the Court                         19

        that Barrera died from a subdural hematoma caused by blunt-force
        trauma.
                                          B
               Acosta also points to expert testimony—both the oﬃcers’
        and her own. One of the oﬃcers’ experts opined, for instance, that
        the drugs in Barrera’s system and his “extreme exertion and re-
        sistance” made his abnormally enlarged heart more volatile and
        that this “combination of events” more likely than not caused his
        death. From that evidence, the district court reasoned that Bar-
        rera’s death wasn’t caused by a taser or any other force-related in-
        juries. But we agree with Acosta that a jury could reasonably con-
        clude that the oﬃcers’ expert’s reference to Barrera’s “extreme ex-
        ertion and resistance” was attributable to both the oﬃcers’ tases and
        kicks and to his own struggling.
                For her part, Acosta’s expert forensic toxicologist didn’t cer-
        tify a cause of death, but she did testify that Barrera’s toxicology
        report didn’t support a ﬁnding that he died of overdose toxicity. So
        while she didn’t pinpoint tasing or kicking as the cause of Barrera’s
        death, she did purport to eliminate an alternative. Even if only
        marginally, we agree with Acosta that the toxicologist’s opinion,
        especially when combined with the other documentary and expert
        testimony in the record, supports a reasonable inference that the
        oﬃcers’ actions caused Barrera’s death.
                                          C
              Finally, Acosta contends that the eyewitnesses’ testimony
        supports a reasonable inference that the oﬃcers’ tases and kicks
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        20                        Opinion of the Court                       22-11675

        caused Barrera’s death. Speciﬁcally, she cites McKenzie’s and Flow-
        ers’s accounts that Barrera was unconscious and “limp” when the
        paramedics arrived on the scene. Again, we think that evidence,
        even if only marginally and as part of a larger whole, could support
        a reasonable inference that the oﬃcers’ conduct contributed to Bar-
        rera’s death.
                                           * * *
               To be sure, no single piece of evidence alone proves that the
        oﬃcers’ tases and kicks caused Barrera’s death. But when consid-
        ered together, the evidence indicates “that reasonable and fair-
        minded persons in the exercise of impartial judgment might reach
        diﬀerent conclusions.” Christopher, 449 F.3d at 1364. And that’s
        enough to get over the directed-verdict bar—and, in turn, to sur-
        vive summary judgment. 5
                In the end, Acosta may well lose her wrongful-death claim
        on the merits—a jury might conclude that the oﬃcers have the
        stronger evidence regarding Barrera’s cause of death. But at least
        at the summary-judgment stage, where we must construe the facts
        in the light most favorable to Acosta, she has done enough to go to
        trial. Accordingly, we hold that the district court erred in granting

        5 To be clear, the district court’s emphasis on Acosta’s lack of expert evidence

        directed to the cause of Barrera’s death is misplaced. Acosta didn’t have to
        present expert testimony to show causation. See Claire’s, 85 So. 3d at 1195. All
        she needed was enough evidence to survive a directed verdict probing
        whether she offered “proof that the [defendants’] negligence probably caused”
        Barrera’s death. Gooding, 445 So. 2d at 1018.
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        22-11675              Opinion of the Court                     21

        summary judgment on Acosta’s wrongful-death claim, and we va-
        cate that part of the court’s order.
                                     VI
               For the foregoing reasons, we aﬃrm the district court’s
        grant of summary judgment on Acosta’s excessive-force claim
        against Oﬃcer Ballesteros, vacate the grant of summary judgment
        on her excessive-force claims against the other oﬃcers, and vacate
        the grant of summary judgment on her state-law wrongful-death
        claim against all the oﬃcers.
               AFFIRMED in part, VACATED in part, and REMANDED
        in part for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.