Court Opinion

ID: 9889756
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-11 15:01:05.404119+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:48:29.315679
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 23-10657     Document: 32-1      Date Filed: 10/11/2023   Page: 1 of 4

                                                    [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                     In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                          For the Eleventh Circuit

                              ____________________

                                   No. 23-10657
                              Non-Argument Calendar
                              ____________________

       SHANTERIA B. COOKS,
       as personal representative of the estate
       of Dusharn Weems,
                                                        Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
       versus
       BRIAN KREMLER,
       oﬃcer, individually,

                                                    Defendant-Appellant,

       CITY OF TAMPA,
USCA11 Case: 23-10657     Document: 32-1     Date Filed: 10/11/2023    Page: 2 of 4

       2                     Opinion of the Court                 23-10657

                                                               Defendant.

                           ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Middle District of Florida
                  D.C. Docket No. 8:19-cv-02570-MSS-SPF
                          ____________________

       Before NEWSOM, GRANT, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Dusharn Weems and an unidentified female passenger were
       driving in Tampa, Florida. A police officer observed Weems’s driv-
       ing, conducted a license plate inquiry, and discovered that the ve-
       hicle Weems was driving had been reported stolen. The officer fol-
       lowed Weems into a parking lot and activated his police lights.
       Weems eventually abandoned the car and ran away on foot.
              About three minutes later, Officer Brian Kremler hit Weems
       with his police car and killed him. Exactly what transpired in those
       three minutes is disputed by the parties. Officer Kremler says he
       learned from dispatch that Weems was armed and dangerous. Of-
       ficer Kremler also says that he did not intentionally run over
       Weems. Shanteria Cooks, representing Weems’s estate, contends
       that Officer Kremler did not think that Weems was armed and that
       he intentionally struck Weems with his car to detain him.
USCA11 Case: 23-10657      Document: 32-1     Date Filed: 10/11/2023     Page: 3 of 4

       23-10657               Opinion of the Court                         3

               Cooks says that if a jury believes her version of events, then
       Officer Kremler used excessive force in violation of the Fourth
       Amendment and wrongfully caused Weems’s death in violation of
       Florida state law. Officer Kremler moved for summary judgment,
       arguing that a reasonable jury could not agree with Cooks and that
       he is, therefore, immune from suit under the federal qualified im-
       munity doctrine and Florida’s good-faith immunity statute.
              The district court denied Officer Kremler’s summary judg-
       ment motion after concluding that a jury needed to resolve multi-
       ple factual disputes. Namely, a jury needed to determine (1)
       whether Officer Kremler ever believed that Weems was armed and
       dangerous and (2) whether Officer Kremler intentionally struck
       Weems with the police vehicle. The district court likewise identi-
       fied subsidiary factual issues that bear on the resolution of those
       two factual questions—e.g., what information was available to Of-
       ficer Kremler about Weems, whether Officer Kremler slowed
       down or sped up his vehicle as he approached Weems, and
       whether Officer Kremler turned his vehicle toward or away from
       Weems in the moments leading up to the impact.
               Officer Kremler filed an interlocutory appeal of the district
       court’s order denying summary judgment on the grounds of qual-
       ified immunity. Although we generally are without jurisdiction to
       review a denial of summary judgment, there is an exception for
       orders denying qualified immunity. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S.
       511 (1985). That exception is limited, however. We have interloc-
       utory jurisdiction only when the appeal from a district court’s
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       4                       Opinion of the Court                  23-10657

       denial of qualified immunity presents a legal question. See English
       v. City of Gainesville, 75 F.4th 1151, 1155–56 (11th Cir. 2023). We
       have no authority to review the district court’s view of the factual
       record alone. See id. So, if a district court denies qualified immunity
       only because it holds that there are genuine issues of material fact
       in need of jury resolution, we are without jurisdiction to hear an
       appeal from that order. See id. See also Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304,
       313 (1995); Cottrell v. Caldwell, 85 F.3d 1480, 1484 (11th Cir. 1996).
              Applying these standards, we lack jurisdiction over this ap-
       peal. Officer Kremler conceded at oral argument in the district
       court that he violated clearly established law if a jury credited
       Cooks’s version of the facts; he simply disagreed that any reasona-
       ble jury could side with Cooks on the facts. In line with that con-
       cession, Officer Kremler’s arguments to us are entirely record-
       based. That is, he asks us to overturn the district court’s conclusion
       that a reasonable jury could rule in Cooks’s favor on any of the
       factual disputes identified by the district court. Instead, he argues
       that the undisputed evidence reflects that “Weems posed a threat
       of serious physical harm to the officers as well as the public” and
       Kremler “did not intentionally strike Weems with his vehicle.” He
       also asks us to exclude the testimony of an expert witness. These
       are not the kinds of questions that we can resolve on an interlocu-
       tory appeal.
              The appeal is DISMISSED for lack of jurisdiction.