Court Opinion

ID: 9440407
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 16:45:12.203613+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:27:38.234369
License: Public Domain

STAHL, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
With respect, I write separately in this case. While I concur in the majority’s decision that the grant of summary judgment on the excessive force claim should be reversed, I also have serious doubt about the basis on which the majority decides the first question, whether the stop was supported by reasonable suspicion and probable cause.
The basic facts of this case are that a woman, who one officer identified as a known prostitute, did not engage in an act *26of prostitution. The sting failed because either, on the most friendly view, she didn’t intend to engage in prostitution, or on a less friendly view, she smelled a rat and chose not to continue with the proposed encounter.
When the plaintiff took the $20, she explained to the officer in the room that she was taking it as compensation for her expenditure of time and gas. The evidence is uncontroverted that the officer did not protest, a fact apparently known to the defendant. The parties do not agree as to where the defendant was when the money was returned, but at summary judgment we must accept the plaintiffs claim that the defendant was one of the first officers in the hallway. Thus it would be reasonable to infer that he was aware that the plaintiff had returned the money.
The plaintiff was a fifty-three-year-old woman, small in stature, about 5' 3" tall and weighing 120 pounds, while the defendant was physically fit and stood nearly a foot taller. The facts around the stop are in dispute and a jury could well find that the real reason for the stop was that the defendant officer was upset that the sting had failed. While the fact of the taking of the $20 was perhaps sufficient for a brief Terry stop, in my view everything that occurred thereafter was improper. It is interesting to note that no other law enforcement person present took part in the events that led to this lawsuit. A reasonable jury might well decide that the defendant officer’s actions, which caused serious injury to the plaintiff, were not animated by the taking of the $20 from the bureau but rather were an overblown reaction to the failed sting.