Court Opinion

ID: 9410679
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-24 05:00:46.450788+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:59.308780
License: Public Domain

In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                For the Seventh Circuit
                    ____________________
No. 22-2867
RALPH LISBY, as the Personal Representative of the Estate of
ASHLYNN LISBY, deceased,
                                          Plaintiff-Appellant,

                                v.

JONATHAN HENDERSON, individually and in his official
capacity as a police officer,
and CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA
                                    Defendants-Appellees.
                    ____________________

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the
        Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division.
      No. 1:21-cv-01186-SEB-DLP — Sarah Evans Barker, Judge.
                    ____________________

      ARGUED APRIL 12, 2023 — DECIDED JULY 18, 2023
                ____________________

   Before SCUDDER, KIRSCH, and LEE, Circuit Judges.
    KIRSCH, Circuit Judge. While driving to work, Indianapolis
Police Officer Jonathan Henderson tragically struck and
killed pedestrian Ashlynn Lisby on the shoulder of a high-
way. Relevant to this appeal, Lisby’s estate sued Officer Hen-
derson under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that he had violated
2                                                   No. 22-2867

Lisby’s Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process
rights. The district court entered judgment on the pleadings
for Officer Henderson on that claim, concluding that the com-
plaint failed to plead sufficient facts plausibly suggesting that
Officer Henderson had acted with the criminal recklessness
necessary to establish a due process violation. We agree with
the district court and affirm.
                                I
    Because the estate’s claim was dismissed on the pleadings
under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c), we take the facts
from the amended complaint as true and view the pleadings
in the light most favorable to the estate. See Bergal v. Roth, 2
F.4th 1059, 1060 (7th Cir. 2021).
     On the night of May 6, 2020, Ashlynn Lisby and Marcus
Lewis Jr. walked along the shoulder of State Road 37 in Indi-
anapolis. Lisby was eight-months pregnant with Lewis’s
child at the time, and the two were walking back to their mo-
tel. Oﬃcer Jonathan Henderson of the Indianapolis Metropol-
itan Police Department was driving to work in his police ve-
hicle on the same road. He was driving 78 miles per hour, or
33 miles per hour over the posted speed limit, when he ille-
gally changed lanes over a solid white line and his vehicle
partially crossed the fog line onto the shoulder of the road.
Oﬃcer Henderson then struck Lisby without seeing her while
still traveling at 55 miles per hour. Lisby was transported to a
hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Lisby and Lewis’s
child was born at the hospital by emergency Cesarian section
but died shortly after delivery. It is undisputed that Oﬃcer
Henderson was acting within the course and scope of his em-
ployment as a police oﬃcer when he killed Lisby.
No. 22-2867                                                      3

    Ralph Lisby, Ashlynn’s father and the representative of
her estate, sued the City of Indianapolis and Oﬃcer Hender-
son in state court. Lisby brought a Fourteenth Amendment
claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Oﬃcer Henderson and
state-law negligence claims against both Oﬃcer Henderson
and the City. The defendants removed the suit to federal court
and moved for partial judgment on the pleadings. The district
court granted the motion for partial judgment on the plead-
ings, disposing of all federal claims and relinquishing its sup-
plemental jurisdiction over the remaining state-law claims.
The sole issue on appeal is whether the district court properly
granted the motion with respect to Lisby’s § 1983 claim
against Oﬃcer Henderson.
                                II
   We review a district court’s grant of judgment on the
pleadings de novo, accepting all well-pleaded facts as true
and drawing all reasonable inferences in the light most favor-
able to the non-moving party. Bergal, 2 F.4th at 1060; Adams v.
City of Indianapolis, 742 F.3d 720, 727–28 (7th Cir. 2014).
    As a preliminary matter, Lisby argues the district court
should have converted the motion for judgment on the plead-
ings to a motion for summary judgment and allowed the par-
ties to conduct discovery. The district court ordinarily has dis-
cretion to convert a motion for judgment on the pleadings to
a motion for summary judgment; only when the district court
considers materials beyond the pleadings is it required to con-
vert a Rule 12(c) motion to one for summary judgment. Fed.
R. Civ. P. 12(d); Federated Mut. Ins. Co. v. Coyle Mech. Supply
Inc., 983 F.3d 307, 313 (7th Cir. 2020). Because the district court
did not stray beyond the pleadings, and Lisby has not identi-
fied any evidence that would have any bearing on the motion,
4                                                    No. 22-2867

the district court did not err in dismissing the complaint on
the pleadings. See United States v. Rogers Cartage Co., 794 F.3d
854, 861 (7th Cir. 2015).
    Our analysis of whether allegations of a police officer’s
dangerous driving during a non-emergency rise to the level
of a substantive due process violation is guided by our deci-
sions in Hill v. Shobe, 93 F.3d 418 (7th Cir. 1996), and Flores v.
City of South Bend, 997 F.3d 725 (7th Cir. 2021). These cases
hold that a plaintiff seeking relief under § 1983 for such a
claim must plead sufficient facts to establish that the officer
acted with “criminal recklessness—which is the same as de-
liberate indifference.” Flores, 997 F.3d at 729 (quoting Hill, 93
F.3d at 421). “It is enough to plead plausibly ‘that the defend-
ant had actual knowledge of impending harm which he con-
sciously refused to prevent.’” Id. (quoting Hill, 93 F.3d at 421).
“The key question is whether the officer had sufficient
knowledge of the danger such that one can infer he intended
to inflict the resultant injury.” Id. (cleaned up).
    Hill and Flores illustrate what is required at the pleading
stage. In Hill, we held that “motor vehicle accidents caused by
public oﬃcials or employees do not rise to the threshold of a
constitutional violation actionable under § 1983, absent a
showing that the oﬃcial knew an accident was imminent but
consciously and culpably refused to prevent it.” 93 F.3d at
421. In other words: “For a defendant to be reckless in a con-
stitutional sense, he must be criminally reckless.” Id. The com-
plaint in Hill alleged that an on-duty police oﬃcer ran a red
light and killed the plaintiﬀ; at the time, the oﬃcer was speed-
ing late at night in a non-emergency situation, and he wasn’t
using his headlights, emergency lights, or sirens. Id. at 420.
We found the allegations insuﬃcient to infer the oﬃcer
No. 22-2867                                                   5

subjectively knew of the danger he created and that he con-
sciously disregarded it. Id. at 421. Merely showing that the of-
ﬁcer created a “recognizable but generic risk to the public at
large,” we explained, was insuﬃcient. Id. at 421–22.
    In Flores, however, we found that the plaintiﬀ had alleged
enough to survive a motion to dismiss on her § 1983 claim re-
garding an oﬃcer’s reckless driving. 997 F.3d at 728, 730. The
complaint alleged that the defendant oﬃcer heard over the
radio that ﬁve other oﬃcers were preparing for a routine traf-
ﬁc stop; without any request for his assistance or justiﬁcation,
the defendant oﬃcer raced through a residential neighbor-
hood at speeds of up to 98 miles per hour—nearly 70 miles
per hour over the speed limit. Id. at 728. The oﬃcer did not
properly use his lights or sirens and ultimately charged
through a red light and crashed into the victim’s car, killing
her. Id. We found that the complaint’s allegations of the of-
ﬁcer’s “reckless conduct, unjustiﬁed by any emergency or
even an order to assist in a routine traﬃc stop that ﬁve oﬃcers
had under control, allows the inference that he subjectively
knew about the risk he created and consciously disregarded
it.” Id. at 730. In such a situation, the oﬃcer’s decision to
“driv[e] blind through an intersection at 78 to 98 miles per
hour” could be viewed as criminally reckless. Id. “The law
does not provide a shield against constitutional violations for
state actors who consciously take extreme and obvious risks.”
Id.
   We conclude that Lisby’s complaint was properly dis-
missed. The complaint alleges that Oﬃcer Henderson was go-
ing about 30 miles per hour over the speed limit on the high-
way when he illegally changed lanes, partially crossed onto
the shoulder, and struck Lisby without seeing her. Lisby
6                                                    No. 22-2867

argues that Oﬃcer Henderson reasonably understood that his
driving was dangerous and he was willing to let a fatal colli-
sion occur. But the mere knowledge that driving at high speed
at night could have fatal consequences is not enough to allege
a constitutional violation: “Allegations of a public oﬃcial
driving too fast for the road conditions are grounded in neg-
ligence, not criminal recklessness, … and unintended loss of
life resulting from a state employee’s lack of due care does not
implicate the due process clause.” Hill, 93 F.3d at 421 (cita-
tions omitted). Instead, as we said in Flores, the complaint
must allege facts permitting an inference that he had “actual
knowledge of impending harm which he consciously refused
to prevent.” Flores, 997 F.3d at 729 (quoting Hill, 93 F.3d at
421).
    Lisby’s complaint does not allow such an inference. Un-
like the oﬃcer in Flores, Oﬃcer Henderson was not racing
through a residential area at speeds tripling the posted speed
limit, but was merging onto an on-ramp of a major highway.
Allegations of Oﬃcer Henderson’s highway speeding and il-
legal lane change, when coupled with the allegation that he
never saw Lisby before the fatal collision, do not suggest that
he disregarded extreme or obvious risks and was “willing to
let a fatal collision occur.” Id. at 730 (quoting Hill, 93 F.3d at
421). We agree with the district court that Oﬃcer Henderson’s
actions, as alleged in the complaint, are grounded in negli-
gence rather than criminal recklessness. As such, Lisby failed
to allege a constitutional violation.
                                                       AFFIRMED