Court Opinion

ID: 9484322
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:48:45.980105+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:50:10.138224
License: Public Domain

EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
Judge Williams’s opinion is persuasive and I readily concur in all but one aspect of its reasoning, with which I must cordially disagree. I dissent only from that portion of his opinion which remands Bender’s case for a new trial on whether the police officers used excessive force under federal constitutional standards. Although the district court heroically attempted to apply then-extant law on the constitutional standard for excessive force against pretrial detainees, I agree that in light of Hudson and Valencia, supra, his instructions were wrong. Unlike my colleagues, I would hold this a harmless error. The court carefully instructed the jury that Louisiana law does not require a finding of significant injury as a predicate to state tort law liability of the officers, and the jury found against Bender. I do not agree that simply because the same instruction will now be given as to federal standards of recovery, a new jury could or should reach a different factual conclusion. The officers, I would contend, have been effectively exonerated by the jury’s refusal to find that — even without a significant injury requirement — Bender was not the victim of excessive force. I therefore dissent from this portion of the panel opinion.