Court Opinion

ID: 9411475
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-26 20:00:54.556842+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:06.886256
License: Public Domain

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
                                File Name: 23a0345n.06

                                           No. 22-1551

                          UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                               FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
                                                                                       FILED
                                        )                                         Jul 26, 2023
 MATTHEW SZAPPAN,                                                            DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk
                                        )
      Plaintiff-Appellant,              )
                                        )                       ON APPEAL FROM THE
              v.                        )                       UNITED STATES DISTRICT
                                        )                       COURT FOR THE EASTERN
 TROY MEDER; MARK GARABELLI; DEPUTY )                           DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
 KIRT    SHIELDS;       SAGINAW COUNTY, )
 MICHIGAN,                              )                                              OPINION
      Defendants-Appellees.             )
                                        )

Before: McKEAGUE, GRIFFIN, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.

       GRIFFIN, Circuit Judge.

       Defendant officers Troy Meder and Kirt Shields entered plaintiff Matthew Szappan’s pole

barn without a warrant following a report of methamphetamine use and production on Szappan’s

property. Szappan claims that violated his Fourth Amendment rights. A jury disagreed, and

Szappan appeals. We affirm.

                                                I.

       In the summer of 2015, plaintiff’s mother made allegations of child abuse and neglect

against plaintiff and his wife to the State of Michigan’s Children’s Protective Services (CPS). She

asserted the couple was regularly using—and possibly even manufacturing—methamphetamine at

their mid-Michigan home in Chesaning. Her report of methamphetamine production required CPS

to coordinate with law enforcement, see Mich. Comp. Laws § 722.628(3)(f); defendant officers
No. 22-1551, Szappan v. Meder, et al.

Mark Garabelli, Meder, and Shields responded. Together with the CPS employee who received

the complaint, the officers went to the Szappans’ property to investigate.

       For the purposes of this appeal, the facts concerning the officers’ inquiry are limited. They

entered the property after plaintiff’s wife let them in and made their way to the house. But along

the way, lights in the adjacent pole barn led Meder and Shields to suspect that plaintiff was inside;

so they entered it searching for him. There they saw lye, acetone, Coleman fuel, and table salt.

Based on his experience, Meder thought those materials were indicative of an active meth lab.

Law enforcement officials eventually secured a search warrant following that discovery, and the

resulting search uncovered numerous marijuana plants and a shotgun (but not methamphetamine

or its production). Plaintiff was charged in Michigan state court, but those charges were resolved

in his favor—the trial court suppressed the evidence recovered from the search, after which the

prosecutor moved for and obtained an order of nolle prosequi.

       Szappan sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, contending that the officers violated his Fourth

Amendment rights to be free from an unlawful search and seizure, arrest, and malicious

prosecution. The district court permitted only one claim to go to trial—that Meder and Shields

unlawfully searched plaintiff’s property—and dismissed the remaining counts and defendants.

Following trial, a jury concluded that neither Meder nor Shields violated Szappan’s Fourth

Amendment rights.

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No. 22-1551, Szappan v. Meder, et al.

                                                 II.

       On appeal, plaintiff raises several issues concerning the submission to the jury of whether

certain exceptions to the Fourth Amendment’s bar on warrantless searches applied when Meder

and Shields entered the pole barn.1

                                                 A.

       First, Szappan claims Meder and Shields waived their entitlement to rely on the exceptions

to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement—consent, exigent circumstances, and emergency

aid—by failing to plead them as affirmative defenses under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(c).

“An affirmative defense raises matters extraneous to the plaintiff’s prima facie case,” but defenses

that “negate an element of the plaintiff’s prima facie case . . . are excluded from the definition of

affirmative defense in Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(c).” Ford Motor Co. v. Transp. Indem. Co., 795 F.2d 538,

546 (6th Cir. 1986). To determine whether a defense is an affirmative one, our “starting point” is

the “list of the affirmative defenses in Rule 8(c),” but we also consider the “fairness of allowing

the defendant to assert the defense; if permitting the defendant to interpose the defense will force

the plaintiff to perform additional discovery or develop new legal theories, these considerations

will militate heavily in favor of terming the defense affirmative.” Id.

       There appear to be reasons to doubt Szappan’s assertion that exceptions to the Fourth

Amendment’s warrant requirement are affirmative defenses subject to waiver under Rule 8(c):

they are not “analogous to or a derivative of one of the listed defenses,” and they do not operate

extraneously to plaintiff’s claim. Id. But we need not decide this issue, for defendants correctly

note that Szappan’s failure to object to the jury being instructed on these exceptions renders his

       1
        Because Szappan raises issues solely pertaining to Meder and Shields, he has forfeited all
others concerning the remaining defendants. See United States v. Calvetti, 836 F.3d 654, 664 (6th
Cir. 2016).
                                                -3-
No. 22-1551, Szappan v. Meder, et al.

claim of error forfeited on appeal. See, e.g., Libbey-Owens-Ford Co. v. Ins. Co. of N. Am., 9 F.3d

422, 427–28 (6th Cir. 1993); see generally Swanigan v. FCA US LLC, 938 F.3d 779, 786 (6th Cir.

2019) (“[A]rguments raised for the first time on appeal are forfeited.” (citation omitted)).

                                                  B.

       Szappan next challenges the district court’s submission of the exigent-circumstances issue

to the jury. Whether exigent circumstances exist “is normally a question for the jury” when the

facts are disputed. Ewolski v. City of Brunswick, 287 F.3d 492, 501 (6th Cir. 2002). However, a

trial court may decide the issue as a matter of law “where the underlying facts are essentially

undisputed, and where a finder of fact could reach but one conclusion as to the existence of exigent

circumstances.” Hancock v. Dodson, 958 F.2d 1367, 1375 (6th Cir. 1992). Szappan frames this

challenge as two intertwined issues: (1) that the district court should have found that the facts

were undisputed and only supported his view that no exigent circumstances existed; and (2) that

the district court should not have instructed the jury on those exceptions.

       To the extent his position is just a repackaged sufficiency-of-the-evidence-supporting-the-

jury’s-verdict one, it has preservation problems. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(a)(1) grants

a district court the power to—on a motion before the case is submitted to the jury—either resolve

an issue or enter judgment against a party “[i]f a party has been fully heard on an issue during a

jury trial and the court finds that a reasonable jury would not have a legally sufficient evidentiary

basis to find for the party on that issue.” And Rule 50(b) allows a party to renew such a motion

after trial. These rules operate conjunctively, and with respect to “the argument that, under the

undisputed facts, as a result of the operation of law only one jury verdict is rational or possible,” a

party advancing such an asserted error below must have taken advantage of what Rule 50 offers.

Hanover Am. Ins. Co. v. Tattooed Millionaire Ent., LLC, 974 F.3d 767, 779–80, 789 n.12 (6th Cir.

                                                 -4-
No. 22-1551, Szappan v. Meder, et al.

2020). At no point below did plaintiff make a Rule 50 motion, so we cannot review a sufficiency-

of-the-evidence claim. Ortiz v. Jordan, 562 U.S. 180, 189 (2011).

       And if it is instead a standalone claim that the district court, and not the jury, should have

resolved the issue, it too meets a similar fate. Szappan never made this argument to the district

court. True, his attorney forecast that he would raise an objection in this regard in the future:

       At the appropriate time, I was going to argue that the three exceptions that are
       requested by the defense that aren’t necessary because there’s no facts pertaining
       to those. It’s not a question of fact for the jury. Those are all issues of law for the
       judge, and I don’t believe that they met any of those, but I’ll argue that at the
       appropriate time, but I have no objections to what’s in the current instructions right
       now.

R. 76, Pg. ID 2070–71. But that forecasted argument was not subsequently made. And regardless,

he did not object to the jury instructions on those exceptions. Those failures render this issue also

unpreserved and forfeited on appeal. Swanigan, 938 F.3d at 786 (arguments raised for the first

time on appeal are forfeited); Libbey-Owens-Ford Co., 9 F.3d at 427 (“[O]bjections regarding jury

instructions must be made at the trial level in order to preserve such objections for appeal.”).

                                                 III.

       In his last claim of error, Szappan argues the district court gave an erroneous jury

instruction concerning CPS’s obligation to “seek the assistance of and cooperate with law

enforcement officials and law enforcement must cooperate with CPS in conducting their

investigation” under Mich. Comp. Laws § 722.623(3)(f). He claims that the instruction was

unnecessary to the jury’s evaluation of whether the officers violated the Fourth Amendment. On

de novo review (given his objection to this instruction below), United States v. Hendrickson,

822 F.3d 812, 818 (6th Cir. 2016), we disagree.

       Proper jury instructions should “adequately inform the jury of the relevant considerations

and provide a basis in law for aiding the jury in reaching its decision.” Romanski v. Detroit Ent.,
                                                 -5-
No. 22-1551, Szappan v. Meder, et al.

L.L.C., 428 F.3d 629, 641 (6th Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted). Whether an

exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement excused the officers’ conduct is one

that requires “look[ing] to the totality of circumstances.” Missouri v. McNeely, 569 U.S. 141, 149

(2013). And in our view, why the officers arrived at and then intruded upon Szappan’s property

is exactly the “fact-specific nature . . . the reasonableness inquiry” demands. Id. at 150 (citation

omitted). For that reason, viewing the instructions “as a whole,” we agree with the district court

that the inclusion of this instruction was not “confusing, misleading, [or] prejudicial.” Bridgeport

Music, Inc. v. UMG Recordings, Inc., 585 F.3d 267, 274 (6th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks

omitted).

                                                IV.

       We affirm the district court’s judgment.

                                                -6-