Court Opinion

ID: 7012310
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-24 04:10:57.790208+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:10:16.115972
License: Public Domain

SILVERMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment:
I respectfully concur in the result. I write separately because, in my view, the Rutherford instruction submitted by the plaintiff was a correct statement of the law. It was properly refused only because it was not justified by the evidence. Specifically, the evidence at trial was not susceptible of the interpretation that the damage occurred while no one but the officers was present. To the contrary, the residents testified to what they say they witnessed the police officers doing. The police officers gave their opposing version of the story, and it was for the jury to decide which to believe.
As a general rule, a res ipsa-type instruction can be given in a case such as this if: first, the defendants are uniquely positioned, to the exclusion of others, to know the circumstances that caused the plaintiffs injury; and second, the injury would not normally occur without wrongdoing on the defendants’ part. See Reber v. United States, 951 F.2d 961, 964 n. 1 (9th Cir.1991). Res ipsa belongs to the world of negligence. This case, like Rutherford, involves an intentional constitutional tort. However, the principle of proof is the same. If government actors/defendants, due to circumstances of their own creation, prevent the plaintiff from identifying precisely which of them caused the plaintiffs injury, the jury can infer causation against those in exclusive control of the event. This is just what the proposed Rutherford instruction would have permitted. As I see it, the instruction was correctly refused because it was not supported by the evidence, not because it misstated the law.