Court Opinion

ID: 9848392
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:18:32.697844+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:16.546171
License: Public Domain

BEAM, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
As the panel majority notes, a police officer may legitimately detain the operator of a motor vehicle if he observes even a minor traffic offense. United States v. Eldridge, 984 F.2d 943, 948 (8th Cir.1993). But it is equally clear that the Fourth Amendment establishes an absolute right for a motorist to be free from a pretextual traffic stop. Id. at 947. Such a stop occurred in this case, possibly because Officer Sachs and other members of the Pelican Rapids Police Department were engaged in a contest to see which officer could make the most driving-while-intoxicated (DWI) stops that particular weekend. Accordingly, I dissent from the court’s reversal of the district court and the court’s grant of qualified immunity to Officer Sachs.
I.
“We review a district court’s qualified immunity determination on summary judgment de novo.” Davis v. Hall, 375 F.3d 703, 711 (8th Cir.2004). “This standard of review requires us to view the summary judgment record in the light most favorable to [Sherbrooke], and to afford him all reasonable inferences to be drawn from that record.” Id. (emphasis added). Under this approach, the facts are slightly different from those adopted by the court in its opinion.
As Mr. Sherbrooke was returning home from his class reunion, he pulled off the improved portion of Minnesota Highway 59 onto the side of the road. He parked for a short period of time to look up a telephone number and to make a call. During this stop, he activated his flashing hazard lights to alert traffic moving along the highway. Sometime during Sher-brooke’s pause, Sachs pulled up to a stop sign on a road intersecting Highway 59 ahead of Sherbrooke’s line of travel. Sachs’ vehicle remained in this position until Sherbrooke had returned to the paved portion of the roadway and passed along Highway 59 in front of him. Sachs could not see Sherbrooke’s stopped vehicle with its lights flashing from his position at the sign. Sherbrooke testified that he later measured the distance between the place at which he stopped and the location of Sachs’ police car at the stop sign and it was 1100 feet, his measuring device being within “two percent” accurate. Appellants’ Appendix at 33. He further testified that the line of sight between the vehicles was 900 feet, saying “you just get going a little bit because its on a curve ... [a]nd then you can see.” Id. Sherbrooke also testified that he re-entered the highway with his lights flashing, accelerated up to the posted speed limit of 55 miles-per-hour and then turned off his hazard lights. Id at 32. According to his testimony, he was 400 feet from Sachs’ waiting vehicle when he turned off his hazard lights, and it was not until reaching this point that he could *817see that the stopped vehicle was a police car. Id. at 33. Thus, as Sherbrooke accelerated from the road-side stop to a speed of 55 miles-per-hour over a total distance of 700 feet, Officer Sachs observed Sher-brooke traveling with hazard lights flashing over a distance of no more than 500 feet. Given a speed conversion of one mile-per-hour equals 1.47 seconds, Officer Sachs could have observed Mr. Sherbrooke traveling along the highway with his hazard lights on for no more than eight to fifteen seconds and probably less.
II.
The court contends that a reasonable police officer under the same circumstances was entitled to find that Sher-brooke was violating Minnesota Statute § 169.64, subdivision 3, the only statutory section dealing with use of flashing hazard lights. I disagree.
At the outset, I note that the court slightly glosses the facts to create subtle evidentiary inferences in favor of Sachs, a clear violation of binding precedent. Davis, 375 F.3d at 711. Even without this approach, the court’s statutory interpretation is off the mark.
Section 169.64, subdivision 3, provides, in pertinent part:
Flashing lights. Flashing lights are prohibited, except on ... any vehicle as a means of indicating ... the presence of a vehicular traffic hazard requiring unusual care in approaching, overtaking, or passing.
So far as I can determine, Minnesota courts have construed this subdivision of the statute only once. Dawydowycz v. Quady, 300 Minn. 436, 220 N.W.2d 478 (Minn.1974) indicates that operating a vehicle at reduced speed in the presence of a traffic hazard is both permitted and required by section 169.64, subdivision 3. Id. at 480 (under this section, a flashing light indicates the presence of a traffic hazard requiring reduced speed). When a motor vehicle proceeds at night from a stopped position on the road shoulder onto a paved state highway with a 55 mile-per-hour maximum speed limit, as in this case, it is inconceivable that the court can quarrel with the idea that an “approaching, overtaking, or passing” hazard exists by virtue of the operation or possible operation of other moving vehicles using or potentially using the same highway at the same time, and I do not necessarily read the court’s opinion as doing so. Any evaluation of the existence of a hazard, or not, must involve both the vehicle proceeding from a stopped position with flashing lights and the use or contemplated use of the same traveled portion of the roadway by other vehicles, especially when the roadway has curves, as here, that tend to reduce lines of vision between traveling, approaching, overtaking and passing vehicles.
Notwithstanding, the court focuses only on Sherbrooke’s truck and reaches the unusual and, in my view, unsupportable conclusion that the instant his slower-moving motor- vehicle reached a “reasonable and prudent speed[ ],” whatever speed that may have been, any traffic hazard automatically abated and it became unlawful for him to continue to operate the flashing lights. Ante at 814. Such speed, says the court, will always be less than the posted maximum speed. Ante at 814.
This idea turns a proper interpretation of section 169.64, subdivision 3, on its head. And, the record indicates that Officer Sachs must have thought so as well. He testified that he stopped Sherbrooke, not because he was violating subdivision 3, but because upon seeing the flashing hazard lights in operation, he exercised his community caretaker obligation to see if Sher-brooke or a passenger might need help. Appellants’ Appendix at 70. Sachs’ later actions, as clearly enunciated in the record, totally undermine any argument that *818the stop was actually an exercise of this caretaker obligation. For this reason, the court properly disregards this claim by Sachs.
The court’s construction of section 169.64, subdivision 3 defies common sense,2 disregards the rules of statutory interpretation, ignores studies of motor vehicle operation and places the statute’s meaning in the hands of the police officers charged with enforcing, not interpreting, the law. Any assumption by a driver in Sher-brooke’s shoes that an overtaking motorist, possibly exceeding the posted speed limit, needs warning that there is an accelerating vehicle in the roadway, is, according to the court’s rationale, a traffic violation. With this result I disagree. Under the undisputed facts here, “reasonable and prudent” driving required continuing, not less, warning.
Minnesota law permits a driver to stop and park beside a paved highway so long as the vehicle is off of the improved portion of the road. Minn.Stat. § 169.32(a). So, Sherbrooke violated no traffic regulation when he stopped to make the telephone call. And, as the court states, there is no legal requirement that a vehicle ever reach the maximum-posted speed. Ante at 814. This is correct, of course, because in Minnesota, absent the presence of a special hazard, any speed not in excess of a posted maximum is reasonable and prudent. Minn.Stat. § 169.14, subd. 2(3). But as Dawydowycz notes, section 169.64, subdivision 3, requires that the speed of traveling, approaching, overtaking or passing vehicles be reduced in the presence of a traffic hazard. 220 N.W.2d at 480. Thus, when Sherbrooke moved from his stop onto the paved portion of Highway 59, subdivision 3 not only permitted him to operate his hazard lights but the Minnesota Supreme Court’s reasoning in Dawy-dowycz required him to do so. And, subdivision 3 permitted him to continue to do so at least until his vehicle had reached the prudent velocity of any conceivable overtaking traffic.
In 1997, a national survey of speeding and other unsafe driving activities was commissioned by the United States Department of Transportation. More than one in five respondents to that survey (23 percent) admitted they had driven at least ten miles over the posted speed limit on an interstate highway within the past week. See U.S. Dep’t of Transp., National Survey of Speeding and Other Unsafe Driving Activities, Vol. II: Driver Attitudes and Behaviors: Executive Summary, available at http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/peo ple/injury/ag-gressive/unsafe/att-beh/Chaptl -2.html.
Additionally, speeding is a significant contributing factor in many fatal accidents. For example, in the state of Minnesota, “illegal or unsafe speed was a contributing factor in 764 fatal crashes resulting in 843 deaths” between 2002 and 2006. Minn. Dep’t of Public Safety, Office of Traffic Safety, 2006 Minnesota Speeding Facts, available at http://www.dps.state.mn.us/ ots/enforcement_programs/ default, asp. A study conducted by the Minnesota Transportation Department “showed that *81975 percent of the vehicles surveyed in 55-mph zones were speeding, the highest rate among reporting states that conducted similar surveys for the federal government.” Robert Whereatt, Senate committee defeats attempt to eliminate loophole in speed law, Star Tribune, Mar. 31, 1989, at 4B.
With these studies in mind, it is clear that a driver entering upon an improved highway at a reduced speed creates a temporary hazard for other traffic that may be in the area, allowing the prudent use of flashing hazard lights, at least until the vehicle reaches the posted maximum speed limit. Accordingly, Sherbrooke’s actions complied with any reasonable interpretation of section 169.64, subdivision 3.
The further and alternative idea expressed by the court is that an officer observing a vehicle “come around the curve with its flashing lights activated” may reasonably (even mistakenly) believe that the vehicle operator is violating section 169.64, subdivision 3. Ante at 814-15. Standing along, this is an even more untenable holding. Indeed, if this is a correct expression of the law under the circumstances of this case, it is hard to imagine any situation, no matter how unlikely, that would not support a police officer’s detention of a passing motorist. The court seems to be saying that a reasonable officer may jump to almost any conclusion, even a mistaken one, and use the circumstance to make a lawful arrest or detention. There is no precedent for this argument.
The court cites United States v. Smart, 393 F.3d 767 (8th Cir.2005) in support of its contention. But Smart is so factually off the mark here that it is totally inappo-site. The validity of a stop depends upon whether it is objectively reasonable in the circumstances. Id. at 770. Thus, there needed to be a reasonable evidentiary predicate for the creation of an “objectively reasonable basis [for stopping Sher-brooke’s] vehicle.” Id. In Smart an Iowa police officer observed Smart driving a motor vehicle in Iowa without a front license plate. Iowa law, of course, requires the display of two license plates. The officer also knew that other states permitted operation with but one plate, but he did not remember which states nor could he discern the state of issue of the plate on Smart’s car. So, the officer stopped Smart to make this determination. It turned out to be a Georgia plate on a validly registered Georgia automobile, a state that requires but one plate. Thus, the officer was reasonably mistaken under the circumstances permitting a valid stop.
In an attempt to apply Smart in support of Sachs’ motion, the court bifurcates (or, perhaps, trifurcates) the undisputed material facts, isolating a 500-feet portion of the roadway evidence while totally disregarding the balance of the proof. But, to the contrary, Sherbrooke is entitled to even-handed consideration of all material facts, not just those purportedly beneficial to the court’s argument on behalf of Sachs. And, Sherbrooke is, likewise, entitled to all favorable inferences that may be gleaned from all of the material evidence in the record.
There were simply no violations of state law here. The stop of Sherbrooke by Sachs was a pretext for making another DWI arrest that weekend. While the outcome at trial is another matter, a trial is nonetheless required on this issue.
I concur in the balance of the court’s opinion. I dissent from its finding (or mistaken finding) of a violation of Minnesota Statute § 169.64, subdivision 3, and would affirm the district court’s denial of qualified immunity on that discrete issue.

. The court takes issue with my characterization of its interpretation of the statute. Cf. ante at 814. I continue to believe my analysis appropriate in the circumstances of this case. I agree with the court that "[v]ehicles may operate lawfully at reasonable and prudent speeds below the maximum without constituting a vehicular traffic hazard.” In the abstract, they can, of course. But, that is not the issue here. The issue is whether Sher-brooke violated section 169.64 by operating hazard flashers at speeds up to 55 miles-per-hour on Route 59 while accelerating from a stop when, as shown by Minnesota studies, up to 75 percent of overtaking vehicles will almost certainly be exceeding the speed limit. Common sense indicates that a traffic hazard continues to be presented under such circumstances and Sherbrooke was not violating the law.