Abbott v. City of Crocker, Mo.

• Decision Date: 20 September 1994
• Docket Number: No. 93-2639,93-2639
• Citation: 30 F.3d 994
• Parties: Richard Eugene ABBOTT, Appellee, v. CITY OF CROCKER, MISSOURI; James Stone, Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 994

30 F.3d 994

Richard Eugene ABBOTT, Appellee, v. CITY OF CROCKER, MISSOURI; James Stone, Appellants.

No. 93-2639.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Jan. 10, 1994.

Decided July 27, 1994.

Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc Denied Sept. 20, 1994.

Frank M. Evans, Springfield, MO, argued (Mark A. Powell, on the brief), for appellant.

H. Ralph Gaw, Tipton, MO, argued (James F. Crews and Mary Kay Sommer Lutz, on the brief), for appellee.

Before RICHARD S. ARNOLD, Chief Judge, HANSEN, Circuit Judge, and STOHR, ^* District Judge.

STOHR, District Judge.

Appellee brought this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, alleging violations of his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by the appellant police officer's use of excessive force and unauthorized arrest of appellee. The events underlying this action begin in the parking lot of Andy's Short Stop, a gas station-convenience store in Crocker, Missouri, on the night of August 15, 1990. At approximately 11:00 p.m., appellant Crocker Police Officer Stone saw appellee Abbott driving a red Ford pickup truck through the parking lot. Having earlier seen the same truck driving fast and squealing its tires in the parking lot, Stone pulled his car alongside the truck and asked Abbott to pull back into the lot so that Stone could talk to him about the earlier incident. Contradictory evidence was adduced at trial concerning the tenor of the conversation and which of the parties was hostile and belligerent during it.

Officer Stone testified that during the conversation he concluded that Abbott was intoxicated. Abbott refused to back up into the parking lot as requested, and ultimately sped out of the lot. Stone pursued Abbott's truck down a nearby gravel road; Stone testified that he used his lights and siren during this pursuit, whereas Abbott testified to the contrary. Knowing he was leaving Crocker, Stone radioed the Pulaski County Sheriff's Department to request assistance; the mayor of Crocker testified at trial that ordinarily only one Crocker police officer is on duty at any given time. Evidence at trial also indicated that Stone had been told by the Crocker Chief of Police that he could pursue vehicles outside the city limits so long as he radioed the county, and that historically that had been the policy and practice of the Crocker Police Department and Officer Stone. The parties dispute whether in this instance Stone asked the County Sheriff's Department for permission to pursue appellee beyond the Crocker city limits.

Stone followed Abbott to the home of Randy and Kathy Duncan. After several requests, Abbott came out of the house and followed Stone to his patrol car, where Stone put away his shotgun and spoke to the county on the radio. Stone contends that he then told Abbott he was under arrest, and that when Stone touched Abbott's arm, Abbott stated that he was not going with Stone and jerked away. Stone, who testified that he thought Abbott was "getting ready to hit [him]," then hit Abbott with his flashlight. Abbott fell to the ground. Stone testified that as he tried to handcuff Abbott, the latter began struggling to reach into his pocket; Stone further testified that because he thought Abbott might have been reaching for a gun or knife, he then struck him a second time with his flashlight. Stone testified that he hit Abbott only these two times. Abbott's evidence suggested that both of these blows were to the head and that Stone hit Abbott twice more after Abbott was on the ground. A county deputy sheriff arrived and helped Stone handcuff Abbott and place him in the patrol car. Abbott was later treated and released by the Phelps County Regional Medical Center. Deposition testimony of Crocker's then-Police Chief, Daniel Plemmons, which was read at trial, indicated that both the written policy and oral instructions given to Crocker police officers concerning use of force merely directed them to use such force as is necessary in a given situation.

At the close of all the evidence, the district judge directed a verdict ¹ in Abbott's favor on his claims that Officer Stone violated his constitutional rights by pursuing him beyond Crocker's city limits for the purpose of arresting him and by striking him with a flashlight and on his claims that the appellant City violated Abbott's constitutional rights by its inadequate training of its police officers on the use of force and by allowing them to go outside the city limits to make arrests. The question of damages was submitted to the jury, which returned a verdict awarding Abbott a total of $22,000 in actual damages against both appellants and $100,000 in punitive damages against Officer Stone. The trial court later awarded Abbott attorney's fees in the amount of $44,395.56.

The first issue on appeal is whether the trial court erred in granting JAML in Abbott's favor because the evidence was sufficient to raise a submissible question as to Officer Stone's liability for the arrest and his use of force, and because the evidence was sufficient to raise a submissible question as to the City's deliberate indifference to the training of its police officers and its knowledge that the training was inadequate. For purposes of analysis, Abbott actually asserts four separate claims: a Fourth Amendment excessive force claim against Officer Stone, a Fourth Amendment claim against Officer Stone concerning the allegedly invalid arrest, a failure to train claim against the City concerning use of force, and a failure to train claim against the City concerning the limits of its officers' authority to pursue suspects and effect arrests. These analytical distinctions were not employed below.

This Court reviews judgment as a matter of law using the same standard as the district court. See Nolte v. Pearson, 994 F.2d 1311, 1315 (8th Cir.1993). Judgment as a matter of law is appropriate only where the nonmoving party has presented insufficient evidence to support a jury verdict in his or her favor, and this is judged by viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party and giving him or her the benefit of all reasonable inferences from the evidence, but without assessing credibility. Id. In Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989), the Supreme Court held that excessive force claims concerning arrest or investigatory stops are analyzed under a Fourth Amendment "objective reasonableness" standard. The constitutionality of such a use of force is to be determined by its reasonableness "judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene," upon consideration of "the facts and circumstances of each particular case, including the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight." Id. at 396, 109 S.Ct. at 1872.

The summary of the evidence above reveals a number of points on which there was adduced contradictory evidence concerning the facts of Abbott's and Stone's behavior and the circumstances surrounding the use of force. Applying the applicable standards, this Court concludes that the trial court erred in granting Abbott judgment as a matter of law, because, without impermissible determinations of credibility, Stone could not be said to have failed to present evidence which might have supported a jury verdict in his favor. The district judge may have reasoned that, because he found the arrest invalid as a matter of law, any use of force in effecting it violated Abbott's fourth amendment rights; as previously indicated, however, the two claims are not analytically interdependent in that way.

As for the validity of the arrest, appellants appear to concede that under Missouri law, an officer of a fourth class city has no authority to effect an arrest outside the city limits for a municipal ordinance violation or traffic offense. See, e.g., Kimber v. Director of Revenue, 817 S.W.2d 627, 631 (Mo.App.1991). From this premise, both appellee and the court below have concluded, without elaboration, that the arrest invalid under state law necessarily violates the Fourth Amendment as well. ² The Fourth Amendment prohibits "unreasonable" seizures of the person, but not every unauthorized arrest is "unreasonable" in the constitutional sense. The Supreme Court has long observed the distinction between compliance with state law and constitutional principles:

But the question here is not whether the search was authorized by state law. The question is rather whether the search was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Just as a search authorized by state law may be an unreasonable one under that amendment, so may a search not expressly authorized by state law be justified as a constitutionally reasonable one.

Cooper v. California, 386 U.S. 58, 61, 87 S.Ct. 788, 790, 17 L.Ed.2d 730 (1967) (emphasis added). In analyzing a Sec. 1983 claim involving a Missouri Highway Patrolman whose use of deadly force was not authorized under Patrol policy, this Court has stated:

We need not determine whether Trooper Rice violated Missouri Highway Patrol policy, however, for under section 1983 the issue is whether the government official violated the Constitution or federal law, not whether he violated the policies of a state agency. Conduct by a government official that violates some state statutory or administrative provision is not necessarily constitutionally unreasonable.

Cole v. Bone, 993 F.2d 1328, 1334 (8th Cir.1993) (emphasis added).

A very recent decision of this Court contained similar language: "A police violation of state law does not establish a Fourth Amendment violation. However, the question of compliance with state law may well be relevant in determining whether police conduct was reasonable for Fourth Amendment purposes." United States v. Baker, 16 F.3d 854, 856 n. 1 (8th Cir.1994). Even...