Keyes v. Lauga

• Decision Date: 26 January 1981
• Docket Number: No. 79-1137,79-1137
• Citation: 635 F.2d 330
• Parties: Mrs. Christine KEYES, Wife of/and Thomas Keyes, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Ray LAUGA et al., Defendants-Appellants, Office of Charity Hospital of Louisiana at New Orleans, Intervenor. . Unit A
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 330

635 F.2d 330

Mrs. Christine KEYES, Wife of/and Thomas Keyes, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Ray LAUGA et al., Defendants-Appellants Office of Charity Hospital of Louisiana at New Orleans, Intervenor.

No. 79-1137.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Unit A

Jan. 26, 1981.

A. W. Wambsgans, Metairie, La., for defendants-appellants.

Minge & Batiza, James H. Minge, New Orleans, La., for plaintiffs-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

Before WISDOM, AINSWORTH and GEE, Circuit Judges.

WISDOM, Circuit Judge:

Mrs. Christine Keyes, the appellee, and her husband, Thomas Keyes, brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to recover for injuries they suffered, during and after their arrest, at the hands of several deputies of the St. Bernard Parish Sheriff's Department. They joined as defendants Deputies Ray Lauga and Henry Bonds, Sheriff Jack Rowley, and the Department's insurer, North River Insurance Company. During the trial, the district court directed a verdict dismissing all claims against the sheriff and all of Mr. Keyes's claims against the remaining defendants. A jury found for Mrs. Keyes on her remaining claims, concluding that the deputies had unconstitutionally searched and arrested her, had used excessive force in making the arrest, and had beaten her after making the arrest. The jury awarded $75,000 in damages, $37,500 from each deputy, and defendants now appeal.

I.

At about 5:00 a. m. on September 1, 1977, Deputies Lauga and Bonds appeared at the Keyes's residence in Chalmette in St. Bernard Parish to execute warrants for the arrest of Peter Keyes, Sr. and Peter Keyes, Jr. ¹ When Mr. Keyes refused to submit to arrest, Lauga and Bonds called for help. Seeing a large number of deputies arrive with weapons drawn, and fearing for the safety of their children, Mr. and Mrs. Keyes left the house. Mr. Keyes was immediately placed under arrest and put into a police car. Told by her husband to call the sheriff, Mrs. Keyes returned to her home to use the telephone.

The events that then ensued are in dispute. The testimony of Mrs. Keyes, which the jury obviously credited, was that Lauga, Bonds and at least one other deputy followed her into the house uninvited. They made a quick search of the premises and, without telling her that she was under arrest, kicked her and beat her with nightsticks. After being subdued she was placed in a police car with her husband, driven to the St. Bernard Parish Jail, and booked on charges of disturbing the peace, assaulting a police officer, and resisting arrest. On the way to jail, and again after she was placed in her cell, Bonds and Lauga again beat her with their fists and nightsticks. ²

The testimony of Lauga and Bonds differs in every material respect. They gave several reasons for their uninvited entry into the Keyes's home: they had heard a shotgun being "cranked" and feared for their personal safety; they thought that Peter Keyes, Jr., for whom they also had an arrest warrant, might be inside; and they supposedly heard Mrs. Keyes yell, "Ellis, blow their f'ing heads off. Shoot them." They testified that, once inside, they arrested Mrs. Keyes because she was yelling obscenities at them. They denied that they or any deputy ever beat her or used any force other than that necessary to overcome her resistance to the arrest.

II.

The defendants mount several challenges to the judgment that can be disposed of briefly. They first assert that the court committed reversible error by failing to ask some of their proposed questions on voir dire, by failing to give certain requested jury charges, and by failing to use their proposed interrogatories on the special verdict form used by the jury in reaching its decision.

Rulings on the scope of voir dire are committed to the discretion of the trial court and the failure to ask particular questions proposed by the parties is not grounds for reversal absent a showing of error and prejudice. See Louisville & Nashville R. R. v. Williams, 5 Cir. 1966, 370 F.2d 839, 841-42 & n.5. In their brief on appeal the defendants do not even specify which of their rejected voir dire questions supply the basis for their claim of error. The transcript of the trial does not include the voir dire examination. We thus have no basis on which to evaluate this asserted error.

The defendants' objections both to the judge's instructions and to the special interrogatories are more to their form than to their content. The trial judge has considerable latitude in framing his instructions to the jury as long as he explains adequately all of the claims and theories advanced by both parties. Andry v. Farrell Lines, Inc., 5 Cir. 1973, 478 F.2d 758, 759. Similarly, special interrogatories are unassailable if they adequately present the issues to the jury. Dreiling v. General Electric Co., 5 Cir. 1975, 511 F.2d 768, 774. After reviewing the judge's instructions and the special verdict form, we conclude that they were sufficient under these standards.

The defendants also contend that the trial court should have granted their motions for directed verdict and judgment n. o. v. on all issues except the issue of their use of excessive force. In reviewing these rulings our inquiry matches the inquiry undertaken by the trial court in passing on both these motions: whether the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, is such that reasonable men could not arrive at a contrary verdict. Chouinard v. Chouinard, 5 Cir. 1978, 568 F.2d 430, 433. Mrs. Keyes's testimony, viewed most favorably to her, substantiates every claim for which the defendants were held liable.

The defendants also argue that because this case involved similar issues that could be resolved in a possible state criminal prosecution against the plaintiff, the district court should have abstained from deciding those issues. ³ The abstention doctrine has never been stretched that far. Younger v. Harris, 1971, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669, is not applicable. It holds only that the federal courts will not enjoin the enforcement of an allegedly unconstitutional state criminal statute under which the federal plaintiff is being prosecuted in a pending state criminal proceeding. No such injunctive relief is sought here. Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 1975, 420 U.S. 592, 95 S.Ct. 1200, 43 L.Ed.2d 482, and the other progeny of Younger are likewise inapplicable. See Note, Limiting the Younger Doctrine: A Critique and Proposal, 67 Cal.L.Rev. 1318, 1323-28 (1979); Developments in the Law-Section 1983 and Federalism, 90 Harv.L.Rev. 1133, 1301-22 (1977). Nor does this case fall within any of the other abstention doctrines. See generally Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United States, 1976, 424 U.S. 800, 96 S.Ct. 1236, 47 L.Ed.2d 483; C. Wright, Law of Federal Courts § 52 (3d ed. 1976).

The defendants seek attorney's fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 with respect to those claims disposed of in their favor by directed verdict. Section 1988 provides for attorney's fees at the court's discretion to prevailing parties in suits brought under certain of the civil rights laws, including 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Relying on the legislative history of § 1988, this Circuit has held that prevailing parties are ordinarily entitled to attorney's fees "unless special circumstances would render such an award unjust". Criterion Club of Albany v. Board of Commissioners, 5 Cir. 1979, 594 F.2d 118, 120. This liberal allowance of fees was necessary to encourage vigorous private enforcement of the civil rights acts. S.Rep. 94-1011, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 4-5, reprinted in (1976) U.S.Code Cong. & Ad. News, pp. 5908, 5911-12. Congress explicitly recognized, however, that private enforcement would be substantially deterred if parties who had good faith claims under the civil rights statutes faced the prospect of having to pay their opponent's fees should they lose. Id. at 5 (citing Richardson v. Hotel Corporation of America, E.D.La. 1971, 332 F.Supp. 519, aff'd, 5 Cir. 1972, 468 F.2d 951). Thus, Congress contemplated that the unsuccessful civil rights plaintiff could be assessed his opponent's fees only where his suit was "frivolous, vexatious, or brought for harassment purposes". Id. In light of Mrs. Keyes's successful prosecution of several of the claims brought in this case, we cannot conclude that the unsuccessful claims, which arose out of the same set of circumstances, were brought in bad faith.

III.

The first substantial question raised by the defendants concerns the court's refusal to allow two of the defendants' witnesses to testify. The witnesses were offered in rebuttal to the testimony of Charles Wallace, an inmate at the St. Bernard Parish Jail on the night of Mrs. Keyes's incarceration there. Wallace corroborated Mrs. Keyes's testimony that she was beaten by Deputy Lauga while Lauga and Deputy Bonds were placing her in the cell. Contending that they were surprised by Wallace's testimony, the defendants sought to introduce the testimony of Richard Ford, the assistant jailer, and Carolyn Boudreaux, a part-time matron at the jail. Ford would have testified that he, not Lauga, assisted Bonds in placing Mrs. Keyes in jail. Furthermore, Ford would have testified that Mrs. Keyes was in a cell on the second floor, not on the first floor as Wallace maintained. Boudreaux would have corroborated Ford's testimony by stating that Mrs. Keyes was in a second-floor cell when Boudreaux removed her for transportation to Charity Hospital. The district judge refused to admit this testimony because the witnesses had not been listed in the pretrial order.

Rule 16 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure states that the pretrial order "controls the subsequent course of the action, unless modified at the trial to prevent manifest injustice". The pretrial order here listed the witnesses for both sides and barred the calling of any unlisted...