Gooden v. Howard County, Md.

• Citation: 954 F.2d 960
• Decision Date: 23 January 1992
• Docket Number: No. 89-2470,89-2470
• Parties: Theresa K. GOODEN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. HOWARD COUNTY, MARYLAND, c/o Elizabeth Bobo, County Executive, Nancy Yeager, individually and in her capacity as a police officer of the Howard County Police Department; Frank N. Salter, individually and in his capacity as a police officer of the Howard County Police Department; William J. Pollack, individually and in his capacity as a police officer of the Howard County Police Department, Defendants-Appellants, and Frederick W. Chaney, in his capacity as Chief of Police of the Howard County Police Department, Unknown and Unidentified Police Officers of the Howard County Police Department, hereinafter referred to as John Doe I, John Doe II, John Doe III, John Doe IV, and John Doe V, who were present at and involved in the incidents complained of herein, individually and in their capacity as Police Officers of the Howard County Police Department, Defendants.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit)

Page 960

954 F.2d 960

Theresa K. GOODEN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. HOWARD COUNTY, MARYLAND, c/o Elizabeth Bobo, County Executive, Nancy Yeager, individually and in her capacity as a police officer of the Howard County Police Department Frank N. Salter, individually and in his capacity as a police officer of the Howard County Police Department William J. Pollack, individually and in his capacity as a police officer of the Howard County Police Department Defendants-Appellants and Frederick W. Chaney, in his capacity as Chief of Police of the Howard County Police Department, Unknown and Unidentified Police Officers of the Howard County Police Department, hereinafter referred to as John Doe I, John Doe II, John Doe III, John Doe IV, and John Doe V, who were present at and involved in the incidents complained of herein, individually and in their capacity as Police Officers of the Howard County Police Department, Defendants.

No. 89-2470.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued April 9, 1991.

Decided Jan. 23, 1992.

Marna Lynn McLendon, Senior Asst. County Sol., Ellicott City, Md., argued (Barbara M. Cook, Howard County Sol., on brief), for defendants-appellants.

Cheryl Lynn Ziegler, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, Washington, D.C., argued (William L. Gardner, Howard T. Weir, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, Roderick V.O. Boggs, Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, on brief), for plaintiff-appellee.

Before ERVIN, Chief Judge, RUSSELL, WIDENER, HALL, PHILLIPS, MURNAGHAN, SPROUSE, WILKINSON, WILKINS, and NIEMEYER, Circuit Judges, and BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge, sitting in banc.

OPINION

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:

This case presents important issues pertaining to the defense of qualified immunity from suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The factual circumstances are unusual, even bizarre, but the issues they raise as to qualified immunity occur all the time. It was to clarify these issues and to underscore the reasonable latitude accorded law enforcement officers in the performance of their duties that the court granted an en banc hearing in this case.

I.

On the morning of February 21, 1987, Officer Nancy Yeager responded to a call from 11329 Little Patuxet Parkway, Columbia, Maryland. Upon arriving at the apartment complex, Officer Yeager, who was joined by Sergeant William Pollack, contacted the complainant, Denise Beck, who reported that she had heard screaming and yelling coming from the apartment directly overhead. The two police officers then contacted Theresa Gooden who lived in the apartment directly above Ms. Beck's. After Officer Yeager explained to Ms. Gooden the purpose of their investigation, Ms. Gooden responded that she had been asleep, that no one was in the apartment with her and that she had no knowledge of the noise. After some brief questioning, the officers left.

On Monday, March 2, 1987, at 10:47 p.m., Officer Yeager, accompanied by Officer Frank Salter, responded to another call from Beck, this time for a woman screaming. Immediately after entering the first level of the apartment building, they heard what Officer Yeager described to be a "long, loud blood-chilling scream" that convinced her that someone was being hurt. Both officers believed the source of that scream to be Gooden's apartment and ran up to the third level hallway. Standing outside of Gooden's apartment, the officers heard yet another scream coming from within. In response to Officer Yeager's knock, Ms. Gooden opened the door. After first denying that any noise or scream came from her apartment, Ms. Gooden admitted that she had "yelped" once because she had burned herself on an iron.

The ensuing events are a matter of dispute. According to Officer Yeager, she asked to see the iron. Yeager noted that there were no clothes on the ironing board and that the iron was cold to the touch. Officer Yeager then asked to see the burn. Ms. Gooden refused to let her look. During the visit, the officers looked around the apartment and out on the balcony to make sure no one else was there. Still convinced that the screams she had heard came from Ms. Gooden who was either in danger of harming herself or of being harmed, Officer Yeager concluded that Ms. Gooden was not being candid with Officer Salter or her. Officer Salter also described Ms. Gooden as "very vague" and "evasive towards any questions."

Ms. Gooden's version of events is not surprisingly quite different. She was on the phone with a friend, she said, when the police officers knocked. She maintains that she answered all of the officers' questions, explained that she had burned herself and showed them the ironing board. According to Ms. Gooden, the iron was still plugged in and there was a blouse and a wet spot on the ironing board, which she invited Yeager to feel. Ms. Gooden asserts that she "attempted to show defendant Yeager the red mark on [her] arm, but she insisted on seeing a burn." Gooden states that she told the officers that they were harassing her and asked them to leave.

After leaving Ms. Gooden's apartment, the two officers returned to Ms. Beck's apartment. Ms. Beck further described the loud commotion and stumping and movement above her, a disturbance sometimes so great that the chandelier in her dining room would shake.

While standing in Ms. Beck's apartment, Officer Yeager again began to hear noises coming from the upstairs apartment, including loud thuds and very loud screaming. Officer Salter also heard the noises and commotion. Officer Yeager heard a male voice and a female voice yelling, but never heard the voices simultaneously. In addition, Officer Yeager saw the chandelier shake. Based on these noises, Officer Yeager suspected that Ms. Gooden might be a multiple personality and producing both voices herself.

Sergeant Pollack now arrived on the scene, and the three officers returned to Ms. Gooden's apartment after all residents in the building were contacted and no other source of the disturbance was found. When Ms. Gooden answered the door this time, she appeared to have been crying. Officer Yeager informed Ms. Gooden that they had heard more screams. Ms. Gooden replied: "Why are you doing this to me?" Officer Yeager reports that she attempted to reassure Ms. Gooden that they were concerned for her safety and to discover why she was in such an emotional state, suggesting to her possible reasons.

Ms. Gooden was unresponsive, according to Officer Yeager, and looked nervous and uncomfortable. Similarly, Sergeant Pollack later reported: "[i]t was my opinion that she was responding strangely to our inquiries, and refused to give any explanation for her demeanor or acknowledged [sic] the fact that screams came from her apartment." Ms. Gooden maintains that she told the officers not only that she had been on the phone with her mother and a friend since they had left her apartment approximately one-half hour before but that she had called their department while they were gone to inquire about lodging a formal complaint. The officers, however, state that they did not know about Gooden's complaint.

With Ms. Gooden's permission, the officers checked her apartment. All three officers noted that while they were with Ms. Gooden no screams were heard.

The three officers left Ms. Gooden's apartment and conferred in the hallway. Sergeant Pollack asked Officer Yeager and Officer Salter whether they felt there was enough to warrant an emergency evaluation. In her affidavit, Officer Yeager explained that:

Both Officer Salter and myself immediately felt that we had a duty to do something with Ms. Gooden as we feared for her safety and felt that she was mentally disordered and a potential threat to herself. I was convinced that the screaming and noise that I had heard had come from her apartment, and, having ruled out the presence of anyone else in the apartment, the violent nature of the noise indicated to me that she was attempting to harm herself by throwing herself against walls and/or floor.

Yeager stated that, in nine years of law enforcement experience, "I have never seen a situation so bizarre." The officers were convinced, as Officer Yeager explained, that Gooden "was a risk to herself and that a psychiatric evaluation was absolutely necessary." Officer Salter detained Ms. Gooden, took her to the Howard County General Hospital and submitted a petition for evaluation.

It is disputed whether the officers had contact that evening with any apartment complex residents other than Ms. Beck claiming knowledge of the screaming. Patrick Cummings, a neighbor, asserts that he told one unidentified Howard County police officer that the commotion was coming from the Dowlings' apartment, which was located directly under Ms. Beck's. According to Cummings, when he entered Beck's apartment, he told the officers that they had the wrong person because it was the Dowlings not Ms. Gooden who were responsible for the disturbances. In addition, Cummings maintains that he and his wife conferred with Ms. Beck and that she then stated: "Oh my God, they took the wrong person." In her affidavit, however, Ms. Beck states: "I believed on both occasions and I continue to believe that the noise I heard and complained about was, in fact, coming from Theresa Gooden's apartment located directly above me."

Yeager and Pollack do not recall speaking with Cummings but they apparently did investigate a domestic argument in the ground floor apartment inhabited by the Dowlings. The couple admitted that they had been arguing but attempted to assure the officers that everything was fine. Officer Yeager took the information and later filed a report.

Officer Yeager returned to the police station where she called Ms. Gooden's mother in Michigan to explain what had happened, that the officers were concerned for Ms. Gooden's safety, and that she would be returned to her apartment if the physician did not admit her for further evaluation. Sergeant Pollack went to the hospital. Ther...