Vineyard v. County of Murray, Ga.

• Decision Date: 17 May 1993
• Docket Number: No. 92-8601,92-8601
• Citation: 990 F.2d 1207
• Parties: Johnny VINEYARD, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. COUNTY OF MURRAY, GEORGIA, Bill Hansird, as former Sheriff of Murray County, Monte Chastain, Robert Bishop, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1207

990 F.2d 1207

Johnny VINEYARD, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. COUNTY OF MURRAY, GEORGIA, Bill Hansird, as former Sheriff of Murray County, Monte Chastain, Robert Bishop Defendants-Appellants.

No. 92-8601.

United States Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit.

May 17, 1993.

J. Anderson Davis, Brinson Askew Berry Seigler, Richardson & Davis, Rome, GA, for defendants-appellants.

Jeffrey Jerome Dean, Waycaster Corn Murry & Morris, Gregory Harold Kinnamon, McDonald Kinnamon & Thames, Dalton, GA, for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Before COX and DUBINA, Circuit Judges, and GODBOLD, Senior Circuit Judge.

PER CURIAM:

Plaintiff, Johnny Vineyard, brought this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against Murray County, Georgia, Robert Bishop and Monte Chastain, two former deputies of the Murray County Sheriff's Department, and William Hansird (Sheriff Hansird), in his individual capacity and his official capacity as sheriff of Murray County during the relevant events. Vineyard alleges that the defendants violated his rights under the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments.

Vineyard claims that Bishop and Chastain, after arresting him following a domestic dispute, repeatedly threatened him and beat him in the face and chest while he was handcuffed to a hospital bed. Vineyard alleges that the Sheriff's Department had inadequate policies of supervision, training and discipline of its deputies, which caused the violation of his rights by Bishop and Chastain.

The case was tried to a jury. After the close of the evidence, the court directed a verdict in favor of Sheriff Hansird in his individual capacity, but denied motions for directed verdicts for Hansird in his official capacity, the County and Chastain. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff and against each of the defendants remaining in the case. The district court denied the defendants' motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, for remittitur and to amend judgments and denied Murray County's motion for new trial. The defendants appeal. We affirm.

I. FACTS ¹ AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

At the time the events giving rise to this case occurred, Johnny Vineyard and his wife, Debra, were separated and involved in divorce proceedings. Very early one morning, Johnny went to the house where Debra was living. He had been drinking beer and was intoxicated. Debra refused to let him in the house so he broke a glass pane in the door with his fist. The two began to fight. At Debra's request, the woman who lived in the house with her called the Sheriff's Department. By the time Deputies Bishop and Chastain arrived, Debra and Johnny had calmed down and were on the porch waiting for them. The officers arrested Johnny and drove him to a hospital to care for the cuts on his hand.

When they arrived at the hospital, the deputies handcuffed one of Johnny Vineyard's arms to a bed in an emergency room. While in the emergency room he was nervous so he took a pill, the last of a bottle that his doctor had prescribed to control anxiety and depression. The officers discovered the empty bottle and suspected that Vineyard had overdosed on the drug. Along with the medical personnel at the hospital, they attempted to forcibly empty Vineyard's stomach by trying to make him drink a substance that would make him vomit.

Vineyard adamantly refused to drink the substance. He attempted to explain that he had taken only one of the pills and insisted that the medication was prescribed by his doctor. The officers told those who were present in the room to leave and that when they came back, Vineyard would cooperate.

When Vineyard was alone with the officers, while he remained handcuffed to the bed, they beat him repeatedly in the head and chest. A scar from earlier heart surgery and a pacemaker were visible on his bare chest. Bishop delivered most of the blows; Chastain did nothing to stop Bishop and also struck Vineyard several times in the ribs. Vineyard, afraid and in pain, cried out loudly for help, but no one responded.

When the hospital staff returned, the nurse or technician used a tube through Vineyard's nose to lavage or irrigate his stomach. The doctor discovered no pill fragments when Vineyard's stomach was emptied.

The officers later took Vineyard to the jail, where he continued to suffer considerable pain. He wanted to go back to the hospital so he used his pocket knife to cut his wrist to fake a suicide attempt. His ploy worked; the officers returned him to the hospital. A medical examination revealed that his jaw was broken.

At the time of trial, three and a half years after the morning of the incident, Vineyard continued to suffer substantial pain from the primary injury caused by the beating, a broken jaw. He has undergone two surgical operations and treatment for the pain associated with this injury.

At the time of Vineyard's arrest, Hansird was Sheriff of Murray County. At trial, the court instructed the jury that Hansird had the authority to make policy for Murray County in the area of law enforcement. Sheriff Hansird, Robert Bishop, Monte Chastain and Professor James David White, an expert in police operations, testified regarding the policies of the Murray County Sheriff's Department.

At the close of the evidence, the court directed a verdict in favor of Sheriff Hansird in his individual capacity, but denied his motion for a directed verdict in his official capacity. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff and against all remaining defendants. Pursuant to the jury's verdict, the court entered a judgment against the defendants, jointly, awarding $115,000 in compensatory damages, along with $60,000 in punitive damages from Bishop and $20,000 in punitive damages from Chastain.

II. ISSUES ON APPEAL

The defendants raise a number of issues on appeal. ² Only two merit discussion.

Sheriff Hansird, in his official capacity, and Murray County ³ assert error in the district court's denial of their motion for directed verdict based on the lack of evidence to prove a custom of inadequate policies and procedures that caused the abusive treatment of Vineyard.

All of the defendants contend that the district court erred in denying their motion for a mistrial, which was based on the potentially prejudicial impact of certain arguments made by Vineyard's counsel. Defendants sought the declaration of a mistrial because Vineyard's counsel made comparisons and references to the Rodney King incident, a widely publicized case of alleged police brutality in California, and asked the jury to send a message to the Murray County officials.

III. STANDARDS OF REVIEW

When reviewing the denial of a directed verdict, we consider "whether the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, is such that reasonable men could not arrive at a contrary verdict." Chouinard v. Chouinard, 568 F.2d 430, 433 (5th Cir.1978). ⁴ Merely a scintilla of evidence will not be sufficient to avoid a directed verdict; there must be substantial evidence. Cunningham v United States, 553 F.2d 394, 395 (5th Cir.1977).

We review the district court's denial of a mistrial for abuse of discretion only. Jonas v. City of Atlanta, 647 F.2d 580, 586 (5th Cir. Unit B June 1981).

IV. DISCUSSION

A. County Liability

We begin our analysis of any excessive force claim by "identifying the specific constitutional right allegedly infringed by the challenged application of force." Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 394, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 1870, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989). We determine whether a constitutional violation has occurred by applying the standards applicable to that particular constitutional provision. Id. 490 U.S. at 394, 109 S.Ct. at 1871. Only when it is clear that a violation of specific rights has occurred can the question of § 1983 municipal liability for the injury arise. To attribute liability to a municipality under § 1983, the plaintiff must demonstrate that the municipality had an official policy that was "the moving force of the constitutional violation." Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U.S. 312, 326, 102 S.Ct. 445, 454, 70 L.Ed.2d 509 (1981); Parker v. Williams, 862 F.2d 1471, 1477 (11th Cir.1989) (both citing Monell v. Department of Social Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 694, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 2037, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978)).

1. The Source of the Right To Be Free From Excessive Force

Our first task is to identify the constitutional right at issue. Vineyard claims that his rights under the Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments were violated by the use of excessive force by Chastain and Bishop. It is unclear, however, whether a pretrial detainee's claim that officers used excessive force against him states a cause of action under the Fourth Amendment. Graham, 490 U.S. at 395 n. 10, 109 S.Ct. at 1871 n. 10.; Wright v. Whiddon, 951 F.2d 297, 300 (11th Cir.1992). In contrast, the law is well established that pretrial detainees may bring § 1983 actions to redress violations of their rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which "protects a pretrial detainee from the use of excessive force that amounts to punishment." Graham, 490 U.S. at 395 n. 10, 109 S.Ct. at 1871 n. 10 (citing Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 535-39, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1871-74, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979)).

The Defendants do not contest that Vineyard's description of the beating, if true, would constitute a violation of Vineyard's rights whether considered under either the Due Process Clause's protection of pretrial detainees from punishment or the Fourth Amendment's protection from unreasonable seizures. Defendant Chastain argues only the insufficiency of the evidence to prove that Chastain participated in the beating and that he should have prevented Bishop from beating Vineyard, but we find that evidence to be sufficient. Defendant Bishop does not contest the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the jury's verdict against him. Consequently, w...