Asten v. City of Boulder, Civil Action No. 08-cv-00845-PAB.
| Decision Date | 26 August 2009 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 08-cv-00845-PAB. |
| Parties | Sylvia M. ASTEN, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF BOULDER, a Colorado municipality, Patrick Compton, in his individual and official capacities, and Jeremy Frenzen, in his individual and official capacities, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Colorado |
Terry Allan Wallace, Terry Wallace, Attorney at Law, Boulder, CO, for Plaintiff.
Erin Elaine O'Brien, Boulder City Attorney's Office-Civil, Boulder, CO, Brian Roberts Reynolds, L. Douglas Jewell, Bruno, Colin, Jewell & Lowe, P.C., Denver, CO, for Defendants.
ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO DISMISS
Plaintiff Sylvia Asten filed this civil rights action against defendants the City of Boulder and police officers Patrick Compton and Jeremy Frenzen, in their official and individual capacities. The case arises out of an altercation that occurred at Ms. Asten's house in Boulder, Colorado. The matter is presently before the Court on defendants' motion to dismiss [Docket No. 6]. Jurisdiction is based upon 28 U.S.C. § 1331, providing this Court with jurisdiction over federal questions.
The following facts are taken from Ms. Asten's Complaint and are presumed to be true for the purposes of this Order. In the early morning of October 1, 2006,1 Ms. Asten, under the mistaken belief that she was being attacked, went into the street in front of her house in Boulder, Colorado and began shouting at her imaginary assailants. Police officers from the City of Boulder Police Department were dispatched to plaintiff's house and detained her after making an initial decision to place her on a seventy-two-hour mental health hold. However, once it was determined that Ms. Asten did not meet the criteria for hospitalization, she was released and allowed to return to her home.
In the late evening of that same day, Ms. Asten's neighbors called the non-emergency phone number for the Boulder Police Department to report that Ms. Asten once again was shouting in the street in front of her house. Defendants Compton and Frenzen, officers with the Boulder Police Department, were dispatched to the location. By the time defendants Compton and Frenzen arrived, Ms. Asten had stopped shouting and returned to her home. The officers located Ms. Asten inside her home with her screen door closed and locked, but with the inner door ajar. As the officers approached the locked screen door, Ms. Asten came to meet them on the other side, leaving the screen door secured. The officers report that Ms. Asten was making incoherent statements including a comment about how the screen door was the only thing keeping her safe.
The officers attempted to talk to Ms. Asten and asked for permission to enter her home. She declined and instead attempted to close the inner door. Due to an obstruction, she was unable to do so after three tries. However, in the process of attempting to close her door, Ms. Asten broke a water glass that she had been holding during the exchange. The officers then attempted to open the screen door and enter plaintiff's home even though they had been denied permission to do so. This caused Ms. Asten to become terrified, and she shouted for the officers to leave her alone. Because the screen door was locked, Officer Compton used a knife to cut the screen to open the door. This again caused Ms. Asten to become terrified, and she demanded that the officers leave her property.
Officer Frenzen then stuck his taser gun through the hole in the screen door that Officer Compton had just cut and shot Ms. Asten in the stomach with a high-voltage electric pulse. Plaintiff immediately fell to the floor and screamed in pain. The officers placed her in handcuffs, while plaintiff screamed, struggled, and begged the officers to leave her be. According to Ms. Asten's account, the officers at no time issued warnings or commands to Ms. Asten or informed her of their intent to take her into custody.
Officer Compton completed a mental health evaluation form and plaintiff was transported against her will to a local hospital. As a result of Officer Compton's mental health evaluation form, Ms. Asten was held, without her consent, for more than two weeks in various mental health facilities.
On April 23, 2008, Ms. Asten filed her Complaint in this case, alleging six claims for relief against Officers Compton and Frenzen and the City of Boulder under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.2 Those of Ms. Asten's claims that appear to be against Officers Compton and Frenzen are: "Unconstitutional Use of Excessive Force, Unlawful Seizure of a Person, Unreasonable Use of a Taser" (first claim for relief); "Unconstitutional Use of Deadly Force" (second claim for relief); and "False Imprisonment" (sixth claim for relief). Ms. Asten's "Monell claims" against the City of Boulder are for: "Unconstitutional Municipal Policy" (third claim for relief); "Unlawful Policy by Acts of Official Policy Maker" (fourth claim for relief); and "Constitutional Violations from Informal Custom and Policy" (fifth claim for relief).
On July 8, 2008, the defendants filed a joint motion to dismiss each of Ms. Asten's claims. See Defs.' Mot. to Dismiss [Docket No. 6]. Defendants seek dismissal of all six claims pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) and, alternatively, of the claims against the officers individually on qualified immunity grounds. On August 16, 2008, plaintiff responded to the motion to dismiss. See Pl.'s Resp. Re: Defs.' Mot. to Dismiss [Docket No. 9]. On September 2, 2008, defendants filed a reply in support of their motion to dismiss. See Defs.' Reply in Supp. of Mot. to Dismiss [Docket No. 10] ( ). Defendants' motion to dismiss is fully briefed and ripe for review.
Dismissal of a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) is appropriate where the plaintiff fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). For a complaint to state a claim it must contain "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." Fed.R.Civ.P. (8)(a)(2). Rule 8(a)'s "short and plain statement" mandate requires that a plaintiff allege enough factual matter that, taken as true, makes her "claim to relief ... plausible on its face." Bryson v. Gonzales, 534 F.3d 1282, 1286 (10th Cir.2008) (citing Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007)).
"The court's function on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion is not to weigh potential evidence that the parties might present at trial, but to assess whether the plaintiff's Complaint alone is legally sufficient to state a claim for which relief may be granted." Dubbs v. Head Start, Inc., 336 F.3d 1194, 1201 (10th Cir.2003). In doing so, the Court "must accept all the well-pleaded allegations of the complaint as true and must construe them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff." Alvarado v. KOB-TV, L.L.C., 493 F.3d 1210, 1215 (10th Cir.2007). However, a court need not accept conclusory allegations. Moffett v. Halliburton Energy Servs., Inc., 291 F.3d 1227, 1232 (10th Cir.2002).
Generally, "[s]pecific facts are not necessary; the statement need only `give the defendant fair notice of what the claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.'" Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 95, 127 S.Ct. 2197, 167 L.Ed.2d 1081 (2007) (per curiam) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955) (omission marks omitted). The "plausibility" standard requires that relief must plausibly follow from the facts alleged, not that the facts themselves be plausible. Bryson, 534 F.3d at 1286.
However, "where the well-pleaded facts do not permit the court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct, the complaint has alleged—but it has not shown—that the pleader is entitled to relief." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1950, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (internal quotation marks and alteration marks omitted). Thus, even though modern rules of pleading are somewhat forgiving, "a complaint still must contain either direct or inferential allegations respecting all the material elements necessary to sustain a recovery under some viable legal theory." Bryson, 534 F.3d at 1286 (alteration marks omitted). In other words,
[i]f a complaint explicitly alleges every fact necessary to win at trial, it has necessarily satisfied this requirement. If it omits some necessary facts, however, it may still suffice so long as the court can plausibly infer the necessary unarticulated assumptions. But if the complaint is sufficiently devoid of facts necessary to establish liability that it encompasses a wide swath of conduct, much of it innocent, a court must conclude that plaintiffs have not nudged their claims across the line from conceivable to plausible. Plaintiffs thus omit important factual material at their peril.
Bryson, 534 F.3d at 1286 (internal citations, quotation marks, and alterations marks omitted).
The pleading rules serve two purposes: (1) they ensure that defendants know the actual grounds of the claims against them, allowing them to prepare a defense; and (2) they avoid the costly undertaking of civil discovery on claims that are largely groundless. Bryson, 534 F.3d at 1287.
Plaintiff brings all of her claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Claims under § 1983 require a plaintiff to sufficiently allege that: (1) she has been deprived of a federal right and (2) that the person who deprived her of that right acted under color of state law. Gomez v. Toledo, 446 U.S. 635, 640, 100 S.Ct. 1920, 64 L.Ed.2d 572 (1980). The federal rights of which Ms. Asten claims she was deprived will be addressed below according to the party accused. As for the...
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