Baker v. Hayden
| Decision Date | 20 March 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 120,334,120,334 |
| Citation | 459 P.3d 834 (Table) |
| Parties | Linus BAKER, Appellant, v. Calvin HAYDEN, et al., and Katherine Stocks, in Her Capacity as Official Custodian of Records for the Tenth Judicial District, Appellees. |
| Court | Kansas Court of Appeals |
Linus Baker, appellant pro se.
Kirk T. Ridgway and Brett T. Runyon, of Ferree, Bunn, Rundberg & Ridgway, Chtd., of Overland Park, for appellees.
Before Atcheson, P.J., Hill and Buser, JJ.
In this civil action, Plaintiff Linus Baker appeals the summary judgment the Johnson County District Court entered against him on claims that law enforcement officers with the Johnson County Sheriff's Department violated his constitutional rights and committed common-law torts against him and that a representative of the sheriff's department later failed to comply with the Kansas Open Records Act in responding to a request for documents concerning the circumstances giving rise to those claims. We find Baker has failed to present colorable evidence supporting actionable constitutional or tort injuries and affirm that part of the district court's decision. We find the district court impermissibly granted summary judgment on Baker's open records requests and remand for further proceedings on them.
After outlining the standards for granting and reviewing summary judgment, we take up Baker's claims based on the alleged constitutional and common-law torts and then consider the open records dispute.
The standards governing summary judgment guide how we consider competing versions of the relevant facts. The defendants, as the parties seeking summary judgment, had the obligation to show the district court, based on appropriate evidentiary materials, there were no disputed issues of material fact and judgment could, therefore, be entered in their favor as a matter of law. Trear v. Chamberlain , 308 Kan. 932, 935, 425 P.3d 297 (2018) ; Shamberg, Johnson & Bergman, Chtd. v. Oliver , 289 Kan. 891, 900, 220 P.3d 333 (2009). In essence, they argued there was nothing for a jury or a district court judge sitting as fact-finder to decide that would make any difference. In opposing summary judgment, Baker had to cite record evidence calling into question a material factual representation defendants made in support of their motion. See Trear , 308 Kan. at 935-36 ; Shamberg , 289 Kan. at 900. When a party has identified disputed material facts, the motion should be denied in favor of a trial to permit a judge or jury to resolve those disputes after hearing witnesses testify in court and reviewing any relevant documentary evidence.
In addressing a request for summary judgment, the district court must view the evidence most favorably to the party opposing the motion and give that party the benefit of every reasonable inference that might be drawn from the evidentiary record. Trear , 308 Kan. at 935 ; Shamberg , 289 Kan. at 900. An appellate court applies the same standards in reviewing the entry of a summary judgment. Because a summary judgment presents a question of law—it entails the application of legal principles to uncontroverted facts—an appellate court owes no deference to the district court's decision to grant the motion, and review is unlimited. See Adams v. Board of Sedgwick County Comm'rs , 289 Kan. 577, 584, 214 P.3d 1173 (2009).
Baker's constitutional and common-law tort claims stem from efforts of Johnson County Sheriff's officers to serve a petition for protection from abuse and a related temporary order. On September 1, 2015, Ryan McCormick, then Baker's son-in-law, filed a petition for protection from abuse in Wyandotte County District Court against his wife (and Baker's daughter) Maggie and immediately obtained a temporary order from that district court. The order generally identifies Maggie and gives her residential address as Baker's home in Stilwell. The order requires Maggie to stay away from Ryan and to refrain from contacting or communicating with him. In addition, the order grants Ryan "[t]emporary legal custody and residency" of S.F.M., his and Maggie's 10-month-old son, at least in advance of a hearing set in Wyandotte County District Court about two weeks later. The order neither indicates S.F.M.'s presumed whereabouts nor expressly directs Maggie to relinquish physical custody of the child. And the order contains no identifying information about S.F.M. apart from his name.
The day after obtaining the temporary order, Ryan contacted the Johnson County Sheriff's Department for assistance in serving the petition and order on Maggie and for a "stand-by" presence so he could return some personal property to her. Ryan and his mother initially met with Deputy Travis Turner shortly after 6 p.m. Turner was uncertain about the scope of his duties and authority in serving the order, particularly with respect to S.F.M. After speaking with two colleagues, Turner drove to Baker's home, followed by Ryan and his mother. Lieutenant Thomas Reddin and Sergeant Christopher Mills also arrived at the residence.
The three officers, all in uniform, walked up the driveway, where Baker met them. Turner explained they had an order to take custody of S.F.M. and deliver him to his father. Baker told the officers to leave. There was some more verbal back-and-forth. Baker again directed the officers to get off his property—a direction they informed him they would decline, prompting him to suggest they needed a search warrant. As Baker walked up the driveway toward the house, Mills saw C.B., Baker's three-year-old granddaughter. Mills crouched down and asked C.B. if she were S.F.M. The child seemed to nod reticently. Mills then picked up C.B. and began walking down the driveway toward Ryan's car. Baker turned around. As he approached Mills, Turner shouted, "Hey" as an admonition to stop. At the same time, Reddin moved between Baker and Mills. Reddin held up his hand and momentarily placed his hand on Baker's arm. Baker hesitated briefly and then marched down the driveway shouting for the officers to leave and telling them that C.B. was not S.F.M. C.B. appeared to be crying.
Baker continued to demand the officers return C.B. and leave his property. When Ryan saw C.B., he informed Mills that the child was not S.F.M. Mills immediately returned to the mouth of the driveway, where he met Baker and relinquished a visibly upset C.B. Mills had physical custody of C.B. for between 30 and 45 seconds. Baker again told the officers to leave and got into another verbal back-and-forth with Mills about who was out of line. Baker picked up C.B. and walked into the house through the open garage.
Mills called a sheriff's lieutenant who handled civil process to determine what they should do next. The lieutenant advised them to try calling Maggie and if they got no response to leave the premises. The officers then spoke with Ryan and attempted to call Maggie with no success. Ryan, his mother, and the officers then left. In all, the officers were at Baker's house for about 10 minutes. The verbal jousting between Baker and the three officers was conducted with stern and sometimes raised voices all the way around, punctuated with some literal finger pointing.
The next day, Johnson County Sheriff's Deputy Brian Deer, Deputy Carl Alvano, and Deputy Blake Randel went to Baker's home to serve the temporary order on Maggie. They went up the driveway. As one officer knocked on the door and rang the bell, a second officer looked into the garage and through several windows into the residence. The last officer stood in the driveway and briefly approached the open garage. He and the first officer then walked to the side of the garage where they could look into the backyard. No one answered the door or otherwise communicated with the officers.
As the officers were leaving, a car pulled into the driveway. The officers approached, and the driver identified himself as Baker's son. He told the officers he did not know if Maggie was living there. A passenger in the car stated that Baker had instructed them not to talk to the officers. Baker's son then backed his car out and drove away. The officers immediately left the area. They had been at Baker's house less than 10 minutes.
Baker sued Turner, Mills, and Reddin for their conduct at his residence on September 2 and Deer, Alvano, and Randel for their conduct on September 3. Baker's petition tends to meander to no good effect—it contains 275 paragraphs covering 52 pages and is anything but a "short and plain statement" of the claims and requested relief as contemplated in K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 60-208(a)(1). The parties undertook what appears to be extensive discovery. And the summary judgment papers are lengthy. The district court ultimately granted summary judgment to all six officers on all of Baker's claims against them.
The district court wound
up addressing the issues in four memorandum decisions serially filed between March and November 2018, as the parties presented competing motions for reconsideration. The district court modified its analysis of some of the points over the course of those rulings.
Baker's appellate brief shares certain compositional attributes with his petition. The brief is long on rhetoric about the dangers of government overreach and an incipient police state but considerably shorter on focused arguments tied to precise claims and supporting legal authority. We break out each claim Baker asserted in the district court and continues to press on appeal and explain why we affirm summary judgment on that claim.
• Baker claimed a violation of his right to be free of unreasonable government searches and seizures as protected in the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. He contends the conduct of the officers appearing the evening of September 2 and the officers coming back the next day interfered with a constitutionally protected...
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Saunders ex rel. R.S. v. USD 353 Wellington
...at 11 (quoting McElhaney v. Thomas, 405 P.3d 1214, Syl. 1 (Kan. 2017)); Doc. 110 at 5 (quoting Baker v. Hayden, No. 120,334, 459 P.3d 834, 2020 WL 1313814, at *9 (Kan. Ct. App. Mar. 20, 2020)). The fact that an employee acts outside of the scope of her employment does not appear relevant to......