Bennett v. Coffman

• Decision Date: 14 April 1987
• Docket Number: No. 17058,17058
• Citation: 178 W.Va. 500,361 S.E.2d 465
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: Orin Bruce BENNETT v. Officer Dave COFFMAN, etc., et al.

Page 465

361 S.E.2d 465

178 W.Va. 500

Orin Bruce BENNETT v. Officer Dave COFFMAN, etc., et al.

No. 17058.

Supreme Court of Appeals of

West Virginia.

April 14, 1987.

Syllabus by the Court

Government officials performing discretionary functions are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. A policeman's lot is not so unhappy that he must choose between being charged with dereliction of duty if he does not arrest when he has probable cause, and being mulcted in damages if he does.

Laverne Sweeney, Grafton, for appellant.

Robert J. Wallace, Coleman & Wallace, Buckhannon, James M. Wilson, Clarksburg, Alexander M. Ross, Buckhannon, for appellee.

NEELY, Justice:

At about 11:00 p.m. on 23 December 1982, Dave Coffman and Robert Campbell, on-duty police officers for the City of Buckhannon, went to the Ranch Bar in Buckhannon in response to a disturbance call from the proprietor. They were told by the proprietor that Orin Bruce Bennett had recently been at the bar in a state of extreme intoxication. When asked to leave the bar, Mr. Bennett had assaulted the proprietor and caused extensive property damage. Later the officers were informed by radio that Mr. Bennett had called the police station and requested a meeting with the officers at his residence.

The officers proceeded to Mr. Bennett's residence, but found no one home. As the officers were driving away from Mr. Bennett's house, a car approached them from the opposite direction. The oncoming vehicle was two to three feet left of center, and Officer Campbell had to drive onto the shoulder in order to avoid a head-on collision. As the two vehicles passed, Officer Coffman turned and identified Mr. Bennett as the driver of the other car. Officer Campbell then turned the cruiser around and pursued the Bennett vehicle back to the Bennett house. Mr. Bennett pulled into his driveway, and as Officers Campbell and Coffman pulled up behind Mr. Bennett's car, Mr. Bennett got out from the driver's side and ran around to the back of his house. Willard Westfall remained seated in the passenger seat of the car.

Officers Coffman and Campbell searched for Mr. Bennett, but were unable to find him. The officers radioed a request for assistance to Buckhannon City Police Officer Darrell Bennett and Upshur County Deputy Sheriff Mark Cerullo. Officers Coffman and Campbell then continued to search for Mr. Bennett. After the search had proceeded for about an hour, Deputy Cerullo, who was watching the front of the Bennett residence, observed someone he believed to be Mr. Bennett enter the house. He notified the other officers, who then returned to the house.

At this time West Virginia State Trooper Dave Harris arrived, and Officers Coffman and Campbell described the foregoing events to him. They informed Trooper Harris that Mr. Bennett had committed the misdemeanor of driving under the influence of alcohol in their presence, and that they believed they had the right to enter Mr. Bennett's residence without first obtaining an arrest warrant. Trooper Harris agreed. All five policemen then proceeded to the front porch of the Bennett residence, and Trooper Harris knocked on the door. Willard Westfall answered the door, and when asked whether Mr. Bennett was in the house, replied that he was not. Trooper Harris then asked Mr. Westfall whether they could enter the house. There is some disagreement regarding Mr. Westfall's reply, but it is agreed that he did not grant the officers permission to enter. Officer Coffman, Officer Campbell and Trooper Harris then entered the house and found Mr. Bennett hiding under a bed. Officer Bennett and Deputy Cerullo did not enter the residence. Mr. Bennett appeared to be intoxicated. He was placed under arrest without incident.

Officers Coffman and Campbell then transported Mr. Bennett to the Upshur County jail. Trooper Harris, Officer Bennett and Deputy Cerullo all continued about their respective duties. They had no further contact with Mr. Bennett.

At the jail, Mr. Bennett registered a .096 on the breathalyzer. Because it was Christmas Eve, Officer Coffman elected to reduce the charge from driving under the influence of alcohol to public intoxication and reckless driving. The officers then transported Mr. Bennett back to his residence.

Mr. Bennett subsequently brought this action for civil damages pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. At the end of the plaintiff's case, the court directed a verdict for the defendants. It is from this judgment that Mr. Bennett appeals. We find no error and affirm.

I

It has long been established that a police officer is entitled to qualified immunity from an assessment of damages against him in an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 if he acted with a reasonable and good faith belief that he acted lawfully. See Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 87 S.Ct. 1213, 18 L.Ed.2d 288 (1967); Street v. Cherba, 662 F.2d 1037 (4th Cir.1981); Hill v. Rowland, 474 F.2d 1374 (4th Cir.1973); Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 456 F.2d 1339 (2nd Cir.1972); Reimer v. Short, 578 F.2d 621 (5th Cir.1978); Jones v. Perrigan, 459 F.2d 81 (6th Cir.1972). As Chief Justice Warren stated in his opinion for the Court in Pierson, supra,

A policeman's lot is not so unhappy that he must choose between being charged with dereliction of duty if he does not arrest when he has probable cause, and being mulcted in damages if he does.

386 U.S. at 557, 87 S.Ct. at 1219.

In cases decided after Pierson, there evolved a two-pronged test for determining whether qualified immunity was appropriate. The first prong inquired into the subjective good faith belief of the officer that his actions were lawful. The second prong inquired into the objective reasonableness of the officer's belief. See Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 308, 95 S.Ct. 992, 43 L.Ed.2d 214 (1975). However, in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982), the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the subjective prong of the test, and formulated the inquiry thus:

We therefore hold that government officials performing discretionary functions, generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. * * * If the law at that time was not clearly established, an official could not reasonably be expected to anticipate subsequent legal developments, nor could he fairly be said to "know" that the law forbade conduct not previously identified as unlawful.

Id. at 818, 102 S.Ct. at 2738. The policy underlying this revision of the test was one of encouraging district courts to enter summary judgment against plaintiffs bringing insubstantial claims. See Note, "Quick Termination of Insubstantial Civil Rights Claims: Qualified Immunity and Procedural Fairness," 38 Vanderbilt L.Rev. 1543 (1985).

The appellees in this case are therefore immune from damages unless they acted contrary to clearly established law as it existed at the time they entered Mr. Bennett's home without a warrant to arrest him for driving under the influence of alcohol.

II

Initially it should be noted that an officer need not obtain an arrest warrant before arresting a person whom he has witnessed committing a misdemeanor. State v. Lutz, 85 W.Va. 330, 101 S.E. 434 (1919). Moreover, an officer having reasonable grounds to believe that a person has been driving while drunk may make a warrantless arrest for that offense even though the offense is not committed in his presence. State v. Byers, 159 W.Va. 156, 224 S.E.2d 726 (1976). The issue is thus not whether Mr. Bennett could lawfully have been arrested outside his home without a warrant--he could have. The issue is whether on 24 December 1982 it was clearly unconstitutional to enter Mr. Bennett's home without a warrant in order to effect the arrest.

In United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 96 S.Ct. 2406, 49 L.Ed.2d 300 (1976), the U.S. Supreme Court held that, when the police have initiated a valid public warrantless arrest of a suspect, the suspect may not defeat the arrest "by the expedient of escaping to a private place." Id. at 43, 96 S.Ct. at 2410. In Santana, the defendant had been standing in the open doorway of her house when the police, who had probable cause to believe she had just distributed heroin, pulled up in front of her house in an unmarked van, shouted "police", and displayed their badges. The defendant retreated into the vestibule of her house, and the police entered the vestibule in order to apprehend her. The Court upheld the warrantless arrest in the home under the doctrine of hot pursuit.

Santana was followed by the Supreme Court of Nebraska in State v. Penas, 200 Neb. 387, 263 N.W.2d 835 (1978). The facts of Penas are extraordinarily similar to those in the case at bar. A police officer in a marked cruiser observed Penas driving his van in an erratic manner. When Penas parked in front of his house, the officer pulled up behind him, got out of the cruiser, and identified himself as a police officer. Penas ran to his house, and managed to enter before the officer could apprehend him. The officer returned to his cruiser and radioed for assistance. When another officer arrived, Penas could be seen through the screen door he had entered. The officers called to Penas to come over to the door in order to talk to them. When Penas approached, the officers noted that his eyes were bloodshot and that his breath smelled of alcohol. When Penas refused to go outside, the officers opened the screen door, pulled Penas outside, and arrested him for driving while intoxicated. Following Santana, the Nebraska court upheld the arrest under the doctrine of hot pursuit.

The Court of Appeals of Oregon similarly followed Santana in State v. Niedermeyer, 48...