Boggerty v. Wilson
| Decision Date | 17 July 1987 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 82510 |
| Citation | 160 Mich.App. 514,408 N.W.2d 809 |
| Parties | Major F. BOGGERTY and Aden Boggerty, Plaintiffs-Appellees and Cross-Appellants, v. Earnestine WILSON, Jackie Veasley, Cynthia Martin, David Murray and Lt. Warren Coleman, Defendants-Cross-Appellees, and The City of Detroit, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US |
Fried & Saperstein, P.C. by Melvyn D. Saperstein, James C. Howarth and Juan A. Mateo, Southfield, for plaintiffs-appellees and cross-appellants.
Garan, Lucow, Miller, Seward, Cooper & Becker, P.C. by Matthew A. Seward and Rosalind H. Rochkind, Detroit, for the individual defendants-cross-appellees.
Laurel McGiffert, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Detroit, for the City of Detroit.
Before HOOD, P.J., and J.H. GILLIS and BATZER, * JJ.
Following a jury trial, defendant City of Detroit was found liable under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 for violating the constitutional rights of plaintiff Major Boggerty (hereafter plaintiff). The city appeals as of right from the judgment to that effect.
Plaintiffs have cross-appealed from the judgment of no cause of action in favor of the individual defendants, police officers for the City of Detroit.
The instant action arises out of the arrest of plaintiff in the City of Detroit on October 24, 1979. Plaintiff was arrested at the time of the arrest of his brother, Robert, a felonious assault suspect and passenger in plaintiff's car. Plaintiff testified that the officers informed him at the time of Robert's arrest that they would have to take him down to the police station. He testified that there were three unopened fifths of liquor in the rear passenger area of his car.
Plaintiff was taken by two policemen to the 11th Precinct. Once at the station, plaintiff's belongings were removed and his watchband was broken in the process. According to plaintiff, he was functioning normally during the booking procedure. After plaintiff's belongings were removed, he was taken by an officer to a door where he was met by Officer David Murray. Murray escorted plaintiff to a cell where plaintiff remained for approximately one hour.
Plaintiff testified that he repeatedly requested to be let out of his cell to make a phone call but that Murray at first ignored his requests. After several minutes, Murray responded and took plaintiff from his cell to a phone in the fingerprint room. Plaintiff called the home of his friend, James Carreker, and informed Carreker's wife of his arrest. After the phone call, plaintiff was taken to a table and fingerprinted.
According to plaintiff, after he wiped his hands, he was approached by Murray and given a blank sheet of paper. Plaintiff testified that Murray told him: "You sign this sheet of paper and pay $100 and you can go." At that time plaintiff heard his brother, Robert, detained in a precinct cell, yell to Murray: "Bring your red ass in here if you want to fight." Murray then allegedly grabbed plaintiff by his shirt collar and kneed him in the upper left side of his leg, near his groin.
According to plaintiff, he fell to the floor and Murray continued kicking him in the lower back. Three police officers joined Murray and grabbed plaintiff "spread eagle" on the floor. The officers hit plaintiff a few more times in the abdominal area. Because his leg had been previously broken and he did not want to reinjure it, plaintiff appealed to a black officer to stop the beating, but the officer responded: "If your leg is broken, you should have a cast on it." When plaintiff looked up, he saw a white officer standing in the doorway. The officers stopped assaulting plaintiff and ordered him onto a bench. He remained on the bench until his wife and his friend, James Carreker, arrived. Plaintiff's wife paid his bond and, with the help of Carreker, drove plaintiff to Sinai Hospital. Although a Detroit EMS unit had been called to transport plaintiff to Detroit Receiving Hospital for medical attention, plaintiff refused to go because Sinai was closer to his home. Plaintiff testified that sometime after the incident he learned that his wife had poured him a tumbler full of whiskey which he drank in the car on the way to the hospital. Plaintiff remained in the hospital until December 24, 1979. He continues to suffer pain in his left hip and leg.
Plaintiff's wife, James Carreker and Ruth Gray Chambers corroborated plaintiff's account of events occurring before and after plaintiff's arrest and subsequent to his injury at the station.
A conflicting account of events was presented by the Detroit police officers. The Detroit police received a report at approximately 4:00 p.m. of a felonious assault. A woman at the location of the alleged assault described the assailants as driving a blue car and heading in a northerly direction. Defendant Wilson and her partner left the scene in search of the car but were unable to locate it and returned to the scene of the crime. As they were speaking with other officers back at the scene of the assault, a blue car turned onto that street and stopped about mid-block. The woman identified the car and Wilson approached plaintiff who was the driver.
According to Wilson, plaintiff was holding a small plastic cup, which she assumed contained alcohol. She asked plaintiff to step out of the vehicle. She also saw a fifth of Canadian Club sitting alongside plaintiff. She recalled that plaintiff was reluctant to comply and started "mumbling and cussing." After Robert Boggerty was arrested, Wilson placed plaintiff under arrest for having open alcohol in his car and disturbing the peace. Wilson accompanied plaintiff to the station where, pursuant to Lt. Warren Coleman's directions, the charge was changed to driving under the influence of liquor. Plaintiff refused a Breathalyzer test. Wilson testified that the DUIL charges were eventually dropped due to insufficient evidence. The charges regarding plaintiff's failure to take a Breathalyzer test were dropped upon a referee's finding that the reason for plaintiff's arrest was belligerence.
Plaintiffs called Lt. Warren Coleman as an adverse witness. Coleman testified that he thought plaintiff was "quite intoxicated" when he was brought to the station. Coleman believed that it was proper to let plaintiff out of his cell to make a call assuming that the doorman, Murray, thought plaintiff was capable of making the call. Coleman testified that on the date of the offense Murray was acting as doorman at the precinct. Coleman did not see the injury occur, but entered the fingerprinting room within seconds after hearing the sound of someone or something falling. When he entered, he saw plaintiff and Murray lying on the floor. He denied that he saw anyone assault plaintiff.
Two physicians, McCollough and Pollak, testified concerning plaintiff's injuries. Both testified that plaintiff suffered a fractured femur and that it was unusual for a man of plaintiff's age to have sustained such a fracture as the result of a fall because the injury generally required a higher degree of external force. Pollak read an excerpt from the emergency room admission records indicating that it was difficult to examine plaintiff because plaintiff was intoxicated with alcohol.
Plaintiffs additionally introduced the testimony of two experts in the area of hiring and training police officers. Both experts testified on the basis of standards published by various criminal justice associations.
Dr. Beckman testified that, based upon his review of Murray's deposition, Murray had had no special training for his position as doorman and accordingly had not been properly trained. He also opined that neither Lt. Coleman nor Officer Wilson had been properly trained. When questioned on the overall training of doormen provided by the City of Detroit between the years 1970 and 1979, Beckman responded that the training methods "did not and never have" met the standards on which he relied. Beckman acknowledged on cross-examination that Detroit police officers go through all state-mandated training and that the training by the City of Detroit met all state standards.
Mr. Donley concurred in Beckman's assessments. Like Beckman, Donley testified that Murray had not been properly trained as a doorman. Donley asserted that in 1978 and 1979 the City of Detroit had a "well written program" for training doormen, but that the program had not been effectively carried out. Finally, Donley explained that a visibly intoxicated prisoner should not be removed from his cell to make a phone call for a number of reasons, including possible injury to the intoxicated person. Instead, an intoxicated person should be permitted his phone call prior to being taken to his cell.
Plaintiff's case was submitted to the jury on a special verdict form which charged the individual defendants, variously, with false imprisonment, assault and battery, negligence and denial of plaintiff's civil rights. The case against defendant City of Detroit was premised on the city's denial of plaintiff's civil rights by improper training, or by a "policy, custom or procedure" which violated plaintiff's civil rights. The jury rendered a verdict of no cause of action as to the individual defendants on all counts and rendered a verdict against the city in the amount of $550,000 for denial of plaintiff's civil rights.
We first address defendant-appellant's claim of error.
Defendant City of Detroit claims that plaintiffs presented insufficient evidence of a denial of civil rights to sustain the jury verdict.
In reviewing the city's claim, this Court must view the evidence in a light most favorable to plaintiffs and give plaintiffs the benefit of every reasonable inference that can be drawn from the evidence. If, after viewing the evidence in this manner, reasonable men could differ, the question was properly left to the jury. Napier v. Jacobs, 145 Mich.App....
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
OAKLAND CTY. PROSECUTOR v. Beckwith
...is of no effect. It is well settled that courts speak through their written orders, not their oral statements. Boggerty v. Wilson, 160 Mich.App. 514, 530, 408 N.W.2d 809 (1987). The majority's second argument is that the proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law were mere recommendat......
-
Rouch v. Enquirer & News of Battle Creek
...after viewing the evidence in this manner, reasonable jurors could differ, the question is one for the jury. Boggerty v. Wilson, 160 Mich.App. 514, 522, 408 N.W.2d 809 (1987), lv. den. 430 Mich. 851 (1988). We find that there was ample justification to submit the negligence question to the ......
-
Flones v. Dalman
...people could differ with regard to a tortfeasor's good or bad faith, the question should be left to the jury. Boggerty v. Wilson, 160 Mich.App. 514, 522, 408 N.W.2d 809 (1987). Dalman argues that "bad faith" for the purpose of immunity should be something more than the malice required to es......
-
Mitchell v. Cole
...find that reasonable minds could differ, we cannot say the evidence was not sufficient to sustain the verdict. Boggerty v. Wilson, 160 Mich.App. 514, 522, 408 N.W.2d 809 (1987). The trial court did not err in not dismissing the claims based on a violation of the administrative rule regardin......