Brown v. City of Golden Valley

• Decision Date: 22 July 2009
• Docket Number: No. 08-1640.,08-1640.
• Citation: 574 F.3d 491
• Parties: Sandra BROWN, Plaintiff/Appellee, v. CITY OF GOLDEN VALLEY, Defendant, Rob Zarrett, Golden Valley Police Officer, Defendant/Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

574 F.3d 491

Sandra BROWN, Plaintiff/Appellee, v. CITY OF GOLDEN VALLEY, Defendant Rob Zarrett, Golden Valley Police Officer, Defendant/Appellant.

No. 08-1640.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: December 12, 2008.

Filed: July 22, 2009.

Jon K. Iverson, argued, Susan Marie Tindal, on the brief, Bloomington, MN, for appellant.

Roger L. Kramer, argued, Mendota Heights, MN, Paul Applebaum and Scott W. Swanson, St. Paul, MN, and Roger L. Kramer, Mendota Heights, MN, on the brief, for appellee.

Before WOLLMAN, RILEY, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.

WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge.

Golden Valley, Minnesota, Police Officer Rob Zarrett appeals from the district court's¹ denial of his motion for summary judgment based upon qualified and official immunity in Sandra Brown's action against him arising from Zarrett's application of a Taser during a traffic stop.² We affirm.

I.

Sandra Brown and her husband, Richard Brown (we will hereinafter refer to the Browns individually by their first names), had plans to meet friends for dinner at a downtown Minneapolis restaurant on Friday, October 8, 2005. After returning home from work, the Browns each had a cocktail, which they finished drinking at the end of their driveway. Rather than returning the glasses to the house, they put them in the car and went to meet their friends.

The Browns arrived at the restaurant around 6:30 p.m. and had dinner. Throughout the evening, Sandra had two more alcoholic drinks — a cocktail and a glass of wine — as well as coffee and water. Richard had a couple glasses of wine. They left the restaurant around midnight, with Richard driving and Sandra riding in the front passenger's seat.

Traveling west on Highway 394, the Browns noticed a squad car with flashing lights behind their car, which was being driven in the left lane. The Browns did not think that the squad car was attempting to stop them, so Richard moved to the right lane to allow the squad car to pass. When the squad car followed the Browns into the right lane, Richard slowed down and looked for a place to pull over. There was road construction on Highway 394 and the right shoulder was barricaded and inaccessible, so Richard moved into the left lane and pulled over onto what the Browns described as the "sane lane."

As Richard opened his door and began to step out of the car, an officer ordered him to get back into the car. Richard complied with the order, pulling his leg back into the car and closing the car door. He rolled down the window, whereupon three officers came to his side of the car. One officer asked Richard if he knew why he had been stopped, to which Richard replied that he did not. At that point, one of the officers opened the door, pulled Richard out of the car, threw him against the side of the vehicle, and handcuffed him. All the while, Sandra sat quietly in the passenger's seat.

As Zarrett was responding to a radio call in Golden Valley, he heard that a St. Louis Park police officer was attempting to pull over a car on Highway 394 and that the driver was not stopping. After clearing the Golden Valley call, Zarrett responded to the St. Louis Park call. Before arriving on the scene, he heard a radio update that the car had pulled over into the left lane and that the driver was getting out of the car and refusing to get back into the car. As Zarrett arrived at the scene, two officers were escorting Richard to a squad car.

The officers' behavior and demeanor frightened Sandra. She thought that the officers were aggressive and that the traffic stop was different from any that she had previously witnessed. The officers did not ask for Richard's license, registration, or proof of insurance, and they did not tell him what illegality he had committed that provoked the stop. Shortly after Richard was handcuffed, Sandra called 911 on her cell phone. She explained what had happened to the operator and was transferred to a different operator.

During her conversation with the second operator, Sandra heard someone yell, "She is on 911. She is on 911." As the 911 operator tried to reassure Sandra, Zarrett, who was accompanied by two other officers, yanked open the passenger's side door and yelled, "Get off the phone." Sandra replied that she was very frightened and that she wanted to stay on the phone with the 911 operator. Zarrett again ordered Sandra to get off the phone, to which she repeated that she was frightened.

Without another word, Zarrett applied the prongs of his Taser to Sandra's upper right arm, grabbed her phone and some of her hair, and threw the phone out the driver's side door onto the shoulder. Sandra does not remember whether she or one of the officers unfastened her seatbelt, but in any event Zarrett grabbed her right arm and pulled her out of the car, bending her arm behind her back. At that point, a second officer took her left arm and bent it behind her back. Zarrett and the other officer then escorted Sandra to a police car. Sandra tried to walk on her tiptoes to alleviate the pain from the escort hold. She described the escort as a mix between walking and being lifted. In response to Zarrett's command to stop resisting, Sandra replied that she was not trying to resist. Upon reaching the police car, Sandra was handcuffed and placed inside the car.

Sandra was taken to the Golden Valley police station. Richard, who had refused the portable breath test offered at the traffic stop, was taken to the St. Louis Park police station, where, after taking two breathalyzer tests, he was ticketed for speeding. Sandra was charged with obstruction of legal process and an open bottle violation. Following the booking procedures, the Browns took a taxi home.

The prosecution of the charges against Sandra was later suspended under an agreement that the charges would be dismissed after successful completion of certain conditions.

Sandra claims that she suffered extreme pain when Zarrett administered the Taser shock. She felt a sharp pain where the Taser met her arm, with the pain radiating from her upper arm and causing her muscles to clench. Sandra sustained bruises on her wrists and arms and red welts or marks on her upper arm. On the Monday after her arrest, she visited her primary care physician, who prescribed anti-anxiety medication. Sandra had never before been diagnosed with depression or an anxiety disorder. After the incident, Sandra experienced problems with sleeping and difficulty in focusing. She visited a psychologist twice. She is now afraid of the police. When she sees them her heart rate increases, a rash sometimes breaks out, and she occasionally hyperventilates.

Zarrett has a different recollection of the incident. After arriving at the scene, he approached the driver's side door with another officer, who ordered Sandra to get off the phone. She refused. Zarrett noticed that there were two glasses at Sandra's feet, possibly containing alcohol. After the officers walked around to the passenger's side door, Zarrett ordered Sandra to get off the phone, only to be told that she would not do so. Zarrett also says that he repeatedly told Sandra to unfasten her seat belt. As Zarrett opened the passenger's side door, Sandra scooted away from the door and pulled her knees towards her chest. Zarrett thought Sandra looked disheveled and believed that she might be intoxicated.

According to Zarrett, Sandra watched as he unholstered his Taser and removed the air cartridge, and he told Sandra that he would use his Taser if she did not comply. When Sandra was not looking, Zarrett grabbed her phone, threw it on the driver's seat, and applied the Taser in drive stun mode to Sandra's upper right arm for an estimated two to three seconds.³ Sandra then unfastened her seat belt, whereupon Zarrett removed her from the car and arrested her. With the help of another officer, Zarrett escorted Sandra to his squad car. Sandra resisted the escort, despite repeated commands that she cooperate.

II.

Qualified immunity shields government officials from liability in a § 1983 action unless the official's conduct violates a clearly established constitutional or statutory right of which a reasonable person would have known. Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 739, 122 S.Ct. 2508, 153 L.Ed.2d 666 (2002); Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982); Henderson v. Munn, 439 F.3d 497, 501 (8th Cir.2006). We review de novo a district court's denial of summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. Henderson, 439 F.3d at 501. We view the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, accepting as true the facts that the district court found were adequately supported, as well as the facts the district court likely assumed. Id.; see also Walker v. City of Pine Bluff, 414 F.3d 989, 991 (8th Cir.2005).

Qualified immunity involves the following two-step inquiry: (1) whether the facts shown by the plaintiff make out a violation of a constitutional or statutory right, and (2) whether that right was clearly established at the time of the defendant's alleged misconduct. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001); see also Pearson v. Callahan, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 808, 818, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009) (holding that courts may exercise their discretion in deciding which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed first).

A.

Our initial inquiry is whether the facts alleged support Sandra's contention that Zarrett violated her Fourth Amendment right to be free from excessive force during the course of the traffic stop and her arrest. We analyze excessive force claims in the context of seizures under the Fourth Amendment, applying its reasonableness standard. Henderson, 439 F.3d at 502. The Supreme Court's "Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has long recognized that the right to make an arrest or investigatory stop necessarily carries with it the right to use some degree of physical...