Brown v. Elliott

• Citation: 876 F.3d 637
• Decision Date: 21 November 2017
• Docket Number: No. 16-2214, No. 16-2218,16-2214
• Parties: Arlean K. BROWN, as the Personal Representative of Melvin K. Lawhorn, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Brian ELLIOTT; Jim Matthews, individually and in his official capacity as the Sheriff of Kershaw County; Kershaw County Sheriff's Office; Kershaw County, Defendants-Appellants. Arlean K. Brown, as the Personal Representative of Melvin K. Lawhorn, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Brian Elliott; Jim Matthews, individually and in his official capacity as the Sheriff of Kershaw County; Kershaw County Sheriff's Office; Kershaw County, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit)

876 F.3d 637

Arlean K. BROWN, as the Personal Representative of Melvin K. Lawhorn, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Brian ELLIOTT; Jim Matthews, individually and in his official capacity as the Sheriff of Kershaw County; Kershaw County Sheriff's Office; Kershaw County, Defendants-Appellants.

Arlean K. Brown, as the Personal Representative of Melvin K. Lawhorn, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.Brian Elliott; Jim Matthews, individually and in his official capacity as the Sheriff of Kershaw County; Kershaw County Sheriff's Office; Kershaw County, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 16-2214

No. 16-2218

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: September 15, 2017

Decided: November 21, 2017

ARGUED: H. Thomas Morgan, Jr., DUBOSE-ROBINSON, PC, Camden, South Carolina, for Appellants/Cross-Appellees. Jordan Christopher Calloway, MCGOWAN, HOOD & FELDER, LLC, Rock Hill, South Carolina, for Appellee/Cross-Appellant. ON BRIEF: Robert V. Phillips, MCGOWAN, HOOD & FELDER, LLC, Rock Hill, South Carolina, for Appellee/Cross-Appellant.

Before MOTZ, TRAXLER, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Motz wrote the opinion, in which Judge Traxler and Judge Keenan joined.

DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ, Circuit Judge:

This case arises from the fatal police shooting of Melvin Lawhorn. His personal representative, Arlean Brown, brought this action in state court, asserting Fourth Amendment excessive force claims, pursuant to § 1983, and various state law claims against Kershaw County, the County Sheriff's Office, Sheriff Jim Matthews, and Deputy Sheriff Brian Elliott (collectively, "the Defendants"). After the Defendants removed the case, the district court dismissed Ms. Brown's § 1983 claims against the County and the Sheriff's Office and against Sheriff Matthews and Deputy Elliott in their official capacities. The court then granted summary judgment on Ms. Brown's claims against Sheriff Matthews and Deputy Elliott in their personal capacities, holding them entitled to qualified immunity, and remanded the state law claims to state court. In the course of litigation, the district court also imposed a monetary discovery sanction on the Defendants. The Defendants appeal that discovery sanction. Ms. Brown cross-appeals, challenging the discovery sanction as insufficient and contending that Sheriff Matthews and Deputy Elliott are not entitled to qualified immunity. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

I.

A.

The traffic stop at the center of this case occurred on February 28, 2012, around 8:23 p.m. That evening, officers with the Kershaw County Sheriff's Office, including Deputy Elliott, received a tip from a confidential informant that Melvin Lawhorn would be purchasing and transporting a large quantity of cocaine in a truck along a given rural road and that Lawhorn "usually carr[ies] a gun ... when he goes and picks up dope." The detectives set up a perimeter along the route. When the truck passed Deputy Elliott, it was speeding and crossed the center line, so he initiated a traffic stop by activating his blue lights. The truck pulled over. Deputy Elliott approached the truck from the passenger side, where Lawhorn, the suspect, was sitting with his window halfway down. Deputy Mickey Sellers approached the truck from the driver's side. The driver, Darryl Herbert, kept his foot on top of the accelerator with the truck's engine still running.

As Deputy Elliott arrived at the passenger door, Lawhorn jumped toward the driver's seat, put his left foot on top of the driver's foot on the gas pedal, and attempted to shift the truck into drive. The deputies shouted "freeze" and "don't move." Deputy Elliott leaned inside the passenger-side window to grab Lawhorn. However, Lawhorn successfully shifted the truck into drive, and the truck began moving forward. Moments later, Deputy Elliott, who stated that he feared for his life and that of the other officers, reached for his gun and fired one shot into the truck, striking Lawhorn in the back and killing him.

The magistrate judge recommended and the district court held that Deputy Elliott (and Sheriff Matthews) were entitled to qualified immunity, because, even viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Ms. Brown, Deputy Elliott did not violate clearly established law. Ms. Brown challenges the grant of qualified immunity.

B.

During discovery, Ms. Brown requested that the Defendants produce copies of "any and all videos, dash cam, body cam, etc., from the officers' body cams and/or vehicles involved in the incident." She also requested, "If no videos are produced ... explain in detail why there are no videos." The Defendants responded, "There are no dash or body cameras involved in this incident." In response to an interrogatory asking for the "make and model number of the dash cams in the two vehicles involved in the incident," the Defendants similarly answered that "[t]hese vehicles were not equipped with dash cams at the time of the incident."

But in a batch of photos produced by the non-party South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, which investigates officer-involved shootings, Ms. Brown discovered photos of a police car showing what looked like a video camera mounted inside the windshield. It is undisputed that the photos depict the car driven that night by one of the deputies present at the traffic stop.

Ms. Brown moved for default judgment as a sanction for this asserted discovery violation. The district court agreed that "the defendants did not accurately respond to [Ms. Brown's] discovery requests regarding the existence of cameras in the police vehicles involved in this case." The court, however, refused to grant Ms. Brown a default judgment, instead ordering the Defendants to pay Ms. Brown the attorney's fees and costs "incurred in connection" with the matter, which the court found to be $11,550.

On appeal, the Defendants challenge the district court's award of attorney's fees. Ms. Brown cross-appeals, arguing that the court should have granted a default judgment as a sanction for the discovery violation.

II.

We first address the qualified immunity question, reviewing de novo the district court's award of summary judgment. See Meyers v. Baltimore Cty. , 713 F.3d 723, 730 (4th Cir. 2013).

A.

Qualified immunity shields officials from civil liability so long as their conduct "does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Mullenix v. Luna , –––U.S. ––––, 136 S.Ct. 305, 308, 193 L.Ed.2d 255 (2015) (per curiam) (quoting Pearson v. Callahan , 555 U.S. 223, 231, 129 S.Ct. 808, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009) ) (internal quotation marks omitted).

The Supreme Court initially required that the inquiry proceed in a sequential two-step process—a court should first decide whether the plaintiff had shown a violation of a constitutional right, and only if so, determine whether the right at issue was "clearly established" at the time of the defendant's alleged misconduct. See Saucier v. Katz , 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001). In 2009, however, the Court changed course, holding that a court may "skip ahead to the question whether the law clearly established that the officer's conduct was unlawful in the circumstances of the case." Pearson , 555 U.S. at 232, 236, 129 S.Ct. 808 (quoting Saucier , 533 U.S. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151 ) (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, we may "skip ahead to the question whether the law clearly established that the officer's conduct was unlawful in the circumstances of the case." Id. at 232, 129 S.Ct. 808 (emphasis added) (quoting Saucier , 533 U.S. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151 ) (internal quotation marks omitted). We take that approach in this case.

To resolve whether the law is "clearly established," a court must initially ascertain the "circumstances of the case." Id. (quoting Saucier , 533 U.S. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151 ) (internal quotation marks omitted). At summary judgment, in the qualified immunity context as in others, courts must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the party opposing summary judgment. Tolan v. Cotton , ––– U.S. ––––, 134 S.Ct. 1861, 1866, 188 L.Ed.2d 895 (2014). The Supreme Court has emphasized "the importance of drawing inferences in favor of the nonmovant, even when ... a court decides only the clearly-established prong" of the qualified immunity analysis. Id. Thus, when resolving the issue of qualified immunity at summary judgment, a court must ascertain the "circumstances of the case" by crediting the plaintiff's evidence and drawing all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's favor.

A court must then ask whether the official's conduct under these "circumstances" violated "clearly established law." See Plumhoff v. Rickard , ––– U.S. ––––, 134 S.Ct. 2012, 2023, 188 L.Ed.2d 1056 (2014). We do not, however, "define clearly established law at a high level of generality," because the "dispositive question is ‘whether the violative nature of particular conduct is clearly established.’ " Luna , 136 S.Ct. at 308 (quoting Ashcroft v. al–Kidd , 563 U.S. 731, 742, 131 S.Ct. 2074, 179 L.Ed.2d 1149 (2011) ). "[O]fficials can still be on notice that their conduct violates established law even in novel factual circumstances," Hope v. Pelzer , 536 U.S. 730, 741, 122 S.Ct. 2508, 153 L.Ed.2d 666 (2002), as "when extreme though unheard-of actions violate the Constitution," Camreta v. Greene , 563 U.S. 692, 728, 131 S.Ct. 2020, 179 L.Ed.2d 1118 (2011). But the state of the law must be " ‘sufficiently clear’ that every ‘reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates' " the law in the circumstances the defendant confronted. al-Kidd , 563 U.S. at 741, 131 S.Ct. 2074 (quoting Anderson v. Creighton , 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987) ); see also Malley v. Briggs , 475 U.S. 335, 341, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986) (stating that qualified immunity protects "all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law")...