Carter v. Morris

• Decision Date: 14 January 1999
• Docket Number: 98-1405,Nos. 98-1020,s. 98-1020
• Citation: 164 F.3d 215
• Parties: Pamela CARTER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. T. Neal MORRIS, Individually and in his capacity as the Chief of Police of the City of Danville Police Department; City of Danville, Virginia, Defendants-Appellees, and Unknown Agents of the City of Danville Police Department, Defendants. Pamela Carter, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Unknown Agents of the City of Danville Police Department, Defendants-Appellees, and T. Neal Morris, Individually and in his capacity as the Chief of Police of the City of Danville Police Department; City of Danville, Virginia, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 215

164 F.3d 215

Pamela CARTER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. T. Neal MORRIS, Individually and in his capacity as the

Chief of Police of the City of Danville Police

Department; City of Danville, Virginia,

Defendants-Appellees,

and

Unknown Agents of the City of Danville Police Department,

Defendants.

Pamela Carter, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Unknown Agents of the City of Danville Police Department,

Defendants-Appellees,

and

T. Neal Morris, Individually and in his capacity as the

Chief of Police of the City of Danville Police

Department; City of Danville, Virginia,

Defendants.

Nos. 98-1020, 98-1405.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued Dec. 1, 1998.

Decided Jan. 14, 1999.

ARGUED: Terry N. Grimes, King, Fulghum, Snead, Nixon & Grimes, P.C., Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellant. ON BRIEF: Yvonne Steenstra Wellford, Maloney, Huennekens, Parks, Gecker & Parsons, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees.

Before WILKINSON, Chief Judge, TRAXLER, Circuit Judge, and HILTON, Chief United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation.

Affirmed by published opinion. Chief Judge WILKINSON wrote the opinion, in which Judge TRAXLER and Chief Judge HILTON joined.

OPINION

WILKINSON, Chief Judge:

Pamela Carter sued the City of Danville, Chief of Police Neal Morris, and unknown agents of the Danville Police Department in connection with her arrest and the search of her home. She asserted both federal claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state law claims. The district court granted summary judgment to the City and to Morris on all claims, and dismissed all claims against the unknown agents. Carter appeals, offering evidence of a wide range of unrelated incidents on the part of the police department to establish the existence of a city policy or custom of unconstitutional behavior.

Because Carter fails to establish the unconstitutional policy or custom with the appropriate precision, we affirm the judgment of the district court with regard to municipal liability. Similarly, Carter's failure to establish a particularized link between Morris' alleged indifference to specific police conduct and her alleged injury requires affirmance of the district court's judgment with respect to him. Finally, we affirm the district court's judgment with regard to Carter's state law claims.

I.

In June 1994 an eyewitness implicated Pamela and Corey Carter in a series of crimes that had recently occurred in Danville, Virginia. The witness, Michael Cobbs, claimed he had seen Corey Carter and another male leave a Piggly Wiggly store at around the time the store was robbed; he further indicated that a female had driven their getaway vehicle. Cobbs then picked Pamela Carter out of a photo lineup as the driver. He also told police that Ms. Carter had admitted to driving the getaway car in the Piggly Wiggly as well as sixteen other robberies, including a robbery and murder at a local Winn Dixie store.

On June 12, 1994, the police obtained information that Corey Carter was at home. They received an arrest warrant for him and a search warrant for his person, and at approximately 2:00 p.m. they raided the Carter residence.

Pamela Carter's version of events runs as follows. The police used a sledge hammer to break open her front door, and they burst into her bedroom without warning. One of the officers put a gun to her ear, while another put one to her mouth and ordered her to lie down. The officers then handcuffed her and told her she was under arrest for the Winn Dixie and Piggly Wiggly robberies. Carter claims that she urinated on herself at some point during the incident, and that the police refused her request to change clothes. She also maintains that the officers treated her children roughly and placed them in the care of a stranger.

The police took Carter from her home and brought her to the police station. Carter contends that her handcuffs were too tight and that the police pushed her legs as she got into their patrol car. While at the station, the police subjected her to a "lengthy, intensive, and accusatory" interrogation. She maintains that the police refused to let her use the bathroom, and that she urinated on herself again. She also claims that two officers taunted her with racial epithets.

At the end of the interrogation an officer allegedly told Carter that if she signed papers she could go home. The papers she signed included a consent form for the officers to search her house. The police did so, and seized some of her husband's effects. They then released her.

Roughly three weeks later the police showed Carter in person to the informant, Cobbs. Upon seeing her, Cobbs stated that she was not the person whom he had seen driving the car from the Piggly Wiggly and who admitted participating in the other robberies. Pamela Carter was never charged for the crimes. Corey Carter was tried and acquitted of the Piggly Wiggly robbery, and other persons were eventually convicted of the Winn Dixie crimes.

Pamela Carter contends that the police continued to harass her after this episode. Officers put the Carters' home under surveillance, and some allegedly made vulgar comments to her. Carter claims that she attempted to file a complaint at the police station, but that the officers on duty refused to let her do so.

Ms. Carter then filed this suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia against the City, Morris, and the unknown agents. She asserted section 1983 claims against each defendant for unlawful arrest, excessive force, and the unlawful search of her home. To establish municipal liability, she claimed that the City maintained a policy or custom of ignoring or condoning unconstitutional police conduct. Additionally, she asserted several state tort claims. ¹

After discovery, the district court granted summary judgment to the City and to Morris on all claims. Carter failed to effectively pursue her claims against the individual officers, and the district court dismissed those claims as res judicata and as barred by the statute of limitations. Carter appeals her section 1983 and state law claims against the City and Morris. ²

II.

A.

We begin with Carter's claims against the City. Assuming arguendo that she suffered a deprivation of her federal rights, it is by now well settled that a municipality is only liable under section 1983 if it causes such a deprivation through an official policy or custom. Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 690-91, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978). Municipal policy may be found in written ordinances and regulations, id. at 690, 98 S.Ct. 2018, in certain affirmative decisions of individual policymaking officials, Pembaur v. City of Cincinnati, 475 U.S. 469, 483-84, 106 S.Ct. 1292, 89 L.Ed.2d 452 (1986), or in certain omissions on the part of policymaking officials that manifest deliberate indifference to the rights of citizens, City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 388-89, 109 S.Ct. 1197, 103 L.Ed.2d 412 (1989). Outside of such formal decisionmaking channels, a municipal custom may arise if a practice is so "persistent and widespread" and "so permanent and well settled as to constitute a 'custom or usage' with the force of law." Monell, 436 U.S. at 691, 98 S.Ct. 2018 (internal quotation marks omitted).

We must bear in mind, however, that no municipality can "be held liable under § 1983 on a responde at superior theory." Id. A plaintiff's theory is most likely to slip into that forbidden realm when she alleges municipal omission--either a policy of deliberate indifference or the condonation of an unconstitutional custom. Board of County Comm'rs v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 405, 117 S.Ct. 1382, 137 L.Ed.2d 626 (1997). "Where a plaintiff claims that the municipality has not directly inflicted an injury, but nonetheless has caused an employee to do so, rigorous standards of culpability and causation must be applied to ensure that the municipality is not held liable solely for the actions of its employee." Id.; see also City of Canton, 489 U.S. at 391-92, 109 S.Ct. 1197.

Thus, a plaintiff cannot rely upon scattershot accusations of unrelated constitutional violations to prove either that a municipality was indifferent to the risk of her specific injury or that it was the moving force behind her deprivation. Instead, a "plaintiff must demonstrate that a municipal decision reflects deliberate indifference to the risk that a violation of a particular constitutional or statutory right will follow the decision." Brown, 520 U.S. at 411, 117 S.Ct. 1382 (emphasis added); see also City of Canton, 489 U.S. at 391, 109 S.Ct. 1197 ("[T]he identified deficiency ...must be closely related to the ultimate injury."); Spell v. McDaniel,824 F.2d 1380, 1389-91 (4th Cir.1987); Milligan v. City of Newport News, 743 F.2d 227, 230 (4th Cir.1984). Thus, municipal liability will attach only for those policies or customs having a "specific deficiency or deficiencies ... such as to make the specific violation almost bound to happen, sooner or later, rather than merely likely to happen in the long run." Spell, 824 F.2d at 1390 (internal quotation marks omitted) (emphasis added). The challenged policy or custom cannot merely be the abstract one of violating citizens' constitutional rights.

The requirement of a close fit between the unconstitutional policy and the constitutional violation serves three purposes. First, it helps to ensure that a municipality has made "a deliberate choice to follow a course of action ... from among various alternatives." City of Canton, 489 U.S. at 389, 109 S.Ct. 1197 (internal quotation marks omitted). Second, it assures that this choice was in fact the "moving force" behind a deprivation of federal rights. Monell, 436 U.S. at 694, 98 S.Ct. 2018. A careful examination of this "affirmative link" is essential to avoid imposing liability on municipal decisionmakers in the absence of fault and causation.

Third, by requiring...