Chesney v. City of Jackson

• Decision Date: 21 March 2016
• Docket Number: Case No. 14-11097
• Citation: 171 F.Supp.3d 605
• Parties: Jeremiah Chesney, Plaintiff, v. City of Jackson, Police Sergeant Paul Gross, Police Officer Timothy Black, Police Officer William Mills, Police Officer Peter Postma, Police Officer Cary Kingston, and Matthew R. Heins, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan

171 F.Supp.3d 605

Jeremiah Chesney, Plaintiff,

v.City of Jackson, Police Sergeant Paul Gross, Police Officer Timothy Black, Police Officer William Mills, Police Officer Peter Postma, Police Officer Cary Kingston, and Matthew R. Heins, Defendants.

Case No. 14-11097

United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, Southern Division.

Signed March 21, 2016

Steven W. Dulan, Law Offices of Steven W. Dulan, PLC, E. Lansing, MI, for Plaintiff.

Audrey J. Forbush, Rhonda R. Stowers, Plunkett & Cooney, Flint, MI, Ellisse S. Thompson, Plunkett Cooney, Detroit, MI, for Defendants.

OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANTS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Honorable Gerald E. Rosen

, United States District Judge

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff Jeremiah Chesney commenced this action in this Court on March 13, 2014, asserting federal civil rights claims and a variety of state-law claims against the Defendant City of Jackson, Michigan, five Jackson police officers—Sergeant Paul Gross and Police Officers Timothy Black, William Mills, Peter Postma, and Cary Kingston—and the City of Jackson's director of police and fire services, Matthew R. Heins.¹ Plaintiff's claims arise from a May 15, 2013 incident in which four of the Defendant law enforcement officers forcibly removed Plaintiff from a Michigan Secretary of State office and arrested him following a report to the Jackson police department that an individual in the office had a gun in a backpack and was acting suspiciously. This Court's subject matter jurisdiction rests upon Plaintiff's assertion of claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983

alleging violations of his rights under the U.S. Constitution. See 28 U.S.C. § 1331.

Through the present motion filed on December 1, 2014, the individual Defendant law enforcement officers and the Defendant City of Jackson seek an award of summary judgment in their favor on each of the claims asserted against them in Plaintiff's complaint. In support of this motion, Defendants argue primarily (i) that Plaintiff has failed to identify expressive activity that could support his claim that he was detained and arrested in retaliation against his exercise of protected First Amendment rights; (ii) that Plaintiff's claim under the Second Amendment fails due to the lack of clearly established law that could have alerted the Defendant police officers to their alleged violation of Plaintiff's rights under this Amendment; (iii) that Plaintiff has failed to produce evidence of an unreasonable seizure or unlawful arrest that could sustain his federal Fourth Amendment claims or his state-law claims of assault and battery and false imprisonment; and (iv) that certain of Plaintiff's state-law claims are barred by the immunity conferred upon municipalities and their employees.² In response, Plaintiff contends (i) that his open carrying of a firearm in a place where he was lawfully allowed to do so qualifies as expressive activity protected under the First Amendment; (ii) that the Defendant police officers likewise transgressed upon a claimed Second Amendment right to bear arms outside the home; (iii) that the Defendant officers lacked reasonable suspicion to detain him and forcibly remove him from the Secretary of State office, nor did they have probable cause to arrest him following this removal; and (iv) that the same evidence supporting Plaintiff's federal Fourth Amendment claims also permits him to go forward with his state-law claims of assault and battery and false imprisonment.

Defendants' motion has been fully briefed by the parties. Having reviewed the parties' briefs and their accompanying exhibits, as well as the remainder of the record, the Court finds that the relevant allegations, facts, and legal issues are sufficiently presented in these written submissions, and that oral argument would not aid the decisional process. Accordingly, the Court will decide Defendants' motion “on the briefs.” See Local Rule 7.1(f)(2), U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan. This opinion and order sets forth the Court's rulings on this motion.

II. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

The pertinent facts of this case are derived almost exclusively from the deposition testimony of Plaintiff Jeremiah Chesney.³ At around 5:00 p.m. on May 15, 2013, Plaintiff went to the Michigan Secretary of State branch office located in the Jackson Crossing mall in Jackson, Michigan, seeking to obtain a new title for one of his motorcycles. As he entered the office, Plaintiff was carrying a loaded pistol in a holster on his hip,⁴ but he initially had no other items in his possession. After waiting for about 20 minutes, Plaintiff went back to his car and returned to the Secretary of State office with a black backpack and a lunchbox.⁵ Plaintiff estimated that there were “probably 50 to 60 people” in the office at the time. (Plaintiff's Dep. at 50.)

Upon re-entering the Secretary of State office with his backpack, Plaintiff initially sat at a desk, but then got up and walked around, leaving his backpack and lunchbox at the desk. (See id. at 50, 52-53.) As he waited, nobody asked him about the fact that he was carrying a weapon, nor did he hear or observe anyone express any concern about this, but he did overhear “[i]ndistinct whispering” at one point that apparently included “the word ‘gun.’ ” (Id. at 51.)

During this time, someone in the office—evidently a Secretary of State employee, although the record is not entirely clear on this point—called the City of Jackson police department to report that “a subject with long hair was possibly in possession of a handgun in a backpack, while at the Secretary of State Office.” (Defendants' Motion, Ex. 3, Police Report at 2.)⁶ Four of the Defendant police officers—Sergeant Paul Gross and Police Officers Timothy Black, William Mills, and Cary Kingston—were dispatched to the Secretary of State office to investigate this report. As they traveled to the scene, the officers were advised that the office “was a No Weapon Zone and that there were signs posted, stating this.” (Id. at 2; see also id. at 4 (Officer Mills likewise reporting that the dispatcher “advised that the Secretary of State Office was a weapons-free zone”).)⁷ The officers were further advised that “the subject was pacing back and forth,” leading the individual who had called the police to be “nervous that something else was going on.” (Id. at 4.)⁸ Sergeant Gross sought clarification from the dispatcher whether the subject's gun was “inside [his] backpack or on the outside of the backpack, exposed in an open-carry fashion,” but he arrived at the scene without receiving a response to this inquiry. (Id. at 7.)

Upon the officers' arrival at the Secretary of State office, Officers Black and Kingston proceeded into the Jackson Crossing mall and headed toward the mall entrance to the office, while Officer Mills went to the office's outside entrance. As Officer Black stood in the mall and looked through a window into the Secretary of State office, attempting to locate the subject of the officers' investigation, he asked “three or four” Secretary of State employees who had stepped outside the office “where the backpack was or if [the subject] had a backpack and where was the gun,” but he received only “shrugs of shoulders and no answers.” (Id. at 2.) Officer Black then observed a white male with long hair standing against the wall near the outside entrance to the office, but this individual did not appear to have a backpack. Another Secretary of State employee exited the office and pointed at this same individual, advising Officer Black that he had a gun on his hip, but the officer was unable to confirm this “[d]ue to the 50 to 60” occupants of the office at the time and the pillars in the office that obstructed his view. (Id. at 3.) Accordingly, Officer Black entered the office in order to get a better view of this individual, and upon observing that this man had “what appeared to be a black and silver handgun, being an automatic pistol, on his right waist area,” he motioned for Officer Mills to come into the office through the outside entrance, near where this individual was standing. (Id. )

Officer Mills then entered the Secretary of State office at Officer Black's direction, observing that there were “50-plus” people in the office, including small children and elderly individuals. (Id. at 4.) The officer approached the subject of the investigation, who he immediately recognized “from a prior contact” as Plaintiff Jeremiah Chesney,⁹ and noticed that Plaintiff “was carrying a pistol in a holster on his right side.” (Police Report at 4.) Officer Mills then asked Plaintiff “just to step outside, so we could talk to him about what was going on,” (id. ), but Plaintiff responded that he “did not desire to step outside” and instead “was willing to talk with [the officer] where we were,” (Plaintiff's Dep. at 60).¹⁰

Plaintiff testified at his deposition that “[t]he next thing I remember after stating that I did not wish to go outside is the four officers surrounding me, grabbing me, and forcing me outside.” (Id. at 61.) Officer Mills, in contrast, stated in his police report (i) that he asked Plaintiff “politely a second time to just step outside, so we could talk about what was going on,” (ii) that Plaintiff again “refused to do so, stating very firmly that he would not go outside, that he was staying inside the mall[,] and that I had no right to demand him or force him to go outside,” (iii) that Plaintiff was “very agitated” when asked to step outside and “raised his voice in a manner that made me believe that he was being very confrontational with me,” and (iv) that during the course of this interaction, Plaintiff's “behavior began to escalate even further and made me even more concerned for the safety of the other [occupants] inside the Secretary of State Office, that some type of confrontation would erupt[,] and I did not want that to occur to cause injuries or loss of life inside the Secretary of State Office.” (Police Report at 4.)¹¹...