Cole v. Williams

• Decision Date: 04 October 1985
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 84-5190.
• Parties: Burt COLE and Ronnie Clark, Plaintiffs, v. Dave WILLIAMS, Oklahoma District Attorney Investigator of Adair County; Lloyd King, Chief of Police, Westville, Oklahoma; Ron Gifford; Russell Neff; the City of Westville, Oklahoma, A Municipal Corporation; and the Board of County Commissioners of the County of Adair, Oklahoma, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Arkansas

624 F. Supp. 712

Burt COLE and Ronnie Clark, Plaintiffs, v. Dave WILLIAMS, Oklahoma District Attorney Investigator of Adair County; Lloyd King, Chief of Police, Westville, Oklahoma; Ron Gifford; Russell Neff; the City of Westville, Oklahoma, A Municipal Corporation; and the Board of County Commissioners of the County of Adair, Oklahoma, Defendants.

Civ. No. 84-5190.

United States District Court, W.D. Arkansas, Fayetteville Division.

October 4, 1985.

Robert L. Whitlock, Everett & Whitlock, Prairie Grove, Ark., for plaintiffs.

Ronald G. Woodruff, Fayetteville, Ark., and David Harris, Stilwell, Okl., for defendants King, Gifford, Neff and City of Westville, Okl.

Linda L. Gray, Asst. Atty. Gen., Oklahoma City, Okl., for defendant Dave Williams.

W.W. Bassett, Jr., Bassett Law Firm, Fayetteville, Ark., for defendant Adair County.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

H. FRANKLIN WATERS, Chief Judge.

This is an action brought by the plaintiffs against the defendants under the provisions of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for an alleged violation of their civil rights by the defendants under color of state law. The case was tried to a jury, and at the close of plaintiffs' case, the court granted motions for a directed verdict made in behalf of defendants King, Neff and the City of Westville, and dismissed the cause of action as to them.

The evidence shows that on Sunday, February 12, 1984, Dave Williams, an investigator for the office of the District Attorney of Adair County, Oklahoma, proceeded to the Westville, Oklahoma, area to attempt to locate and apprehend a Robert Cole for whom that office had a felony warrant outstanding. When he arrived in the Westville area, he talked with Irene Walker who claimed to know Robert Cole and asked her to go with him to attempt to identify him. She agreed, and they proceeded in his automobile, along with Mr. Williams' wife, toward the home of Robert Cole's parents. As they neared that residence, they met a car which, as it turned out, was occupied by at least plaintiffs Burt Cole and Ronnie Clark. Both Dave Williams and Irene Walker testified that at the time they met and passed the car, there were three persons in it, and Ms. Walker identified one of them as Robert Cole, the fugitive. Mr. Williams, because he did not wish to endanger Ms. Walker and his wife during an attempted arrest, drove further down the dirt road on which they were traveling where he let them out of the car to wait until he had made the arrest. After he had passed the car in which the plaintiffs were riding, they pulled on to another dirt road off of the one on which they had been traveling, they claimed to allow one of the passengers to "go to the bathroom."

Williams pulled his car partially across the road on which they originally had been traveling, and when the Cole-Clark car proceeded past him, he claims that he tried to flag them down, but that they pulled around him and continued down the dirt road. He turned his vehicle around and followed them to the residence of John Gullick.

The evidence indicates that Burt Cole, who was driving the vehicle in which he and the other plaintiff were riding at the time, pulled the vehicle behind the Gullick house where it was barely visible from the road. Williams proceeded to the Gullick residence and placed both of the individuals under arrest, at the time telling them that they had harbored a fugitive and had "run a roadblock." The testimony at the trial shows that there was a great deal of dispute about what occurred at this point. John Gullick, the resident, testified that the plaintiffs came to his house and told him that the "law was after them" and that they asked Gullick to "hide them." Be that as it may, the court believed then and believes now that there were questions of fact about which reasonable minds could differ, and that, thus, a jury question had been made in relation to facts which were important for a determination of this matter.

Although the evidence indicates that Williams did not know it at the time, it now appears that he had followed the plaintiffs from Oklahoma across the Oklahoma-Arkansas line to a point a short distance on the Arkansas side of the line where the arrests were made.

After the arrests, Williams called the Westville police station and a short while later received assistance from defendants Gifford and King. The remaining individual defendant, Russell Neff, arrived with King, but, as already indicated, the court found that the evidence indicated that he played no part in the arrest or the decision to transport the individuals back to Westville, so he was dismissed from the case before it went to the jury.

After the arrests had been made by Williams, defendants Gifford and King transported the plaintiffs back to the Westville jail where they were each incarcerated for a brief period of time, Cole until 11:00 a.m. the next morning, and Clark for, according to his testimony, 30 minutes to an hour. The charges lodged against them were subsequently either not prosecuted or dismissed.

At the close of the evidence, the court determined that a jury question had been made in relation to whether the plaintiffs had been falsely arrested by Williams, and the jury was instructed in this regard. Because of the provisions of Ark.Stat.Ann. § 43-515 which states an officer from another state who makes a "fresh pursuit" arrest in Arkansas "shall without unnecessary delay take the person arrested before a magistrate of the county in which the arrest was made who shall conduct a hearing for the purpose of determining the lawfulness of the arrest ...," the court determined that the defendants Williams, Gifford and King had violated this provision of law, and the jury was so instructed. The jury was then given an interrogatory asking if the jury found that the arrest by Dave Williams was an unlawful one, and the jury found that it was in respect to the arrest of each of the plaintiffs. The jury then was given interrogatories asking them to fix damages for the unlawful arrest, and a separate interrogatory asking that the jury assess damages in relation to failure by the defendants to take the plaintiffs before a magistrate as required by the Arkansas statute cited above. The jury fixed damages as follows: Burt Cole, for false arrest, $6,000.00; Ron Clark, for false arrest, $5,000.00; Burt Cole, for failure to take before a magistrate, $5,000.00; Ron Clark, for failure to take before a magistrate, $5,000.00.

Defendant Williams has filed a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, motion for a new trial, or motion for remittitur of damages, and defendants Gifford and King have moved for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, for a new trial, for remittitur of damages, and for amendment of the judgment.

The court will first address the questions raised by the motion of Gifford and King in relation to the judgment that was entered in this case. After the jury verdict, the attorney for the plaintiffs submitted to the court a precedent which called for a judgment in the total amount of $21,000.00 against defendants Williams, King and Gifford, jointly and severally. Frankly, without giving the matter as much consideration as the court should have, the judgment was signed and it was clearly erroneous. The court does not mean to indicate that it believes to any degree whatsoever that there was any wrongdoing on the part of the attorney for the plaintiffs, but the judgment was not accurate in view of the instructions given to the jury and the state of the evidence at the close of the trial, so the motion for amendment of judgment filed in behalf of Gifford and King will be granted.

In this regard, the jury was instructed by the court:

Plaintiffs' first claim under the civil rights act is based on their arrest by defendant Dave Williams. This claim is against defendant Dave Williams only....

Then, in further instructions, the court advised the jury that they would be allowed to consider any damages suffered by the plaintiffs because of the failure by defendants Williams, Gifford and King to take the plaintiffs before a magistrate as required by Ark.Stat.Ann. § 43-515. Thus, irrespective of what the court does in relation to the other motions now under consideration, defendants Gifford and King are entitled to an amendment of the judgment so as to provide that they are not jointly and severally liable for any damages flowing from what the jury found to be a false arrest by Williams.

In the court's view, that was the easy question posed by these filings. Much more difficult questions are raised by the motions of each of the defendants for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict and for a new trial. First, defendant Williams contends that the judgment against him should be set aside for the reason that the law of Oklahoma provides an adequate relief for the plaintiff through a statutory and common law tort action, citing Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 97 S.Ct. 1401, 51 L.Ed.2d 711 (1977), and Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981), and their progeny. While the court might feel that the arguments raised by this defendant "ought to be the law," we are not convinced that it yet is. This is not a case in which it is claimed that the plaintiffs have adequate administrative remedies or other procedures provided for by state law to insure that their rights are protected. The court does not believe that the law yet is that plaintiffs cannot sue in federal court under section 1983 for the mere reason that they could also sue the defendants in state court, and the court does not believe that the cases cited hold that. Thus, the court finds no merit in this contention.

However, the court finds a great deal of merit in the position of each of the defendants that the evidence simply does not support a verdict against any of them in the total amount of $10,000.00 for the failure of the defendants to take the plaintiffs before a magistrate as...