Colson v. City of Alcoa

• Decision Date: 23 June 2022
• Docket Number: s. 20-5585/21-5545
• Citation: 37 F.4th 1182
• Parties: Annissa COLSON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CITY OF ALCOA, TENNESSEE, Defendant, Keith Fletcher, individually and in his official capacity as Lieutenant of the Alcoa Police Department; Dustin Cook and Arik Wilson, individually and in their official capacities as Patrol Officers of the Alcoa Police Department, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

37 F.4th 1182

Annissa COLSON, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.CITY OF ALCOA, TENNESSEE, Defendant,Keith Fletcher, individually and in his official capacity as Lieutenant of the Alcoa Police Department; Dustin Cook and Arik Wilson, individually and in their official capacities as Patrol Officers of the Alcoa Police Department, Defendants-Appellants.

Nos. 20-5585/21-5545

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: March 16, 2022

Decided and Filed: June 23, 2022

ARGUED: Brian R. Bibb, WATSON, ROACH, BATSON ROWELL & LAUDERBACK, P.L.C., Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellants. Lance K. Baker, THE BAKER LAW FIRM, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Brian R. Bibb, Benjamin K. Lauderback, WATSON, ROACH, BATSON ROWELL & LAUDERBACK, P.L.C., Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellants. Lance K. Baker, THE BAKER LAW FIRM, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellee.

Before: McKEAGUE, BUSH, and READLER, Circuit Judges.

CHAD A. READLER, Circuit Judge.

Annissa Colson's knee was allegedly injured while she resisted arrest. She claims that the arresting officers failed to provide her sufficient medical care by first taking her to jail instead of a hospital following her injury, and then by relying on a jail nurse's medical opinion that the knee injury

did not require further attention. The officers moved for summary judgment, claiming qualified immunity. The district court denied their motion, and the officers appealed. We now reverse. In doing so, we make clear that Colson's claims (and others like them) are governed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

I.

City of Alcoa Officers Dustin Cook and Arik Wilson arrested an obviously inebriated Annissa Colson following a report that, while driving her SUV, she chased her ten-year-old son in a field and then crashed in a ditch. Colson consented to a draw for a blood alcohol test, and the officers transported her to a hospital. Upon arriving at the hospital and exiting Cook's police cruiser, however, Colson withdrew that consent. When she did, the officers told her that they would need to take her to jail and get a warrant for the blood draw. But Colson defied the officers' repeated orders to get back into the cruiser.

At this point, the officers began to physically force Colson into the vehicle. Cook tried to pull Colson in from the driver's side of the vehicle, and Wilson tried to push her in from the passenger's side. Colson resisted their efforts while yelling and swearing. In his struggle with Colson, Wilson states that his knee touched Colson's knee. There was an audible "pop" sound, followed by Colson screaming "ow, my fucking knee, motherfucker!" Nonetheless, Colson continued to resist the officers' attempts to get her into the cruiser while yelling and swearing, for example, "you cracked my knee ten fucking times, motherfucker!" Eventually, Cook succeeded in putting Colson into the back seat of the cruiser.

Wilson told Cook that he heard Colson's knee pop while his knee touched hers. And he asked Cook if he "want[ed] to get [Colson's] knee looked at." After Cook called a supervisor, he told Wilson that they would take Colson to the Blount County jail where a nurse would perform the blood draw. As she was being transported to the jail, Colson never asked the officers for medical care or to be taken to the hospital.

When the cruiser arrived at the jail, Colson exited the vehicle under her own power and walked inside. She neither limped nor otherwise indicated that she was injured. As she was frisked by a jail officer, however, Colson fell to the ground and said "ow, ow my fucking knee." After a jail officer helped her stand up, Colson stood for several minutes. At one point, she took a step forward and appeared unsteady. Still, Colson did not ask for medical care for her knee.

Cook asked for the jail nurse, Jennifer Russell. When Russell arrived, a jail officer asked her to examine Colson. Russell began by asking Colson to perform various motions with the injured leg. While being yelled at by Colson, Russell bent down to compare Colson's knees. When Russell asked Colson to straighten her leg against the wall, Colson responded "I can't." Once more, Russell bent down to examine the knee. Following the examination, which lasted approximately a minute, Russell commented "I don't see no swelling," and left the room. Later that evening, Russell completed a blood draw; Colson's blood alcohol level was nearly twice the legal limit.

Colson bonded out of jail the next morning. A week, an emergency room visit, two doctor's appointments, and an MRI later, Colson was diagnosed with a torn anterior cruciate ligament

(ACL), a strained lateral collateral ligament (LCL), and a small avulsion fracture of the fibular head (a piece of bone connected to the LCL). Nearly two years after that, Colson had corrective surgery for her torn ACL.

As Colson's medical troubles unfolded, so did her legal ones. Colson's refusal to enter the police cruiser and other belligerent acts led to charges for resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. Colson pleaded guilty to resisting arrest, reckless endangerment, and driving under the influence. Yet the legal saga stemming from her arrest was just beginning. Colson sued Wilson and Cook as well as the City of Alcoa, Blount County, and other employees of Alcoa and Blount County, alleging various civil rights and state law violations. As to the claims against Wilson and Cook, the district court either dismissed or granted summary judgment on all but the claim for failure to provide medical care for her knee injury

. On that claim, the district court denied the officers' motion for summary judgment raising qualified immunity. The officers timely appealed.

II.

Two familiar appellate law principles guide our consideration in this appeal. One is the standard of review: we review the district court's denial of Wilson and Cook's summary judgment motion de novo, construing the evidence and drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of Colson, as the non-moving party. M.J. ex rel. S.J. v. Akron City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. , 1 F.4th 436, 445 (6th Cir. 2021). To that end, summary judgment is appropriate only where the moving party shows "that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact" and the party is "entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).

The other is the jurisdictional limits on appellate review of a qualified immunity denial. Coffey v. Carroll , 933 F.3d 577, 583 (6th Cir. 2019). In this interlocutory posture, we have jurisdiction to consider a challenge to "the district court's legal determination that the [officers'] actions violated a constitutional right or that the right was clearly established." DiLuzio v. Village of Yorkville , 796 F.3d 604, 609 (6th Cir. 2015). As the officers do not contest the district court's recitation of the facts and raise only legal issues—namely, whether the officers' conduct violated Colson's clearly established constitutional right—we have jurisdiction to review their claims. See Bunkley v. City of Detroit , 902 F.3d 552, 561 (6th Cir. 2018) (noting that we have jurisdiction to "make the legal determination of whether the defendant violated a clearly established right, based on those now (for this purpose) undisputed record facts").

A. Before turning to the officers' qualified immunity defense, however, we must first determine which constitutional right the officers allegedly violated. See Graham v. Connor , 490 U.S. 386, 394, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989) ("The first inquiry in any § 1983 suit is to isolate the precise constitutional violation with which the defendant is charged." (cleaned up) (citation omitted)). As no one contends that Colson was an "inmate" at the time of her injury, we can set aside the Eighth Amendment. See Whitley v. Albers , 475 U.S. 312, 318–22, 106 S.Ct. 1078, 89 L.Ed.2d 251 (1986) (holding that an "inmate"—one who has been adjudicated guilty of a crime—has a right to medical care enshrined in the Eighth Amendment). That leaves two candidates identified by the parties (and, to some extent, precedent): the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.

1. The Fourth Amendment prohibits "unreasonable searches and seizures." U.S. CONST. amend. IV. In a nutshell, the Amendment is routinely applied to challenge the government's unreasonable search or seizure of an individual or her property. See, e.g. , Florida v. Jardines , 569 U.S. 1, 133 S.Ct. 1409, 185 L.Ed.2d 495 (2013) (search of property); Graham , 490 U.S. 386, 109 S.Ct. 1865 (seizure of person); United States v. Place , 462 U.S. 696, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983) (seizure of property); Terry v. Ohio , 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) (search and seizure of person). To determine if a search or seizure was unreasonable, and thus unconstitutional, courts balance the degree of intrusion on the individual's interests against "the importance of the governmental interests alleged to justify the intrusion." Tennessee v. Garner , 471 U.S. 1, 8, 105 S.Ct. 1694, 85 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985) (quoting Place , 462 U.S. at 703, 103 S.Ct. 2637 ).

Comparatively, the Fourteenth Amendment, as relevant here, commands that the government shall not "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law."

U.S. CONST. amend. XIV, § 1. That provision has been read as creating a substantive due process right to certain medical care for those in the government's custody. DeShaney v. Winnebago Cnty. Dep't of Soc. Servs. , 489 U.S. 189, 199–200, 109 S.Ct. 998, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989).

For claims concerning injuries sustained while in police custody, there is sometimes a dispute over whether the Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment governs the constitutionality of the officer's conduct. After all, the point at which the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable seizures ends and the Fourteenth Amendment's substantive due process right begins is not always obvious. See, e.g. , Graham , 490 U.S. at 393–95, 109 S.Ct. 1865. For instance,...