Corbitt v. Vickers

• Decision Date: 10 July 2019
• Docket Number: No. 17-15566,17-15566
• Citation: 929 F.3d 1304
• Parties: Amy CORBITT, Individually and as Parent and Natural Guardian of SDC, a Minor, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Michael VICKERS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

929 F.3d 1304

Amy CORBITT, Individually and as Parent and Natural Guardian of SDC, a Minor, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Michael VICKERS, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 17-15566

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

July 10, 2019

Ashleigh Ruth Madison, Southeast Law, LLC, SAVANNAH, GA, for Plaintiffs-Appellees Amy Corbitt, Jerry Rich and Elizabeth Bowen.

Ben B. Mills, Jr., Mills & Larkey, PC, FITZGERALD, GA, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

Richard K. Strickland, Emily Rose Hancock, Sean Kenneth Scally, Brown Readdick Bumgartner Carter Strickland & Watkins, LLP, BRUNSWICK, GA, for Defendants-Appellants.

Before WILSON, BRANCH, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.

ANDERSON, Circuit Judge:

In this case involving an alleged use of excessive force, Defendant-Appellant Michael Vickers ("Vickers") asks this Court to reverse the district court's denial of his motion to dismiss on grounds that he is entitled to qualified immunity. In addition to hearing from the parties at oral argument, we have carefully reviewed the briefs, the record, and the relevant case law. Because Vickers's actions did not violate any clearly established rights, we conclude that he is entitled to qualified immunity and that the district court should have granted his motion to dismiss.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual Background.

This case is before us in the posture of an appeal from the district court's denial of Vickers's Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. We set forth below the relevant allegations of the plaintiffs'¹ complaint. At all times relevant to this appeal, Vickers was a deputy sheriff in Coffee County, Georgia. On July 10, 2014, Vickers and other officers "participated in an operation to apprehend a criminal suspect, Christopher Barnett, whom [plaintiffs] ha[d] never met." The operation spilled over onto Plaintiff-Appellee Amy Corbitt's ("Corbitt") property after Barnett "wandered into the area."

At the time of the incident, one adult (Damion Stewart) and six minor children—including Corbitt's ten-year-old child SDC and two other children under the age of three—were outside in Corbitt's yard. Corbitt and two other minors were inside. At some point after Vickers and the other officers entered Corbitt's yard, the officers "demanded all persons in the area, including the children, to get down on the ground." An officer handcuffed Stewart and placed a gun at his back. The children were outnumbered by the officers, and plaintiffs alleged at least four of the children (including SDC) "remained seized by deadly firearms."

Then, "while the children were lying on the ground obeying [Vickers's] orders ... without necessity or any immediate threat or cause, [Vickers] discharged his firearm at the family pet named ‘Bruce’ twice." The first shot missed, and Bruce (a dog) temporarily retreated under Corbitt's home. No other efforts were made to restrain or subdue the dog, and no one appeared threatened by him. Eight or ten seconds after Vickers fired the first shot, the dog reappeared and was "approaching his owners," when Vickers fired a second shot at the dog. This shot also missed the dog, but the bullet struck SDC in the back of his right knee. At the time of the shot, SDC was "readily viewable" and resting "approximately eighteen inches from ... Vickers, lying on the ground, face down, pursuant to the orders of [Vickers]." Barnett (the fleeing suspect) "was visibly unarmed and readily compliant" with officers. According to the complaint, "[a]t no time did SDC, or any other children ... present any threat or danger to provoke ... Vickers to fire two shots." Importantly, the parties do not dispute that Vickers intended to shoot the dog and not SDC.

Medical imaging confirmed a serious gunshot wound to SDC's right knee. Bullet fragments remained in the wound for an extended period of time after the shooting. SDC suffered severe pain and mental trauma. He received ongoing care from an orthopedic surgeon.

B. Procedural Background.

Corbitt, individually and as SDC's parent and guardian, brought a civil action against Vickers in his individual capacity pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The complaint alleged deprivations of the right to be free from excessive force as guaranteed by the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Corbitt asked the district court to award special and compensatory damages totaling $2,000,000, together with unspecified punitive damages.

In response, Vickers filed a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6). He asserted that he was entitled to qualified immunity because case law had not staked out a "bright line" indicating that the act of firing at the dog and unintentionally shooting SDC was unlawful. In support of this contention, Vickers pointed to the unpublished decision of this Court in Speight v. Griggs, 620 F. App'x 806 (11th Cir. 2015), which observed that "[i]n this circuit, there is no clearly established right to be free from the accidental application of force during arrest, even if that force is deadly." Id. at 809.

The district court found that Vickers was not entitled to qualified immunity and denied his motion to dismiss. See generally Corbitt v. Wooten, No. 5:16-cv-51, 2017 WL 6028640 (S.D. Ga. Dec. 5, 2017). The district court highlighted several allegations from Corbitt's complaint, including that no officer was required to discharge a gun; that no one tried to restrain the dog; and that SDC was only eighteen inches from Vickers when Vickers fired at the dog. Id. at *1. The district court then found that SDC was seized even before Vickers fired a shot. Id. at *4.

Next, the district court reasoned that this case involves an "accidental shooting" and not an "accidental firing" because, even if Vickers did not intend to shoot SDC, he did intend to fire his gun at the dog. Id. at *4 & n.4. It then relied on "a reasonable inference from the allegations in the [c]omplaint, drawn in [Corbitt's] favor ... that Vickers fired his weapon at the animal in order to keep control of SDC ... [and] continue [his] seizure." Id. at *4. In other words, the district court thought "a jury could find that Vickers intended to shoot the animal in order to maintain his control of the situation and keep [SDC] from escaping." Id.

The district court then considered whether Vickers was entitled to qualified immunity. It noted this Court's general statement in Thornton v. City of Macon that "[i]t is clearly established that the use of excessive force in carrying out an arrest constitutes a violation of the Fourth Amendment." Id. at *5 (citing Thornton v. City of Macon, 132 F.3d 1395, 1400 (11th Cir. 1998) ). Relying on this statement, the district court then concluded that "Vickers is not entitled to qualified immunity if he used excessive force in firing his weapon." Id.

In determining whether Vickers used excessive force, the district court remarked that in some cases "no factually particularized, preexisting case law [is] necessary for it to be very obvious to every objectively reasonable officer facing [the defendant's] situation that [his] conduct ... violated [the plaintiff's] right to be free of the excessive use of force." Id. at *6 (alterations in original) (quoting Vinyard v. Wilson, 311 F.3d 1340, 1355 (11th Cir. 2002) ). It then emphasized that "[t]he touchstone for reasonableness in animal shooting cases is typically officer safety," before concluding that Vickers may have acted unreasonably because the complaint alleged he fired his gun "without necessity or any immediate threat or cause" and that "no allegations suggest that Vickers was unsafe in any way or that Bruce [the dog] exhibited any signs of aggression." Id. (citations and alterations omitted). The district court acknowledged that the record could develop differently following discovery—at which time Vickers might raise the defense of qualified immunity again—but it ultimately concluded that "[a]t this stage, the complaint makes sufficient allegations to proceed." Id. at *7. Vickers appealed to this Court, and we now consider whether the district court erred when it denied Vickers's motion to dismiss on grounds that he was not then entitled to qualified immunity.²

C. Arguments on Appeal.

On appeal, Vickers argues the district court erred in denying his motion to dismiss.

He contends there is only a single act at issue in this case: the firing of his gun with the intent to strike a dog. He notes the lack of any cases finding similar conduct to be unlawful, and emphasizes Supreme Court precedent providing that a Fourth Amendment seizure occurs "only when there is a governmental termination of freedom of movement through means intentionally applied." See Brower v. Cty. of Inyo, 489 U.S. 593, 597, 109 S. Ct. 1378, 1381, 103 L.Ed.2d 628 (1989).

Vickers also argues that this Court's published decision in Vaughan v. Cox ³ and our unpublished decisions in Speight ⁴ and Cooper v. Rutherford ⁵ compel the conclusion that there is no clearly established right to be free from the accidental application of force. He takes issue with the district court's attempt to "fit the facts of this case into the framework of Vaughan" because, to Vickers, there is no plausible way to conclude from the pleadings that his goal in shooting at the dog was to continue SDC's "lawful temporary detention incidental to the arrest of Barnett." He also argues the circuit split⁶ on the question of whether the Fourth Amendment is ever violated by the accidental discharge of a weapon is by itself enough to show the law at issue here is not clearly established, before pointing to two district court decisions⁷ from other jurisdictions that found no constitutional violation on facts somewhat similar to those presented here.

In response, Corbitt agrees with the district court that SDC was seized throughout the entire incident (even before Vickers fired his gun at the dog). She argues that Vickers's act of firing his gun at the dog violated SDC's Fourth Amendment rights. She then argues this Court...