Davis v. City of Apopka
| Docket Number | 20-11994 |
| Decision Date | 28 August 2023 |
| Parties | TIMOTHY ALLEN DAVIS, SR., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF APOPKA, Defendant-Appellee |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 6:15-cv-01631-RBD-LRH
Before BRANCH, GRANT, and ED CARNES, Circuit Judges.
During a domestic dispute, Timothy Allen Davis, Sr. shot his unarmed twenty-two-year-old son, killing him. He was arrested and prosecuted for murder but was acquitted after a jury trial. Davis then filed a lawsuit against the City of Apopka Florida and some of its police officers. He asserted a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim that he was arrested without probable cause, a Florida state law claim for false arrest based on the same contention, and a § 1983 claim that the officers' search of his home violated his Fourth Amendment rights.
The search claim was tried to a jury, but before that trial the district court dismissed the federal and state arrest claims under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Davis challenges those rulings, based on his contention that the operative complaint shows that after his wife called 911 to report that her husband shot their son, the three officers who were dispatched to the scene of the shooting should have believed Davis when he said that he had acted in self-defense. The complaint also claims that if the officers didn't believe him, they should have conducted a more thorough investigation before making the arrest.
On the § 1983 claim that the officers had searched his house in violation of the Fourth Amendment, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the City. Davis challenges the denial of his motion for a new trial on that claim based on the failure to give a municipal liability jury instruction that he requested.
Before we get to the facts as alleged in the complaint, we need to point out a few more procedural aspects of the case. First the officers involved in the search and arrest are no longer parties. They were dismissed after Davis settled with them. The City is the only remaining defendant. Davis' position is that the City is liable for the conduct of its Chief of Police because he was the final policymaker, and he personally and directly participated in the arrest and the search of Davis' home. The City does not deny that Chief Manley was the final policymaker, although it vigorously denies that there is any liability, insisting that none of Davis' claims is valid.
This is not the first time this case has been before our Court. See Davis v. City of Apopka, 734 Fed.Appx. 616 (11th Cir. 2018) (unpublished). In the first appeal, Davis argued that the district court had erred in dismissing his arrest claims. A panel of this Court remanded the case for the district court to address in the first instance Davis' argument that, in light of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, Fla. Stat. §§ 776.012(2), 776.032, the officers lacked actual probable cause to arrest him because his use of deadly force was legally justified. Davis, 734 Fed.Appx. at 621-22.
On Davis' § 1983 unlawful search claim, the panel concluded that Chief Manley "was a final policymaker such that his order to search Davis' home without a warrant rendered the City liable absent any established custom or practice." Id. at 619. The panel determined:
The district court, rather than addressing Davis's allegation that the warrantless search was conducted upon the direction of the Chief of Police, addressed and rejected Davis's alternative allegation that the City had a custom of improper training or permitting the Chief of Police to override established protocols and standard operating procedures. But Davis stated a claim for relief against the City based on a single decision by a final policymaker.
On remand, the district court followed this Court's mandate. It determined that there was actual probable cause to support Davis' arrest and that even in light of Florida's Stand Your Ground law, the facts as alleged did not "conclusively establish the sufficiency of the defense [of self-defense] so as to negate probable cause in the context of a false arrest claim." (The court did not believe that the absence of self-defense was an element of murder under Florida law.) The district court once again dismissed Davis' § 1983 and state law claims that the officers arrested him without probable cause.
The case was tried on the § 1983 claim that the search of his home violated Davis' rights under the Fourth Amendment. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the City finding that Chief Manley did not knowingly direct, participate in, adopt or ratify the unlawful search of Davis' home. Davis filed a motion for a new trial, contending that, among other things, the district court had erred in refusing to give a jury instruction on a custom and policy theory of municipal liability. The court denied that motion. Among the reasons for the denial was its interpretation of our mandate as casting out of the case Davis' custom and policy theory of municipal liability, leaving only the "final policymaker" basis for potential liability. The district court's decision not to give the requested custom and policy jury instruction is Davis' only basis for challenging the denial of his motion for a new trial.
We will first address Davis' § 1983 and state law claims that he was arrested without probable cause.
We review de novo the district court's Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal of Davis' federal and state claims involving the arrest. McGroarty v. Swearingen, 977 F.3d 1302, 1306 (11th Cir. 2020). In doing so, we "accept[] the factual allegations in the complaint as true and constru[e] them in the light most favorable to" Davis. Id. (quotation marks omitted).
Davis' third amended complaint is the operative one. It alleges that on the night of October 1, 2011, his wife called 911 and reported that her husband "had had a confrontation with their son and that she believed her husband had shot" him. The complaint does not allege that Ms. Davis told the 911 operator then, or told any of the responding officers when they arrived at the scene, that the shooting had been in self-defense or that her husband had to shoot their son Timmy to protect himself.
The complaint does allege that before the shooting occurred that night, Davis and Timmy had gotten into a heated argument outside their home. Timmy walked off down the street but returned home about fifteen minutes later and continued to argue with his father, who was trying to calm him down. In the upstairs bathroom, the fight turned physical. Timmy tackled Davis and repeatedly punched him. Ms. Davis broke up the fight between her husband and son. Davis then went downstairs but was followed by Timmy. In hopes of scaring Timmy off, Davis "limped out of the garage and retrieved his firearm from his vehicle that was parked in the driveway."
According to his complaint, Davis was afraid, panicked, and fired a shot at Timmy, who was walking toward him. The complaint alleges that Davis fired the first "shot in Timmy's direction to scare him off," and then because that did not appear to work, Davis fired again with a different intent. The complaint states that Davis "fired a second time in self-defense." That necessarily means that Davis is alleging that he fired the second shot deliberately, allegedly with the intent to stop Timmy from seriously wounding or killing him. See Fla. Stat. § 776.012(2) (). Davis does not allege that he acted accidentally in self-defense, if there even is such a thing. He doesn't contend that he did not intend for his second shot to strike Timmy and seriously injure or kill him.
And the second shot that Davis fired did hit Timmy in the chest, mortally wounding him.
When they arrived at the scene a few minutes after Ms. Davis' 911 call on the evening of October 1, the officers found Davis in the driveway, lying on top of Timmy.[1] Timmy was bleeding from the chest. Davis had bruises and was bleeding, too, but he had not been shot. It was apparent that the two men had been in a fight and that the only one of them who had been shot was Timmy.
When an officer asked Davis who had shot Timmy, Davis responded, "I did because my son beat me up and kept coming at me." When the officer asked Davis where the gun was, he answered that it was in his front pants pocket. The officer handcuffed Davis and took the gun from his pocket. While that was happening, Timmy yelled at the officers, "Get away from daddy and leave my daddy alone!"
Some neighbors had come over to the Davis house after they heard loud noises. Two of them knew that Davis and Timmy had argued outside the house, and thirty minutes later they had heard two gunshots, but it is undisputed that no neighbor witnessed the shooting or the events occurring immediately before it.
The complaint acknowledges that while at the scene, one of the officers noticed a camera affixed to the garage and asked Davis: Davis replied, "Yeah they do." But the effort to obtain video evidence was thwarted through no fault of the officers. When asked if the cameras recorded, Davis answered: "Nah, it don't record because I had the DVR hooked up to my computer and when the computer broke down and I got it fixed, I forgot to re-program [the DVR] back to my computer." (Brackets in original.) The complaint does not allege that any...
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