Enoch v. Hogan, 17-3571
| Decision Date | 23 March 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 17-3571,17-3571 |
| Parties | VANESSA ENOCH; AVERY CORBIN, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. DEPUTY SHERIFF HOGAN; DEPUTY SHERIFF NOBLES, Badge No. 1266, Defendants-Appellants, HAMILTON COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE; JIM NEIL, County Sheriff, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
File Name: 18a0154n.06
JANE B. STRANCH, Circuit Judge. This interlocutory appeal of an order denying qualified immunity to Deputy Sheriffs Hogan and Nobles arises from the denial of their Rule 12(c) motion for judgment on the pleadings. The complaint filed by Vanessa Enoch and Avery Corbin alleges that they were taking photographs and making video recordings at an impromptu press conference in a courthouse hallway when Defendants violated their clearly established constitutional rights by stopping, searching, and arresting them based on their race. Accepting as true the factual allegations in their complaint, Enoch and Corbin have plausibly alleged violations of their clearly established First and Fourth Amendment rights. We therefore AFFIRM the decision of the district court to deny qualified immunity to the Deputies at this stage of the case.
The following facts are alleged in the operative complaint, Plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint. In June 2014, Vanessa Enoch and Avery Corbin attended a pretrial hearing at the Hamilton County Courthouse in the case of State v. Hunter, the criminal prosecution of a local judge. Enoch was researching and reporting on the case for a small local paper; Corbin had a personal interest in the proceedings because he had previously worked with Judge Hunter as a bailiff. The Complaint does not allege that the Plaintiffs knew one another or that they interacted during or after the hearing. The hearing also attracted other members of the press and public.
After the hearing ended, Enoch and Corbin allege that they left the courtroom and went into the hallway, where approximately twenty people gathered to record "an 'impromptu' press conference." They joined this group, using their mobile devices to "take[e] snapshots and otherwise record[] Judge Tracie Hunter, and her lawyer, and events occurring in the public hallway."
According to the Complaint, the Deputy Sheriffs Hogan and Nobles singled Enoch and Corbin out from the group in the hallway "in substantial part" because of their race. When Enoch left to locate a restroom, one or both of the Deputies stopped her, demanded the password for her iPad under threat of arrest, searched it, and shortly thereafter forcibly handcuffed and arrested her. The Deputies also ordered Corbin to cease recording under threat of arrest, searched his iPad, and forcibly handcuffed and arrested him. Of the entire group in the hallway, only Enoch and Corbin, both of whom are black, were treated this way. The Complaint declares that "[n]one of the estimated 16-18 white individuals in the hallway using their news cameras,cell phones or other electronic recording devices were stopped, detained, searched, handcuffed and arrested by Defendants nor did any of them have their mobile devices searched or seized."
The Complaint alleges that, as the Deputies took Enoch to the sheriff's office, they told her "that they did not know at that time" why she was being arrested and that "they would figure it out when they got downstairs to the office." Enoch and Corbin were detained in the sheriff's office for almost ninety minutes, uncomfortably handcuffed in a manner that caused significant pain. Enoch's repeated requests to use a restroom were denied.
According to the Complaint, Deputies Hogan and Nobles then charged Enoch with disorderly conduct under Ohio Rev. Code § 2917.11, stating in the citation that she yelled at a deputy while court was in session and that she refused to identify herself when asked. Approximately five days later, Enoch was served with a second citation, in which the Deputies charged her with failing to disclose information under Ohio Rev. Code § 2921.29, on the basis that she had refused to identify herself. The Deputies also charged Corbin with disorderly conduct under § 2917.11. Enoch and Corbin aver that the allegations in all three citations were false. All charges were subsequently dismissed. Enoch alleges that she lost her job as a result of being arrested and charged.
Enoch and Corbin filed this § 1983 suit against Deputies Hogan and Nobles, the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office, and County Sheriff Jim Neil, along with four other employees of the Sheriff's Office who have since been dismissed from the case. The Complaint alleges violations of the Plaintiffs' constitutional rights under the First and Fourth Amendments, as incorporated through the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as of state tort law. The Defendants filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings under Rule 12(c), claiming qualified immunity among other defenses. The district court concluded that the Defendants were not entitled toqualified immunity as a matter of law at this stage of the case. Deputy Sheriffs Hogan and Nobles appealed.
Although appellate courts may generally review only "final decisions" of district courts, 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we recognize an exception to this rule for orders denying qualified immunity. Though such denials do not conclude proceedings in the district court, they are nonetheless immediately appealable. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530 (1985). Phillips v. Roane County, 534 F.3d 531, 538 (6th Cir. 2008) (quoting Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 317 (1995)). Such an abstract legal issue is generally presented when the parties' only dispute on appeal is "whether the legal norms allegedly violated by the defendant were clearly established at the time of the challenged actions." Mitchell, 472 U.S. at 528.
As a preliminary matter, Enoch and Corbin argue that we lack jurisdiction over this appeal because the Deputies' arguments turn on disputed facts. See Johnson, 515 U.S. at 319-20; McKenna v. City of Royal Oak, 469 F.3d 559, 561 (6th Cir. 2006). They rely on qualified immunity cases arising at the summary judgment stage. "Although an officer's entitlement to qualified immunity is a threshold question to be resolved at the earliest possible point, that point is usually summary judgment and not dismissal under Rule 12." Courtright v. City of Battle Creek, 839 F.3d 513, 518 (6th Cir. 2016) (quoting Wesley v. Campbell, 779 F.3d 421, 433-34 (6th Cir. 2015)). In this case, the Deputies raised qualified immunity in their motion for judgment on the pleadings under Rule 12(c).
We review a judgment on the pleadings "using the same de novo standard of review employed for a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6)." Tucker v. Middleburg-Legacy Place, L.L.C., 539 F.3d 545, 549 (6th Cir. 2008). In conducting our review, we accept the opposing party's factual allegations and draw all reasonable inferences in their favor, "[b]ut we 'need not accept as true legal conclusions or unwarranted factual inferences.'" JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. v. Winget, 510 F.3d 577, 581-82 (6th Cir. 2007) (quoting Mixon v. Ohio, 193 F.3d 389, 400 (6th Cir. 1999)); see also Ctr. for Bio-Ethical Reform, Inc. v. Napolitano, 648 F.3d 365, 369 (6th Cir. 2011) (). Judgment on the pleadings should be granted only if, subject to these conditions, "no material issue of fact exists and the party making the motion is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Tucker, 539 F.3d at 549 (quoting JPMorgan Chase Bank, 510 F.3d at 582).
Because "there cannot be any disputed questions of fact" in our review of this Rule 12(c) motion and, at this stage, "our review solely involves applying principles of law to a given and assumed set of facts," this case falls outside the parameters of Johnson, and we may properly exercise jurisdiction. Barnes v. Winchell, 105 F.3d 1111, 1114 (6th Cir. 1997). We therefore turn to the substance of Defendants' qualified immunity arguments.
"Qualified immunity protects government officials performing discretionary functions unless their conduct violates a clearly established statutory or constitutional right of which a reasonable person in the official's position would have known." Boler v. Earley, 865 F.3d 391, 416 (6th Cir. 2017) (quoting Silberstein v. City of Dayton, 440 F.3d 306, 311 (6th Cir. 2006)). To defeat a claim of qualified immunity, the plaintiff must show (1) that the official's conductviolated a constitutional right, and (2) that the right was clearly established at the time of the violation. Id. Combining the test for qualified immunity with the standard for a 12(c) motion, the Deputies are entitled to qualified immunity if, accepting all the factual allegations in the Complaint as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in Plaintiffs' favor, Enoch and Corbin have not plausibly alleged that the Deputies' actions violated their clearly established First and Fourth Amendment rights.
The factual allegations in the Complaint boil down to this: Plaintiffs Enoch and Corbin, both of whom are black, joined a sizable group of people recording newsworthy events in a courthouse hallway. No rule forbade them from doing so. Deputies Hogan and Nobles, "apparently motivated in substantial part by race," singled out Enoch and Corbin, searched their belongings, and forcibly arrested them. None of the white individuals who were recording the same events in the same...
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