Estate of Moreland v. Dieter

• Decision Date: 14 January 2005
• Docket Number: No. 03-3735.,No. 03-3734.,03-3734.,03-3735.
• Citation: 395 F.3d 747
• Parties: ESTATE OF Christopher A. MORELAND, Deceased by Gary R. Moreland and Linda Tuttle, Co-Personal Representatives, Gary R. Moreland, in his official and individual capacity, Linda Tuttle, in her official and individual capacity, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, Cross-Appellants, v. Erich DIETER and Michael Sawdon, Defendants-Appellants, and Joseph Speybroeck, in his individual and official capacities, Sheriff of St. Joseph County, Defendant, Cross-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

395 F.3d 747

ESTATE OF Christopher A. MORELAND, Deceased by Gary R. Moreland and Linda Tuttle, Co-Personal Representatives, Gary R. Moreland, in his official and individual capacity, Linda Tuttle, in her official and individual capacity, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, Cross-Appellants, v. Erich DIETER and Michael Sawdon, Defendants-Appellants, and Joseph Speybroeck, in his individual and official capacities, Sheriff of St. Joseph County, Defendant, Cross-Appellee.

No. 03-3734.

No. 03-3735.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued September 30, 2004.

Decided January 14, 2005.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Sean W. Drew, Niles, MI, Geoffrey N. Fieger (argued), Fieger, Fieger, Kenney & Johnson, Southfield, MI, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

Martin W. Kus (argued), Newby, Lewis, Kaminski & Jones, Laporte, IN, for Defendants-Appellants in No. 03-3734.

David E. Ballard (argued), Hardig, Lee & Groves, A. Howard Williams, Doran-Blackmon, South Bend, IN, for Defendant-Appellee Joseph Speybroeck in No. 03-3735.

Before ROVNER, WOOD and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

SYKES, Circuit Judge.

This is an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for deprivation of civil rights arising out of the death of an inmate in the St. Joseph County, Indiana jail. Defendants Erich Dieter and Michael Sawdon, former St. Joseph County sheriff's deputies, were found liable for violating Christopher Moreland's civil rights by wrongfully causing his death by the use of unnecessary and excessive force. The jury awarded substantial damages: $29 million in compensatory damages and $27.5 million in punitive damages ($15 million against Dieter and $12.5 million against Sawdon). On appeal Dieter and Sawdon assert evidentiary and instructional errors and also challenge the punitive damages as unconstitutionally excessive. The plaintiffs cross-appeal the district court's order granting summary judgment to Joseph Speybroeck, the sheriff of St. Joseph County. They contend the evidence was sufficient to raise a jury issue about official policy or custom in the jail for purposes of § 1983 liability against the sheriff. We affirm the judgment against Dieter and Sawdon as well as the summary judgment in favor of Sheriff Speybroeck.

I. Background

In the early morning hours of October 25, 1997, thirty-year-old Christopher Moreland was arrested by officers of the Mishiwaka Police Department for driving under the influence of alcohol. Moreland behaved erratically during his arrest — for example, by hitting himself in the face — but the police officers testified that Moreland's behavior was not unusual for someone drunk and upset. Moreland was held for about two hours at the Mishiwaka Police Department and then transferred to the St. Joseph County Jail. Although obviously inebriated, Moreland entered the jail on his own power and at approximately 5:50 a.m. was placed in the "drunk tank" along with two other detainees.

Almost as soon as he was in the drunk tank, Moreland provoked a confrontation by directing racial slurs at Reginald Coleman, one of the other detainees in the tank. Sergeant Paul Moffa, the shift supervisor on duty that night, responded to the disturbance and entered the tank with another officer. Moffa grabbed Moreland by the neck or shoulders, threw him to the floor, removed a canister of OC-10 pepper spray¹ from his waist, and sprayed Moreland's face from a distance of roughly four or five inches. Coleman took cover underneath a blanket as pepper spray filled the air, but he heard a struggle between Moreland and Moffa and at one point heard what he said was "the sound of a basket-ball bouncing off concrete." The other inmate in the drunk tank said it sounded like "a melon popping, like dropping a watermelon." They surmised this was the sound of Moreland's head hitting the concrete floor.

The officers handcuffed Moreland behind his back and dragged him out of the drunk tank to a nearby elevator. They set him down on the floor in front of the elevator and prepared to take him to the shower on the fourth floor to wash off the pepper spray. Two other officers, Albright and Holvoet, accompanied Moreland in the elevator to the fourth floor. Moffa, who had been hit by pepper spray ricocheting off Moreland, stayed behind on the first floor. Moreland thrashed about as he was taken upstairs; Albright and Holvoet tried to restrain him by pinning him to the elevator floor.

When the elevator doors opened at the fourth floor cell block, Dieter was waiting to meet them. Holvoet told Dieter that Moreland was the guy "who got Moffa sprayed." Albright testified that he thought this comment was a signal from Moffa to Dieter, his close friend, that Moreland had some "payback" coming. Sawdon arrived on the fourth floor shortly after Moreland and the others.

Dieter lifted Moreland up and hauled him over to the shower. Witnesses testified that Dieter pushed Moreland into the shower with such force that Moreland hit his head against the far wall. Albright testified that Dieter held Moreland from behind and accelerated toward the shower until the two men smashed into the far wall, crushing Moreland between the wall and Dieter's own body. Dieter or another officer turned on the hot water, which exacerbates the pain of pepper spray. In response to Moreland's cries from inside the shower (the defendants maintained he was belligerent, but other officers and witnesses testified that he was crying out for help), Sawdon said to the other officers, "Hey, guys, do you want to see something funny?" He then threw a five-gallon bucket of cold water over Moreland. Other officers gathered outside the shower, watching and laughing as Moreland, still handcuffed, lay with his head in a shallow puddle of water, spit, and mucus, trying to wash the pepper spray off his face.

Dieter and Sawdon then dragged Moreland from the shower and strapped him into a "restraint chair." Designed to control or impair an aggressive inmate who may endanger an officer or another inmate, the "Pro-Straint Restraining Chair" enables officers to shackle and tie down an inmate while keeping him in a seated, upright position. Moreland remained handcuffed while in the restraint chair. According to several inmates who observed what happened from inside their cells, Moreland sat in the restraint chair for several minutes, cursing and yelling at the defendants and asking them why they were doing this to him. According to the inmates, Sawdon kept telling Moreland to shut up. Then Sawdon went into the guard tower at the center of the floor and came out with an OC-10 canister. He approached Moreland and discharged the canister in his face while he was still strapped in the chair. Officers who arrived on the fourth floor shortly thereafter reported noticing the unmistakable residual odor of an OC-10 blast. Some witnesses also reported hearing the sounds of Moreland being beaten during this time.

Dieter and Sawdon then removed Moreland from the restraint chair and forcibly put him back into the shower again. Some time later the defendants put Moreland back in the restraint chair and moved him into a nearby "attorney's room," out of view of the other inmates. Connie Spicer, the jail's medication aide, arrived on the fourth floor around this time and examined Moreland, whom she described as slouched back in the restraint chair, moaning, and unresponsive. She saw that Moreland had a cut above his left eyebrow that had bled profusely. Dieter and Sawdon told her that Moreland had slipped and fallen. She placed a bandage over the cut. Spicer told the officers that Moreland should be taken to the hospital; however, she testified that Moffa, Dieter, and Sawdon did not want to do this because their shift was ending and transferring Moreland to the hospital would require them to remain at work. Spicer believed (incorrectly, it seems) that she did not have the authority to order the officers to transport Moreland to the hospital. Moreland remained in the restraint chair in the attorney's room, and at 7 a.m. the night shift personnel, including the defendants, left the jail.

Two day shift officers, Wilson and Johnson, found Moreland unconscious in the attorney's room shortly after 7 a.m. They noticed a large lump on the back of his head, injuries to the front of his face, and a bandage over the cut above his left eye. Wilson took Moreland, still unconscious, to the first floor, changed his clothing, and placed him back in the drunk tank. Spicer saw Moreland in the tank around 9:40 a.m., coughing and unresponsive. At 11:00 a.m., when she checked on him again, Moreland had not moved. The next time she checked Moreland was blue, cold, and lifeless. Moreland was pronounced dead at approximately 1:23 p.m. The coroner and other forensic experts testified that the cause of Moreland's death was an acute subdural hematoma that could only have occurred during the period of time Moreland was confined in the St. Joseph County Jail.

Moreland's estate and parents sued numerous parties, most of whom either settled or were voluntarily dismissed. Sheriff Speybroeck was sued in his official and individual capacities; the district court granted his motion for summary judgment. A trial was held on the claims against Moffa, Dieter, and Sawdon. The jury found Dieter and Sawdon liable, but could not reach agreement on Moffa and a mistrial was declared as to him. The jury returned damages verdicts as follows: $29 million in compensatory damages; $15 million in punitive damages against Dieter and $12.5 million against Sawdon. The case against Moffa was retried, resulting in a verdict in his favor. Dieter and Sawdon appealed the judgment against them, and the plaintiffs cross-appealed the grant of summary judgment to Speybroeck.

II. Analysis

A. Admission of Videotaped Interviews of Defendants

St. Joseph County initiated an investigation of Moreland's death, and the defendants were interviewed...