Frazell v. Flanigan

Decision Date10 December 1996
Docket NumberNo. 94-3517,94-3517
Citation102 F.3d 877,26 C.C.P.A. 1103
PartiesPaul H. FRAZELL, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. E.K. FLANIGAN, Defendant-Appellant.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Susan O'Neal Johnson, Kavanagh, Scully, Sudow, White & Frederick, Peoria, IL, James P. Kellstedt, argued, Peoria Heights, IL, John P. Edmonds (argued), Chillicothe, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

James E. Ryan, Office of the Attorney General, Chicago, IL, David Bo Mattson, Nuviah Shirazi, Deborah L. Barnes, Office of the Attorney General, Springfield, IL, Mary E. Welsh (argued), Office of the Attorney General, Civil Appeals Division, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellant.

Before EASTERBROOK, ROVNER and DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judges.

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge.

Paul H. Frazell brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that Illinois State Trooper E.K. Flanigan violated his Fourth Amendment rights in the course of a traffic stop and arrest on June 4, 1986. Frazell maintained that Flanigan used excessive force during the arrest and also failed to prevent other officers on the scene from using similar force against him. Frazell's claims were tried to a jury, which found in his favor and awarded $155,600 in compensatory damages and $3,900 in punitive damages. The district court entered judgment on the jury's verdicts and later denied Flanigan's motion for judgment as a matter of law or for a new trial. Flanigan now appeals, arguing that the jury's verdicts are not supported by the trial evidence and, alternatively, that he is entitled to qualified immunity. Having carefully reviewed the evidence before the jury below, we find it adequate to support the verdicts. We also conclude that in the circumstances of this case, Flanigan has no immunity from the jury's damage awards. We therefore affirm the judgment entered on the jury's verdicts. 1

I.

The jury heard varying accounts of what occurred during the June 4, 1986 traffic stop. Frazell testified that he suffered an epileptic seizure midway through the stop and that he remembers little of what occurred thereafter. Two co-workers were with Frazell at the time, and each related to the jury what he saw. The various law enforcement officers on the scene for all or a portion of the encounter also described their versions. In determining whether the evidence is sufficient to support the jury's verdicts, we construe the evidence in the light most favorable to Frazell, resolving any conflicts in his favor and according him the benefit of all reasonable inferences. McNabola v. Chicago Transit Auth., 10 F.3d 501, 511 (7th Cir.1993).

Frazell and his two companions told the following story. At approximately 9:00 p.m. on June 4, 1986, Frazell was on his way home from a construction job when his van was stopped by Trooper Flanigan. Ron Cooper and Vernon Henderson, who worked for Frazell, were with him at the time. The trooper explained that the trailer Frazell was pulling had no taillights and that he stopped the van for this reason. Frazell insisted that the trailer's taillights were operational, and he walked to the rear of the trailer with Flanigan to prove it. At that point, Flanigan indicated that Frazell's van also had been swerving when it passed his squad car, and that he feared Frazell may be under the influence of alcohol. Frazell had consumed four or five beers while playing pool at a local tavern before heading home, and Flanigan also smelled the alcohol on his breath. Frazell explained to the trooper that the trailer may have swerved because it had been loaded incorrectly. He also told Flanigan that he has a detached retina in his right eye that affects his vision and thus his driving. Flanigan did not accept these excuses and proceeded to conduct a series of sobriety tests. He first directed his flashlight into Frazell's eyes to check for dilated pupils. The brightness of the light bothered Frazell's damaged eye and gave him a headache. Flanigan then required Frazell to walk the white line at the road's edge. When he had difficulty keeping his balance, Frazell volunteered that the oncoming traffic appeared too close and that it bothered his eye. Unimpressed, Flanigan told Frazell that he had failed the sobriety tests and that he was under arrest. Following standard procedures, the trooper then frisked Frazell, cuffed his hands behind his back, and placed him in the passenger seat of the squad car. Witnessing these events from the backseat of the van, Henderson described them to Cooper, who could not see from the front passenger seat. With Frazell already handcuffed in the squad car, Cooper approached Flanigan and requested permission to move the van and trailer off the shoulder of the road to a nearby driveway. Flanigan directed Cooper to get back into the van.

Seating himself next to Frazell, Flanigan first radioed for a tow truck to haul away the van. Frazell recalls that Flanigan then began to read aloud from a consent form, but by this point, Frazell was beginning to feel dizzy. The next thing he remembers, Frazell was on the ground with two or three officers over him. One officer had his knee in the side of Frazell's head, a second officer was sitting on his back, and a third was at his feet. Frazell's hands were cuffed behind his back. From his vantage point in the van, Henderson saw Frazell on the ground with the three officers restraining him. According to Henderson, it was Flanigan who had a knee in Frazell's back, while a second state trooper was at Frazell's feet, and a local police officer at his head. Henderson saw Flanigan pull out a club or nightstick and strike Frazell with it twice in the back. Henderson relayed this information to Cooper, and both men then left the van and walked to the rear of the trailer. From there, Cooper could see Frazell on the ground with an officer at his head, a second officer on his back, and a third officer at his feet. Cooper saw that Frazell's hands were cuffed behind his back, that his legs were strapped together, and that blood was dripping down his face. Seeing Cooper, Frazell pleaded, "Get them off me, Ron. Get them off me." Cooper approached one of the officers and informed him that Frazell has a medical condition, that he "has seizures." The officer told Cooper to get back into the van or he would be next. Cooper and Henderson then returned to the van.

Henderson continued to observe the scene from the van's rear window and to relay his observations to Cooper in the front seat. After approximately ten or fifteen minutes, Cooper left the van for a third time and reached the rear of the van before an officer instructed him to get back inside. Before returning to the van, however, Cooper told the officers: "You don't need to be hitting him like that. You guys are going to kill him."

As time passed, additional officers arrived on the scene. Henderson counted six squad cars in all. He eventually saw certain of the officers pick Frazell up by the arms and drag him back to the last squad car in the line. Frazell's hands remained cuffed behind his back, and it appeared to Henderson that his feet also were restrained. As the officers dragged Frazell, Henderson observed one of them strike him twice in the back with a club or nightstick. Frazell apparently regained some sense of awareness at this time, as he recalls being struck twice in the lower back while being dragged. The officers put him in the backseat of the last squad car, and Frazell recalls that he initially was kneeling on the floor with his chest and head slumped over the seat. One of the officers was striking Frazell's hands, apparently because he had grasped either the officer's shirt or the cage between the back and front seats of the squad car. Frazell remembers attempting to release his grip, but his hands would not obey. He finally remembers being kicked in the lower back. At about the same time that Frazell was being placed in the backseat of the squad car, a tow truck arrived to haul away the van. Cooper and Henderson left the scene with the tow truck and saw nothing further.

Being closer to these events than Cooper or Henderson, and without the impairment suffered by Frazell, the various law enforcement officers provided a more detailed version of the encounter, but one that conflicted in important respects with Frazell's evidence. Flanigan testified that after arresting Frazell, he twice read him the consent form. After the second reading, Frazell indicated that he was not feeling well and that he needed some air. By this time, Officer Jerry Washburn of the local police department had arrived on the scene and was standing by in the event Flanigan needed assistance. Flanigan directed Washburn to take Frazell out of the squad car before he became sick. The two officers then led Frazell to the rear of the car and leaned him against the trunk. Unsteady on his feet, Frazell eventually fell onto the trunk and rolled off the back fender, breaking the vehicle's rear antenna. Frazell ended up on the ground on his back and began scooting himself under the squad car with his feet. Flanigan testified that he reached down to stop Frazell but was kicked in the groin, which sent him sprawling backward into a ditch running parallel to the road. Washburn then grabbed Frazell by the ankles, pulled him out from under the squad car, and positioned his 300-pound frame on the small of Frazell's back while radioing for assistance. Washburn testified that before any additional officers arrived Frazell grabbed his gun with one of his cuffed hands and would not release it. When Washburn finally was able to free the gun, Frazell grabbed Washburn's shirt, tearing it to the armpit. Flanigan indicated that during this time, Frazell was cursing the officers and struggling and kicking with his feet.

State Trooper Harold Spence III then arrived on the scene and assisted Flanigan and Washburn in restraining the struggling Frazell. Spence...

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