Hall v. Dist. of Columbia

• Decision Date: 11 August 2017
• Docket Number: No. 16-7056,16-7056
• Citation: 867 F.3d 138
• Parties: Michele HALL, Appellant v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., Appellees
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

867 F.3d 138

Michele HALL, Appellant
v.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., Appellees

No. 16-7056

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued March 10, 2017
Decided August 11, 2017

Gregory L. Lattimer argued the cause and filed the briefs for appellant.

Lucy E. Pittman, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, argued the cause for appellees. With her on the brief were Karl A. Racine, Attorney General, Todd S. Kim, Solicitor General, and Loren L. AliKhan, Deputy Solicitor General.

Before: Rogers, Millett and Pillard, Circuit Judges.

Pillard, Circuit Judge:

This case arises from restaurant patron Michelle Hall's claims that employees of Cities Restaurant and Lounge, and the Metropolitan Police Department officers they summoned, reacted overly harshly when she raised a question about her bill and temporarily left the restaurant. Hall appeals the district court's final judgment against her resulting from dismissal of some of her damages claims on the pleadings, and others on summary judgment.

Hall celebrated her birthday with friends at Cities. Near the end of the evening, Hall was surprised by some of the charges on her bill due to what turned out to be miscommunication with the promoter who had set up the party for her. Before the billing question was fully resolved or Hall's party disbanded, some additional people on Hall's guest list arrived late and texted her; rather than pay a cover charge to join her at Cities, the late arrivals said they would go to a no-cover-charge bar across the street and asked Hall to join them for a quick drink. Hall then stepped out of Cities temporarily to greet those friends at the bar opposite. When she did so, Cities still held Hall's credit card and driver's license, and several of Hall's celebrants stayed at the table at Cities with the bill, Hall's purse, her phone, and her birthday gifts.

Cities employees responded as if Hall's departure were an attempt to avoid paying her bill. They called the police to report felony theft of services. The responding officers located Hall at the bar across the street and broke down the door of the single-occupancy bathroom where Hall and a friend were freshening their makeup and using the toilet. Without asking her any questions about what happened at Cities, Hall contends, the police handcuffed Hall, dragged her out of the bar, and detained her on the sidewalk and then in a squad car for about forty-five minutes. While she was sitting handcuffed in the police cruiser, Hall asked a passing officer who had not been involved in her initial arrest why she was being held. The officer replied that Hall had walked out on her bill. Hall objected that she had not; indeed, Cities still had her credit card and driver's license. The officer, hearing that information for the first time, went into the restaurant and came back with a receipt charging the full amount of Hall's bill to her credit card. Hall promptly signed the receipt and the officer released her.

Hall brought this suit for damages against the District of Columbia, its officers, Cities, and its manager. The district court dismissed some of Hall's claims on the pleadings and, after discovery, granted summary judgment in defendants' favor on the rest. We affirm in part, vacate in part, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

867 F.3d 144

Background

Because Hall's claims were dismissed either on the pleadings or at summary judgment, the factual background draws inferences in Hall's favor from her complaint and from facts revealed through discovery. See Mpoy v. Rhee , 758 F.3d 285, 287 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (citing Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 678-79, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) ); Tolan v. Cotton , –––U.S. ––––, 134 S.Ct. 1861, 1863, 188 L.Ed.2d 895 (2014) (per curiam). Needless to say, where there are evidentiary conflicts, jurors might well find the facts differently. Our recitation of events, as definitive as it may sound, is thus necessarily provisional due to the procedural posture of the district court's ruling.

In 2012, Michelle Hall, who lived and worked in Washington, D.C., arranged through event promoter Ryan White to have her twenty-ninth birthday party at Cities Restaurant and Lounge, located at 919 19th Street Northwest. White had coordinated Hall's birthday party at Cities the previous year, and Hall understood that she would again be served two free bottles of alcohol as incentive to bring her business to Cities. When Hall arrived at Cities for the party on March 17, Cities requested that Hall leave her credit card and identification with restaurant employees, which she did.

Several hours later, after the group consumed three bottles of alcohol and some food, a server presented Hall with a bill for $1,104.74. It reflected a charge of $935.04 for the food and all three of the bottles of alcohol the group had consumed, plus a $169.70 tip. Because Hall had not expected to pay for the first two bottles of alcohol, she texted her objection to Ryan White, the party promoter, who responded that she was mistaken; Cities had not agreed to provide any free bottles of alcohol this time. Hall felt misled, and when White stopped responding to Hall's text messages, she spoke with manager Seyhan Duru, who alerted the restaurant owner to the dispute. Meanwhile, Hall's party guests, who had agreed to contribute money for the food and third bottle consumed, started putting cash in a bill book towards paying the check.

While Hall's friends remained at Cities and attempted to work something out with Duru and Cities' owner, Hall went to a bar across the street to meet friends who had arrived at the tail end of the party at Cities and did not wish to pay Cities' forty-dollar cover charge to enter just as the group was finishing up there. Because Cities had stamped Hall's hand for re-entry and the restaurant retained the credit card and driver's license she had handed over when she arrived, and because Hall left her birthday presents, her purse, her cell phone, and most of her friends at Cities, and had told the server to leave the bill on the table as they were "still working on it," J.A. 100, she did not anticipate that the restaurant would have any concerns about her temporarily leaving the premises.

Shortly thereafter, however, a Cities employee called the police to report that an "intoxicated female" wearing a yellow sundress had refused to pay her bill. J.A. 165. The police apparently registered the call as a report of "theft one of services," or felony theft in the first degree, meaning the value of what was stolen exceeded $1000. Lee Dep., 25:16-18, Mar. 9, 2015; D.C. CODE § 22-3212(a). The call was puzzling given the record evidence showing that Cities had swiped and received approval for a $935.04 charge to Hall's credit card eleven minutes before the police report recorded the call from Cities.

Police arrived and entered the bar opposite Cities. According to Hall's account, they found Hall in the bathroom, announced themselves as the police and ordered

867 F.3d 145

Hall to open up, almost immediately broke down the door, "slammed" her against a wall, See Hall Dep., 49:1, Feb. 12, 2015, handcuffed her, and dragged her out of the bar, all without asking her any questions to verify Cities' complaint. The police detained Hall, restraining her in what Hall alleged and some of the evidence confirmed to be varying positions of discomfort, for approximately forty-five minutes.

Hall complained that her handcuffs were too tight. The arresting officer, Alice Lee, responded by tightening the cuffs. Lee forced Hall to her knees on the sidewalk, where Hall's underwear was exposed to passers-by and her knees scraped and bruised by the concrete. Lee repeatedly tightened Hall's handcuffs, and even yanked Hall's handcuffed arms behind her. When Hall asked Lee "What's going on?" Lee responded "[Theft of] services." Hall Dep. 49:18-50:4. Officer Lee did not identify herself to Hall. Only after Lee had brought Hall into the street could Hall read Lee's badge number. Officer Lee placed the handcuffed Hall in the back of a police cruiser.

As noted above, what could be viewed as Cities' and the police's over-reaction to Hall's dissatisfaction about a liquor charge she had not anticipated was quickly resolved as soon as an officer listened to Hall's version of events. While Hall was sitting handcuffed in the police vehicle with the window down, she asked another police officer why she was detained. When the officer responded that Hall had walked out on her bill, Hall objected that she most certainly had not; in fact, she had even left her credit card with Cities' staff. The officer went into Cities, came out with a credit card receipt charging Hall for the full bill and, when she promptly signed it, he released her.

Hall suffered emotional trauma, cuts and bruises, and an injured wrist. She sued the District, Officer Lee and Lee's partner (an unknown John Doe officer), Cities, and its manager Seyhan Duru. The complaint alleged excessive force and assault and battery by Officers Lee and Doe, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress by the officers and Duru, negligence on the part of all defendants, conversion by Cities, defamation by Cities and Duru,...