Hamilton v. Chaffin

• Decision Date: 15 January 1975
• Docket Number: No. 73-3928,73-3928
• Citation: 506 F.2d 904
• Parties: Charline HAMILTON, Administratrix of the Estate of Carey Clayton Yates, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Jess CHAFFIN et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 904

506 F.2d 904

Charline HAMILTON, Administratrix of the Estate of Carey Clayton Yates, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Jess CHAFFIN et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 73-3928.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Jan. 15, 1975.

John B. Farese, Peggy A. Jones, Ashland, Miss., Robert W. Elliott, Ripley, Miss., for plaintiff-appellant.

Floyd W. Cunningham, Booneville, Miss., Ralph E. Pogue, Aberdeen, Miss., for defendant-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi.

Before COLEMAN, CLARK and RONEY, Circuit Judges.

CLARK, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff-appellant, the administratrix of the Estate of Carey Clayton Yates, brought this action to recover damages against the City of Booneville; W. W. Stacy, Chief of Police for the City; City Police Officers Jess Chaffin and Travis McGaughy; Richard Moffitt, radio dispatcher for the City Police Department; and J. D. Burns and Clyde Edge, Jr., ¹ for injuries to and the wrongful death of Carey Clayton Yates, ² allegedly caused by defendants' negligence and violations of various rights guaranteed an arrestee under federal ³ and state law. ⁴ The District Court granted the motions of defendants W. W. Stacy and Clyde Edge, Jr. for directed verdicts. A judgment of dismissal with prejudice was entered upon a jury verdict for the remaining defendants. We affirm the trial court's action.

I. FACTS

Although considerable uncertainty surrounding the factual details of this shocking case remains even after trial, sufficient uncontroverted evidence was adduced during the course of the proceedings to permit a reconstruction of the general chain of events culminating in young Yates' self-inflicted death, on December 24, 1971, while incarcerated in the Booneville city jail. On this tragic Christmas Eve, defendants Chaffin and McGaughy, members of the Booneville police force, received a dispatch directing them to a trailer to investigate a disturbance. As they neared the trailer, the officers noticed a youth, later identified as Carey Yates, age 15, walking along the sidewalk. As the officers watched him, Yates lit and threw what they later determined to be a cherry bomb. ⁵ They immediately drove toward Yates, but did not use the patrol car's siren or blue light to identify themselves. One of the officers called to Yates to halt. Despite this command, Yates dashed behind the front hedge of a nearby residence. The officers leaped from their car and pursued Yates on foot. As Officer Chaffin neared his hiding place, Yates darted from the bush and ran directly into Officer McGaughy, causing both to tumble to the ground. When the officers lifted Yates from the ground, they noticed he was bleeding from the area around his nose and mouth. Yates was immediately taken to the Booneville city jail. After being searched for any remaining firecrackers, Yates was booked and taken to the 'drunk' cell, admittedly without being advised of his constitutional rights, afforded an opportunity to call his mother, or given any medical treatment. ⁶ Minutes later, young Carey Yates was found dead in his cell, having used his belt to hang himself.

The alleged deprivation of decedent's rights during his apprehension and detention is the basis for administratrix's claim for damages. Plaintiff asserts that the defendants, acting independently and in concert, applied excessive force during the apprehension and search of Yates, failed to provide the necessary medical treatment and supervision that was required because of the youth's obviously irrational state of mind, and deprived him of other federal constitutional and state statutory rights; and that these wrongful and negligent acts preyed upon Yates' immature mind, destroying his ability to reason, and thus precipitating his suicide. ⁷ Defendants reply by stating that they used only that amount of force necessary to apprehend and incarcerate Yates because of his inebriated condition and violent reactions ⁸ and that either his intoxication or some other emotional instability, or a combination of the two, completely unrelated in origin to the defendants' actions, solely caused him to take his own life.

II. JURISDICTION

A. Diversity

The original plaintiff was decedent's mother. After the plaintiff had rested her case in the trial court, the complaint was amended to substitute the administratrix, Charline Hamilton, decedent's aunt and a resident of Tennessee, as party-plaintiff. Although this substitution was not requested until the district judge raised a question concerning the court's Section 1983 jurisdiction over the City of Booneville, the court concluded that because of other extenuating circumstances ⁹ the substitution of this administratrix who had been appointed only one week earlier for the admitted purpose of shoring up the jurisdictional problems which developed, did not constitute a 'collusive' appointment, and, therefore, that diversity jurisdiction was established by the substitution. Since we have concluded that the City of Booneville is immune from suit, part V infra, it is unnecessary to review the issue of whether the appointment was improper. ¹⁰

B. 1983

Plaintiff asserted a claim cognizable under 42 U.S.C. 1983 by alleging that the defendants, while acting under color of state law, used excessive force in apprehending and detaining young Yates. The use of excessive force constitutes a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment right to due process, and, as such, is actionable under Section 1983. E.g., Curtis v. Everette, 489 F.2d 516 (3d Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 416 U.S. 995, 94 S.Ct. 2409, 40 L.Ed.2d 774 (1974); Johnson v. Glick, 481 F.2d 1028 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1033, 94 S.Ct. 462, 38 L.Ed.2d 324 (1974); cf. Williams v. United States, 341 U.S. 97, 71 S.Ct. 576, 95 L.Ed. 774 (1951); Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91, 65 S.Ct. 1031, 89 L.Ed. 1495 (1945); United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 61 S.Ct. 1031, 85 L.Ed. 1368 (1941). Compare Jackson v. Wenzel, 282 F.Supp. 357 (E.D.Wis.1968); Daly v. Pedersen, 278 F.Supp. 88 (D.Minn.1967). As stated by the Second Circuit in Johnson, supra: 'in determining whether the constitutional line has been crossed, a court must look to such factors as the need for the application of force, the relationship between the need and the amount of force that was used, the extent of the injury inflicted, and whether force was applied in a good faith effort to maintain or restore discipline or maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm.' Id. 481 F.2d at 1033. See Tolbert v. Bragan, 451 F.2d 1020 (5th Cir. 1971). Clearly, all of these issues were present in the alleged cause of action here.

In view of our conclusion that the plaintiff stated a claim actionable under Section 1983 based upon the claim of excessive force, we pretermit a review of plaintiff's additional contention that defendants' failure to provide medical treatment was also sufficient to state a cause of action under the statute. The trial court's submission of the issue of medical treatment to the jury on the basis of a Section 1983 claim, if error, was harmless. If not presented as a Section 1983 cause of action, the issue would have been properly before the court upon the common law theories of tort and negligence pursuant to its power to exercise pendent jurisdiction over state claims which arise from the same nucleus of operative facts as are involved in the federal claim. E.g., United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 16 L.Ed.2d 218 (1966); Burton v. Waller, 502 F.2d 1261 (5th Cir. 1974) (No. 72-2311, 1974); Anderson v. Nosser, 438 F.2d 183, 188-189 (5th Cir.), modified on rehearing on other grounds, 456 F.2d 835 (5th Cir. 1972) (en banc).

Appellant further asserts that defendants' violation of Section 7185-06 of the Mississippi Code, as amended in 1966 (presently Miss.Code Ann. 43-21-13 (1972)), which requires that the police obtain prior authorization from the County Youth Court before incarcerating a juvenile, ¹¹ also constituted a denial of decedent's civil rights as guaranteed under Section 1983. Although it is uncontradicted that the officers failed to comply with the Section 7185-06 procedure, we conclude that this violation of a state-created right does not reach constitutional proportions. It is therefore insufficient to constitute a violation of a right cognizable under Section 1983. Anderson v. Nosser, supra; Campbell v. Anderson, 355 F.Supp. 483 (D.Del., 1971). See Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U.S. 1, 64 S.Ct. 397, 88 L.Ed. 497 (1943); Taylor v. City of Jackson, 487 F.2d 213 (5th Cir. 1973); Johnson v. Hood, 430 F.2d 610 (5th Cir. 1970); Dorsey v. N.A.A.C.P., 408 F.2d 1022 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 847, 90 S.Ct. 58, 24 L.Ed.2d 97 (1969). Nevertheless, the district court's adjudication upon this issue similarly could be sustained under its discretionary right to take pendent jurisdiction of this closely related state claim.

III. EVIDENTIARY ERROR

Plaintiff asserts that the district court erred in admitting, over her objection, the testimony of Ernest E. Bailey, chemist from the Mississippi State Chemical Laboratory. Bailey's testimony revealed that tests performed on a sample of blood taken during an autopsy performed on the body of Carey Yates indicated an alcohol concentration of 0.15 percent. Under Mississippi law this concentration of alcohol in a person's blood raises the presumption that the person is intoxicated. See note 8 supra. The plaintiff objected to the introduction of this testimony. Since no permission had been given to perform the autopsy by Yates' survivors, plaintiff took the position that the blood sample had to have been obtained pursuant to Section 7158-04 of the Mississippi Code, as amended in 1960, ¹² and that this statute demanded the evidence be excluded. The latter portion of Section 7158-04 provides: 'No evidence obtained through any autopsy performed under the provisions of this...