Harris v. City of Pagedale
| Decision Date | 28 July 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 86-2022,86-2022 |
| Parties | Ellena HARRIS, Appellee, v. CITY OF PAGEDALE, Appellant, Michael Hayles, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Frank Susman, St. Louis, Mo., for appellant.
William Edward Taylor, St. Louis, Mo., for appellee.
Before HEANEY, McMILLIAN and FAGG, Circuit Judges.
Ellena Harris brought this action under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 against the City of Pagedale, Missouri (the City), and against Michael Hayles, formerly a City police officer. Officer Hayles falsely arrested Harris and, while she was in police custody, sexually assaulted her. In bringing this action, Harris alleged Officer Hayles violated her civil rights by the assault. She also alleged the City was liable because, before the assault, municipal officials in positions of final authority had been deliberately indifferent to many citizen complaints of physical and sexual misconduct by Hayles and other police officers. The jury returned a verdict against both Officer Hayles and the City and awarded Harris $200,000 in damages. The District Court 1 for the Eastern District of Missouri entered final judgment on the verdict. The City now appeals. 2
For reversal, the City contends (1) the evidence did not establish the existence of a City custom or policy, a requisite for municipal liability under Sec. 1983; (2) members of the Board of Aldermen or the Chief of Police did not have the final policymaking authority to establish the City custom or policy alleged; and (3) this City custom or policy did not proximately cause Officer Hayles to sexually assault Harris. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
Sometime after midnight on January 29, 1985, Officer Michael Hayles stopped Harris's car on a city street. Officer Hayles was in uniform and driving a patrol car. Officer Hayles told Harris he had pulled her over because she had run a red light, which Harris denied. Officer Hayles handcuffed Harris, put her in his patrol car and drove her to the City police station. At the station, Officer Hayles took Harris to an office, where he sexually fondled her and told her to "cooperate with him" if she wanted to go home and not get into any trouble. Harris said Officer Hayles told her he had stopped "lots of women" like this before and, if they did what he asked, he let them go.
Officer Hayles then took Harris out of the police station, put her in his patrol car and drove to a cemetery across the street. Harris said Officer Hayles told her, "I always come over here when I can't go to a hotel." In the cemetery, Officer Hayles repeatedly raped and sodomized Harris.
Before taking her back to her car, Harris said Officer Hayles warned her that he would make trouble if she told anybody what had happened. He specifically threatened to have her put in jail and to have her children taken away from her. On two occasions after the assault, Officer Hayles went to Harris's house and attempted to talk to her.
The central issue in this appeal is whether the City, as well as Officer Hayles, is liable for Harris's sexual assault under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. Harris alleged the City was liable because there was a municipal custom of failing to receive, investigate and act on citizen complaints of physical and sexual misconduct by City police officers. To establish that this municipal custom existed, Harris presented evidence of prior incidents of police sexual misconduct, including prior incidents involving Officer Hayles, and evidence that various City officials in positions of authority and responsibility had received notice of these incidents. Because the City challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to establish the municipal custom alleged, we will set out in detail the evidence in this case.
Harris testified that Officer Hayles admitted that he had falsely arrested and sexually assaulted other women. Her testimony was corroborated by extensive evidence of prior incidents of sexual misconduct involving Officer Hayles.
Several witnesses testified about Officer Hayles' alleged sexual assault of a young woman in the summer of 1983 ("the 1983 incident"). The young woman claimed Officer Hayles had arrested her, taken her to a small, dark room at the police station, thrown a coat over her head, and sexually fondled her. City police officer Arthurine (Tina) Jones testified that she was in the police station on the night the young woman was arrested. Jones said she was at the dispatcher's desk in the front of the station when she heard a woman crying and went down the hall to investigate. Jones walked into an office and found Officer Hayles and the young woman in the room with the lights off. Jones said the young woman was crying hysterically. City police lieutenant Allean Helms was also on duty at the station that night. She testified for the City that she did not see or hear anything unusual.
The young woman involved in the 1983 incident did not testify at the trial. Her allegations were testified to by Frederick Searcy, a family friend. 3 Searcy said he was contacted by the young woman's mother following the incident and had accompanied the mother and daughter to a meeting about the incident with then City Chief of Police Odis Williams. Searcy testified that at this meeting Chief Williams acknowledged that he had received other citizen complaints of sexual misconduct by Officer Hayles. The young woman lodged a formal complaint against Officer Hayles, and Chief Williams promised to conduct an investigation. On June 21, 1983, the police chief wrote to the young woman's mother the letter was introduced into evidence at the trial. Chief Williams stated in the letter that he had interviewed Officer Hayles and other officers on duty at the police station on the night of the young woman's arrest. Williams said he was suspending Officer Hayles for two days for "questioning a female prisoner in an isolated area in the police department without the presence of a female officer." 4
The young woman also filed a complaint against Officer Hayles with the St. Louis County Police Department. Detective Alysia Johns investigated the charge. Detective Johns testified that she notified Chief Williams of the charge against Officer Hayles in the course of the investigation. The investigation was eventually dropped, Johns said, because the victim refused to cooperate.
The young woman and her family also made complaints to City Mayor Mary Hall and to Louise Hall, a member of the Board of Aldermen, the City's governing body. (Mayor Hall and Alderwoman Hall are not related.) At trial, both City officials acknowledged that they had spoken personally with the young woman about the incident and said that they had believed her allegations against Officer Hayles.
Alderwoman Hall and Mayor Hall called a meeting of the Board of Aldermen to discuss the 1983 incident. At the meeting, the Board unanimously voted to refer the matter to the St. Louis County Police Department for investigation. The investigation resulted in a finding that the complaint was unfounded. The Board received this finding in October 1983 and decided to briefly suspend Officer Hayles for interviewing a female suspect without a female officer present in violation of police department policy.
Lieutenant Greenbaylum Walker of the Northwoods, Missouri, Police Department testified about another incident of sexual misconduct involving Officer Hayles. Lieutenant Walker said that in August or September 1983, during the course of an investigation, he had videotaped an interview with a female suspect who lived in the City. A few days after this interview, Lieutenant Walker telephoned Mayor Hall at City Hall and said:
I have viewed a videotape of a person that was in the custody of our department that had statements on it concerning a member of [Mayor Hall's] police department that I felt she should be apprised of that could probably cause problems later if something wasn't done.
Lieutenant Walker told Mayor Hall that the police officer involved was Officer Hayles. At Lieutenant Walker's invitation, Mayor Hall and Alderwoman Hall went to the Northwoods Police Department to see the videotape. Lieutenant Walker said he told the mayor then that he thought the videotape could cause trouble in the future. He explained at trial that he meant to warn Mayor Hall "either the person was not telling the truth and will continue to spread the rumor and that would be a problem I could foresee, or the person was telling the truth and there could be a possibility of someone being assaulted."
Alderwoman Hall described the videotape interview at trial. The suspect said that Officer Hayles had stopped or arrested her many times in the City, had always "made deals" with her, had threatened to charge her if she refused to do as he told her, usually took her to the cemetery or to a hotel, and several times had tied her up and taken nude photographs of her. 5 Alderwoman Hall testified that she believed the suspect's story and that she had concluded by the time she saw the videotape that Officer Hayles was "a sexual freak."
Mayor Hall gave a similar account of the videotape interview and testified that she, too, believed the woman's story. Mayor Hall said she informed the Board of Aldermen and the City Attorney about the suspect's allegations against Officer Hayles. Alderwoman Hall denied the mayor had ever informed the Board of Aldermen about the videotape. The videotape was played for the jury at the trial.
There was testimony about another incident of sexual misconduct involving Officer Hayles. A female City resident testified that in January 1985, Officer Hayles stopped her car and found a small amount of marijuana in her purse. Officer Hayles handcuffed the woman,...
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