Henderson v. Harris Cnty.
| Decision Date | 12 October 2022 |
| Docket Number | 21-20544 |
| Parties | Jean Henderson; Christopher Devonte Henderson, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Harris County, Texas; Arthur Simon Garduno, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas USDC No. 4:18-CV-2052
Before SMITH, DUNCAN, and OLDHAM, Circuit Judges.
Christopher Henderson fled from three officers investigating drug activity. An officer chased Henderson and commanded him to stop. Eventually, Henderson stopped and turned suddenly toward the officer. The officer feared Henderson was reaching for a weapon, so he tased him. Henderson sued Harris County and the officer. The district court dismissed the Monell claim against Harris County for failure to state a claim and granted summary judgment to the officer based on qualified immunity. We affirm.
On April 26, 2018, three police officers went to Houston's Ingrando Park to investigate drug activity. One of the officers was Arthur Garduno, a deputy constable for Harris County Constable Precinct 6. The officers approached the park separately in marked patrol cars and saw three men at a picnic table. Garduno claims he smelled marijuana and saw one of the men "breaking up marijuana" into a shoebox. Another one of the men was Christopher Henderson. Garduno claims Henderson had a blunt tucked behind his ear and that Henderson threw a plastic bag containing a leafy green substance onto the ground.
When Henderson saw the officers, he ran. Garduno radioed about a person evading arrest, activated his siren, and followed. As Henderson entered an apartment complex, Garduno jumped out of the car and continued the chase on foot. Eventually, Garduno caught up to Henderson in the complex parking lot and ordered Henderson to stop running.[1] Garduno warned, "I'm going to tase you." What happened next is disputed. Garduno says Henderson stopped, turned to face him, and reached toward his waistband with both hands. Henderson claims he stopped running, "turned his head slightly toward the deputy and raised his hands in the air as if to surrender."
Garduno feared Henderson was reaching for a weapon, so Garduno deployed his taser. But because only one of the taser's prongs reached Henderson-one lodged in his face, and the other went over his head-the circuit didn't complete, and the taser didn't shock Henderson. So one second later, Garduno deployed his taser a second time. This time both prongs lodged in Henderson's back. He fell backward and hit his head.
The other officers arrived at the scene. Garduno claims Henderson continued to struggle while on the ground and resisted being placed in handcuffs. So Garduno "dry" tased him a final time.
The officers searched Henderson and found marijuana in his pocket but no weapon. Henderson was charged with possession of marijuana of less than 2 oz. in a drug-free zone, but that charge was later dismissed on the prosecution's motion.
Christopher Henderson and his grandmother Jean Henderson sued Deputy Garduno and Harris County under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of Henderson's Fourth Amendment rights, as incorporated. See Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 655 (1961).[2] The district court dismissed the claim against the County and granted summary judgment to Garduno. Henderson timely appealed.
As to the Monnell claim, Henderson alleged the County failed "to adopt any policies whatsoever to govern Deputy Garduno's use of force," "failed to train Deputy Garduno in the proper use of a [t]aser," and "failed to supervise Deputy Garduno." Henderson further alleged the "chief policymaker was the Constable of Precinct 6, Silvia R. Trevino," or "in the alternative, the chief policymaker was another person with managerial authority."
The County moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). The district court granted the motion. It held Henderson (1) failed to allege an "official policy" to state a plausible § 1983 claim against Harris County and (2) failed to allege a pattern of constitutional violations sufficient to show deliberate indifference or establish deliberate indifference through the single-incident exception to failure-to-train liability.
Afterward, Henderson moved to alter or amend the judgment under Rule 59(e), asking the court to either allow her to amend her complaint based on additional evidence contained in her summary-judgment filings, or reconsider its dismissal order based on the court's alleged mischaracterization of the facts and Henderson's ability to plead a Monell cause of action. The district court declined, holding: (1) Henderson was not entitled to leave to amend because she did not seek such leave during the fourteen months Harris County's motion to dismiss was pending, nor did she allege any facts unavailable to her during those fourteen months; (2) Henderson was not entitled to reconsideration based on the court's allegedly "misleading" summary of the facts because "[e]ven assuming that the [c]ourt's brief recitation of the facts was inaccurate, which the [c]ourt disputes, such characterization would not alter the outcome of the [m]otion to [d]ismiss."
As to the claim against Officer Garduno, Henderson alleged Garduno's conduct violated the Fourth Amendment and was objectively unreasonable under clearly established law. Garduno moved for summary judgment, asserting qualified immunity. The district court held that Henderson alleged facts sufficient to establish a Fourth Amendment violation but failed at the second step of the qualified-immunity analysis because Garduno's "conduct was not objectively unreasonable in light of clearly established law at the time the violation occurred." Accordingly, the district court granted summary judgment for Garduno, finding he was entitled to qualified immunity.
We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review de novo both the district court's grant of Garduno's summary judgment motion based on qualified immunity, Griggs v. Brewer, 841 F.3d 308, 311 (5th Cir. 2016), and its grant of the County's motion to dismiss for failure to state a Monell claim, Groden v. City of Dallas, 826 F.3d 280, 283 (5th Cir. 2016). We review the district court's denial of Henderson's Rule 59(e) motion to alter or amend the judgment for abuse of discretion. Trevino v. City of Fort Worth, 944 F.3d 567, 570 (5th Cir. 2019).
First, the Monell claim. Henderson argues the district court erred because (A) Harris County failed to provide any use-of-force policies or train its officers on taser use,[3] and (B) the district court employed an unfair procedure by dismissing her claims sua sponte. Both arguments fail.
To establish Monell liability, a plaintiff must show that an official policy promulgated by a municipal policymaker was the moving force behind the violation of a constitutional right. Peterson v. City of Fort Worth, 588 F.3d 838, 847 (5th Cir. 2009). And to get past the pleading stage, a complaint's "description of a policy or custom and its relationship to the underlying constitutional violation cannot be conclusory; it must contain specific facts." Pena v. City of Rio Grande City, 879 F.3d 613, 622 (5th Cir. 2018) (quotation omitted). A "failure-to-train action is a type of Monell claim." Hutcheson v. Dallas Cnty., 994 F.3d 477, 482 (5th Cir. 2021). To establish Monell liability on a failure-to-train theory, a plaintiff must prove that: "(1) the city failed to train or supervise the officers involved; (2) there is a causal connection between the alleged failure to supervise or train and the alleged violation of the plaintiff's rights; and (3) the failure to train or supervise constituted deliberate indifference to the plaintiff's constitutional rights." Ibid. Henderson must plausibly allege each element, but she flunks all three.
First, Henderson has not plausibly alleged that the County failed to train the officers involved on the constitutional use of tasers. Henderson contends Harris County was placing officers on the street without any training as to when they may constitutionally use a taser. Her only support for that contention: The County-in response to public information requests by Henderson's attorney-"failed to produce any written policies or procedures governing the conduct of deputy constables in performing law enforcement." The district court rightly rejected these allegations as "conclusory," holding that the complaint contained "no 'specific facts' as to whether Trevino or Harris County had a 'custom or practice' of not creating or implementing policies governing Precinct 6 deputies." This alone is enough to dispose of Henderson's failure-to-train claim. And Henderson's broader claim that the County failed to implement any use-of-force policies is deficient for the same reason.
Second, Henderson has not plausibly alleged a causal connection between any failure to train officers and the alleged violation here. That is because it was Deputy Garduno who allegedly violated the Constitution by deploying his taser. Indeed, Henderson herself "conceded that Garduno received [t]aser training from TCOLE," the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement. She attempts to get around that concession by arguing there is a difference between training officers in "the mechanics of using a taser weapon" and in "the constitutional limitations of the use of force with a taser weapon." But she supplies no reason to think the TCOLE program trained officers in the former and not the latter.
Third Henderson has not plausibly alleged that any failure to train constituted deliberate indifference. "To show deliberate indifference, a plaintiff normally must allege 'a pattern of similar constitutional violations by untrained employees.'" Hutcheson, 994...
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