Hollingsworth v. City of St. Ann

• Decision Date: 03 September 2015
• Docket Number: No. 14–1583.,14–1583.
• Citation: 800 F.3d 985
• Parties: Danelle HOLLINGSWORTH, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. CITY OF ST. ANN; Robert McCallum, Police Officer, in his individual capacity only; Johnny King, Police Officer; Joseph Mayberry, Correctional Officer, Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

800 F.3d 985

Danelle HOLLINGSWORTH, Plaintiff–Appellant

v.CITY OF ST. ANN; Robert McCallum, Police Officer, in his individual capacity only; Johnny King, Police Officer; Joseph Mayberry, Correctional Officer, Defendants–Appellees.

No. 14–1583.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: Jan. 13, 2015.

Filed: Sept. 3, 2015.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied Oct. 7, 2015.^*

W. Bevis Schock, argued, Saint Louis, MO, for Plaintiff–Appellant.

Peter J. Dunne, argued, Robert T. Plunkert, on the brief, Saint Louis, MO, for Defendants–Appellees.

Before RILEY, Chief Judge, COLLOTON and KELLY, Circuit Judges.

Opinion

COLLOTON, Circuit Judge.

Danelle Hollingsworth was detained for booking at the police station in St. Ann, Missouri, after an arrest for stealing wine coolers from a convenience store at a gas station. When she refused a directive from police and corrections officers to change from her street clothes into an orange jumpsuit, a police officer stunned her with a Taser device to encourage compliance.

Hollingsworth later brought this action against the police officer, two corrections officers, and the City of St. Ann, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. She alleged that police officer Robert McCallum violated her rights under the Fourth Amendment by using excessive force when he stunned her with the Taser. She claimed that corrections officers Johnny King and Joseph Mayberry violated her constitutional rights by failing to intervene. She further asserted that the City was liable for the violations because its policy regarding the use of Tasers was unconstitutional.

The district court¹ granted summary judgment for defendants on all claims, concluding that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity, and that the City's Taser policy did not cause any potential violation of Hollingsworth's rights. Hollingsworth appeals, and we affirm. We conclude that although the actions of one or more officers might have been unreasonable, their conduct did not violate clearly established law at the time of the incident. We also agree with the district court that the City is not liable.

I.

The incident in question happened in the early morning hours of July 21, 2009. At about 1:30 a.m., Hollingsworth left a bar in St. Louis County, Missouri, and entered a gas station across the street. Hollingsworth had consumed several drinks, and admits she was “quite intoxicated,” but “not severely intoxicated where [she] couldn't walk or focus.” Hollingsworth took $7.38 worth of wine coolers from the station and left without paying for them.

Shortly thereafter, police officers from St. Ann arrested Hollingsworth. According to Hollingsworth, she surrendered with her hands up. Officer Robert McCallum testified that she was belligerent, and that she was screaming and cursing at the officers. Hollingsworth has a “vague memory” of officers performing a pat-down search during the arrest.

Officers brought Hollingsworth to the St. Ann police station, where she was placed in a small processing room that was monitored by a video camera. Officer Mayberry brought an orange jumpsuit into the room. Officer King started the booking process by having Hollingsworth remove property from her person and fill out paperwork. According to Hollingsworth, she was compliant during this process.

King then instructed Hollingsworth to change into the orange jumpsuit. He informed her she was required to take off her bra but not her bottom underwear. Hollingsworth says she felt scared and asked to have a woman present while she changed clothes. After the officers left Hollingsworth alone in the processing room to change clothes, Hollingsworth sat on a concrete bench and refused to don the orange jumpsuit. A female dispatcher monitoring the video feed of the processing room informed officers that Hollingsworth was not changing clothes.

Officer McCallum then entered the room with a Taser, reiterated to Hollingsworth that she must change into the jumpsuit, and warned her that she would be tased if she did not change. Hollingsworth waived a finger at McCallum and said something to the effect that “you better not tase me.” McCallum then left the room and closed the door.

After the dispatcher watching the video feed reported that Hollingsworth still was not changing into the jumpsuit, McCallum re-entered the room and deployed the Taser on Hollingsworth. He shot one barb into her upper chest and one into her shoulder. McCallum applied energy through the Taser on Hollingsworth for five seconds. During this interval, McCallum also touched the end of the Taser onto Hollingsworth's inner thigh. After the first application, McCallum stopped for five seconds and told Hollingsworth to change clothes. She replied by directing an expletive at McCallum, and McCallum then applied another five seconds of energy through the Taser.

Hollingsworth testified she suffered “excruciating pain ... like something was being ... shocked through [her] legs” when she was tased. Two days after the incident, Hollingsworth continued to suffer leg spasms. She visited a hospital, where doctors prescribed muscle relaxants.

In July 2009, the City of St. Ann had a written policy on “Use of Stun Type Device.” The policy stated that stun devices “shall be applied to [a] subject until resistance has ceased, or the subject complies with officer's commands, and the subject is no longer a threat.” The policy provided that “[b]ecause a handcuffed, or restrained subject can still be noncompliant, or even a substantial threat, the use of a Stun Device may be permissible as discretion dictates.” Sergeant Sam Barrale, who trained McCallum and others on the use of Tasers, testified that the City's policy authorized the use of a Taser when an officer's safety is threatened by an individual, including when a threat is foreseeable and could be prevented by use of the stun device. Barrale also testified that a Taser is not to be used for “punishment” or “coercion.”

Hollingsworth brought this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against McCallum, King, Mayberry, and the City of St. Ann, alleging, as relevant on appeal, that they violated her Fourth Amendment right to be free from excessive force. The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants. The court ruled that McCallum, King, and Mayberry were entitled to qualified immunity because it was not clearly established at the time of Hollingsworth's arrest that a use of force that resulted in only de minimis injury could constitute an unreasonable seizure based on an excessive use of force. The court dismissed the claim against the City on the ground that the City's policy on use of stun devices did not cause McCallum to deploy the Taser. We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo, viewing the record in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.

II.

The parties agree that the conduct of the officers at issue here was governed by the Fourth Amendment. Their submission is consistent with our precedents, which have applied the Fourth Amendment when resolving excessive force claims arising during transportation, booking, and initial detention of recently arrested persons. See Chambers v. Pennycook, 641 F.3d 898, 905 (8th Cir.2011) (citing cases); cf. Kingsley v. Hendrickson, ––– U.S. ––––, 135 S.Ct. 2466, 2479, 192 L.Ed.2d 416 (2015) (Alito, J., dissenting). An officer's use of force violates the Fourth Amendment if it is objectively unreasonable in light of the facts and circumstances of the particular case, as “judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989).

In § 1983 actions, qualified immunity shields government officials from suit unless their conduct violated a clearly established right of which a reasonable official would have known. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). “The contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right.” Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987). In a series of recent decisions, the Supreme Court has emphasized that for a plaintiff to overcome qualified immunity, existing precedent must have placed the constitutional question “beyond debate.” City & Cnty. of S.F., Calif. v. Sheehan, –––U.S. ––––, 135 S.Ct. 1765, 1774, 191 L.Ed.2d 856 (2015) (internal quotation omitted); see Carroll v. Carman, ––– U.S. ––––, 135 S.Ct. 348, 350, 190 L.Ed.2d 311 (2014) ; Plumhoff v. Rickard, ––– U.S. ––––, 134 S.Ct. 2012, 2023, 188 L.Ed.2d 1056 (2014) ; Stanton v. Sims, ––– U.S. ––––, 134 S.Ct. 3, 4–5, 187 L.Ed.2d 341 (2013) ; Ashcroft v. al–Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 131 S.Ct. 2074, 2083, 179 L.Ed.2d 1149 (2011). “When properly applied, [qualified immunity] protects all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.” Taylor v. Barkes, ––– U.S. ––––, 135 S.Ct. 2042, 2044, 192 L.Ed.2d 78 (2015) (alteration in original) (internal quotation omitted).

Hollingsworth contends that McCallum violated clearly established law, because there was no justification for the use of any force against her in the holding cell. She points to dicta in Agee v. Hickman, 490 F.2d 210 (8th Cir.1974), that the court—by upholding a particular use of force—did “not mean to condone ... the use of any force by officers simply because a suspect is argumentative, contentious or vituperative.” Id. at 212. She cites the court's statement in Feemster v. Dehntjer, 661 F.2d 87 (8th Cir.1981), that “[t]here is no occasion for the use of any force against a prisoner who quietly submits.” Id. at 89. And she draws on the conclusion in Shannon v. Koehler, 616 F.3d 855 (8th Cir.2010), that where a citizen was not suspected of committing a crime, did not resist arrest, and did not threaten anyone, we could not say that “a reasonable officer ... would have felt...