Johnson v. County of Los Angeles

Decision Date15 August 2003
Docket NumberNo. 02-55881.,02-55881.
PartiesJames JOHNSON, III, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES; Leroy Baca; Terry Spindler; Thomas Hill; Doug Duvall; James Mee; John Clark; Julian Wallace; Nellifern Thomas, Defendants, and Michael Woodard, Defendant-Appellant.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Steven D. Blades, Manning & Marder Kass Ellrod Ramirez, LLP, Los Angeles, California, for the defendant-appellant.

Paul L. Hoffman, Schonbrun Desimone Seplow Harris & Hoffman, LLP, Venice, California, for the plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California; Harry L. Hupp, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-00-09687-GHK.

Before TROTT, TALLMAN, Circuit Judges, and COLLINS,* District Judge.

OPINION

TROTT, Circuit Judge:

In the course of his flight from police and ensuing arrest for armed robbery, James Johnson ("Johnson") was rendered a paraplegic. He brought claims arising from his injury against several of the involved law enforcement officers, medical service workers, and their employer, the County of Los Angeles. Relevant to this interlocutory appeal is a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim against Deputy Michael Woodard ("Deputy Woodard") for excessive use of force, which Johnson asserts was the direct cause of his paraplegia. Deputy Woodard challenges the district court's denial of his motion for summary judgment seeking qualified immunity. We reverse and remand with instructions to enter summary judgment in favor of Deputy Woodard.

BACKGROUND

In September 1999, Johnson, on parole from prison, and Myron Edwards ("Edwards") robbed a bank in Malibu, California. The record is clear that law enforcement authorities were immediately informed that it was an armed robbery. The robbers fled from the bank in a red Chevrolet Corsica, with Edwards driving and Johnson lying down in the back seat. Johnson was not wearing a seatbelt. When Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies spotted the suspect vehicle, Edwards led them on an hour-long chase, reaching speeds of nearly one hundred miles per hour. Johnson was not visible, and the deputies were not aware of his presence. The chase finally ended on the southbound 405 freeway when Edwards attempted a high-speed swerve that caused the getaway car to go out of control. The car spun one-hundred-eighty degrees as it slid across several lanes of traffic and crashed into the concrete center divider. Carried by its momentum and now facing backward, the getaway car skidded along the center divider until it came to a stop. The crash and ensuing arrests were recorded by news helicopters covering the chase. A copy of one of those video recordings was reviewed by the district court and is part of the record on appeal. The video recording shows that the car's impact into the center divider was less than dramatic.

Deputy Woodard along with Deputy Hill were the first deputies to reach the immobile getaway vehicle. To Deputy Hill, the chase appeared to be far from over, as is apparent from his deposition:

Q When you looked at the red vehicle from your position, the shoulder area [of the road], could you see the driver?

A Yes.

Q And how far away would you estimate your distance to be from the driver when you stopped at the right shoulder?

A At least across four lanes of traffic, so 60 to 80 feet maybe.

Q What, if anything, did you see the driver doing when you looked at the red vehicle?

A I saw his back and he was facing the — facing the east. He was moving around inside of the car. I saw him trying to get across the inside of the car. I believe that he was going to exit the vehicle through the passenger's side and then run across the freeway.

* * *

Q Were you fearing for anyone's life when you ran to the suspect vehicle?

A Yes, the people on the other side of the freeway.

Q What were you fearful of?

A That this person that we had just pursued for a lengthy time period, who was an armed felon, was trying to escape from the vehicle. I believed that he was going to get out of the car near the passenger side, go over the guardrail and run across the north-bound lanes of the freeway, he was going to escape, possibly injuring someone on the other side of the freeway or a combination of both.

Q So you believe[d] this person to be an armed felon; is that correct?

A Yes.

When the deputies reached the vehicle, they were surprised to see Johnson in the back seat. According to Johnson's later sworn statement, when the deputies arrived at the car, he sat up in the back seat and raised his hands over his head but quickly laid back down when an officer pointed a gun at him. In his deposition, Deputy Woodard described his arrival at the vehicle and his discovery of Johnson:

Q When was the first time that you saw Mr. Johnson in the vehicle after the collision?

A As I came around the back of the vehicle and jumped over the concrete barrier and started to approach the passenger side, I saw him down in the back seat.

Q In what position?

A Laying in the same position.

* * *

Q When you saw him, that was the first time that you saw him; is that correct?

A Yes.

Q That was what he was doing, he was moving around, his hands were moving around; right?

A Right.

Q The way that you are describing it is flailing?

A It was not flailing, it was more of a trying to cover up type of thing.

Q Could you see his hands or you just saw the cover that he had covered himself with?

A I just saw the object that was covering him. I could — I could only guess where his hands were based upon the movements that I saw.

Q You could not see his hands at that time?

A No, I could not.

Q They were under the cover?

A Yes.

Q How long did you stay on that side of the car when you saw that?

A At the point that I saw that, I was extremely concerned for the safety of the other deputies and myself.

Q Why?

A Because we have armed bank robbers here. I was afraid he had a gun.

Q What did you do in concern [sic] that he had a gun?

A I immediately tried to break out the window to get control of his hands. I realized I was not going to be able to do that within a — quickly, so I went and noticed that the driver's side window was either down or shattered out, I don't recall. There was no driver's window there. I went to the driver's window, I yelled at him to let me see his hands, and I was also trying to tell the deputies that were now on the other side of the car that we had a second suspect in the back because I could not tell if they had focused on him, nor had I heard anybody say that we had a suspect in the back of the vehicle.

The deputies pulled Edwards from the car first, but because the driver's door would not open they pulled him over the driver's seat and out the back door. In the process, the driver's seat reclined back, pinningJohnson's legs against the back seat. Edwards was not injured in either the crash or his arrest.

As Edwards was being handcuffed, Deputy Woodard entered the back of the vehicle to remove Johnson and take him into custody. According to Johnson, Deputy Woodard yanked, pulled, jerked and twisted his body "with a lot of force," and it felt like he "was being pulled apart" as Deputy Woodard tried to free him from the car. Johnson exclaimed to Deputy Woodard that he was stuck under the reclined seat and that Deputy Woodard was hurting him. Deputy Woodard believed Johnson's pain was caused by his pinned legs, and later explained under oath that he had seen "hundreds of people that [were] truly in pain," and based on the signs Johnson was showing he believed that Johnson's pain was "very minor." Deputy Woodard believed also that Johnson was "trying to get [him] to back off so [Johnson] could either retrieve a gun or attempt to escape." Johnson has not identified any additional signs of pain that Deputy Woodard should have recognized, nor has he explained how the signs he was showing should have indicated that he had a back injury. Given the circumstances, Deputy Woodard's perceptions and concerns were entirely reasonable.

After about forty seconds inside the car, Deputy Woodard succeeded in removing Johnson. After Deputy Woodard dropped him to the ground, Johnson felt what he described as a knee coming down on his back followed by a feeling like his "body was going to sleep," and Johnson could no longer feel his legs. The video recording shows that if a knee was in fact placed on his back, it was not done with any significant degree of force. Johnson was quickly handcuffed, lifted off the ground, and taken to the police cruiser with his legs dragging. The deputies believed he was dragging his feet as a form of passive resistance. It was later determined that Johnson permanently had been rendered a paraplegic at some unknown point in the course of the crash and arrest. The district court concluded that Deputy Woodard did not use excessive force either when he dropped Johnson on the ground, which Johnson claimed was from three to four feet up, or by placing a knee on his back. Because Johnson does not challenge those findings on appeal, we do not consider those facts as material to the questions before us.

Johnson sued the County of Los Angeles and several people who were involved in the incident, alleging a variety of claims that the district court described as "all of the torts listed in the table of contents" of a major treatise, plus a few others. The district court granted summary judgment to most defendants. As for Deputy Woodard, however, the district court concluded that whether he "knew or should have known" that Johnson had suffered a back injury was an issue of fact that precluded summary judgment on both the claim of excessive force and the defense of qualified immunity. The district court did conclude, however, that absent such knowledge, Deputy Woodard's actions did not amount to excessive force.

DISCUSSION

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