Jones v. Stone
| Decision Date | 16 April 2013 |
| Docket Number | D.C. Docket No. 1:04-cv-01928-CC,No. 11-14032,11-14032 |
| Parties | TABITHA A. JONES, ALLISON JONES, JR., CAMARIO COLLINS JONES, ZECOSHA JONES, ALOJUWAN JONES, KHALIQ ALEXANDER JONES, ESTATE OF ALLISON JONES, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. MARILYN T. STONE, CHARLES E. FRYE, Defendants-Appellees, CITY OF ATLANTA, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of GeorgiaBefore TJOFLAT, CARNES, and JORDAN, Circuit Judges.
This appeal arises, as our cases sometimes do, out of tragic circumstances: after crashing his car into a guard rail in East Point, Georgia, Allison Jones was shot and killed during a post-wreck encounter with police. Mr. Jones' estate, his widow, and his children (collectively, "the Plaintiffs") sued the two officers involved, Marilyn Stone and Charles Frye, and their employer, the City of Atlanta, in federal district court. After an earlier opinion of this Court, a summary judgment order, and three jury trials narrowed the case, the district court granted the officers' motion for judgment as a matter of law based on state official immunity. In this appeal, the Plaintiffs contend that the district court failed to follow our earlier opinion—in the process going against the law of the case—and assert a number of errors based upon that failure. They also argue that the district court made several prejudicial evidentiary mistakes in the third trial. Following oral argument, we find no error and affirm.
The Plaintiffs' lawsuit alleged that Officers Stone and Frye violated Mr. Jones' constitutional rights by using excessive force during their encounter with him. Based on that allegation, the Plaintiffs asserted 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claimsagainst the officers and the City, as well as state law claims including negligence, wrongful death, and negligent supervision. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the officers and the City on the § 1983 claims, holding that the officers had acted reasonably in self defense and therefore had not violated Mr. Jones' constitutional rights, that they were due qualified immunity, and that the City was not liable for their conduct. After resolving the federal claims, the court declined to exercise jurisdiction over the state law claims. The Plaintiffs appealed.
In our opinion reviewing the district court's grant of summary judgment, we reached a split result: we affirmed on the §1983 claims as to the City and the officers in their official capacities, but reversed on the §1983 claim as to the officers in their individual capacities. See Jones v. City of Atlanta, 192 F. App'x 894, 895 (11th Cir. 2006). Reversing as to the officers individually, we noted that factual questions remained about "whether the officers [had] acted in self defense" and "within the scope of their discretionary authority when they interacted with [Mr.] Jones." Id. at 897-98. Because of those lingering questions, we concluded that—at the summary judgment stage—we could not say for certain either that Mr. Jones' constitutional rights had not been violated or that the officers were due qualified immunity. As a result, we deemed improper summary judgment in favor of the officers individually. Id. We decided nothing at all about the merits of the state law claims, instead vacating the district court's dismissal to allow the court toreconsider whether to exercise jurisdiction over those claims on remand. Id. at 898.
Upon remand, the district court decided to exercise jurisdiction over the Plaintiffs' state law claims and found that sovereign immunity barred them as to both the City and the officers in their official capacities. It therefore granted summary judgment to the City and the officers officially on those claims. The case then went to trial three times. At the first trial, a jury found in favor of the officers individually on the §1983 claim but could not reach a verdict on the state law negligence claim against them. At the second trial, which dealt only with the negligence claim,1 the jury deadlocked, so the district court declared a mistrial. At the third trial, the jury, using a special verdict form, found that the officers had been performing discretionary acts during their encounter with Mr. Jones and that they had acted without actual malice. Based on the jury's findings, the court ruled that the officers were due state official immunity and granted their motion for judgment as a matter of law on the negligence claim. That led to the Plaintiffs' second appeal.
The Plaintiffs' main contention in this appeal is that our earlier opinion held—without restriction and as a matter of law—that "the officers were not actingin a discretionary capacity when they interacted with Mr. Jones" and therefore "were not entitled to qualified immunity." The Plaintiffs argue that this holding is the "law of the case," which the district court was bound to follow. They assert that the district court erred when it acted inconsistently with the holding by, for example, instructing the juries on state official immunity and granting the officers' motion for judgment as a matter of law based on their entitlement to that immunity.
"We review a district court's ruling on a motion for judgment as a matter of law de novo." Chaney v. City of Orlando, 483 F.3d 1221, 1227 (11th Cir. 2007). Although a government actor's entitlement to immunity is a question of law for the district court to decide, the court may use a verdict form containing special interrogatories to have the jury resolve "issues of fact that are determinative" of the immunity issue. Cottrell v. Caldwell, 85 F.3d 1480, 1487 (11th Cir. 1996). See also Johnson v. Breeden, 280 F.3d 1308, 1318 (11th Cir. 2002); Outlaw v. Nasworthy, 250 Ga. App. 362, 364, 551 S.E.2d 785, 788 (2001). And while the law of the case doctrine, when it applies, bars reconsideration of facts and legal issues decided in an earlier proceeding, its application "'depend[s] considerably on the stage a case has reached when it goes up on appeal . . . .'" Arthur Pew Constr. Co. v. Lipscomb, 965 F.2d 1559, 1581 (11th Cir. 1992) (Tjoflat, J., dissenting) (quoting Barber v. Int'l Bhd. of Boilermakers, 841 F.2d 1067, 1071 (11th Cir. 1988)). Because the record at the summary judgment stage is often different from, and thinner than, therecord after trial, see Jackson v. State of Ala. State Tenure Comm'n, 405 F.3d 1276, 1283-84 (11th Cir. 2005), we are especially careful applying the doctrine "where the previous ruling has been on pre-trial motion, and the subsequent ruling comes after the full development of the case." Lipscomb, 965 F.2d at 1581 (Tjoflat, J., dissenting) (quotation marks omitted). "This court has recognized that [our] reversal of a district court's grant of summary judgment . . . says nothing about how the evidence should be viewed after a trial." Id. (citing Shelkofsky v. Broughton, 388 F.2d 977 (5th Cir. 1968)).
As their arguments show, the Plaintiffs misunderstand our earlier opinion. We did not hold that the officers were acting outside of their discretionary authority as a matter of law. We held only that, on the record as it existed at the time of the Plaintiffs' first appeal, the officers had "not proven that they were acting within" that authority. And we did not hold that the officers were not entitled to immunity under any circumstances. We ruled only that, because of unanswered factual questions, the record did not reflect that the officers were due federal qualified immunity at the summary judgment stage. We did not even consider the Plaintiffs' state law claims or any state official immunity that might have been associated with them.
In our earlier opinion, we said simply this: summary judgment was proper as to the Plaintiffs' § 1983 claims against the City and the officers in their officialcapacities, but—because genuine issues of material fact remained about whether the officers' had violated Mr. Jones' constitutional rights and whether they were acting within their discretionary authority such that they were due federal qualified immunity—summary judgment was improper (at least on the record as it then existed) as to the § 1983 claims against the officers individually. Certainly, those holdings were the law of the case and bound the district court accordingly. So if, on an unchanged record, the district court had reentered summary judgment on the § 1983 claims for the officers individually because they were acting within their discretionary authority, the Plaintiffs would be absolutely correct that it had erred.
But that is not what the district court did. The court understood from our earlier opinion that jury issues remained as to whether a constitutional violation had occurred and whether the officers had exceeded their discretionary authority, so it submitted those issues to the jury. We told the district court that the facts needed to decide those issues—and the related question of the officers' entitlement to federal qualified immunity—were disputed, so the court asked the jury to settle them. And the jury complied: it found, after the first trial, that the officers had not violated Mr. Jones' constitutional rights, which both resolved the Plaintiffs' § 1983 claim against the officers individually and obviated the need for any further findings or rulings on federal qualified immunity. See Jordan v. Mosley, 487 F.3d 1350, 1354-55 (11th Cir. 2007).
The jury finished the job when, after the third trial, it found that the officers had acted within their discretionary authority and without malice. The district court then used those findings to decide the final threshold question in the case, whether the officers were due state official immunity. Our earlier opinion gave no particular guidance about how the court should handle the Plaintiffs' state law claims and any related immunity questions, but the method the court chose...
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