Kingsley v. Hendrickson

• Decision Date: 03 March 2014
• Docket Number: No. 12-3639,12-3639
• Citation: Kingsley v. Hendrickson, No. 12-3639 (7th Cir. Mar 03, 2014)
• Parties: MICHAEL B. KINGSLEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STAN HENDRICKSON, ET AL., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

MICHAEL B. KINGSLEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STAN HENDRICKSON, ET AL., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 12-3639

United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

ARGUED APRIL 23, 2013

DECIDED MARCH 3, 2014

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Western District of Wisconsin.

No. 3:10-cv-00832-bbc — Barbara B. Crabb, Judge.

Before RIPPLE and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges, and STADTMUELLER, District Judge.^*

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge. Michael Kingsley brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against six staff members of a Wisconsin county jail, where he had been held as a pretrial detainee in 2010. Mr. Kingsley alleged that during his forcibletransfer to a new cell, which included the application of a taser, the defendants had violated various of his constitutional and statutory rights. The district court granted partial summary judgment for the defendants; a single claim of excessive force against Sgt. Stan Hendrickson and Deputy Fritz Degner proceeded to trial. The jury returned a verdict for the defendants.

Mr. Kingsley now appeals the judgment entered on the verdict, contending that the jury received erroneous and confusing instructions. Specifically, Mr. Kingsley contends that the district court conflated the standards for excessive force under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments and, as a result, wrongly instructed the jury to consider the subjective intent of the defendants. Mr. Kingsley also contends that the instructions misstated the harm that he must prove to obtain relief. We hold that the instructions were not an erroneous or confusing statement of the law of this circuit and that Mr. Kingsley affirmatively acquiesced to the instruction dealing with harm. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

IBACKGROUND

A.

In April 2010, Mr. Kingsley was booked into the Monroe County Jail in Sparta, Wisconsin, as a pretrial detainee. On May 1, he was transferred to the facility's south cell block.

On May 20, 2010, a deputy performing a cell check noticed a sheet of yellow legal paper covering the light above Mr. Kingsley's bed and ordered him to take it down. Mr. Kingsley refused the order and answered that he had not put the paper there.¹ The deputy moved on. When he returned for a further cell check later in the evening, he noticed that the paper had not been removed and again ordered Mr. Kingsley to take it down. After another refusal and a warning of possible disciplinary action, the deputy issued him a minor violation and reported it to Sgt. Hendrickson. Sgt. Hendrickson informed Deputy Karl Blanton that Mr. Kingsley would have to remove the paper in the morning.

When Deputy Blanton made his morning rounds, he ordered Mr. Kingsley to take down the paper. Mr. Kingsley did not respond and did not remove the paper. A few minutes later, Sgt. Hendrickson came to deliver Mr. Kingsley's medication, and he again ordered Mr. Kingsley to take down the paper. After several requests, Mr. Kingsley again refused, stating once again that he had not put the paper there. Sgt. Hendrickson next called the jail administrator, Lieutenant Robert Conroy.

Lt. Conroy then went to Mr. Kingsley's cell. After Mr. Kingsley refused his order, Lt. Conroy said jail staff would take the paper down and would have to transfer Mr. Kingsley to another cell in the interim. He also threatened discipline.

A few minutes later, Sgt. Hendrickson, Deputy Blanton, Lt. Conroy, Deputy Fritz Degner and Deputy Sheriff Shisler arrived at the cell. They ordered Mr. Kingsley to stand up and to back up to the door with his hands behind his back. Mr. Kingsley asked why and protested that he had done nothing wrong. Deputy Degner told Mr. Kingsley to follow the order or he would be tasered. He was again ordered to get up, but he continued to lie facedown on his bunk. He did, however, put his hands behind his back.

At this point, Sgt. Hendrickson and Deputy Blanton entered the cell, and, with some difficulty (which they attribute to Mr. Kingsley "tensing" his arms and holding them apart),² they were able to handcuff him. Mr. Kingsley would not follow an order to stand, so they pulled him to his feet. Mr. Kingsley then fell to his knees; he claimed that, in pulling him off of the bed, the officers had smacked his feet on the bedframe, causing him pain. He claimed that the pain was so severe that he could not stand or walk. The officer therefore carried him out of the cell by holding him under his arms and placed him facedown in the hallway. When he would not answer questions about his foot injury, he was taken in the same manner to a receiving cell and placed facedown on the bunk.

Once he was on the receiving-cell bunk, the officers attempted to remove the handcuffs. The evidence at trial was conflicting on the later course of events.³ The defendants saythat Mr. Kingsley resisted their effort, pulling the handcuffs apart and trying to get up. Mr. Kingsley denied this resistance at trial. At some point, Sgt. Hendrickson put his knee in Mr. Kingsley's back, and Mr. Kingsley told him, in colorful language, to get off him. Mr. Kingsley claims that the defendants then smashed his head into the concrete bunk, an allegation the defendants deny.

After some further verbal exchange,⁴ Deputy Degner applied a taser for five seconds on Mr. Kingsley's back. Lt. Conroy then ordered all of the staff to clear the cell. Fifteen minutes later, the staff returned and were able to remove the handcuffs. Mr. Kingsley was placed on a medical watch, but refused the attention of a nurse.⁵

B.

In December 2010, Mr. Kingsley, proceeding pro se, brought this action in the district court. His principal theory was that the defendants had violated his due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.⁶ His initial complaint presented several claims against seven Monroe County defendants, including an excessive force claim relating only to Sgt. Hendrickson and Deputy Degner.

The parties cross-moved for summary judgment. The district court granted partial judgment for the defendants on a procedural due process claim relating to Mr. Kingsley's discipline by jail staff. It concluded, however, that material issues of fact remained that precluded judgment on the excessive force claim based on the officers' conduct in the receiving cell. Specifically, the court identified "a dispute about whether defendants slammed plaintiff's head into the concrete bed and used a taser against him solely for the purpose of causing him harm."⁷ Although the officers clearly had difficulty removing the handcuffs, Mr. Kingsley claims that it was because they had been applied too tightly and Sgt. Hendrickson's kneeling on his back had caused his body to tense; the officers claim that Mr. Kingsley was resisting. The court observed that, from the video, "it is not clear ... whetherplaintiff was resisting or struggling. [He] does not appear to be moving his body around aggressively or very much at all."⁸

The court noted the case law that held that it was reasonable to use force against an inmate who refused to comply with orders but concluded that the issue in the case was "whether [the] defendants' response to plaintiff's obstinance was reasonable under the circumstances or whether it was excessive and was intended to cause [the] plaintiff harm."⁹ The court also concluded that, because a jury could find that the defendants had acted with malice, qualified immunity was not available. Although the court, in its ruling, concluded that the relevant constitutional right was contained within the Fourteenth Amendment because of Mr. Kingsley's status as a pretrial detainee, the court applied Eighth Amendment excessive force standards in assessing the claim.

Following the grant of summary judgment, the parties stipulated to the dismissal with prejudice of all outstanding claims except the excessive force claim against Sgt. Hendrickson and Deputy Degner. Counsel was appointed for Mr. Kingsley and the case proceeded to trial. In pretrial proceedings, the district court proposed an instruction on excessive force to which both parties objected, and the court made various modifications. At the close of the evidence, the parties revisited the instruction and again objected to its content. Again, the district court made some modification andadded a clarifying instruction. The court finally settled on the following instruction:

Excessive force means force applied recklessly that is unreasonable in light of the facts and circumstances of the time. Thus, to succeed on his claim of excessive use of force, plaintiff must prove each of the following factors by a preponderance of the evidence:

(1) Defendants used force on plaintiff;

(2) Defendants' use of force was unreasonable in light of the facts and circumstances at the time;

(3) Defendants knew that using force presented a risk of harm to plaintiff, but they recklessly disregarded plaintiff's safety by failing to take reasonable measures to minimize the risk of harm to plaintiff; and

(4) Defendants' conduct caused some harm to plaintiff.

In deciding whether one or more defendants used "unreasonable" force against plaintiff, you must consider whether it was unreasonable from the perspective of a reasonable officer facing the same circumstances that defendants faced. You must make this decision based on what defendants knew at the time of the incident, not based on what you know now.

Also, in deciding whether one or more defendants used unreasonable force and acted with recklessdisregard of plaintiff's rights, you may consider such factors as:

•The need to use force;

•The relationship between the need to use force and the amount of force used;

•The extent of plaintiff's injury;

•Whether defendants reasonably believed there was a threat to the safety of staff or prisoners; and

•Any efforts made by defendants to limit the amount of force used.¹⁰

Mr. Kingsley's counsel objected to the inclusion of "harm" as an element of an excessive force claim. He contended that the jury might confuse the...