Kingsley v. Lawrence Cnty.
| Decision Date | 25 February 2019 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 3:17-cv-05007-SRB |
| Parties | KIMAN KINGSLEY, et al., Plaintiffs, v. LAWRENCE COUNTY, MISSOURI, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Missouri |
Before the Court is Defendants DeLay, Berry, Ford and Lawrence County's Motion for Summary Judgement. (Doc. #423). For the reasons discussed below the motion is granted.
The undisputed facts reveal four events that form the basis of Plaintiff Kiman Kingsley's case. The first event is a February 2013 audio-recorded conversation involving Defendant Brad DeLay, the duly elected sheriff of Lawrence County, Missouri; Defendant Chris Berry, a deputy in the Lawrence County Sheriff's Office ("LCSO"); Lisa Kingsley, sister-in-law to Plaintiff Kiman Kingsley and a former Defendant in this case; and Cynthia Kingsley, former sister-in-law to Plaintiff and also a former Defendant in this case. The second event is Plaintiff's July 2013 warrantless arrest by Defendant Jon Ford, another Lawrence County deputy. The third is Defendant Berry's investigation following Plaintiff's arrest. The fourth is Special Prosecutor Patrick Sullivan's filing of a criminal complaint against Plaintiff in September 2015. Plaintiff alleges that evidence arising from these events, taken together with other evidence and reasonable inferences, show that Defendants individually violated his constitutional rights, conspired to violate those rights, acted pursuant to Lawrence County's official policy or custom in causing those violations, and committed tortious conduct under Missouri common law.
Plaintiff Kiman Kingsley is the sole Plaintiff left in this case. The remaining Defendants are DeLay, Berry, and Ford ("LCSO Defendants") in both their individual and official capacities, and Lawrence County itself. Five of the claims in Plaintiff's Third Amended Complaint remain. Plaintiff brings Counts I through IV under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In Count I, Plaintiff alleges that LCSO Defendants lacked probable cause for his July 2013 warrantless arrest, which thus violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. In Count II, Plaintiff alleges that LCSO Defendants conspired to violate his constitutional rights. In Count III, Plaintiff alleges that remaining Defendants intentionally or recklessly failed to investigate other leads that would have exonerated Plaintiff and "resulted in criminal charges not being filed against Plaintiff," and that this failure therefore violated Plaintiff's rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In Count IV, Plaintiff alleges that Defendant Lawrence County is directly liable due to its policies, practices, or customs that violated his constitutional rights.
Plaintiff brings Counts V and VI under Missouri common law. In Count V, Plaintiff alleges that Defendants' conduct constitutes common law false arrest. In Count VI, Plaintiff alleges that Defendants' conduct constitutes common law malicious prosecution. Defendants bring the present motion for summary judgment, arguing that Plaintiff has failed to produce evidence to establish his claims and that various immunities protect Defendants.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(a) requires a court to grant a motion for summary judgment if 1) the moving party "shows that there is no genuine dispute of material fact" and 2) the moving party is "entitled to judgment as a matter of law." A nonmoving party survives a summary judgment motion if the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, is "such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party." Stuart C. Irby Co. v. Tipton, 796 F.3d 918, 922 (8th Cir. 2015) (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986)). While a plaintiff opposing summary judgment "may not simply point to allegations in the complaint," Robbins v. Becker, 794 F.3d 988, 993 (8th Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted), the "standard for avoiding summary judgment" is "relatively lenient." Amgen Inc. v. Conn. Ret. Plans & Trust Funds, 568 U.S. 455, 479-80 (2013) (citing Anderson, 477 U.S. at 248). The purpose of summary judgment "is not to cut litigants off from their right of trial by jury if they really have issues to try." Hughes v. Am. Jawa, Ltd., 529 F.2d 21, 23 (8th Cir. 1976) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Poller v. Columbia Broadcasting Sys., Inc., 368 U.S. 464, 467 (1962)); see also Melvin v. Car-Freshener Corp., 453 F.3d 1000, 1004 (8th Cir. 2006) (Lay, J., dissenting) (quoting Poller, 368 U.S. at 467).
Under the doctrine of qualified immunity, a government officer sued in an individual capacity is "shielded from liability for civil damages" when performing discretionary functions unless the officer's conduct "violate[s] clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982).Because qualified immunity "is an immunity from suit," the issue "should be resolved 'at the earliest possible stage in litigation' to ensure that insubstantial damage claims against government officials are resolved 'prior to discovery.'" Johnson v. Moody, 903 F.3d 766, 773 (2018) (quoting Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231-32 (2009)).
To defeat a qualified immunity defense, a plaintiff must show that: 1) "the facts, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, demonstrate the deprivation of a constitutional or statutory right," and 2) that "the right was clearly established at the time of the deprivation." Saylor v. Nebraska, 812 F.3d 637, 643 (8th Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Howard v. Kan. City Police Dep't, 570 F.3d 984, 988 (8th Cir. 2009)). Regarding prong two of the qualified immunity analysis, "[f]or a constitutional right to be clearly established, its contours 'must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right.'" Nord v. Walsh Cty., 757 F.3d 734, 739 (8th Cir. 2014) (quoting Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 739 (2002)). To make this showing "it is unnecessary to have 'a case directly on point, but existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate.'" Vester v. Hallock, 864 F.3d 884, 887 (8th Cir. 2017) (quoting Parker v. Chard, 777 F.3d 977, 980 (8th Cir. 2015)). District courts have "discretion in deciding which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed first in light of the circumstances in the particular case at hand." Pearson, 555 U.S. at 236.
Defendants point out that Lawrence County is a named Defendant and argue thatsummary judgment is appropriate on Plaintiff's claims against Defendants DeLay, Berry, and Ford in their official capacities because those claims are duplicative. In response, Plaintiff "concedes . . . that the official capacity claims against DeLay, Berry and Ford are under applicable law duplicative as being essentially claims against the municipality, Lawrence County." (Doc. #444, p. 46). This Court agrees. See Roberts v. Dillon, 15 F.3d 113, 115 (8th Cir. 1994) (citing Hafer v. Melo, 502 U.S. 21, 25 (1991)) ("An official-capacity suit is merely another way of pleading an action directly against the public entity itself."). Defendants DeLay, Berry, and Ford are therefore entitled to summary judgment on Plaintiff's § 1983 claims against them in their official capacities. For the remainder of section III.A., the Court focuses its analysis on Plaintiff's § 1983 claims against Defendants DeLay, Berry, and Ford in their individual capacities and against Defendant Lawrence County.
Courts analyze a § 1983 claim for wrongful arrest under the Fourth Amendment. See Johnson v. City of Minneapolis, 901 F.3d 963, 967 (8th Cir. 2018) (). "A warrantless arrest is consistent with the Fourth Amendment if it is supported by probable cause, and an officer is entitled to qualified immunity if there is at least arguable probable cause." Ulrich v. Pope Cty., 715 F.3d 1054, 1059 (8th Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Borgman v. Kedley, 646 F.3d 518, 522-23 (8th Cir. 2011)). Probable cause supporting "a warrantless arrest exists 'when the totality of the circumstances at the time of the arrest are sufficient to lead a reasonable person to believe that the defendant has committed or is committing an offense.'" Id. (quoting Borgman, 646 F.3d at 522-23). Arguable probable causegiving rise to qualified immunity "exists even where an officer mistakenly arrests a suspect believing it is based in probable cause if the mistake is objectively reasonable." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Borgman, 646 F.3d at 523). While "the probable cause standard inherently allows room for reasonable mistakes by a reasonable person," the arguable probable cause standard "affords law enforcement officials an even wider berth for mistaken judgments 'by protecting all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.'" Id. (quoting Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 229 (1991)). "[A]n analysis of arguable probable cause necessarily includes consideration of probable cause," even though the two standards are distinct "legal concepts." Id.
Defendants DeLay and Berry argue they are entitled to summary judgment on Count I because Plaintiff has not produced any evidence that Defendants DeLay or Berry participated in or knew about Plaintiff's July 2013 arrest and that thus Plaintiff fails the first prong of...
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