Lincoln v. Turner

• Decision Date: 31 October 2017
• Docket Number: No. 16-10856.,16-10856.
• Citation: 874 F.3d 833
• Parties: Erin LINCOLN, Individually and as Representative of the Estate of John Lincoln, Plaintiff–Appellant v. Patrick TURNER, Defendant–Appellee
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

874 F.3d 833

Erin LINCOLN, Individually and as Representative of the Estate of John Lincoln, Plaintiff–Appellant

v.Patrick TURNER, Defendant–Appellee

No. 16-10856.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

FILED October 31, 2017

Susan E. Hutchison, Hutchison & Stoy, P.L.L.C., Fort Worth, TX, for Plaintiff–Appellant.

William Wayne Krueger, III, Esq., McKamie Krueger, L.L.P., Richardson, TX, for Defendant–Appellee.

Before HIGGINBOTHAM, SMITH, and HAYNES, Circuit Judges.

PATRICK E. HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judge:

The police shot and killed John Lincoln as he stood beside then eighteen-year-old daughter Erin. She here alleges that after she collapsed and cried out, Officer Patrick Turner picked her up, threw her over his shoulder, and carried her to a police car, where she sat handcuffed against her will. Erin brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Turner, alleging unreasonable seizure and excessive force. The district court sustained Turner's defense of immunity and granted his motion to dismiss. We AFFIRM.

I.

As this case comes to us from a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, we accept Erin's well-pleaded facts as true.¹ Erin alleges that on the night of December 26, 2013, her father, John Lincoln—diagnosed with bipolar disorder and out of his medication—took a gun from his father's house and went to his mother Kathleen's home. When John arrived, Kathleen was not home, but Erin was.

John's father believed that John was a threat to Kathleen and called John's sister Kelly, an Arlington Police Department officer. Kelly then called the Colleyville Police Department and told them that John might pose a threat to Kathleen. A large SWAT team arrived, including officers from multiple police departments. A police dispatcher contacted Erin, who explained that her father would not hurt her. As the stand-off continued, Erin attempted to calm her father. At one point the phone rang, and Erin, knowing it was the police, urged her father not to answer it "because it would upset him." John answered the phone and became upset.

At some point, John began opening the front door and shouting at the police while holding his father's gun. Every time John opened the door, Erin was standing next to him. The final time John opened the door, the police shot and killed him.

When Erin fell to the ground beside John and cried out, Turner handcuffed her and threw her over his shoulder. Erin alleges that "Turner carried her into the backyard, hung her roughly over the back gate and then threw her onto her feet. Erin was then put [ ] in the back of a police car in handcuffs;" she "did not fight, struggle, or resist;" and she was eventually taken to the police station by another officer, where she was interrogated for five hours.

Erin sued several police officers, including Turner.² She filed her original complaint in October 2015 and she amended several months later. The district court granted Turner's motion to dismiss. It found that Erin insufficiently pled her claim as required by Rule 8(a)(2), and alternatively that Erin did not overcome qualified immunity.

Erin appeals.³

II.

"We review a district court's grant of a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim de novo, ‘accepting all well-pleaded facts as true and viewing those facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.’ "⁴ "The grant of a motion to dismiss based on qualified immunity similarly is reviewed de novo."⁵

A.

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) states: "A pleading that states a claim for relief must contain ... a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief[.]"⁶ "To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged."⁷ "While a complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss does not need detailed factual allegations, a plaintiff's obligation to provide the ‘grounds' of his ‘entitle [ment] to relief’ requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do."⁸

Turner moved under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim. Citing Twombly⁹ and Iqbal ,¹⁰ the district court concluded that "plaintiffs have alleged little more than bare legal conclusions" and that "[t]he facts pleaded do no more than permit the court to infer the possibility of misconduct and that is not enough to allow plaintiffs to go forward with their claims."¹¹

Erin argues that she sufficiently alleged claims for unconstitutional seizure and excessive force.¹² She contends that the district court erred when it stated there was no allegation of Erin having contact with Turner, since she "allege[d] that Turner cuffed her, physically threw her over his shoulder, threw her over a fence and then physically placed her, against her will and still handcuffed, into the back of a patrol car." Erin also maintains that she sufficiently alleged the elements of an excessive force claim; specifically, she maintains that she alleged (1) "a severe emotional injury," (2) "which resulted from a use of force that was clearly excessive," and (3) "[that] excessiveness ... was clearly unreasonable."

Turner counters that "Erin has not pleaded sufficient facts to show that [he] unreasonably seized her as a material witness and suspect after John was shot," and that with respect to excessive force, Erin pled "only de minimis injuries consistent with a constitutional handcuffing" and did not show that Turner directly caused the injuries or "plead facts sufficient to show that the force used was excessive in light of the hostage/criminal situation."

We hold that Erin sufficiently pled unconstitutional seizure and excessive force, and address each in turn.

1.

The Fourth Amendment states in relevant part: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated[.]"¹³ The extent of this constitutional protection varies with the type of seizure at issue. "The Fourth Amendment applies to all seizures of the person, including seizures that involve only a brief detention short of traditional arrest."¹⁴ "This court has recognized that there are different ‘tiers of citizen-police contact for purposes of [F]ourth [A]mendment analysis.’ "¹⁵ That is:

The first tier involves no coercion or detention and does not implicate the fourth amendment. The second tier, an investigatory stop, is a brief seizure that must be supported by reasonable suspicion ... Finally, the third tier is a full scale arrest [which] must be supported by probable cause.¹⁶

Brown v. Texas¹⁷ articulated a test that has been used to analyze detentions not easily categorized as investigatory stops or arrests, such as "stop and identify" detentions,¹⁸ check-point stops,¹⁹ and some witness detentions.²⁰ Detentions that begin as one type can transform into another.²¹

As we will explain, the claimed detention here could be classified as a de facto arrest requiring probable cause, an investigatory stop that must be supported by reasonable suspicion, or a witness detention subject to the Brown balancing test.²² Rather than press these categories, whose boundaries are blurred, we treat each type of detention in turn, and conclude that Erin has sufficiently stated a claim under all three standards.

a.

Based on the allegations in her amended complaint, Erin's detention may rise to the level of a de facto arrest that must be supported by probable cause. "An arrest occurs when, ‘in view of the all the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave.’ "²³ This is a fact-specific inquiry.²⁴ Here, Erin alleges that Turner handcuffed her and placed her in the back of a police car against her will for approximately two hours.²⁵ Taking these facts as true, a reasonable person could "believe that her freedom was restrained to a degree typically associated with arrest."²⁶ Such a detention must be supported by probable cause. "Probable cause exists ‘when the totality of the facts and circumstances within a police officer's knowledge at the moment of arrest are sufficient for a reasonable person to conclude that the suspect had committed or was committing an offense.’ "²⁷ Importantly, "[t]he facts must be known to the officer at the time of the arrest; post-hoc justifications based on facts later learned cannot support an earlier arrest."²⁸

Turner argues that "[s]everal crimes and potential crimes had taken place, and police were about to investigate."²⁹ Yet Turner only connects Erin to one potential crime: interfering with police officer's attempts to communicate with John before the shooting. To support this claim, Turner points to Erin's admission in the amended complaint that she urged her father not to answer the phone when the police called. However, while Erin included this information in the amended complaint, there is no indication that the police knew about this at the time Turner seized Erin.³⁰ Nothing else in Erin's amended complaint could lead to the conclusion that Erin had committed or was going to commit an offense. In short, "the facts as alleged in the amended complaint do not permit a conclusion that [Turner] had probable cause to arrest [Erin] [for interference] at the time of the arrest [ ]."³¹ Said differently, the "factual content" pled "allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for" an unconstitutional arrest.³²

b.

Even if Erin's seizure were treated as a less intrusive investigatory detention, she states a plausible claim. "[U]nder the ‘very narrow exception’ announced in Terry v. Ohio , police officers may briefly detain a person for investigative purposes if they can point to ‘specific and...