Love v. King
| Decision Date | 12 March 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 85-4284,85-4284 |
| Parties | James Dale LOVE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. George KING, Individually and as Chief of Police, et al., Defendants-Appellees. Susan PRITCHARD and Kim Phelps, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Carl ZEAGLER, et al., Defendants-Appellees. Summary Calendar. Fifth Circuit |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Patrick Durusau, Jena, La., for James Dale Love.
Gold, Little, Simon, Weems & Bruser, Henry B. Bruser, III, Alexandria, La., for King and Town of Jena.
Hennigan & Walters, Lloyd E. Hennigan, Jr., J. Reed Walters, Jena, La., for Carl Zeagler.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.
Before GEE, REAVLEY and ROBERT MADDEN HILL, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiffs Dale Love, Susan Pritchard, and Kim Phelps brought action against the Town of Jena, George King, Jena's Chief of Police, and Carl Zeagler, a private citizen, under 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1983, 1985 and 1986 (1982). The plaintiffs alleged that their constitutional rights were violated during an incident in which Zeagler shot his wife and plaintiff Love after finding the two in bed together. The trial court directed verdicts in favor of all defendants at the close of trial, and plaintiffs now appeal. We affirm.
The events which led to the alleged violations of plaintiffs' constitutional rights began on the afternoon of Tuesday, February 15, 1983, when Mrs. Zeagler left home after an argument with her husband. She went to see her friend, Susan Pritchard, and the two began drinking wine at Pritchard's home. A short time later, the two women were joined by Dale Love and another woman. The group left the Pritchard residence and went first to a shopping mall and then to a hotel lounge, where they remained until the lounge closed. After leaving the lounge, Love and Mrs. Zeagler moved Mrs. Zeagler's car from its location near a school to a location behind a doctor's office; they then returned to Pritchard's house, where they remained together until the next morning.
Apparently, Carl Zeagler had learned or discovered that his wife was at the Pritchard residence because about nine o'clock that same morning he approached the local sheriff and asked the sheriff to accompany him to the Pritchard residence to get evidence for a divorce. The sheriff refused. Zeagler then approached off-duty police officer Ronnie Burgess and offered him $500 to go to the Pritchard residence. Burgess also refused. Burgess reported his conversation with Zeagler to Police Chief King and, shortly after Burgess' report, Zeagler stopped King in his patrol car and also asked him to go to the Pritchard residence. Zeagler was obviously agitated and, when King refused (according to his undisputed testimony), Zeagler said that he would take care of things himself and left.
Fearing that Zeagler might create a disturbance, King decided to go to the Pritchard residence and asked Burgess to accompany him. They arrived at the Pritchard house, determined that Zeagler was not there and decided to wait in a nearby parking lot. They did not tell anyone at the house of Zeagler's possible arrival. Within minutes Zeagler appeared, and the officers followed him to the residence in their vehicle. Zeagler quickly entered the yard, stepped on the front porch and attempted to open the front door. At the same time, King got out of the patrol car and shouted at Zeagler to stop. When Zeagler ignored him, King began to proceed toward the house.
At this point, the exact sequence of events begins to blur. Apparently, when King began to approach the house, Zeagler jumped off the front porch and ran around the corner of the house. He broke a window, climbed into the house and subsequently struck Kim Phelps, Pritchard's daughter, and shot Love twice and his wife once. The wounds were not fatal.
When Zeagler first bolted off the front porch, King and Burgess began to pursue him around the corner of the house. At the sound of breaking glass, however, they stopped; King instructed Burgess to call for a back-up and, while he was doing so, King proceeded to the front door. As he reached the front porch, Mrs. Pritchard, apparently fleeing Zeagler, opened the front door. King was in the process of entering the house when he heard the three shots. Running through the house, he found Zeagler and persuaded him to surrender the gun.
Love, Pritchard and Phelps subsequently brought action under 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1983, 1985, and 1986 against the Town of Jena, Chief King and Zeagler. They alleged that King had agreed to meet Zeagler at the Pritchard residence and that the two had thus conspired to violate plaintiffs' constitutional rights. They further alleged that King violated their constitutional rights because he negligently failed to prevent Zeagler from getting into the house. Finally, they alleged that the Town of Jena was liable because King's actions represented a municipal policy or custom. After trial before a jury, the district court granted defendants' motions for directed verdicts, concluding that there was no evidence of a municipal policy or custom, a conspiracy, or violation of plaintiffs' constitutional rights.
Before considering the plaintiffs' points of error on appeal, we note briefly our standard of review as stated in Boeing Co. v. Shipman, 411 F.2d 365 (5th Cir.1969). The essence of a motion for directed verdict is that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment on the law applicable to the established facts. According to Boeing, on a motion for directed verdict, a court should consider all the evidence--not just evidence supporting the non-movant's case--in the light and with all reasonable inferences most favorable to the non-moving party. If the facts and inferences point so strongly and overwhelmingly in favor of one party that reasonable minds could not arrive at a contrary conclusion, the motion should be granted. A mere scintilla of evidence is insufficient to present a question for the jury. Id. at 374-75.
Plaintiffs first assert that the district court erred by directing a verdict in favor of the Town of Jena. We do not agree. The district court directed a verdict in favor of Jena based on its conclusion that "the record is absolutely bare of any evidence that th[e] random act by [Police Chief King] in any way represented any policy adopted formally or by repeated use by the City (sic) of Jena." T.R. 330. Relying on Brewer v. Blackwell, 692 F.2d 387 (5th Cir.1982), plaintiffs argue, however, that "a municipality is vicariously liable for torts of its officers." We reject this argument because it represents a complete misunderstanding of the basis of municipal liability as stated by the Supreme Court and as applied by this court in Brewer.
In Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978), the Supreme Court held that a municipality is liable under Sec. 1983 for acts of its employees or agents only when an official acts at the direction of the municipality or pursuant to a municipal policy or custom. The Court specifically held that a municipality is not vicariously liable for the acts of its employees, stating that "a local government may not be sued under Sec. 1983 for an injury inflicted solely by its employees or agents." Id. at 694, 98 S.Ct. at 2037, 56 L.Ed.2d at 638.
In Brewer, the plaintiff brought suit against a municipality under Sec. 1983 and state tort law for the allegedly injurious acts of its police chief. We reversed a directed verdict in favor of the municipality on the pendent state tort claims because Louisiana law permits vicarious municipal liability for police officers' torts. We did not, however, hold that the city was vicariously liable under Sec. 1983. Instead, we applied the Supreme Court's clear statement of municipal liability in Monell and upheld a directed verdict on the Sec. 1983 claim in favor of the municipality because there was no evidence that the police chief's acts represented municipal policy. Brewer, 692 F.2d at 400-01. Plaintiffs misread Monell and Brewer and ignore numerous lower court decisions. See, e.g., Young v. City of Killeen, 775 F.2d 1349 (5th Cir.1985); Bennett v. City of Slidell, 728 F.2d 762 (5th Cir.1984) (en banc), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 105 S.Ct. 3476, 87 L.Ed.2d 612 (1985); Familias Unidas v. Briscoe, 619 F.2d 391 (5th Cir.1980).
Although plaintiffs did not reach the issue, we note further that the district court correctly concluded that there was no evidence of a municipal policy or custom relating to Chief King's actions. There was no evidence at trial that King's actions were undertaken pursuant to a previously determined city policy or to a general practice of the police department. There was no prior or subsequent ratification of his acts by the Town's policymaker--the Board of Aldermen. Finally, there was no evidence that King, in his capacity as police chief, acted as final authority for the municipality such that his conduct could fairly be said to represent official policy. The district court correctly directed a verdict in favor of the Town of Jena.
Plaintiffs next contend that the district court erred in finding no evidence of a conspiracy between defendants Zeagler and King. We disagree. In support of their conspiracy claim, plaintiffs point to several facts: the brief conversation between King and Zeagler, King's wait for Zeagler outside the Pritchard residence, and minor inconsistencies in the testimony regarding the sequence of events which occurred after Zeagler's arrival at the Pritchard residence. From these facts, plaintiffs raise a series of speculative questions asking us to draw from these questions an inference of conspiracy.
While we are required to draw inferences favorable to plaintiffs, such inferences must be "within the range of reasonable...
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