Mitchell v.

• Citation: 729 F.3d 1070
• Decision Date: 10 September 2013
• Docket Number: 12–2058.,Nos. 12–1931,s. 12–1931
• Parties: Charles Marc MITCHELL, Plaintiff–Appellee v. Josh SHEARRER, Defendant–Appellant. Eric Spiker; Clifton Bone; Matt Richardet, Defendants Charles Marc Mitchell, Plaintiff–Appellant v. Josh Shearrer, Defendant. Eric Spiker; Clifton Bone, Defendants–Appellees Matt Richardet, Defendant.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)

729 F.3d 1070

Charles Marc MITCHELL, Plaintiff–Appellee

v.Josh SHEARRER, Defendant–Appellant.

Eric Spiker; Clifton Bone; Matt Richardet, Defendants

Charles Marc Mitchell, Plaintiff–Appellant

v.Josh Shearrer, Defendant.

Eric Spiker; Clifton Bone, Defendants–Appellees

Matt Richardet, Defendant.

Nos. 12–1931, 12–2058.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: Jan. 15, 2013.

Filed: Sept. 10, 2013.

Mark Zoole, argued Saint Louis, MO, (Mark Zoole, on the brief), for appellant and cross-appellees.

John M. Albright, Poplar Bluff, MO, (John M. Albright, on the brief), for appellee/cross-appellant.

Before RILEY, Chief Judge, WOLLMAN and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.

WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge.

Farmington, Missouri, Police Officer Joshua Shearrer arrested Charles Mitchell in the doorway of his home, with the assistance of Officers Erik Spiker and Clifton Bone. Mitchell filed this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the officers violated his constitutional rights by arresting him in his home without first obtaining a warrant to do so. The district court ¹ granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment based upon qualified immunity as to Spiker and Bone, but denied qualified immunity as to Shearrer.² We affirm the denial of qualified immunity as to Shearrer, and we dismiss for lack of jurisdiction Mitchell's challenge to the grant of qualified immunity as to Spiker and Bone.

I.

During the evening of October 21, 2009, Mitchell allowed grass clippings and leaves from his lawn to be cast upon the street in front of his house, in violation of Farmington Municipal Code § 210.750. After the police department received a complaint about the clippings and leaves, Officer Shearrer went to Mitchell's residence to investigate. To arrive at Mitchell's front door, Shearrer climbed two steps and stood on the front porch. A glass storm door opens onto the front porch, with the door handle on the right, and a wooden door opens into the house, with the door handle also on the right. There is no peep hole on the inside door.

Just before 8:00 p.m., Shearrer either knocked on the door or rang the doorbell at Mitchell's residence. Mitchell turned on his porch light and opened the wooden door, not knowing who was there. After Mitchell opened the door, he saw Shearrer in uniform, holding a flashlight. Shearrer held open the storm door and identified himself as a Farmington police officer.

According to Mitchell, Shearrer asked him to come outside so that Shearrer could show him the clippings and leaves in the street. Mitchell replied, “I'm not coming out. I'm going to bed.” Shearrer informed him that he had received a complaint about the clippings, whereupon Mitchell admitted that he had mowed his lawn and that he had “been doing it this way for fifteen years.” As Mitchell began to close the wooden door, Shearrer stuck his foot into the doorway, preventing the door from closing. Shearrer repeated his request that Mitchell come outside, to which Mitchell responded, “I'm not coming out there. I'm going to bed.” With his foot in the doorway, Shearrer asked for identification, to which Mitchell responded, “If you are not arresting me, I am going to bed.”

Soon thereafter, Officers Spiker and Bone arrived in separate squad cars. Mitchell testified that all three officers “tried to remove me from my door.” The officers pulled Mitchell's left arm, and he braced himself. At his deposition, Mitchell explained:

Q. At this point is it fair to say you're standing in your doorway?

A. I'm still inside the house.

Q. Is any part of you inside the actual doorframe itself?

A. Everything but my left arm is still inside the house.

As the officers tugged Mitchell's arm a second time, he grabbed the woodwork on the inside of the door with his right hand. The door pressed against his chest, leaving a mark. After Mitchell stopped resisting, he was pulled onto the porch, forced to the ground, and handcuffed. According to Mitchell, the officers then told him that he was under arrest.

Shearrer had a similar recollection of the encounter. Shearrer believed that Mitchell “display[ed] a hostile attitude” and “posed [a] higher than usual threat due to what [Shearrer had] perceived as his aggressive and hostile tone and manner.” Shearrer testified that he had repeatedly asked Mitchell to step onto the porch, but Mitchell refused to do so. When Mitchell began closing the door, Shearrer “placed [his] foot in the threshold of the doorway, preventing the door from fully closing.” Shearrer explained that when Mitchell thereafter refused Shearrer's request to step outside, Shearrer informed Mitchell that he was under arrest and then reached for Mitchell's arm or wrist as Mitchell tried to shut the door. Shearrer described the struggle as “a tugging and tussling match in which [Shearrer] was trying, unsuccessfully, to get Mr. Mitchell out of the doorway and to get his hands behind his back to handcuff him.” Officers Spiker and Bone arrived during the scuffle and assisted Shearrer in subduing and handcuffing Mitchell. Shearrer ultimately issued citations to Mitchell for dispersing debris into a public street or sewer, refusing the lawful command of a police officer, and resisting arrest.

Shearrer appeals from the denial of his motion for qualified immunity. Mitchell cross appeals from the grant of qualified immunity to Spiker and Bone.

II.

We first address the scope of our jurisdiction. Title 28, United States Code, section 1291 provides that federal courts of appeals “shall have jurisdiction of appeals from all final decisions of the district courts [.]” Under the collateral order doctrine, “[w]e have jurisdiction to consider an interlocutory appeal of an order denying qualified immunity to the extent the appeal seeks review of ‘purely legal determinations made by the district court.’ ” Sherbrooke v. City of Pelican Rapids, 513 F.3d 809, 813 (8th Cir.2008) (quoting Wilson v. Lawrence Cnty., Mo., 260 F.3d 946, 951 (8th Cir.2001)). Accordingly, we have jurisdiction to consider whether the facts, taken in the light most favorable to Mitchell, support a finding that Shearrer violated Mitchell's clearly established constitutional rights.

We do not have jurisdiction, however, to consider Mitchell's appeal from the grant of summary judgment in favor of Spiker and Bone. The district court has not issued a final decision, and “[t]he collateral order doctrine does not apply ... when a party complains that the district court should not have granted summary judgment based on qualified immunity.” Coleman v. Parkman, 349 F.3d 534, 537 (8th Cir.2003) (emphasis omitted). Mitchell contends that his cross appeal falls within our pendent appellate jurisdiction because resolution of Shearrer's appeal necessarily will resolve the cross appeal. We disagree. To decide the appeal, we must determine whether there exists a genuine issue of material fact that Shearrer violated Mitchell's clearly established constitutional rights when he reached across the threshold and placed Mitchell under arrest. The cross appeal, however, presents a different question because Spiker and Bone merely assisted Shearrer in subduing Mitchell. There is no evidence to suggest that Spiker and Bone were involved in the decision to arrest Mitchell or that they knew or should have known that the seizure was unlawful. Accordingly, the grant of summary judgment to Spiker and Bone is not inextricably intertwined with the denial of summary judgment as to Shearrer. See Langford v. Norris, 614 F.3d 445, 458 (8th Cir.2010) (explaining that “[a] pendent appellate claim can be regarded as inextricably intertwined with a properly reviewable claim on collateral appeal only if the pendent claim is coterminous with, or subsumed in, the claim before the court on interlocutory appeal”) (alteration in original) (quoting Kincade v. City of Blue Springs, Mo., 64 F.3d 389, 394 (8th Cir.1995)). We thus dismiss the cross appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

III.

Qualified immunity shields government officials from liability in a § 1983 action unless the official's conduct violates a clearly established constitutional or statutory right of which a reasonable person would have known. Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 739, 122 S.Ct. 2508, 153 L.Ed.2d 666 (2002); Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). We review de novo a district court's decision to grant or deny summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. Santiago v. Blair, 707 F.3d 984, 989 (8th Cir.2013). We view the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, accepting as true the facts that the district court found were adequately supported, as well as the facts the district court likely assumed. Id.

Qualified immunity involves the following two-step inquiry: (1) whether the facts shown by the plaintiff make out a violation of a constitutional or statutory right, and (2) whether that right was clearly established at the time of the defendant's alleged misconduct. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001); see also Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236, 129 S.Ct. 808, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009) (holding that courts may exercise their discretion in deciding which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed first).

A.

Our initial inquiry is whether the facts alleged support Mitchell's contention that Shearrer violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures when Shearrer arrested him in the doorway of his home. The Supreme Court has said, “It is a basic principle of Fourth Amendment law that searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable.” Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 586, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980) (internal quotation marks omitted). The warrantless arrest of an individual in a public place upon probable cause, however, does not violate the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Watson, 423...