Pray v. City of Sandusky, No. 93-4284

• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit)
• Writing for the Court: BAILEY BROWN; BATCHELDER
• Citation: 49 F.3d 1154
• Parties: Velma M. PRAY and Joe N. Pray, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. CITY OF SANDUSKY, et al., Defendants, Phillip Frost, Officer, Sandusky Police Department; Curt Muehling, Captain, Sandusky Police Department; C.W. Sams, Officer, Sandusky Police Department, Defendants-Appellants.
• Docket Number: No. 93-4284
• Decision Date: 21 March 1995

Page 1154

49 F.3d 1154 Velma M. PRAY and Joe N. Pray, Plaintiffs-Appellees,
v.
CITY OF SANDUSKY, et al., Defendants,
Phillip Frost, Officer, Sandusky Police Department; Curt
Muehling, Captain, Sandusky Police Department;
C.W. Sams, Officer, Sandusky Police
Department, Defendants-Appellants. No. 93-4284. United States Court of Appeals,
Sixth Circuit. Submitted Feb. 3, 1995.
Decided March 21, 1995.

Page 1156

Marc G. Williams-Young, Spitler & Williams-Young, Toledo, OH (briefed), for plaintiffs-appellees.

Mark B. Marein, Synenberg & Marein, Cleveland, OH (briefed), for Frost.

Paul F. Meyerhoefer (briefed), Carpenter, Paffenbarger, McGimpsey & Meyerhoefer, Norwalk, OH, Mark B. Marein, Synenberg & Marein, Cleveland, OH, for Curt Muehling, C.W. Sams.

Before: MERRITT, Chief Judge; BROWN and BATCHELDER, Circuit Judges.

BROWN, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which MERRITT, C.J., joined. BATCHELDER, J. (pp. 1161-62), delivered a separate opinion concurring in the result.

BAILEY BROWN, Circuit Judge.

The plaintiffs, Velma and Joe Pray, brought a civil rights suit under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 against various police officers and a municipality alleging an illegal search and seizure and excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. After removal to federal court, the defendants filed a motion for summary judgment. The individual defendants relied in part on the affirmative defense of qualified immunity. The district court denied the motion, finding that genuine issues of material fact still exist. Three of the individual defendants, police officers Phillip Frost, Charles Sams, and Curtis Muehling, now bring this interlocutory appeal challenging the district court's order. We agree that genuine issues of material fact remain with respect to the defense of qualified immunity, and therefore, conclude that summary judgment is inappropriate. We AFFIRM.

I.

In December 1989, members of the Erie County Drug Task Force were conducting an investigation of Peter Giles, a twenty-five year old male suspected of engaging in illegal drug activity from his residence in Sandusky, Ohio. A search warrant was issued on December 18 for Giles' residence, and during that search, police officers seized marijuana, hydrocodone (a schedule II controlled substance), a crack pipe, and other drug paraphernalia.

Giles' residence, 716 1/2 Erie Street, is the upper level of a duplex home, while 716 Erie Street is the lower level of the duplex and is occupied by the plaintiffs, Joe and Velma Pray, an elderly couple. The duplex contains a common vestibule with one door opening immediately to a flight of stairs by which the Giles' upper flat is reached, and one door opening directly into the lower flat occupied by the Prays. ¹ Neither door in the vestibule was identified by number or name.

Subsequent to the search, the police gathered information that Giles was continuing to engage in illegal activities. The police therefore secured a second warrant for his residence. On February 1, 1990, approximately six weeks after the first search, police officers Curtis Muehling, Charles Sams, Phillip Frost, Paul Schnittker, and Tim McClung (the "team") held a pre-raid briefing to study a layout of Giles' upstairs apartment and to plan the execution of the second warrant. Officers Muehling, Sams, and Schnittker were present during the execution of the previous warrant, and therefore, knew that the team would have to enter the duplex's common vestibule and climb a flight of stairs to reach Giles' residence. After the meeting,

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the team went to the address, arriving at approximately 9:30 p.m. The team entered the vestibule and knocked on what it considered the "obvious" door. The team received no immediate response, and therefore, forced the door open. The "obvious" door, however, turned out to be the door leading to the Pray home. According to the Prays, the following sequence of events occurred: After knocking the door down, the officers swarmed the apartment and first encountered Mr. Pray; the officers backed Mr. Pray through the house at gunpoint and ordered him to get down on the floor; Officer Muehling placed his hands on Mr. Pray's shoulders and pushed him to the floor; another officer discovered Mrs. Pray in another part of the house and put his hands on Mrs. Pray's shoulders and pushed her to the floor; it appeared to Mr. Pray that the officers were searching for something; the officers remained for approximately four to five minutes securing and searching the Pray residence; the team then exited the Pray residence and effectuated the search on the upper flat; Officer Muehling later offered an apology to Mr. Pray, and damage to the door was promptly paid.

The Prays assert that as a result of the search, Mrs. Pray "blacked out," and suffered injuries to her arthritic knees, later requiring surgery. Mr. Pray suffered an attack of angina which required him to take nitroglycerine pills.

In January 1992, the Prays filed an action against the individual police officers involved in the raid. ² The Prays contended that the police officers violated their rights secured under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, specifically the right to be free from illegal searches and seizures and excessive force. The defendants removed the case to federal court and then, after discovery, moved for summary judgment pursuant to FED.R.CIV.P. 56(c). Germane to this appeal, the individual defendants alleged in their motion that the Prays failed to set forth a cognizable claim, and alternatively, that they are protected from suit based on their qualified good-faith immunity. The district court denied the defendants' motion, concluding that genuine issues of material fact exist with respect to the defense of qualified immunity. Three of the police officers--Frost, Sams, and Muehling--have brought this interlocutory appeal.

II.

We have jurisdiction to review the qualified immunity issues because an order denying a summary judgment motion based on qualified immunity is immediately appealable as a final judgment under the collateral order doctrine. Walton v. City of Southfield, 995 F.2d 1331, 1335 (6th Cir.1993). Review of a denial of a qualified immunity claim raises an issue of law, and is therefore reviewed de novo. Yates v. City of Cleveland, 941 F.2d 444, 446 (6th Cir.1991). The court reviewing a motion for summary judgment must consider "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any," presented by both parties, drawing all reasonable inferences in a manner most favorable to the non-moving party. FED.R.CIV.P. 56(c); Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 90 S.Ct. 1598, 26 L.Ed.2d 142 (1970).

Government officials who perform discretionary functions are generally entitled to qualified immunity and are protected from civil damages so long as "their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). In other words, qualified immunity is appropriate either on the basis that the right allegedly violated was not at the time "clearly established," or if "clearly established," was one that a "reasonable" person in the defendant's position could have failed to appreciate would be violated by his conduct. Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3039, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987) ("The contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is

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doing violates that right."). The standard is one of objective reasonableness, analyzing claims of immunity on a fact-specific, case-by-case basis to determine whether a reasonable official in the defendants' position could have believed that his conduct was lawful, in light of clearly established law and the information he possessed. Id.; Adams v. Metiva, 31 F.3d 375, 386 (6th Cir.1994) ("[T]he question is whether any officer in the defendant's position, measured objectively, would have clearly understood that he was under an affirmative duty to have refrained from such conduct.") (quoting Brandenburg v. Cureton, 882 F.2d 211, 215 (6th Cir.1989)). Thus, officials are "entitled to qualified immunity [when] their decision was reasonable, even if mistaken." Castro v. United States, 34 F.3d 106, 112 (2d Cir.1994). Moreover, "[if] officers of reasonable competence could disagree on this issue, immunity should be recognized." Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 349, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 1100, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986) (Qualified immunity "provides ample protection to all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law."); see also Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 112 S.Ct. 534, 116 L.Ed.2d 589 (1991).

The defendant as the movant in a motion for summary judgment must show that no genuine issues of material fact remain that would defeat his claim of qualified immunity. The plaintiff, however,...