Richardson v. Oldham
| Decision Date | 28 January 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. 93-4140,93-4140 |
| Citation | 12 F.3d 1373 |
| Parties | Willie RICHARDSON, and Rose Richardson, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Bill OLDHAM, Sheriff of Harrison County, Tex., et al., Defendants, Harrison County, Texas, et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Nelson W. Cameron, Richard C. Goorley, Shreveport, LA, for plaintiffs-appellants.
Ken W. Good, James Scott Howard, Robert S. Davis, Cowles & Thompson, Tyler, TX, for defendants-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
Before WISDOM, HIGGINBOTHAM, and JONES, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiffs/appellants Willie and Rose Richardson allege that the defendants/appellees, law enforcement officers and their municipal employer, violated the Fourth Amendment when they searched the Richardsons' home on May 14, 1991. The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants after striking much of the plaintiffs' summary judgment evidence. 1 The Richardsons appealed to this Court. We hold that (1) the plaintiffs' Notice of Appeal was timely filed and vested this Court with jurisdiction; (2) while some of the district court's evidentiary rulings were erroneous, none rose to the level of harmful error; (3) the district court correctly ruled that defendant/appellee Tommy Harrell was entitled to qualified immunity; and (4) the district court correctly held that the plaintiffs/appellants had produced insufficient evidence of a municipal custom or policy to survive summary judgment for the remaining defendants. We AFFIRM.
Willie and Rose Richardson are an African-American couple in their mid-fifties. At all times relevant to this case, they resided in Harrison County, Texas, at one of four houses located at Route 3, Box 628 off a then-unnamed dirt road which has since been christened Frierson. All four houses shared the address "Route 3, Box 628". To distinguish each house from its neighbors, each house bore an identifying letter of the alphabet, "A" through "D", but those letters were not visible from the road.
Harrison County Sheriff Bill Oldham's name still appears in the style of this case, but he is no longer a party to this litigation. The Richardsons' claims against Oldham were dismissed with prejudice on July 9, 1992. 2
Defendant/appellee Harrison County employed the two other defendants/appellees remaining in this case. Defendant/appellee Tommy Harrell was a law enforcement employee of the County at the time this lawsuit began; he has since died and the Richardsons have substituted his estate. Harrell is sued in his official and individual capacities. Defendant/appellee Rick Berry was the Harrison County District Attorney and Harrell's superior at the time this lawsuit arose. Berry is sued only in his official capacity.
In 1991, Harrell conducted a narcotics investigation which led him to suspect that someone who lived on the Richardsons' street was selling marijuana. Harrell presented a county judge with an affidavit of a confidential informant. The affidavit described a purported marijuana sale by an African-American female whose description does not fit any party to this case. 3
Based on the affidavit, Harrell obtained a search warrant to search a house identified as "Route 3, Box 628" and described as "a single family residence of wood frame construction.... being a light colored (off white) colored structure having double entry front doors". 4 Neither the warrant nor the affidavit itself specified which letter of the alphabet, "A" through "D", identified the house to be searched. Two of the four houses at Route 3, Box 628 fitted the description given in the informant's affidavit: the Richardsons' home and another house located across the street.
Between 11:00 p.m. and midnight on May 14, 1991, Harrell and some Harrison County Sheriff's deputies broke down the front door of the Richardsons' home and burst in. The Richardsons were asleep in their bedroom at the time. Harrell and his men roused the Richardsons from bed and proceeded to search their home for one to two hours. The search caused the Richardsons great distress and embarrassment. Some deputies watched Mrs. Richardson use the bathroom, and the stress of the search so upset Mr. Richardson that he had to lie down.
Plainly, the defendants searched the wrong house. They recovered no marijuana or other contraband from the search of the Richardsons' home. They made no arrests and no prosecutions resulted from the search. The following month, Harrison County officers searched another of the four homes located at Route 3, Box 628. This time they apparently picked the correct house, found some marijuana, and made an arrest.
Had their consequences been less serious, the events just described might have provided a fitting script for a Keystone Kops comedy. Instead, the defendants soon found themselves facing the Richardsons' lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 charging them with assorted constitutional violations in obtaining the warrant and searching the Richardsons' home. The district court, after striking parts of several affidavits submitted by the Richardsons, granted summary judgment for all defendants. We review the district court's evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion and its granting of summary judgment de novo, taking the evidence in the light most favorable to the Richardsons.
Before proceeding to the merits we must satisfy ourselves of our jurisdiction to decide this case. The appellees contend that we lack jurisdiction over defendants Berry and Harrison County. The appellants have not discussed the jurisdictional question and were unprepared at oral argument to respond to the appellees' position. We hold that we have jurisdiction over all three defendants.
Fed.R.App.P. 4(a)(1) requires that notices of appeal to this Court be filed within thirty days of the entry of judgment in the district court. That thirty-day clock is tolled, however, during the pendency of certain motions under Fed.R.Civ.P. 59. One such Rule 59 motion is the motion to alter or amend a judgment, 5 of which one variety is the "motion for reconsideration". 6 The filing of a motion for reconsideration has two effects: First, any notice of appeal is a nullity if it is filed before the district court rules on the motion for reconsideration, 7 and second, the thirty-day clock for filing a notice of appeal to this Court does not begin to run until the district court rules on the motion for reconsideration. 8
The district court entered summary judgment in favor of all the defendants in this case on December 16, 1992. On December 28, 1992, the Richardsons filed a timely motion for reconsideration of the district court's judgment as to defendant Tommy Harrell. 9 The district court denied their motion on January 15, 1993. The Richardsons did not file a motion for reconsideration of the district court's judgment as to defendants Berry or Harrison County. The Richardsons filed their notice of appeal to this Court on February 5, 1993--within thirty days after the denial of their motion for reconsideration, but more than thirty days after the entry of judgment on December 28, 1992.
Berry and Harrison County contend that because they were not named in the Richardsons' motion for reconsideration the thirty-day clock for taking an appeal was never tolled as to them, and therefore this Court lacks jurisdiction over the Richardsons' appeal of the summary judgment in Berry and Harrison County's favor. We disagree.
As noted above, a timely motion for reconsideration vitiates any notice of appeal filed while the motion for reconsideration is still pending in the district court. 10 While their motion for reconsideration as to Harrell was pending, the Richardsons could not have appealed the district court's ruling as to Berry and Harrison county to this Court. The appellees ask us to conclude that the Richardsons waived their right to appeal the district court's adverse rulings as to Berry and Harrison County by failing to include Berry and Harrison County in their motion for reconsideration. We decline to do so. Filing a Rule 59 motion is not a prerequisite to taking an appeal, 11 as the appellees would have us hold.
The rule we state today is a simple one and is consistent with our Court's precedents even though none of them stated it explicitly. We hold that a timely Rule 59(e) motion for reconsideration of a judgment as to one defendant tolls the thirty-day clock for taking an appeal not only as to that defendant, but also as to all other defendants whose liability was determined in the judgment the plaintiff's Rule 59(e) motion seeks to amend. 12 Accordingly, the Richardsons' Rule 59(e) motion as to Harrell tolled the appeal clock not only as to Harrell, but also as to Berry and Harrison County. Therefore, their appeal as to all three defendants was timely filed, and we have jurisdiction to hear it.
We turn next to the district court's evidentiary rulings. The district court's summary judgment for the defendants was based on a summary judgment record from which much of the plaintiffs' evidence had been excluded. Our review of the district court's evidentiary rulings has persuaded us that errors were committed, but none were of such magnitude as to have affected the substantial rights of the plaintiffs, and the errors were therefore harmless. 13
The district court struck two portions of the plaintiffs' affidavit. First, the statement that "Tommy Harrell used unreasonable methods to search their home" was struck as making a legal conclusion. 14 "Mere conclusory allegations are not competent summary judgment evidence," 15 and the district court was within its discretion to strike them from the Richardsons' affidavit.
Second, the statement that "[b]ased on information...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Rodriguez v. Bexar Cnty. Hosp. Dist.
...a municipal policy may be established by a persistent pattern of conduct as well as by a formal legal declaration.Richardson v. Oldham, 12 F.3d 1373, 1381-82 (5th Cir. 1994). The Fifth Circuit has long made clear a Section 1983 plaintiff must establish a causal connection between an alleged......
-
Nucor Corp. v. Requenez
...(holding that a witness is not competent to testify to the perceptions, beliefs, or motivations of others); cf. Richardson v. Oldham , 12 F.3d 1373, 1379 (5th Cir. 1994) ("The district court's ruling would be well taken if Jones was asserting that Harrell actually used illegal searches, but......
-
Hicks v. Bexar County, Tex., SA-96-CA-951.
...157. See Board of Commissioners, Bryan County, Oklahoma v. Brown, ___ U.S. at ___-___, 117 S.Ct. at 1388-89. 158. Richardson v. Oldham, 12 F.3d 1373, 1381-82 (5th Cir.1994). 159. See Board of Commissioners, Bryan County, Oklahoma v. Brown, ___ U.S. at ___-___, 117 S.Ct. at 1388-89; Pembaur ......
-
Ciccorp, Inc. v. Aimtech Corp., CIV. A. H-97-4013.
...with Rule 56(e) are not entitled to any weight and cannot be considered in deciding a motion for summary judgment. Richardson v. Oldham, 12 F.3d 1373, 1378-79 (5th Cir.1994). Neither shall conclusory affidavits suffice to create or negate a genuine issue of fact. McCallum Highlands, Ltd., 6......