Rucker v. Harford County, Md.
| Decision Date | 03 October 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 90-2453,90-2453 |
| Citation | 946 F.2d 278 |
| Parties | James H. RUCKER, Individually and as next friend of David W. Rucker, Minor, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. HARFORD COUNTY, MARYLAND; Gary Vernon; Richard F. Williams; Steven Bodway; Elmer H. Tippitt, Superintendent; James Gruver; David B. Alexander; Dominic J. Mele; John J. O'Neal, Defendants-Appellees, and Harford County Sheriff's Department; Gerard Morgan; Jerry David Mace; Vernon James Conoway; Carl Pearsall, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Daniel M. Clements, Israelson, Salsbury, Clements & Bekman, Baltimore, Md., argued (Suzanne K. Farace, on the brief), for plaintiff-appellant.
Carmen Mercedes Shepard, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore, Md., argued (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen., Stuart M. Nathan, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore, Md., Jefferson L. Blomquist, Harford County Solicitor's Office, Bel Air, Md., Diana G. Motz, Frank, Bernstein, Conaway & Goldman, Michael J. Travieso, Gallagher, Evelius & Jones, Philip M. Andrews, Kramon & Graham, P.A., Baltimore, Md., on the brief), for defendants-appellees.
Before PHILLIPS and NIEMEYER, Circuit Judges, and RESTANI, United States Court of International Trade, sitting by designation.
This appeal presents as its principal issue whether, and if so to what extent, the fourth amendment's prohibition of unreasonable seizures of the person or the fourteenth amendment's due process clause provide constitutional protection to an innocent bystander against being unintentionally injured by police officers trying to apprehend a fleeing criminal suspect. It also presents the issue whether one bearing an intimate familial relationship to a person so injured has any constitutional right based upon the relationship that is thereby violated.
We conclude that the fourth amendment provides no protection to such a bystander because under the circumstances he is not being "seized" by the police officers. We further conclude that though the due process clause provides substantive protection to such a bystander against the infliction of personal injury by police conduct sufficiently outrageous to constitute completely arbitrary state action, the police conduct indisputably established on this record did not violate that substantive due process right. Finally, we conclude that if there be any constitutional right in one other than a person so injured arising from their intimate familial relationship, the one alleged here could only be a derivative right which fails with failure of the primary claim.
We therefore affirm.
The tragic events giving rise to this action began on July 28, 1987, when Jerry Mace, under the influence of PCP, stole a friend's Ford Bronco. From Edgewood, Maryland, he drove southbound on Interstate 95. Responding to a report that Mace was driving recklessly and had failed to pay a highway toll, a Maryland State Trooper, Officer Pearsall, set out to find and apprehend him. Having located Mace on I-95, the officer, later joined by local police officers, attempted to overtake and detain him. Mace refused to stop, speeding away wildly, weaving in and out of traffic. After running through the Maryland House rest stop, Mace drove onto a median strip. There he drove in circles and was seen dancing in his car. Eventually, he stopped on the median strip, but when Pearsall again attempted to detain him, he again sped away, this time southbound in the northbound lanes of I-95. Finally, Mace left I-95 via the northbound entrance ramp onto Route 24.
The police lost sight of Mace for a brief period until he was seen stopped at the corner of Route 152 and Hanson Road. Trooper James Gruver pulled up to him at that location and stepped out of his car, whereupon Mace drove away, barely avoiding a head-on collision. Deputy Sheriff David Alexander positioned himself up the road a bit, near the corner of Trimble Road and Route 152, while Gruver made chase. At this point, Mace turned off the road into the Walls family's field. Gruver followed Mace onto the field, where Mace was again seen driving in circles. Mace then drove his Bronco at Gruver's car, forcing Gruver to swerve to avert a collision. Mace then drove back onto Trimble Road, where he continued for about a mile, veering, finally over an embankment and into a cornfield on the Heine farm. Once in the cornfield, the Bronco was hidden from view.
Having heard of this automobile chase on the police radio, Deputies Stephen Bodway, Charles Hellman, Gary Vernon, and Ricky Williams all responded to assist Alexander and Gruver. Vernon, Alexander, Hellman, and Gruver positioned themselves at the corners of the cornfield, hoping to block any attempts by Mace to leave the field.
Meanwhile, David Rucker, Michael and Valerie Baublitz, and the Baublitz's three children were driving down Trimble Road in the direction of the Heine driveway. Beyond the Heine driveway, on Trimble Road, an officer blocked the road. Rucker drove into the Heine driveway and approached Deputy Vernon to ask what was going on. Vernon told Rucker to leave the scene. Rucker then drove the car with his passengers across Trimble Road, up an embankment, and into another field. Mrs. Baublitz and the children remained in the car. At some point Rucker and Michael Baublitz left the vehicle.
Deputies Bodway and Conoway went into the cornfield on foot, trying to see the Bronco. Bodway disappeared into the cornfield with no means of communication. He spotted Mace in the Bronco, drew his weapon, and told Mace to freeze and leave the Bronco. Instead, Mace accelerated--it is unclear whether he went towards Bodway--sending dirt into Bodway's face. Bodway shot at the Bronco's tires. Mace continued toward the Heine driveway where Vernon was standing. Vernon noticed Michael Baublitz in the distance, standing beyond the driveway and he shouted for Baublitz to get out of the way. Baublitz then disappeared from sight.
Meanwhile, Mace drove right into the embankment bordering the Heine driveway. Vernon yelled for Mace to stop, but he did not. As Mace drove the vehicle down the driveway towards Trimble Road, Vernon stepped down the driveway, crouched, and fired twelve shots of his semi-automatic weapon at the Bronco's tires. Though not established as fact, it appears, and we assume for purposes of this case, that one of these shots hit Rucker, who apparently was lying on top of the embankment on the other side of Trimble Road. Vernon maintains that he was unaware of Rucker's presence there. A witness who was sitting in Vernon's car in the driveway later testified, however, that she could see Rucker from her vantage point. Two other officers opened fire on the Bronco, finally hitting and collapsing its tires. When Mace then fled on foot, he was captured, and at this point passes from this account.
Rucker's father, individually and as next friend of Rucker, then brought this action alleging claims against the various county police officers involved in the incident and Harford County, seeking damages for Rucker's injury. The claims in Rucker's behalf alleged, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983; violations of constitutional rights secured by the fourth amendment and the due process clauses, parallel state constitutional claims under the Maryland Declaration of Rights, and state tort claims. The claims in plaintiff's individual capacity alleged under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a violation of the constitutional right "to intimate association."
The district court dismissed all claims against all defendants by summary judgment. This appeal followed.
On the appeal, appellant only challenges the dismissal by summary judgment of his § 1983 claims brought in his individual and representative capacities against the various police officers in their individual capacities, and the parallel state constitutional claims against those officers, conceding that the latter rise or fall with the former. No challenge is made to the dismissal of these claims against the County, nor to dismissal of the pendent state-law tort claims. We therefore address only the propriety of the district court's dismissal of the parallel federal and state constitutional claims, focussing on the § 1983 claims as controlling.
The primary claim, that made in behalf of Rucker minor, was that his shooting by one of the police officers involved in the chase (presumably Vernon) violated his fourth amendment, via fourteenth amendment, right not to be "unreasonably seized," and his fourteenth amendment right to "substantive due process."
The fourth amendment claim is directly foreclosed by Brower v. County of Inyo, 489 U.S. 593, 109 S.Ct. 1378, 103 L.Ed.2d 628 (1989), which held that one is "seized" within the fourth amendment's meaning only when one is the intended object of a physical restraint by an agent of the state. This means that a fourth amendment seizure may occur notwithstanding that the person restrained was mistakenly thought to be another, because he nevertheless is the intended object of the specific act of physical restraint. But it does not mean, as Rucker contends, that a seizure occurs just so long as the act of restraint itself is intended (here the act of shooting) though it restrains one not intended to be restrained. See Ansley v. Heinrich, 925 F.2d 1339, 1344 (11th Cir.1991) (...
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