Shrouf v. Adair Cnty. Mo.

Decision Date19 April 2023
Docket Number2:22 CV 91 JMB
PartiesGARY SHROUF Plaintiff, v. ADAIR COUNTY MISSOURI, ELDON GRISSOM, NATHAN FRAZIER, JUAN CHAIREZ, JOHN AXSOM, SARA MILLER, and DENNIS SMITH M.D., Defendants.
CourtU.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

JOHN M. BODENHAUSEN UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

This matter is before the Court on Defendants Adair County Missouri, John Axsom, Juan Chairez, Nathan Frazier, Eldon Grissom, and Sara Miller's Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 24). Plaintiff filed a response in opposition (Doc. 26) to which these Defendants replied (Doc. 30). For the reasons set forth below, the Motion is GRANTED in part.

I. Background

Plaintiff Gary Shrouf (hereinafter Plaintiff) filed suit against Defendants on behalf of Roger Shrouf (hereinafter Roger) who allegedly experienced a medical emergency on January 24, 2020 while confined at the Adair County Detention Center and under the care and custody of the Adair County Sheriff's Department (Doc. 22).

Plaintiff alleges the following in his First Amended Complaint (Doc 22): Roger was residing with his mother when he started acting erratically in the morning of January 24, 2020. His mother called the Kirskville Police Department for help informing the officers that he had been awake for three days and likely using drugs. The officers observed Roger having little control over his body, sweating profusely, and unable to answer basic questions; they decided to place Roger in a 12-hour protective custody hold authorized by Missouri statute. That morning, officers transported Roger to the Northeast Regional Medical Center to determine whether he was fit for confinement. Dr. Dennis Smith, a Defendant herein, examined Roger and “cleared Roger for confinement” at 8:51 a.m. The officers then transported him to the Adair County Detention Center where he was placed in a jail cell.

While at the jail, Roger's medical condition deteriorated. At 10:15 a.m., he was laying facedown, yelling, and rolling around in his cell. Defendant Juan Chairez, a sheriff's deputy, checked on Roger and, while he was cooperative and not violent, he was unable to respond to Chairez and was bleeding on his legs and knees. Chairez placed Roger in a restraining chair at 10:20 a.m. He was partially released from the chair an hour later, but he was not checked on every 15 minutes as required by regulations and his deteriorating medical condition and signs of distress were ignored by jailers, including Defendants Nathan Frazier, John Axsom, and Chairez, and the nurse on duty, Defendant Sara Miller. By 3:29 p.m., while still in the restraint chair, Roger was found unresponsive and not breathing. He was transported to the Northeast Medical Center where he was pronounced dead due to methamphetamine toxicity. At the time of these events, Defendant Eldon Grissom was allegedly the Adair County Sheriff.

Plaintiff alleges two claims pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and three state law claims. In Count I, he alleges that Defendants Frazier, Chairez, and Axsom used unreasonable and excessive force, that these Defendants and Miller failed to intervene in the use of excessive force, and that they were deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In Count II, he alleges municipal and supervisory liability against Defendants Adair County and Grissom in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. In Count III he alleges wrongful death, in violation of state law, against Defendants Frazier, Chairez, Axsom, and Miller. In Counts IV and V, he alleges state law claims of medical malpractice as to Defendants Smith and Miller, respectively. In the pending Motion, Defendants (except for Smith who has filed an Answer (Doc. 28)) seek partial dismissal of Counts I, II, III, and V only.

II. Standard

The purpose of a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim is to test the legal sufficiency of the complaint. To survive a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), “a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.' Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). A claim for relief “must include sufficient factual information to provide the ‘grounds' on which the claim rests, and to raise a right to relief above a speculative level.” Schaaf v. Residential Funding Corp., 517 F.3d 544, 549 (8th Cir. 2008) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555 & n.3). This obligation requires a plaintiff to plead “more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555.

On a motion to dismiss, the Court accepts as true all of the factual allegations contained in the complaint, even if it appears that “actual proof of those facts is improbable,” and reviews the complaint to determine whether its allegations show that the pleader is entitled to relief. Id. at 555-56; Fed.R.Civ.P. Rule 8(a)(2). However, the principle that a court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint does not apply to legal conclusions. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (“Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.”).

III. Discussion
A. Count I
In Count I, Plaintiff alleges that:
Defendants Frazier, Chairez, and Axsom, acting alone and together and in concert, used excessive and unreasonable force against Roger as aforementioned, and unreasonably seized Roger in violation of Roger's constitutional rights, including the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Defendants' use of force in seizing and restraining Roger in the restraint chair, when he posed no threat of harm and was suffering from a clear medical emergency, was not objectively reasonable. (Doc. 22 ¶ 47).

He further alleges that these Defendants, in addition to Miller, failed to intervene in the use of excessive force (Doc. 22, ¶ 48). He claims that the use of force was not objectively reasonable, that it was without penological or other legitimate governmental purpose, and that the length of restraint in the chair was unrelated to the justification for using the chair (Doc. 22, ¶¶ 49-50). Plaintiff also asserts that Defendants exhibited deliberate indifference to Roger's medical needs by, in part, failing to adhere to jail policies and procedures. Defendants argue that they are entitled to qualified immunity on Plaintiff's claim in Count I that Roger was subjected to excessive force, that Defendants failed to intervene in the use of that force, and that Defendants violated institutional policies and procedures. In particular, Defendants assert that the law was not clearly established that use of a restraint chair under these circumstances constitutes excessive force, that Plaintiff cannot therefore procced on a failure to intervene claim as to use of that force, and that it is not clearly established that unconstitutional conduct can arise from violations of departmental policies.

“Qualified immunity shields a government official from suit under § 1983 if his conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Kelsay v. Ernst, 933 F.3d 975, 979 (8th Cir. 2019) (citations omitted). “Qualified immunity analysis requires a 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.” Morgan v. Robinson, 920 F.3d 521, 523 (8th Cir. 2019) (quotation marks and citations omitted). The doctrine “protects all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.” City of Tahlequah, Oklahoma v. Bond, U.S., 142 S.Ct. 9, 11, (2021).

A right is clearly established when it is “sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right.'” Rivas-Villegas v. Cortesluna, __ U.S. __, 142 S.Ct. 4, 7 (2021) (per curiam) (citation omitted). Although a direct case on point is not required, “existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate.” Id. In other words, [i]t is not enough that a rule be suggested by then-existing precedent; the rule's contours must be so well defined that it is clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted.” City of Tahlequah, Oklahoma, 142 S.Ct. at 11 (considering a Fourth Amendment excessive force claim). Qualified immunity is immunity from suit and “it is effectively lost if a case is erroneously permitted to go to trial” and should be determined “at the earliest possible stage of litigation.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231232 (2009) (citation and quotation marks omitted)). When a defendant invokes qualified immunity, the burden is on the plaintiff to demonstrate a violation of his constitutional right and that the right was clearly established at the time. Kuessner v. Wooten, 987 F.3d 752, 755 (8th Cir. 2021); Snider v. City of Cape Girardeau, 752 F.3d 1149, 1155 (8th Cir. 2014).

To prevail on a claim of excessive force under the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause, Plaintiff will ultimately and generally be required to prove “that the force purposely and knowingly used against [Roger] was objectively unreasonable” under the circumstances. Kingsley v Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389, 396-397 (2015); Leonard v. St. Charles County Police Department, 59 F.4th 355, 359-360 (8th Cir. 2023). As a general proposition, using unnecessary force on a compliant, secured, and non-violent...

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