Smith v. Mattox, No. 96-6648

• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit)
• Writing for the Court: Before ANDERSON and COX; PER CURIAM
• Citation: 127 F.3d 1416
• Docket Number: No. 96-6648
• Decision Date: 19 November 1997
• Parties: 11 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 787 Anthony Lee SMITH, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. E. Allen MATTOX, Individually and in his capacity as a police officer of defendant, City of Tuscaloosa, and as an agent for the West Alabama Narcotics Squad, Defendant-Appellant, Tuscaloosa, City of, a municipal corporation; Ken Swindle, as Chief of Police of defendant, City of Tuscaloosa, Defendants.

Page 1416

127 F.3d 1416 11 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 787 Anthony Lee SMITH, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
E. Allen MATTOX, Individually and in his capacity as a
police officer of defendant, City of Tuscaloosa,
and as an agent for the West Alabama
Narcotics Squad, Defendant-Appellant,
Tuscaloosa, City of, a municipal corporation; Ken Swindle,
as Chief of Police of defendant, City of
Tuscaloosa, Defendants. No. 96-6648. United States Court of Appeals,
Eleventh Circuit. Nov. 19, 1997.

Page 1417

Christopher Lyle McIlwain, Hubbard, Smith, McIlwain, Brakefield & Shatuck, P.C., Tuscaloosa, AL, for Defendant-Appellant.

Ronald D. Michael, Langston, Langston, Michael & Bowen, P.A., Bonneville, MS, Christi R. McCoy, Langston, Langston, Michael & Bowen, P.A., Iuka, MS, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

Before ANDERSON and COX, Circuit Judges, and ALARCN ^*, Senior Circuit Judge.

PER CURIAM:

E. Allen Mattox, a police officer, appeals the denial of his qualified-immunity-based motion for summary judgment in this Fourth Amendment excessive-force action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Facts

On appeals of denial of summary judgment, this court draws all reasonable inferences from the record evidence that are favorable to the nonmovant plaintiff. ¹ This court also avoids all credibility judgments. ² Thus we distill the following story from this action's sharply conflicting evidence.

The plaintiff, Anthony Lee Smith, went to visit his mother one afternoon at her house in a dangerous neighborhood in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. During the visit, he joined his teenage sister and several cousins at a picnic table in his mother's front yard. Smith held a baseball bat while sitting at the table.

On the same day, unbeknownst to Smith, a Tuscaloosa-area drug task force planned to stage a reverse-sting operation to crack down on drug sales on the street where Smith's mother lived. By coincidence, before the reverse-sting operation began, the police received a tip that three black males, whose clothing the informant described and two of whose names the informant provided, had cocaine in the front yard of Smith's mother's house. The sting team accordingly stopped at the house and prepared to investigate.

The defendant Mattox, who was part of the team, entered Smith's mother's front yard. Mattox did not identify himself as a police

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officer, although his clothing betrayed him as such. Upon seeing Mattox, Smith raised the baseball bat in a threatening posture. Mattox drew his gun to ready position and ordered Smith to drop the bat. Smith did not, and Mattox threatened to shoot. Smith then dropped the bat and ran through the backyard, down a driveway, and into a street running behind the house. Once in the street, Smith turned around, thinking that the threat from Mattox had passed, and started back toward the house. Meanwhile, however, Mattox had pursued Smith to the driveway, and other officers had also pulled up on the driveway side of the house.

In the driveway, Smith came face to face with Mattox. After first pretending to run again, Smith docilely submitted to arrest upon Mattox's request for him to "get down." Once Smith was on the ground, Mattox put his knee on Smith's lower back to prepare to handcuff him. In the process of pulling Smith's left arm behind his back to fasten the handcuffs, Mattox put Smith's forearm to a position that caused Smith discomfort. Smith complained, and then with a grunt and a blow--but no sign of anger--Mattox broke Smith's arm. ³ Smith was then taken to the hospital and underwent surgery on his arm for multiple fractures.

B. Procedural History, Issue, Standard of Review, and the Parties' Contentions

Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Smith sued Mattox, the City of Tuscaloosa, and the City's Chief of Police. Smith claimed that the defendants had violated his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment right to be free from excessive force during an arrest. The defendants moved for summary judgment on this claim, and the district court granted Tuscaloosa's and police chief's motions but denied Mattox's. The district court concluded that genuine issues of material fact precluded summary judgment in Mattox's case. Mattox has appealed.

Mattox raises only one issue in this interlocutory appeal: whether on these facts it was clearly established that his conduct violated Smith's Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, thereby disentitling Mattox to qualified immunity. This court has jurisdiction over this issue on this kind of appeal, and the standard of review is de novo. ⁴

Mattox contends that no controlling, published opinion...