Snyder v. Trepagnier

• Decision Date: 27 May 1998
• Docket Number: No. 96-30935,96-30935
• Citation: 142 F.3d 791
• Parties: James SNYDER, Plaintiff-Appellee-Cross-Appellant, v. Sidney TREPAGNIER, et al., Defendants-Appellees, City of New Orleans, Defendant-Appellant-Cross-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 791

142 F.3d 791

James SNYDER, Plaintiff-Appellee-Cross-Appellant, v. Sidney TREPAGNIER, et al., Defendants-Appellees City of New Orleans, Defendant-Appellant-Cross-Appellee.

No. 96-30935.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

May 27, 1998.

Robert W. Booksh, Jr., John Beresford Fox, New Orleans, LA, for Snyder.

Franz L. Zibilich, Lee, Martiny and Caracci, Metairie, LA, Avis Marie Russell, Annabelle H. Walker, New Orleans, LA, for City of New Orleans.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

Before MAGILL, ^* SMITH and DeMOSS, Circuit Judges.

JERRY E. SMITH, Circuit Judge:

The City of New Orleans ("the city") appeals a judgment of liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for the shooting of James Snyder by police officer Sidney Trepagnier. Snyder cross-appeals, contending that the district court erred in submitting to the jury the question of Trepagnier's qualified immunity. We reverse the judgment insofar as it imposes liability against the city but affirm insofar as the judgment grants Trepagnier qualified immunity. We affirm the refusal to find liability for assault and battery.

I.

Snyder was shot in the back by Trepagnier while fleeing on foot from police following a high-speed chase. Although the precise facts surrounding the shooting are not apparent from the briefs, ¹ this much is clear: Trepagnier was pursuing Snyder through the swamps when the officer shot Snyder in the back, paralyzing him from the waist down. The parties disagree over whether Snyder had a gun. Trepagnier testified that he saw Snyder wielding a small pistol as he raced through the swamps. Snyder claims that he was unarmed and stuck in the mud when he was shot. In any event, no gun was ever recovered from the scene, despite an exhaustive search.

Snyder sued Trepagnier, Officer Joseph Valiente, and the city (as well as the Mayor and Police Superintendent in their individual and official capacities) under § 1983. Snyder also sued Trepagnier for assault and battery under Louisiana law. The case was tried to a jury. Before the verdict, the court dismissed Snyder's claims against Valiente, the Mayor, and the Police Superintendent, leaving Trepagnier and the city the only remaining defendants.

The jury rendered its verdict in the form of answers to special interrogatories. It found that Trepagnier had violated Snyder's constitutional rights but was protected by qualified immunity. The jury also found that Trepagnier had not committed an assault and battery. Even though the jury concluded that Trepagnier had acted reasonably in shooting Snyder, it held the city liable on the ground that the constitutional deprivation was caused by a municipal custom or policy.

The jury did not specify the policy at fault, although Snyder's expert witness had offered several customs and policies as possibilities. Specifically, Snyder had alleged that the hiring and screening policies of the New Orleans Police Department ("NOPD") were deficient; that the NOPD enforced a "code of silence" that fostered a permissive attitude toward violence against civilians; and that the NOPD failed to train officers in stress management and did not put in place an "early warning system" that would signal when stressed officers were about to crack. In its post-verdict review of the sufficiency of the evidence, the district court relied on the city's failure to enact a stress management program for police officers as supporting liability under § 1983.

The jury awarded Snyder $1,964,000--the amount of his past and future medical expenses. Yet it awarded Snyder nothing for past and future physical pain and suffering, nothing for past and future mental pain and suffering, nothing for permanent physical disability and loss of function, and nothing for loss of life's pleasures. ²

Both sides filed post-trial motions. The court denied the city's motion to reconsider and reconcile the jury verdict by entering judgment dismissing the city as a matter of law, or--in the alternative--to grant the city a new trial on both liability and damages. ³ The court then granted Snyder's motion for a new trial on damages. Acknowledging that damage awards can be overturned only in "extreme and exceptional" circumstances, the court concluded that such were present, remarking: "It is inconceivable for a jury to find that an individual who has been shot in the back, subjected to multiple operations, hospitalized for several months and will be confined for the rest of his life to a wheel chair endured no pain and suffering and permanent disability."

II.

The city contends that the evidence was insufficient to support a finding of § 1983 liability under Monell v. New York City Dept. of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978). ⁴ We may overturn a jury verdict only if it is not supported by substantial evidence, meaning "evidence of such quality and weight that reasonable and fair-minded men in the exercise of impartial judgment might reach different conclusions." Boeing Co. v. Shipman, 411 F.2d 365, 374 (5th Cir.1969) (en banc), overruled on other grounds by Gautreaux v. Scurlock Marine, Inc., 107 F.3d 331 (5th Cir.1997) (en banc). We accord all reasonable inferences to the nonmovant, and we reverse only if no reasonable jury could have arrived at the verdict. Right Weigh Scale Co. v. Eaton Corp., 998 F.2d 287, 289 (5th Cir.1993).

A.

The Supreme Court has established two fundamental requirements for holding a city liable under § 1983 for inadequate hiring and training policies: culpability and causation. First, the municipal policy must have been adopted with "deliberate indifference" to its known or obvious consequences. Second, the municipality must be the "moving force" behind the constitutional violation.

In Monell, the Court held that a local government may not be held liable under respondeat superior for constitutional torts committed by a municipal employee. Instead, "[I]t is when execution of a government's policy or custom, whether made by its lawmakers or by those whose edicts or acts may fairly be said to represent official policy, inflicts the injury that the government as an entity is responsible under § 1983." 436 U.S. at 694, 98 S.Ct. at 2037-38. Monell set a high threshold for causation as well, requiring that the plaintiff establish that the municipal policy be the "moving force" behind the constitutional violation. Id.

The Court clarified the Monell requirements in City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 109 S.Ct. 1197, 103 L.Ed.2d 412 (1989), a case arising under a liability theory (failure to train) that Snyder presses here. The Court held that, in limited circumstances, a municipality can be held liable for a failure to train its police officers. Plaintiffs seeking to win under this theory must first prove a direct causal link between the municipal policy and the constitutional deprivation; they then must establish that the city consciously enacted a policy reflecting "deliberate indifference" to the constitutional rights of its citizens. Id. at 389, 109 S.Ct. at 1205. The Court concluded:

We hold today that the inadequacy of police training may serve as the basis for § 1983 liability only where the failure to train amounts to deliberate indifference to the rights of persons with whom the police come into contact.... Only where a failure to train reflects a "deliberate" or "conscious" choice by a municipality--a "policy" as defined by our prior cases--can a city be liable for such a failure under § 1983.

Id. at 388-89, 109 S.Ct. at 1204-05.

The Court further clarified Monell in Board of County Commissioners of Bryan County , Okl. v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 117 S.Ct. 1382, 137 L.Ed.2d 626 (1997), another case arising under a liability theory advanced in the instant case--the municipality's allegedly inadequate screening and hiring policies. There, the Court held that the county was not liable for a sheriff's decision to hire, without adequate screening, an officer who later was accused of using excessive force. The Court noted that the plaintiff had "not demonstrated that [the sheriff's] decision reflected a conscious disregard for a high risk that [the officer] would use excessive force in violation of [the plaintiff's] federally protected right." Id. at ----, 117 S.Ct. at 1394.

Bryan County underscores the need for Monell plaintiffs to establish both the causal link ("moving force") and the city's degree of culpability ("deliberate indifference" to federally protected rights). These requirements must not be diluted, for "[w]here a court fails to adhere to rigorous requirements of culpability and causation, municipal liability collapses into respondeat superior liability." Id.

Accordingly, we have demanded a high standard of proof before imposing Monell liability on a municipality. In Gonzalez v. Ysleta Indep. Sch. Dist., 996 F.2d 745 (5th Cir.1993), we held that a school board did not act with deliberate indifference to the constitutional rights of schoolchildren when it failed to remove from the classroom a teacher accused of fondling students. We noted that mere negligence fell short of the "deliberate indifference" standard and that "[i]n order for municipal liability to attach, plaintiffs must offer evidence of not simply a decision, but a 'decision by the city itself to violate the Constitution.' " Id. at 759 (quoting City of Canton, 489 U.S. at 395, 109 S.Ct. at 1208 (O'Connor, J., concurring)).

Similarly, in Stokes v. Bullins, 844 F.2d 269 (5th Cir.1988), we held that a county that failed to request a National Crime Information Center check for police applicants did not act with deliberate indifference toward the rights of its citizens--even though conducting a check would have disclosed that the applicant (who later shot the plaintiff) had a history of fifteen arrests for assault, armed robbery, and other misdeeds. We saluted the efficiency of an NCIC check but shied away from...