Stewart v. City of Euclid
| Decision Date | 14 August 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 18-3767,18-3767 |
| Citation | 970 F.3d 667 |
| Parties | Mary STEWART, as Administrator of the Estate of Luke O. Stewart, Sr., Deceased, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF EUCLID, OHIO ; Matthew Rhodes, Euclid Police Officer, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Plaintiff Mary Stewart appeals the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants, Officer Matthew Rhodes and the City of Euclid, on her claims brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state law. We AFFIRM dismissal of Stewart's federal claims but REVERSE dismissal of Stewart's state law claims and REMAND to the district court.
Around 7:00 a.m. on March 13, 2017, a Euclid, Ohio resident called the police department to report a suspicious vehicle outside her residence. The caller said a black car she did not recognize had been idling for about twenty minutes with its parking lights on. Officers Rhodes and Catalani were dispatched to check on the vehicle.
Hidden from view behind the Honda's dark windows was a sleeping Luke Stewart. He had hoped to spend the night at a friend's house, but when the friend did not answer his phone, Stewart parked nearby on South Lakeshore Boulevard. The area is residential with a school in close proximity.
Officer Catalani was the first to arrive at the scene. Initially, he positioned his car behind Stewart's vehicle, similar to a traffic stop. Catalani noticed the vehicle's running lights were on.
Catalani shined his flashlight through the car's windows and saw a digital scale in the center console area, an item he thought to be a burnt marijuana blunt in the passenger seat, and an aluminum screw top he believed to be from a wine bottle. Catalani also noticed Stewart who appeared asleep in the driver's seat. Catalani ran the license plate of the vehicle, which indicated the vehicle's owner had an outstanding warrant, but ultimately thought Stewart looked too young to be the owner.
While Rhodes drove to the scene, he heard Catalani radio that the car was occupied but that he did not believe it was by the vehicle's owner. Catalani stated, "once you get here, we're goina [sic ], uh, end up pulling this guy out." When Rhodes arrived, Catalani explained what he had seen inside the car, and then Rhodes moved his car in front of the Honda to limit the potential for escape. Rhodes turned on his takedown lights and his spotlight but, like Catalani, did not turn on his vehicle's dashboard camera or his belt microphone. Neither officer turned on his vehicle's blue and red overhead lights.
Rhodes approached Stewart's vehicle from the passenger's side while Catalani approached from the driver's side. Catalani knocked on the window, and Stewart woke up. Catalani waived at Stewart and said, "hi." Stewart waived back, sat up in the seat, and started the car. Neither officer announced himself as a police officer. Catalani yelled for Stewart to "stop" and opened the driver's side door in an attempt to keep the vehicle from moving. He grabbed Stewart's left arm and tried to pull him away from the gearshift and out of the vehicle. Catalani reached around Stewart's head with his right arm in an attempt to grab a pressure point under Stewart's jaw. Stewart began yelling.
While Catalani attempted to pull Stewart out of the Honda through the driver's side door, Rhodes opened the passenger's side door and began pushing Stewart. Rhodes leaned his upper body into the vehicle and braced his knees on the passenger's seat. Stewart did not prevent Rhodes from pushing him, but put the vehicle into gear and drove the Honda into Rhodes's patrol vehicle. While Catalani testified that the Honda struck the patrol car "pretty hard," neither officer remembers falling or losing balance from the impact. Stewart was able to drive around Rhodes's police car on the side closest to the center of the road.
Rhodes continued trying to gain control of the gear shift from the passenger's side of the car and, fearing his legs would be trapped if Stewart were to hit the open car door against Rhodes's patrol car as he went around it, Rhodes pulled his legs into the Honda. The door shut behind him. Catalani, who was still moving alongside Stewart's open driver's side door, decided to disengage with Stewart in fear of being injured by an oncoming vehicle. Catalani estimates that ten to fifteen seconds elapsed from the time he tapped on Stewart's window to Stewart's driving around Rhodes's patrol car.
To this point, Stewart had made no attempt to strike either officer. He began driving the vehicle down the road within the speed limit at around twenty-five miles per hour. While driving, Stewart looked over at Rhodes and asked, "Why are you in my car?" Rhodes yelled at Stewart in response, but does not recall what he said. Catalani chased behind on foot.
Inside the car, Rhodes was intermittently attempting to gain control of the gearshift and the ignition keys while also striking Stewart in the side of the head with a closed fist. The strikes did not seem to have any effect on Stewart and he did not try to defend himself; Stewart simply responded to each blow by saying, "Naw, n****." Each time Rhodes pushed the gearshift into neutral, Stewart pushed it back into drive.
Rhodes eventually deployed his taser into Stewart's right side. Stewart shouted "Ah," and said, "you shot me." Rhodes pulled the taser trigger six times, but it had little effect on Stewart. He did not use the taser's close range drive stun feature; Rhodes did, however, use the taser to hit Stewart in the head causing a cut to open. Again, Stewart did not respond other than to say, "Naw, n****."
The Honda came to a stop in the intersection of South Lake Shore and East 222nd Street while making a left-hand turn. Rhodes believed he and Stewart hit another car because of how abruptly Stewart's vehicle stopped. Catalani testified that the Honda never struck a vehicle, however, and he thought the car simply stalled out. Rhodes believes he was thrown into the dashboard but does not "remember exactly." He testified that, during the stop, Stewart swatted at him and pushed him away but not with a closed fist. Rhodes got the car into neutral and shut off the engine, but could not get the keys out of the ignition. Rhodes heard dispatch instruct nearby officers to assist. The car was stopped for approximately ten to fifteen seconds in the intersection; Rhodes did not try to get out of the car. Moments before Catalani reached the vehicle from behind, Stewart turned the car back on and continued driving.
After completing the turn onto 222nd Street, Stewart drove the car at approximately twenty to thirty miles per hour. Rhodes unsuccessfully tried again to put the car in park. The Honda went up over the curb and around a telephone pole before returning to the street. The car mounted the curb again near the intersection of 222nd Street and Milton Avenue. Rhodes claims he was thrown forward the second time the car struck the curb and Stewart used his right arm to push him forward, but Stewart made no attempt to strike Rhodes. At this point, Rhodes was able to get the car back into neutral, but Stewart continued to rev the engine. Rhodes believed that if he and Stewart "went forward again we were going to hit a telephone pole," implying the vehicle had stopped moving forward.
It was then that Rhodes pulled out his pistol and fired two shots into Stewart's torso. Stewart looked at Rhodes, said "Naw, N****," and, according to Rhodes, Stewart attempted to "punch" him for the first time. Rhodes shot Stewart three additional times, striking him in the neck, chest, and wrist. Stewart died from his wounds
.
A later investigation by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation reported that continuous radio traffic showed fifty-nine seconds elapsed from the time Catalani advised dispatch that Stewart began to flee to the time he reported shots fired.
Mary Stewart, the mother of Luke Stewart, filed a lawsuit on his behalf against Officers Rhodes and Catalani and the City of Euclid. She brought federal claims pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Monell v. Department of Social Services of the City of New York , 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978) for violating Stewart's Fourth Amendment right to be free from excessive force. And under Ohio law she claimed: (1) wrongful death; (2) intentional infliction of emotional distress; (3) assault and battery; (4) willful, wanton, and reckless conduct; and (5) survivorship claims against Rhodes and Catalani. This appeal deals only with the claims against Rhodes and the City of Euclid.
The district court found that qualified immunity barred the constitutional claims against Rhodes. It reasoned that Rhodes had probable cause to believe he was in danger of serious physical harm when unsecured in Stewart's car; he was at risk of being kidnapped; and Stewart's driving created a risk of serious physical harm to the public. The district court found the Constitution allowed Rhodes to shoot Stewart to prevent those immediate dangers. Further, even if Rhodes violated Stewart's constitutional rights, it held those rights were not clearly established as required to deny qualified immunity. Stewart's Monell claim was dismissed for lack of a constitutional violation, and the district court found Rhodes was entitled to immunity under Ohio law.
We review a district court's grant of summary judgment de novo. Miller v. Maddox , 866 F.3d 386, 389 (6th Cir. 2017). All facts and related inferences are viewed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Godawa v. Byrd , 798 F.3d 457, 462 (6th Cir. 2015).
Qualified immunity shields an officer from liability "insofar as [his] conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Pearson v. Callahan , 555 U.S. 223,...
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