Stoedter v. Gates

• Decision Date: 03 August 2017
• Docket Number: No. 15-4020,15-4020
• Parties: ROBERT STOEDTER, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. KENNETH C. GATES and KENYON T. MADSEN, Defendants - Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

ROBERT STOEDTER, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. KENNETH C. GATES and KENYON T. MADSEN, Defendants - Appellants.

No. 15-4020

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

August 3, 2017

(D.C.No. 2:12-CV-00255-BSJ)

(D. Utah)

ORDER AND JUDGMENT^*

Before HOLMES, SEYMOUR, and MORITZ, Circuit Judges.

Robert Stoedter sued officers Kenneth Gates and Kenyon Madsen(the defendants) under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that they violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizure.After a jury trial, the district court granted judgment as a matter of law for Stoedter on this issue of whether the defendants violated the Fourth Amendment.And because the court had previously determined that the contours of that right were clearly established at the time of the alleged violation, the district court rejected the defendants' qualified immunity defense.Finally, after the jury declined to award Stoedter any damages for the FourthAmendment violation, the district court amended the judgment to award him nominal damages.

The defendants appeal, arguing that the district court erred in (1) rejecting their qualified immunity defense; (2) granting Stoedter's motion for judgment as a matter of law¹ under Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a); and (3) amending the judgment to award Stoedter nominal damages.Because we agree that the defendants violated Stoedter's clearly established rights under the Fourth Amendment and that the award of nominal damages was therefore mandatory, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

On a November afternoon in 2010, a motorist called 911 to report that he saw a man take a shotgun from the trunk of a car into a house in Riverton, Utah.The defendants, officers with the Unified Police Department of Greater Salt Lake, responded to this "man-with-a-gun" call.Aplt. Br. 34.

As the defendants approached the Riverton home on foot, they observed two men—Stoedter and his uncle, Michael Jacobson—on the front porch.Stoedter, who was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and smoking a cigarette, matched the 911 caller's description of the man with the shotgun.The defendants didn't see a gun, but latertestified that Jacobson's heavy coat was large enough to conceal one.According to Gates, the men on the porch appeared "somewhat relaxed."App. 44.

Despite the men's "somewhat relaxed" demeanor, id., the defendants approached with their weapons drawn and pointed at the ground, and Gates immediately ordered the men to put their hands up and come off the porch.According to the defendants, Stoedter and Jacobson instead responded with some choice profanities.But after three minutes, both men complied with the defendants' commands.Gates then handcuffed Stoedter.Moments later, after the defendants learned that Stoedter was returning with the shotgun from a hunting trip, the defendants released Stoedter from the handcuffs.

As relevant here, Stoedter filed suit against the defendants under § 1983, alleging that they violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizure.²The defendants moved for summary judgment, asserting qualified immunity.Stoedter moved for summary judgment on, inter alia, the issue of whether the defendants unreasonably seized him.The district court denied both motions, but noted that (1)the defendants didn't have reasonable suspicion of a crime when they approached the men on the porch, and (2) the law was clearly established that officers can't conduct investigative detentions without reasonable suspicion.

The case proceeded to a jury trial.At the close of evidence, the parties each moved for judgment as a matter of law.The district court denied the defendants'motion, in which they reasserted their qualified immunity defense.But it granted Stoedter's motion, ruling that the defendants unreasonably seized Stoedter as a matter of law.The defendants then requested a nominal-damages instruction, and the district court denied their request.Stoedter neither requested a nominal-damages instruction nor objected to the defendants' request or the district court's refusal to grant it.After the jury found that Stoedter suffered no actual or compensatory damages, the district court entered judgment for the defendants.

Stoedter then filed a motion for judgment as a matter of law under Fed. R. Civ. P. 50, or in the alternative, for a new trial under Fed. R. Civ. P. 59.In this post-judgment motion, Stoedter sought damages generally.And he specifically sought nominal damages, in addition to actual damages, in his reply memorandum.The district court granted in part Stoedter's post-judgment motion, finding that Stoedter didn't waive the argument that he was entitled to nominal damages and that he was entitled to nominal damages as a matter of law.The district court then found it had plainly erred in failing to submit a nominal-damages instruction to the jury and amended the judgment to award Stoedter one dollar in nominal damages.The defendants appeal.

DISCUSSION

The defendants first challenge the district court's order granting Stoedter's Rule 50(a) motion on the issue of whether the defendants unreasonably seized him, arguing that the district court(1) applied the wrong test for determining whether the seizure was unreasonable and (2) failed to resolve all reasonable fact questions in thedefendants' favor.Alternatively, even assuming they violated Stoedter's constitutional right to be free from unreasonable seizure, the defendants next argue that the district court erred in defining the contours of that right at too high a level of generality when it rejected the defendants' qualified immunity defense.Finally, the defendants argue that the district court erred in granting Stoedter's post-judgment motion and in amending the judgment to award him nominal damages.

I.The district court didn't err in granting Stoedter's Rule 50(a) motion on the issue of whether the defendants unreasonably seized him.

We review de novo the district court's order granting Stoedter's Rule 50(a) motion, applying the same standards as the district court.Helmer v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 828 F.3d 1195, 1199(10th Cir.2016).The district court may grant a Rule 50(a) motion"only if the evidence points but one way and is susceptible to no reasonable inferences [that] may support the opposing party's position."Q.E.R., Inc. v. Hickerson, 880 F.2d 1178, 1180(10th Cir.1989)."On review, we examine the evidence in the light most favorable to [the defendants], extending to [them] the benefit of all reasonable inferences."Davis v. U.S. Postal Serv., 142 F.3d 1334, 1339(10th Cir.1998).

Here, the district court granted Stoedter's Rule 50(a) motion based in part on a finding that the defendants failed "to use the least intrusive method of acquiring information."App. 339.But as the defendants correctly point out, the Fourth Amendment doesn't require officers to use the least intrusive method of acquiring information.SeeArmijo ex rel. Armijo Sanchez v. Peterson, 601 F.3d 1065, 1075(10th Cir.2010).Accordingly, we agree with the defendants that the district court erred to the extent it suggested that was the applicable test for assessing whether they unreasonably seized Stoedter.

Yet that doesn't necessarily mean the defendants are entitled to reversal.To obtain that result, the defendants must do more than establish that the district court applied the wrong test; they must also establish that applying the correct test would likely yield a different result.See28 U.S.C. § 2111(requiring us to disregard errors that don't "affect the substantial rights of the parties");Shinseki v. Sanders, 556 U.S. 396, 410(2009)(explaining that "party seeking reversal normally must explain why the erroneous ruling caused harm");see alsoRichison v. Ernest Grp., Inc., 634 F.3d 1123, 1130(10th Cir.2011)("[Appellants] must come ready both to show the district court's error and, when necessary, to explain why no other grounds can support affirmance of the district court's decision.").

Accordingly, our first task is to determine the test the district court should have applied.And in performing that task, we find particularly relevant both (1) some of the district court's intermediate rulings below; and (2)the defendants' failure to adequately challenge those intermediate rulings on appeal.

Specifically, the district court made three critical findings before granting Stoedter's Rule 50(a) motion on the issue of whether the defendants violated Stoedter's rights under the Fourth Amendment.First, the district court concluded that the defendants did, in fact, seize Stoedter.Second, it concluded that the seizure occurred at the moment the defendants ordered Stoedter to put his hands up and stepoff the porch; according to the district court, that order "either . . . arrested" Stoedter or, at the very least, "detained" him.App. 1105;seeUnited States v. Cooper, 733 F.2d 1360, 1363(10th Cir.1984)(explaining that investigative detentions and arrests are both seizures that implicate Fourth Amendment).Finally, the district court concluded that at the moment the defendants seized Stoedter, they lacked even reasonable suspicion of any criminal activity.³

Critically, the defendants' opening brief doesn't challenge the first two of these three conclusions—i.e., that the defendants seized Stoedter and that they did so at the very beginning of the encounter.On the contrary, the defendants themselves characterize the encounter as a "Terry stop,""an investigative detention," and a "seizure."Aplt. Br. 28, 29, 33, 36, 37;seeOliver v. Woods, 209 F.3d 1179, 1186(10th Cir.2000)("An investigative detention, which is also referred to as a Terry stop, is a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment . . . .").And while the defendants don't explicitly concede the timing of that seizure, their opening briefdoesn't challenge the district court's ruling that the seizure began at the moment the defendants ordered Stoedter to put his hands up and...