Stout v. Oklahoma ex rel. Okla. Highway Patrol
| Decision Date | 06 January 2015 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 13-cv-753-WPJ,Case No. 14-cv-427-WPJ |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Oklahoma |
| Parties | LANCE STOUT, individually, and as Guardian of C.S., a minor child, as Administrator of the Estate of Stacey Michelle Stout and as individuals, and BARBRE STOUT, individually, and as Guardian of C.S., a minor child, as Administrator of the Estate of Stacey Michelle Stout and as individuals Plaintiffs, v. STATE OF OKLAHOMA ex rel. OKLAHOMA HIGHWAY PATROL; et al., Defendants, THERESA STOUT, as personal representative of the Estate of Christopher Stout, Plaintiff, v. OKLAHOMA HIGHWAY PATROL TROOPER DANNY LONG, et al., Defendants. |
THIS MATTER comes before the Court upon Defendant United States of America's Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 52), filed on September 8, 2014; Plaintiff Theresa Stout's Response to Defendant United States' Motion to Dismiss and her Objection to United States' Certification(Doc. 63), filed September 29, 2014; and Plaintiff's Motion for Discovery on United States' Certification (Doc. 65), filed September 30, 2014, as well as all responsive briefing thereto.1 Having reviewed the parties' briefs and applicable law, the Court finds that Plaintiff's objections are not well taken and, therefore, are OVERRULED; that Plaintiff's motion is not well taken and, therefore, is DENIED; and that the United States' motion is well taken in part and, therefore, is GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART as herein described.
Unless otherwise stated, the following factual allegations are taken from Plaintiff's First Amended Complaint and are accepted as true for purposes of analyzing the Unites States' Motion to Dismiss. On the evening of April 9, 2013, seven individual Defendants named in this action conducted a law enforcement action targeting decedent Christopher Stout.2 These Defendants included Danny Long, an Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper; James Leone, an Oklahoma Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Agent; Chad Pope and Ed Grimes, sheriffs' deputies from Pottawatomie County and Canadian County, respectively; Kevin Johnson, an Oklahoma City Police Sergeant; and Callen Stephens and Tarran Groom, Deputy United States Marshals.
That evening, the individual Defendants attempted to serve an arrest warrant on Stout for a state-law burglary charge arising from Payne County, Oklahoma. Stout attempted to drive away with his girlfriend in his vehicle, but the individual Defendants successfully performed a tactical maneuver to stop Stout's vehicle and surrounded him with their own cars. The individualDefendants then exited their cars and fired their weapons at Stout's vehicle. Stout was pronounced dead at the scene, and his girlfriend died at a hospital some time later.
The United States later claimed, and Plaintiff does not dispute, that Long, Leone, Pope, Grimes, Johnson, Stephens, and Groom were working as members of a U.S. Marshals Service Metro Fugitive Task Force at the time of Stout's death. See (Doc. 52), Motion to Dismiss, at 1; (Doc. 63), Response Brief, at 10. Plaintiff, Stout's mother, filed a Claim for Damage, Injury, or Death with the U.S. Marshals Service in July 2013. In that document, Plaintiff alleged that "[t]he U.S. Marshal Metro Fugitive Task Force shot and killed" Stout and that he "was shot multiple times by members of the U.S. Marshal Metro Fugitive Task Force, which include[d] one or more members of the U.S. Marshals." (Doc. 52 Ex. 1).
Plaintiff filed her original complaint in April 2014, bringing claims of violations of the United States Constitution under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, violations of the Oklahoma Constitution, and violations of common law. The Defendants named in this initial complaint included Long, Leone, Pope, Grimes, and Johnson in their individual and official capacities, as well as the state, county, and local entities that employed them.
Shortly thereafter, the United States filed a Notice of Substitution Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2679(d)(1). In that document, the United States Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma certified that Long, Leone, Pope, Grimes, and Johnson were employed as Special Deputy U.S. Marshals and were acting on behalf of a federal agency in an official federal capacity at all relevant times. As such, the United States asserted that it should be substituted as the proper Defendant for all claims against those individuals except for the individual-capacity § 1983 claims. (Doc. 5), United States' Notice of Substitution Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2679(d)(1).
The United States subsequently filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the Court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over the claims against it. Plaintiff then filed a motion for leave to amend her complaint, and she attached a proposed amended pleading that added Stephens and Groom as Defendants in their individual capacities and that included additional factual allegations. In subsequent briefing, Plaintiff acknowledged that she intended to challenge the United States' Notice of Substitution for the individual Defendants at some point in the future. The Court struck the United States' motion and granted Plaintiff's motion in August 2014, observing that the new allegations in the proposed amended complaint "lay a factual predicate for Plaintiff to challenge the certification of the Attorney General." However, the Court advised that "until the Court rules otherwise, the United States is a defendant in this action and any filed Amended Complaint should reflect that status." (Doc. 35), Memorandum Opinion and Order. Plaintiff filed the operative First Amended Complaint ten days later. (Doc. 36), First Amended Complaint.
Not long thereafter, the United States filed a second Notice of Substitution, asserting that it is the proper Defendant for all claims against Stephens and Groom except for the individual-capacity § 1983 claims. (Doc. 51), United States' Notice of Substitution Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2679(d)(1). The United States simultaneously filed the instant motion to dismiss. (Doc. 52). In her timely response brief in opposition, Plaintiff for the first time raised objections to the United States' Notices of Substitution (Doc. 63), and she filed a motion for discovery on the United States' substitution the following day (Doc. 65).
In her response to the United States' motion to dismiss, Plaintiff raises her objections to the substitution of the United States as the proper Defendant for most of the claims against the individually named Defendants. Since the propriety of the United States' motion to dismiss hinges on whether the United States is properly a party to this action, the Court addresses these objections first. See Osborn v. Haley, 549 U.S. 225, 252-53 (2007) ().
The United States first argues that the portion of Plaintiff's response brief objecting to its certification should be stricken for violating LCvR 7.1(c), which states that "[a] response to a motion may not also include a motion or cross-motion made by the responding party." Notably, the same rule also says, "If a party responding to a motion files a cross-motion or other closely-related motion concurrently with the filing of the response, the brief in support of the cross-motion or other closely-related motion may be combined with the responsive brief." See LCvR 7.1(c). Although Plaintiff did not file her objections as a separate concurrent motion or document, the issue of whether substitution was appropriate is undoubtedly integral to whether the Court should dismiss the claims in question. The Court believes that it is sufficiently apprised of the parties' position on all relevant issues through the briefing that it has received. Therefore the Court will not strike Plaintiff's objections.
The Westfall Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2679(d)(1), is "a measure designed to immunize covered federal employees not simply from liability, but from suit." See Osborn, 549 U.S. at 238. Onemethod by which the Westfall Act accomplishes this goal is to set a procedure by which the United States may substitute itself as a defendant in place of certain federal employees in federal civil cases:
Upon certification by the Attorney General that the defendant employee was acting within the scope of his office or employment at the time of the incident out of which the claim arose, any civil action or proceeding commenced upon such claim in a United States district court shall be deemed an action against the United States under the provisions of this title and all references thereto, and the United States shall be substituted as the party defendant.
28 U.S.C. § 2679(d)(1). In essence, when seeking to invoke the Westfall Act, the United States must certify that (1) the defendant for whom it wishes to substitute itself was a federal employee, and (2) that the employee was "acting within the scope of his office or employment" at relevant times. See id.
Still, "the Attorney General's certification that a federal employee was acting within the scope of his employment . . . does not conclusively establish as correct the substitution of the United States as defendant in place of the employee." Gutierrez de Martinez v. Lamagno, 515 U.S. 417, 434 (1995). Although such certification creates a presumption that the Westfall Act applies, that presumption may be rebutted by a party challenging the certification. See, e.g., McAdams v. Reno, 64 F.3d 1137, 1145-46 (8th Cir. 1995); AAA Pharmacy, Inc. v. Palmetto GBA, LLC, No. CIV-07-1221-F, 2008 WL 5070958, at *3 (W.D. Okla. Nov. 24, 2008) (unpublished) (...
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