Waterman v. Batton

• Decision Date: 03 January 2005
• Docket Number: No. 04-1096.,04-1096.
• Citation: 393 F.3d 471
• Parties: Michael R. WATERMAN, Personal Representative of the Estate of Josh T. Waterman, Deceased; Ruth G. Waterman; Roland M. Waterman, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Michael P. BATTON; Kenneth Keel; Christopher Heisey, Defendants-Appellants, and State of Maryland, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

393 F.3d 471

Michael R. WATERMAN, Personal Representative of the Estate of Josh T. Waterman, Deceased; Ruth G. Waterman; Roland M. Waterman, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Michael P. BATTON; Kenneth Keel; Christopher Heisey, Defendants-Appellants, and State of Maryland, Defendant.

No. 04-1096.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: September 30, 2004.

Decided: January 3, 2005.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

ARGUED:

Karen June Kruger, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellants. John J. Connolly, Murphy & Shaffer, L.L.C., Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellees.

ON BRIEF:

J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Attorney General of Maryland, Michael D. Berman, Deputy Chief of Litigation, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellants. William J. Murphy, Murphy & Shaffer, L.L.C., Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellees.

Before WILKINS, Chief Judge, MOTZ, Circuit Judge, and HUDSON, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation.

Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Chief Judge WILKINS wrote the majority opinion, in which Judge HUDSON joined. Judge MOTZ wrote a dissenting opinion.

OPINION

WILKINS, Chief Judge.

Officers Michael Batton, Kenneth Keel, and Christopher Heisey of the Maryland Transportation Authority (MdTA) (collectively, "Appellants") appeal a district court order denying their motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity in an action alleging that they unconstitutionally employed deadly force against Josh Waterman. We reverse and remand.

I.

In reviewing the denial of summary judgment based on qualified immunity, we accept as true the facts that the district court concluded may be reasonably inferred from the record when viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.¹ See Gray-Hopkins v. Prince George's County, 309 F.3d 224, 229 (4th Cir.2002). To the extent that the district court has not fully set forth the facts on which its decision is based, we assume the facts that may reasonably be inferred from the record when viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. See Winfield v. Bass, 106 F.3d 525, 533-35 (4th Cir.1997) (en banc). Employing these principles reveals the following facts.

On the afternoon of November 28, 2000, at approximately 3:11 p.m., Waterman was driving in the Baltimore Washington International Airport terminal area. MdTA Officer Eric Farrow observed Waterman traveling 51 miles per hour in a 25-miles-per-hour zone, and Farrow activated the emergency sirens and lights on his patrol vehicle and initiated pursuit. When Waterman did not stop, MdTA Officer Adam Watkowski, who was in another patrol vehicle, activated his sirens and lights and joined in the pursuit.

As they followed Waterman, Officers Farrow and Watkowski communicated by radio with the MdTA officers located at the toll plaza of the Fort McHenry Tunnel (the Tunnel). At approximately 3:16 p.m., Watkowski reported to Communications at the Tunnel that he was involved in a "10-80" (chase in progress) heading northbound on I-95 toward the Tunnel. Communications relayed the message to all units and identified the vehicle as a gold Mazda with North Carolina license plate MZL-1595. Appellants heard that message. Other officers stationed near the toll plaza radioed that they were standing by. One officer received permission to prepare "stop sticks"² in the northbound lanes on the north side of the toll plaza, and someone radioed that the sticks were being prepared.

At approximately 3:17 p.m., Officer Watkowski radioed to Communications that Waterman "just tried to run me off the road ... he's trying to take us off the road." Waterman v. Batton, 294 F.Supp.2d 709, 714 (D.Md.2003) (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted).³ Appellants all heard that communication. Additionally, at approximately 3:21 p.m., just after Waterman and the trailing officers entered the Tunnel, Watkowski radioed to Communications that Waterman "reached under the seat have all units 10-0" (use caution). Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Officer Heisey heard the 10-0 warning, but none of the Appellants heard that Waterman had reached under his seat.

When Waterman emerged from the Tunnel approximately two minutes later, he drove toward lane 12 of the toll plaza, the left-most northbound lane.⁴ By this time, the pursuit had continued for more than 10 minutes. As Waterman drove toward the plaza at a normal speed, keeping a safe distance from vehicles in front of him, five uniformed MdTA officers — Appellants and Officers Sean Hames and Lance Bellman — emerged from around the concrete island located between lanes 11 and 12. With their weapons drawn, the officers approached Waterman's vehicle from the front and passenger sides, yelling for Waterman to stop.

Waterman slowed as he approached the toll plaza, then coasted for about one second at approximately 11 miles per hour. The vehicle ahead of Waterman's then began to move forward. Immediately thereafter, the rear of Waterman's vehicle dipped down and rose back up — a motion the officers described as "lurching" or "lunging" forward — and Waterman began to accelerate in the general direction of the toll plaza and the officers ahead of him. At the instant of acceleration, Officer Keel was about 72 feet ahead of the vehicle; Officer Heisey, 38 feet ahead; Officer Hames, a little more than 23 feet ahead; and Officer Batton, a little more than 16 feet ahead.⁵ Although none of the officers were directly in front of Waterman's vehicle they stood only a few feet to the passenger side of the vehicle's projected path.⁶

Perceiving the lurching of the vehicle and Waterman's acceleration as the beginning of an attempt to run them over, Appellants began firing their weapons as soon as Waterman accelerated. As the officers shot at him, Waterman's vehicle reached a top speed of approximately 15 miles per hour. Waterman's vehicle then passed all of the officers, avoiding them by several feet and temporarily stopping behind another vehicle blocking its path. As Appellants scrambled toward Waterman, they continued to fire their weapons at him from the passenger side of the vehicle and from behind, ceasing their fire as he passed through the toll plaza. In all, within the approximately-six-second period after Waterman's vehicle lurched forward, Officer Batton fired four rounds, Officer Keel, two, and Officer Heisey, two.

When Waterman's vehicle passed through the toll lane, it ran over the stop sticks. Officer Watkowski followed Waterman through the lane in his vehicle and collided with him, bringing both vehicles to a stop.

Waterman sustained five gunshot wounds: a shot that grazed his front right shoulder; a shot that entered the front right side of his neck and was recovered from his left shoulder; and shots that went through his right arm, right thigh, and left thigh. About two minutes after his vehicle came to a stop, several officers pulled Waterman from his vehicle and attempted to administer CPR. An ambulance then transported Waterman to John Hopkins Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 4:10 p.m. It was later determined that the shot that entered Waterman's neck was rapidly fatal, meaning that it killed him within 30 seconds to two minutes.

Waterman's personal representative and parents (the Estate) initiated this action in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, alleging several causes of action under Maryland law in addition to a Fourth Amendment claim, see 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983 (West 2003). As is relevant here, the Estate alleged that the officers violated Waterman's Fourth Amendment rights by unjustifiably employing deadly force. Appellants removed the case to federal court and, following discovery, moved for summary judgment on several grounds, including that they were entitled to qualified immunity on the Fourth Amendment claim. The district court denied Appellants' motion in its entirety. See Waterman, 294 F.Supp.2d at 739.

II.

Appellants appeal the portion of the district court order denying their motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. We conclude that the district court erred in denying Appellants summary judgment on the qualified immunity issue.

A.

Qualified immunity protects "all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law." Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986). It protects law enforcement officers from "bad guesses in gray areas" and ensures that they are liable only "for transgressing bright lines." Maciariello v. Sumner, 973 F.2d 295, 298 (4th Cir.1992). Thus, government officials performing discretionary functions are entitled to qualified immunity from liability for civil damages to the extent that "their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). In analyzing an appeal from the rejection of a qualified immunity defense, our first task is to identify the specific right that the plaintiff asserts was infringed by the challenged conduct. See Taylor v. Waters, 81 F.3d 429, 433 (4th Cir.1996). We then ask whether the facts, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, demonstrate a violation of that right. See Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001). If they do, we consider whether, at the time of the claimed violation, the right alleged to be violated was clearly established — meaning that "a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates" the right in question. Id. at 202, 121 S.Ct. 2151 (internal quotation marks omitted).

Although the exact conduct at issue need not have been held unlawful in order for the law governing an officer's actions to be clearly established, the existing authority must be such that the unlawfulness of the conduct is manifest. See ...