Yount v. City of Sacramento

• Decision Date: 09 November 2005
• Docket Number: No. C046869.,C046869.
• Citation: 35 Cal.Rptr.3d 563,133 Cal.App.4th 1424
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Steven YOUNT, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. CITY OF SACRAMENTO et al., Defendants and Respondents.

35 Cal.Rptr.3d 563

133 Cal.App.4th 1424

Steven YOUNT, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. CITY OF SACRAMENTO et al., Defendants and Respondents.

No. C046869.

Court of Appeal of California, Third District.

November 9, 2005.

Certified for Partial Publication.^*

Brian T. Dunn, Los Angeles, for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Samuel L. Jackson, City Attorney, and Matthew D. Ruyak, Deputy City Attorney, for Defendants and Respondents.

BUTZ, J.

Plaintiff Steven Yount suffered personal injuries when Sacramento Police Officer Thomas Shrum shot him in the left buttock while four officers were trying to subdue and transport him to jail following his arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI). As Yount, who was handcuffed and in leg restraints, struggled and squirmed, Officer Shrum, intending to draw and fire his Taser gun, instead pulled out and discharged his nine-millimeter pistol.

As a result of the incident, Yount pleaded no contest to violating Penal Code section 148,¹ obstructing an officer in the performance of his duties. He then brought this suit against the City of Sacramento and Officer Shrum for damages under title 42 United States Code section 1983 (hereafter federal section 1983) alleging, inter alia, that Shrum violated his civil rights by using unnecessary and grossly excessive force on him during the encounter.

By stipulation of the parties, a court trial was held on the issue of whether Yount's civil rights claim was barred as a matter of law by his section 148 plea. After hearing witnesses and reviewing the criminal file pertaining to Yount's plea, the trial court ruled that under the doctrine announced by the United States Supreme Court in Heck v. Humphrey (1994) 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (Heck),² Yount's lawsuit was barred. Judgment was entered for defendants.

We shall conclude that on the record of the trial court, Yount's federal section 1983 cause of action did not necessarily imply the invalidity of his misdemeanor conviction for obstructing the officers in the course of their duties. Because the Heck defense does not preclude the maintenance of Yount's lawsuit, we shall reverse.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Alleging he was the victim of excessive force by Officer Shrum, Yount filed a multi-count complaint alleging civil rights violations under federal section 1983 as well as civil tort theories of relief. Defendants twice brought motions for summary judgment, each of which was denied.

By the time of trial, Yount had elected to proceed on two causes of action—his civil rights claim under federal section 1983 and common law battery. In pretrial proceedings, the trial court solicited briefing and argument from the parties on the issue of whether Yount's suit was foreclosed by his plea of no contest to violating section 148. After extensive trial briefs were submitted, the parties stipulated to bifurcate the proceedings and to conduct a bench trial on the applicability of the Heck defense.

Summary of the Evidence

The court heard from several witnesses including the officers and a security guard who took Yount into custody. Yount did not testify, but excerpts from his deposition were read, which established that he had no memory of the occurrences that night. The testimony of percipient witnesses to the events leading up to the shooting is summarized below.

In the early morning hours of March 10, 2001, Daniel Powell, a private security guard, noticed a man near the 7-Eleven store on La Riviera Drive attempting to get in his car. The man, later identified as Yount, appeared to be under the influence of alcohol. Powell flagged down Sacramento Police Officer Samuel Davis, and pointed to a white vehicle in which Yount was attempting to drive off.

Officer Davis approached Yount and noticed that his eyes were glassy and he appeared to be inebriated. Davis asked Yount to step out of his vehicle. As Yount opened the door, he lost his balance and fell onto Davis. Yount smelled of alcohol, so Officer Davis directed him to get into the back seat of his police car. Yount walked over to Davis's car, but refused to get in the back seat. With Davis's assistance, Yount was finally placed in the back seat.

Once in the back seat, Yount's attitude changed. He began banging around in the car, screaming obscenities and directing racial slurs at Officer Davis, who is Black. Yount continued to resist for three to five minutes.

Finally, Officer Davis pulled Yount out of the patrol car, got him on the ground and, with the assistance of nearby security guards, managed to place him in handcuffs. As far as Davis was concerned, Yount was formally under arrest at this point.

Minutes later, Sacramento Police Officers Daniel Swafford and Thomas Shrum and California State University Police Officer Debra Hatfield arrived to provide backup assistance. As the officers were filling out paperwork for a DUI report, Yount again became hostile and violent in the back of the patrol car. He was kicking, screaming, yelling obscenities and banging his head against the passenger window. Officers Shrum, Swafford and Hatfield opened the door and tried to get Yount to calm down, but he was uncooperative, hostile and irrational. At one point Yount put his legs outside the patrol car, prompting Officer Swafford to apply his Taser gun, which calmed Yount temporarily and enabled the officers to get him back inside the car.

Soon, however, Yount resumed kicking, screaming and banging in the back of the patrol car. Just as Officer Davis walked toward the rear door of the car, Yount kicked the window out, causing glass to explode and shatter.

For safety reasons, the officers decided to transfer Yount to another patrol car. They tried to get him out of the car voluntarily, but he would not cooperate. Finally, Officers Davis and Hatfield forcibly extricated Yount from the back seat. As he fell out of the car, Yount landed on top of Officer Davis, injuring Davis's elbow. The officers then tried to pick Yount up and carry him to another patrol car. The task was difficult, because Yount kicked, screamed and spat on the officers.

Officer Davis rolled Yount over on the ground and put his knee into Yount's back while the other officers held him down and applied leg restraints. Because Yount continued to resist and thrash about, Officer Shrum decided to apply his Taser. Shrum told the other officers to "hold on," that he was going "tase him." Shrum reached into his holster and drew what he thought was his Taser gun. Aiming toward the back of Yount's thigh, Shrum pulled the trigger and heard a pop. He looked at his hand and realized he had discharged his pistol. Shrum exclaimed "Oh god, I shot, I shot." Once they ascertained that Yount had suffered a gunshot wound, the attending officers summoned medical assistance.

The trial court took judicial notice of the entire criminal case file in People v. Yount (Super. Ct. Sacramento County, 2001, No. 01F02606), including the charging documents and the reporter's transcript of the hearing at which the plea was taken. That record disclosed that the People filed an amended complaint charging Yount, inter alia, with violating section 69, a felony, to wit: unlawfully attempting, by means of threats and violence, to interfere and prevent the officers from performing their duties. As a result of a plea bargain, Yount pleaded no contest to the reduced charge of violating section 148, which punishes as a misdemeanor one who "willfully resists, delays, or obstructs any ... peace officer ... in the discharge or attempt to discharge any duty of his or her office or employment...." (§ 148, subd. (a)(1) (hereafter § 148(a)(1).)) Yount stipulated, and the trial court in the criminal court found, that there was a factual basis for the plea.

DISCUSSION

I. Procedural Posture of the Case

Although the trial court did not expressly so state, the hearing it conducted can only be construed as a bench trial on the special defense raised by the Heck doctrine. (Heck, supra, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383.) "It has long been held that special defenses that abate or bar the claim of the plaintiff may be tried before other issues, for a decision in the defendant's favor may render unnecessary the effort and expense of a complete trial." (7 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (4th ed. 1997) Trial, § 164, p. 191.) This procedure is commonly used where defenses such as the statute of limitations and res judicata are interposed (id. at p. 192), but Code of Civil Procedure section 597 authorizes it for any defense not involving the merits, which, if valid, would bar the plaintiff's suit (7 Witkin, supra, § 164 at p. 192).

The record is clear that the trial court proceeding here did not constitute a trial on the merits, but rather an evidentiary hearing on a special defense, pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 597: The trial court solicited a waiver of Yount's right to jury trial only with respect to the Heck issue. It also repeatedly declared irrelevant evidence offered to prove that the force used by Officer Shrum was excessive, and several times emphasized that the question before it was not whether excessive force was used, but whether Yount's claim was foreclosed by his plea in the criminal case.

We conclude the Heck issue was the only one adjudicated by the trial court. Indeed, given the limited nature of the stipulation, the court could not reach the underlying merits of Yount's tort claims without violating his right to a jury trial. (See Jefferson v. County of Kern (2002) 98 Cal.App.4th 606, 619-620, 120 Cal.Rptr.2d 1; Ceriale v. Superior Court (1996) 48 Cal.App.4th 1629, 1635-1636, 56 Cal.Rptr.2d 353.)

II. Standard of Review

The sole question before the trial court was whether Yount's federal section 1983 claim and related common law battery cause of action were foreclosed by the United States Supreme Court's holding in Heck. The trial court answered that question in the affirmative. There was no...