Boyd v. McNamara, No. 20-50945 (5th Cir. 2023)
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Plaintiff was repeatedly tased while he was a pretrial detainee at the McLennan County jail in Waco, Texas. Plaintiff insists that he did nothing to warrant the use of force—that he was neither threatening nor resisting the officer who tased him. The principal question on appeal is whether Plaintiff has presented sufficient evidence to defeat summary judgment on his ensuing civil rights claims.
The Fifth Circuit reversed summary judgment on Plaintiff’s excessive force claim against Defendant and remanded that claim to the district court for trial. The court reversed and remanded the district court’s grant of summary judgment on Plaintiff’s policy and practice claims to afford Plaintiff the opportunity to discover evidence relevant to those claims. But the court affirmed the dismissal of Plaintiff’s deliberate indifference claim. The court denied the motion to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. The court held that a rational jury could find that Defendant’s decision to tase Plaintiff was not justified by any exigency, in which case Defendant’s qualified immunity defense would not shield him from liability because the court’s precedents clearly establish that resort to force in such circumstances is unconstitutional.
Further, the court wrote that it was inappropriate for the court to then dismiss Plaintiff’s policy and practice claims on the ground that Plaintiff failed to present “adequate summary judgment evidence of any official or unofficial policy,” depriving him of his rights. If a jury finds, as it could, that Defendant tased a non-threatening, compliant inmate, then he is not entitled to qualified immunity.
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