Atkinson v. City of Mountain View, et al, No. 11-3352 (8th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff, a retired military police officer, sued the city and its former police chief under 42 U.S.C. 1983. Plaintiff claimed that the police chief used excessive force when he, without identifying himself as a police officer and dressed in street clothes, charged at plaintiff. The court held that, because there was enough evidence of a Fourth Amendment seizure, the court need not decide whether a reasonable jury could find the police chief's conduct shocked the conscience in violation of the Fourth Amendment; a reasonable jury could find that the police chief was an overzealous police officer who used excessive force and unreasonably caused plaintiff severe injuries; and the police chief was not entitled to qualified immunity. The court also held that plaintiff could not establish that the police chief was - as a matter of Missouri law - a final policymaker for the city. Because no reasonable jury could find the city liable under section 1983, the district court correctly granted the city's motion for summary judgment. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, vacated and remanded for further proceedings.
Court Description: Civil case - Civil Rights. In action alleging City's police chief used excessive force against plaintiff, the district court erred in granting the chief's motion for summary judgment; viewing the case through the common law lens of California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621 (1991), the court concludes the facts most favorable to plaintiff were sufficient to establish a seizure the moment the police chief charged into plaintiff, throwing him backwards into a truck, breaking three of his ribs and puncturing his lung; further, the facts showed that the force used was not objectively reasonable as a matter of law as a reasonable jury could find that the police chief, who failed to identify himself in the encounter, used excessive force and unreasonably caused plaintiff severe injury; the chief was not entitled to qualified immunity as the unlawfulness of the chief's "bull rush" would have been clear to a reasonable officer in his position; the City was entitled to summary judgment since the Chief was not a final policymaker for the City, there was no evidence of an unlawful city policy or deliberate indifference of the City to unconstitutional acts, and there was no evidence that the City had any reason to believe its training or supervision of the Chief was inadequate; order dismissing plaintiff's pendent state law claims vacated. Judge Colloton, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
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