Hunter v. City of Leeds, No. 17-11939 (11th Cir. 2019)
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Plaintiff filed suit against police officers under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging claims of excessive force and other various state law claims. Plaintiff's claims stemmed from a four-car police chase that resulted in an officer, Defendant Kirk, shooting plaintiff.
The Eleventh Circuit held that collateral estoppel barred plaintiff from asserting, contrary to his guilty plea, that he never pointed his gun at Kirk, but did not bar him from contesting Kirk's statements regarding the number of times that plaintiff allegedly pointed his gun. The court affirmed the district court's denial of summary judgment to Kirk, finding that there was a genuine factual dispute as to whether Kirk unconstitutionally subjected plaintiff to excessive force in violation of clearly established law, but there was no dispute that the other officers did not. However, the court reversed the district court's denial of summary judgment as to the remaining officers. The court held that plaintiff did not present any evidence from which a reasonable jury could find that these officers were involved in the unlawful shooting, or were in a position to intervene yet failed to do so. Therefore, these officers were entitled to qualified immunity on plaintiff's excessive force and failure to intervene claims. The court also held that these officers were entitled to immunity on the state law claims related to the shooting, but Kirk was not.
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