Awnings v. Fullerton, No. 17-2884 (8th Cir. 2019)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff filed suit against defendants under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging claims of false arrest, excessive force, and denial of medical care. The court affirmed the district court's judgment and held that plaintiff failed to meet his burden of showing the necessity to disqualify the entire City of Lincoln Attorney's Office and thus the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying the motion to disqualify. The court also held that the district court did not err by granting qualified immunity to the officers and rejected plaintiff's claims of evidentiary errors. In this case, the false arrest claim failed because the officers had probable cause to arrest plaintiff for obstruction of justice; there were no genuine disputes of material fact regarding the excessive force claim; and the district court correctly dismissed plaintiff's claim against one of the officers from suit for denial of medical care.
Court Description: Smith, Author, with Beam and Colloton, Circuit Judges] Civil case - Civil rights. The district court did not err in denying plaintiff's motion to disqualify all of the attorneys of the City of Lincoln's law department where the attorney who first represented the city and its employees in this Section 1983 had worked in the county public defender's office during a portion of the time that office represented plaintiff on criminal charges arising out of the incident at issue here; there was nothing to support plaintiff's conjecture that the attorney, who was not actively involved in the criminal matter, had confidential information about the criminal case; further, the attorney, who withdrew as the City's attorney when the possible conflict became known, was screened from any further contact with the case and the attorney provided an affidavit claiming no knowledge of the case from her previous employment; evidentiary rulings with respect to excluding statements plaintiff made about his medical examination after his release from jail and admission of affidavits from the police officers affirmed; under Nebraska law, plaintiff's admitted conduct qualified as obstruction of a peace officer and resisting arrest, and the defendant officer had probable cause to arrest plaintiff; there was no genuine disputes of material fact between plaintiff's version of events and the arresting officers, and their use of force was objectively reasonable; with respect to plaintiff's claim for denial of medical care, defendant Banks's failure to inform jail officials that hospital staff wanted a followup medical visit did not rise to the level of conduct which would shock the contemporary conscience and violate plaintiff's Due Process rights, and the district court did not err in dismissing him from the action. Judge Colloton, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.