Opinion
CIVIL ACTION NO. 3:99-CV-1885-G.
July 13, 2000.
MEMORANDUM ORDER
Before the court are the motions of the defendants, Steven G. O'Brien ("O'Brien") and James W. Winkle ("Winkle"), to dismiss the plaintiff's claims against them. The plaintiff has not responded to the motions. For the reasons discussed below, the motions are denied.
I. BACKGROUND
On June 4, 1999, the plaintiff, Richard Keith Davis ("Davis"), was arrested by the defendants, police officers for the City of Dallas. During that arrest, Davis alleges, the defendants pressed the handcuffs into his wrist so hard that they cut his skin. See Complaint at 4 and Objection to Finging (sic) at 5. Arguing that his injury constitutes a violation of his civil rights, Davis filed this suit. The magistrate judge recommended that Davis's complaint be dismissed as frivolous, but this court declined to do so. See Memorandum Order, dated April 12, 2000. Both defendants now bring separate — though in some respects identical — motions to dismiss, contending both that Davis has failed to state a claim for which relief can be granted and that the defendants are immune from suit under the doctrine of qualified immunity.
II. ANALYSIS A. Standard for Dismissal Under Rule 12(b)(6)
FED. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) authorizes dismissal of a complaint for "failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." A motion under Rule 12(b)(6) should be granted only if it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff could prove no set of facts in support of his claim that would entitle him to relief. See Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46 (1957); Leffall v. Dallas Independent School District, 28 F.3d 521, 524 (5th Cir. 1994) (citations omitted). Before dismissal is granted, the court must accept all well-pleaded facts as true and view them in the light most favorable to the non-movant. See Capital Parks. Inc. v. Southeastern Advertising and Sales System, Inc., 30 F.3d 627, 629 (5th Cir. 1994) (citation omitted); Norman v. Apache Corporation, 19 F.3d 1017, 1021 (5th Cir. 1994) (citations omitted); Chrissy F. by Medley v. Mississippi Department of Public Welfare, 925 F.2d 844, 846 (5th Cir. 1991).
B. Qualified Immunity
The threshold question the court must answer with regard to the claims against these defendants in their individual capacities is whether they are entitled to qualified immunity. See Mangieri v. Clifton, 29 F.3d 1012, 1015 (5th Cir. 1994) (citing Siegert v. Gilley, 500 U.S. 226, 231-33 (1991), and Brewer v. Wilkinson, 3 F.3d 816, 820 (5th Cir. 1993), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 1123 (1994)). To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal, a plaintiff must allege particularized facts which, if proved, would defeat a qualified immunity defense. See Brown v. Glossip, 878 F.2d 871, 874 (5th Cir. 1989) (citing Geter v. Fortenberry, 849 F.2d 1550 (5th Cir. 1988); Elliott v. Perez, 751 F.2d 1472 (5th Cir. 1985); and Jacquez v. Procunier, 801 F.2d 789 (5th Cir. 1986)); see also Morin v. Caire, 77 F.3d 116, 121 (5th Cir. 1996) ("[W]hen a plaintiff sues a public official under § 1983, the district court must insist on heightened pleading by the plaintiff.") (citing Schultea v. Wood, 47 F.3d 1427, 1433 (5th Cir. 1995) (en banc)).
Qualified immunity shields government officials performing discretionary functions from liability for civil damages unless their conduct violates clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. See Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982); Gibson v. Rich, 44 F.3d 274, 277 (5th Cir. 1995) (citing Babb v. Dorman, 33 F.3d 472, 477 (5th Cir. 1994)). The existence of qualified immunity is a policy decision which weighs the vindication of individuals' rights against society's needs for effective government. See Elliott, 751 F.2d at 1476-78. The need for effective government outweighs individual rights to this extent — some justified claims will necessarily be dismissed in the interest of freeing public officials "to exercise their duties and functions without fear of having their attentions distracted by the subsequent claims of unhappy or unsuccessful litigants." Id. at 1478.
Where civil rights violations and pendent claims of the sort involved here are asserted, a government official is entitled to qualified immunity if a reasonable official could have believed his or her actions to be lawful "in light of clearly established law [at the time] and the information the [official] possessed." Babb, 33 F.3d at 477 (quotations omitted); see also Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 638-40 (1987); Matherne v. Wilson, 851 F.2d 752, 756 (5th Cir. 1988) (holding that the court must measure the "law's certainty" against "an objectively reasonable view of the facts facing an official"). The contours of the plaintiff's rights must have been clear enough for a reasonable official to have understood that he or she was violating those rights. See Johnston v. City of Houston, Texas, 14 F.3d 1056, 1059 (5th Cir. 1994) (citing Texas Faculty Association v. University of Texas at Dallas, 946 F.2d 379, 389-90 (5th Cir. 1991)). Thus, in light of the preexisting law, the unlawfulness of a defendant's acts must have been apparent. See Anderson, 483 U.S. at 638-40; Hodorowski v. Ray, 844 F.2d 1210, 1216-17 (5th Cir. 1988).
"The qualified immunity defense `gives ample room for mistaken judgments' by protecting `all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.'" Gibson, 44 F.3d at 277 (citation omitted). Government officials are entitled to the defense of qualified immunity "if their decision was reasonable, albeit mistaken." Lampkin v. City of Nacogdoches, 7 F.3d 430, 435 (5th Cir. 1993) (per curiam) (citation omitted), cert. denied, 511 U.S. 1019 (1994). Moreover, the court is to determine as a matter of law if an official's acts were reasonable. Mangieri, 29 F.3d at 1015-16; Lampkin, 7 F.3d at 434-35).
In sum, then, this court must employ a two step analysis. First, it must determine whether Davis has asserted the violation of a constitutional right clearly established at the time of the incident. See Mangieri, 29 F.3d at 1016 (citing Hare v. City of Corinth, Mississippi, 22 F.3d 612, 614 (5th Cir. 1994)). Second, the court must consider whether the defendants' actions were objectively unreasonable. See id. (citing Lampkin, 7 F.3d at 434-35). If they were not, the defendants are entitled to immunity.
Davis's claims clearly pass the first step of the analysis, as Davis has made allegations of excessive force in violation of his rights under the Fourth Amendment. See e.g., Johnson v. Morel, 876 F.2d 477, 479 (5th Cir. 1989) (en banc), as modified by subsequent decisions ("[A]ll claims that law enforcement officers have used excessive force — deadly or not — in the course of an arrest . . . should be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment . . . [b]ecause the Fourth Amendment provides an explicit textual source of constitutional protection against this sort of physically intrusive government conduct. . . ."). Moreover, Davis alleges that the officers squeezed the handcuffs on his wrists so hard that it "cut to though [sic] the skin to the flesh" Objections at 5. Included with his objections to the magistrate judge's findings in this case were photographs revealing that his wrist was still injured on June 18, 1999, two weeks after the allegedly excessive force occurred. Id. at 8; also Adding to Objection on March 23, 2000 (noting abrasion on wrist at time arrest report was made). These allegations — which the court must take as true at this stage — present facts indicating that the defendants may have acted unreasonably. Accordingly, they are not, at this point, entitled to the protections of qualified immunity.
C. Excessive Force
To establish an excessive force claim under the Fourth Amendment, Davis must produce evidence of (1) an injury, which (2) resulted directly and only from the use of force that was clearly excessive to the need, and the excessiveness of which was (3) objectively unreasonable. See Williams v. Bramer, 180 F.3d 699, 703 (5th Cir. 1999) (citing Johnson v. Morel, 876 F.2d 477, 480 (5th Cir. 1989) (en banc), as modified by subsequent decisions). The defendants contend, without elaboration, that Davis "makes no allegation that Defendant used any inappropriate physical force against Plaintiff that caused Plaintiff to suffer a constitutionally cognizable injury." Defendant Steven O'Brien's Motion to Dismiss Under Rule 12(b) and Brief at 4. While the defendants are correct that a prisoner must have suffered more than a de minimis physical injury from the allegedly excessive force to successfully maintain an excessive force claim, there is no categorical requirement that the physical injury be significant, serious, or more than minor. Other factors are also important, including "whether force was applied in a good-faith effort to maintain or restore discipline, or maliciously and sadistically to cause harm." Gomez v. Chandler, 163 F.3d 921, 923 (5th Cir. 1999).
Here, taking Davis's allegations as true — as it must do at this point — this court cannot discount the inference that the officers acted "maliciously and sadistically" to cause Davis harm. Thus, on the limited record before it (and taking Davis's allegations as true), the court concludes that Davis has made sufficient allegations to state a claim for relief under the Fourth Amendment. It necessarily follows that the defendants' arguments — that Davis's claims should be dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6) — must be rejected.
III. CONCLUSION
For the reasons discussed above, the defendants' motions to dismiss are DENIED.
SO ORDERED.