Lucius Wordley v. Officer Pablo San Miguel

Filing

Opinion issued by court as to Appellant Lucius Wordley. Decision: Affirmed. Opinion type: Non-Published. Opinion method: Per Curiam.

Case: 13-11854

Date Filed: 05/23/2014

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 13-11854
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 1:11-cv-23754-PAS

LUCIUS WORDLEY,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
versus
OFFICER PABLO SAN MIGUEL,
Badge #8039-43,
Defendant - Appellee.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
________________________
(May 23, 2014)
Before WILSON, JORDAN and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:

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Lucius Wordley, a state prisoner proceeding pro se, appeals the district
court’s dismissal, on grounds of qualified immunity, of his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 suit
against Metro-Dade Police Officer Pablo San Miguel. Mr. Wordley alleged in his
complaint that Officer San Miguel used excessive force against him during an
arrest, resulting in his broken finger. We affirm.
I. 1
According to Mr. Wordley, on the afternoon of Friday, April 8, 2011, he and
his minor nephew got into a verbal argument at the residence Mr. Wordley shared
with his mother. This argument turned into a physical altercation, prompting Mr.
Wordley to leave the home to avoid any further incidents with his nephew. Mr.
Wordley returned to his residence that same evening around midnight. After he
entered the house, his security alarm company called twice for security checks and
he told them that everything was fine.
Shortly thereafter, Mr. Wordley saw Officer San Miguel—who had been
dispatched to the residence—come around the side of the house, pointing a gun at
him. Using several expletives, Officer San Miguel ordered Mr. Wordley on the
ground. Mr. Wordley complied with Officer San Miguel’s order and told him “that
[he] was down and [he] was not moving.” See D.E. 1 at 9. Officer San Miguel then

1

Unlike the district court, we do not consider the events described in the police reports attached
to Officer San Miguel’s motion to dismiss. Given what Mr. Wordley alleged, we cannot say that
the events referenced in the reports—even if central to Mr. Wordley’s claim—are undisputed.
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placed his knee on the middle of Mr. Wordley’s back and grabbed his left hand and
put it behind his back. Officer San Miguel then reached for Mr. Wordley’s right
hand, but was obstructed by the leg of an adjacent table. Despite Mr. Wordley’s
pleadings for him to stop, Officer San Miguel continued to twist Mr. Wordley’s
left hand while trying to reach his right hand. Mr. Wordley felt “a sharp pain and
heard [his] finger pop” as Officer San Miguel placed the handcuffs on both hands.
See id.
Mr. Wordley was taken to the police station, during which time he
repeatedly requested medical assistance. While at the station, Mr. Wordley asked
Officer San Miguel why he broke his finger, to which Officer San Miguel
responded by telling him to “shut up” and “plac[ing] his hand around [Mr.
Wordley’s] neck in a choking position.” See id. at 10.2 Eventually, another officer
at the station called 9-1-1. The responding paramedics stated that the finger was
likely broken, a diagnosis which was confirmed later at the hospital, where Mr.
Wordley was also informed that surgery would be necessary to repair the broken
finger.
Declining to adopt the magistrate judge’s report, the district court granted
Officer San Miguel’s motion to dismiss with prejudice, concluding that Mr.
Wordley did not meet his burden of establishing that qualified immunity should
2

Mr. Wordley did not make any claims in his complaint regarding the alleged “choking” by
Officer San Miguel.
3

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not apply. Specifically, the district court ruled that Mr. Wordley did not “establish
that case law, at the time of the incident, clearly established that [Officer San
Miguel] was using excessive force,” nor did his complaint “fall within the narrow
exception when there is an absence of case law.” See D.E. 23 at 5-6.
II.
We review de novo a district court’s grant of a motion to dismiss under Rule
12(b)(6), “accepting the allegations in the complaint as true and construing them in
the light most favorable to the plaintiff.” Leib v. Hillsborough Cnty. Pub. Transp.
Comm’n, 558 F.3d 1301, 1305 (11th Cir. 2009). The facts as pleaded must “state a
claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678
(2009) (internal citations omitted).3
Qualified immunity is “an immunity from suit, rather than merely a defense
to liability.” Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526 (1985) (internal emphasis
omitted). It “protects government officials performing discretionary functions from
suits in their individual capacities unless their conduct violates ‘clearly established
statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have
known.’” Andujar v. Rodriguez, 486 F.3d 1199, 1202 (11th Cir. 2007) (citation
omitted). To be entitled to qualified immunity, a defendant must first establish that
he was acting within the scope of his discretionary authority, meaning the
3

As Mr. Wordley is proceeding pro se, his pleadings are liberally construed. See Tannenbaum v.
United States, 148 F.3d 1262, 1263 (11th Cir. 1998).
4

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government employee must have been performing a legitimate job-related
function, or pursuing a job-related goal, through means that were within the
official’s power to utilize. See Mathews v. Crosby, 480 F.3d 1265, 1269 (11th Cir.
2007); Holloman ex rel. Holloman v. Harland, 370 F.3d 1252, 1265 (11th Cir.
2004).
Once the defendant has established that he was acting within his
discretionary authority, “the burden shifts to the plaintiff to show that qualified
immunity is not appropriate,” Mathews, 480 F.3d at 1269, by showing: “(1) the
defendant violated a constitutional right, and (2) this right was clearly established
at the time of the alleged violation.” Holloman, 370 F.3d at 1264. We may
consider these two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis in any order. See
Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236 (2009).
From the record, it is clear that Officer San Miguel was acting within his
discretionary authority in arresting Mr. Wordley after being dispatched to his
home, and Mr. Wordley does not claim that Officer San Miguel lacked probable
cause for the arrest. The burden, therefore, shifts to Mr. Wordley to show that
Officer San Miguel violated a clearly established right by injuring his finger while
twisting his hand to secure handcuffs during the arrest.
Even if Officer San Miguel’s actions did constitute excessive force in
violation of the Fourth Amendment, Mr. Wordley has not shown that the rights
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allegedly deprived were clearly established at the time of the incident. In order to
demonstrate that a right has been clearly established, a plaintiff may: (1) show that
a materially similar case has already been decided; (2) identify a “broader, clearly
established principle [that] should control the novel facts [of the] situation”; or (3)
argue that the conduct at issue so obviously violated the constitution that existing
case law is unnecessary. See Loftus v. Clark-Moore, 690 F.3d 1200, 1204-05 (11th
Cir. 2012). Mr. Wordley has not presented a “materially similar” case which would
put Officer San Miguel on notice that his conduct was unlawful. Understanding the
need to balance the potential intrusion on an individual’s rights against
countervailing governmental interests, “Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has long
recognized that the right to make an arrest or investigatory stop necessarily carries
with it the right to use some degree of physical coercion or threat thereof to effect
it.” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989). “We do not use hindsight to
judge the acts of police officers,” Rodriguez v. Farrell, 280 F.3d 1341, 1351 (11th
Cir. 2002), and “[n]ot every push or shove, even if it may later seem unnecessary
in the peace of a judge’s chambers . . . violates the Fourth Amendment.” Graham,
490 U.S. at 396 (internal citation omitted).
In Rodriguez, the officer’s conduct during an arrest aggravated the plaintiff’s
pre-existing injury, resulting in more than twenty-five subsequent surgeries and the
eventual amputation of the plaintiff’s arm. We held that, despite the gravity of this
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injury, the force used by the officer did not rise to the level of a constitutional
violation because he had used an otherwise “common non-excessive handcuffing
technique,” and had no knowledge of the plaintiff’s pre-existing condition.
Rodriguez, 280 F.3d at 1351. Similarly, here, we carefully consider the
circumstances surrounding the arrest and do not rely solely on an ex post
assessment of the resulting injury. Although unfortunate, Mr. Wordley’s injury
occurred while Officer San Miguel attempted to secure handcuffs during the
normal course of an arrest, and therefore, Officer San Miguel was not put on
notice—particularly in light of Rodriguez—that his actions were potentially
unlawful.
In support of his claim, Mr. Wordley cites to Smith v. Mattox, 127 F.3d 1416
(11th Cir. 1997), a case which helps define the less-than-clear line between
excessive and acceptable force. In Smith, the officer placed his knee on the
plaintiff’s back and pulled his left arm behind his back to secure handcuffs during
an arrest. This put the plaintiff’s forearm into a position that caused him
discomfort. When the plaintiff complained, the officer then, “with a grunt and a
blow,” broke the plaintiff’s arm. Id. at 1418. We found that this was a “very close
case” and the officer’s conduct “barely” reached beyond the “hazy border between
excessive and acceptable force.” Id. at 1419. Specifically, “the grunt and the blow
that [the plaintiff] assert[ed] that he heard and felt while [the officer] was on [the
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plaintiff’s] back, coupled with the severity of [the plaintiff’s] injury, push[ed] this
case over the line.” Id. Although there are some similarities between the facts
alleged by Mr. Wordley and the events in Smith, that case cannot be considered
fair notice to Officer San Miguel. Here, Officer San Miguel’s twisting of Mr.
Wordley’s hand while applying handcuffs during arrest lacks the gratuitous,
separate blow that pushed—just barely—the officer’s actions in Smith over the line
between permissible and prohibited force. See id. Given Rodriguez and Smith, even
if Officer San Miguel’s actions constituted excessive force, the potential
constitutional violation at issue was not clearly established by existing case law at
the time of Mr. Wordley’s arrest.
Nor has Mr. Wordley shown that, even in the absence of case law, Officer
San Miguel’s conduct “lies to so obviously at the very core of what the Fourth
Amendment prohibits that the unlawfulness of the conduct was readily apparent to
[him].” Priester, 208 F.3d at 926. This standard, which “entails determining
whether ‘application of the [excessive force] standard would inevitably lead every
reasonable officer in [the Defendants’] position to conclude the force was
unlawful,’” id. at 926-27 (alterations in original), has not been met here.
III.
We affirm the district court’s order of dismissal based on qualified
immunity.
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AFFIRMED.

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