Joyce Taylor-Williams v. Raymond Rembert, et al

Filing

Opinion issued by court as to Appellant Joyce Taylor-Williams. Decision: Affirmed. Opinion type: Non-Published. Opinion method: Per Curiam. The opinion is also available through the Court's Opinions page at this link http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions.

Case: 17-10961

Date Filed: 10/10/2017

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 17-10961
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 8:16-cv-00087-VMC-MAP

JOYCE TAYLOR-WILLIAMS,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
versus
RAYMOND REMBERT,
Hillsborough County Deputy Sheriff,
BIBLE BASED FELLOWSHIP CHURCH, INC.,
Defendants - Appellees.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
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(October 10, 2017)
Before TJOFLAT, WILLIAM PRYOR, and JORDAN, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:

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Date Filed: 10/10/2017

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Joyce Taylor-Williams appeals the district court’s entry of summary
judgment against her.

Ms. Taylor-Williams sued Deputy Sheriff Raymond

Rembert for false arrest under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and malicious prosecution under
state law. The district court ruled that Officer Rembert was entitled to qualified
immunity on the false-arrest claim, and declined to exercise supplemental
jurisdiction over the state-law claim. Following a review of the record and the
parties’ arguments, we affirm.
I
Ms. Taylor-Williams and her adult daughter, Cliffany, were members of the
Bible Based Fellowship Church until Ms. Taylor-Williams’ daughter accused the
pastor of sexual assault. The church expelled Ms. Taylor-Williams from its ranks,
and banned her from the property. Ms. Taylor-Williams later returned to the
church and was arrested for trespass.
Undeterred, Ms. Taylor-Williams and her daughter returned to the church on
March 25, 2012, with signs to protest. They say they did not step on church
property that day.

Instead, they claim to have protested from either County

property or a privately-owned, neighboring lot. Yet Ms. Taylor-Williams was still
arrested for trespass by Officer Rembert, who worked for the church as an off-duty
police officer.

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Case: 17-10961

The

church

Date Filed: 10/10/2017

comprises

multiple

buildings.

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Before

he

arrested

Ms. Taylor-Williams, Officer Rembert was located at the children’s church, which
is located on the west side of the property. He received a radio call from David
Weaver-Rodgers, an off-duty officer with the Tampa Police Department who also
worked security for the church, and Rodney Allmond, a church employee. They
asked Officer Rembert to go to the “old church,” located in a different part of the
property, “because [Ms. Taylor-Williams] and her daughter were placing signs out
front.” D.E. 48-9 at 10. Officer Rembert was also told that, “[a]s people were
coming in,” Ms. Taylor-Williams and her daughter “were setting up a protest on
the property.” Id.
Officer Rembert responded to the location.

He says he witnessed

Ms. Taylor-Williams placing protest signs on church property. See id. at 12. He
arrested her.
II
We exercise plenary review over a district court’s grant of summary
judgment, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving
party. See Moton v. Cowart, 631 F.3d 1337, 1341 (11th Cir. 2011).
III
Ms. Taylor-Williams raises two arguments on appeal. She first argues that
the district court erroneously adopted Officer Rembert’s version of the facts over

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hers. She also contends that Officer Rembert could not have legally relied on the
observation of Officer Weaver-Rodgers because the latter, as a City of Tampa
police officer, was outside his jurisdiction.

Citing the “fellow officer rule,”

Ms. Taylor-Williams insists that police officers can only rely on the knowledge of
a fellow police officer who is on-duty and within his or her jurisdiction.
Ms. Taylor-Williams’ first argument misses the mark entirely. The district
court accepted the testimony of Ms. Taylor-Williams and her daughter that, though
at a neighboring lot, they never actually stepped foot on church property on the day
of the arrest. That does not mean, however, that Officer Rembert necessarily
lacked arguable probable cause for arrest. “Arguable probable cause exists when
an officer reasonably could have believed that probable cause existed, in light of
the information the officer possessed.” Durruthy v. Pastor, 351 F.3d 1080, 1089
(11th Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks omitted).
The district court reasoned that Officer Rembert had arguable probable to
arrest Ms. Taylor-Williams for criminal trespass because he had been told that she
had just been observed on church property, and because he knew that she had been
given a trespass warning in the past (which made her subsequent trespass
criminal).

See Jones v. Cannon, 174 F.3d 1271, 1283 n.4 (11th Cir. 1999)

(“[W]hat counts for qualified immunity purposes relating to probable cause to
arrest is the information known to the defendant officers . . . at the time of their

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conduct, not the facts known to the plaintiff then or those known to a court later.”).
Given the proximity between the church’s lot and the lot on which
Ms. Taylor-Williams admitted to have protested from, and seeing as there is no
evidence indicating that both Officer Weaver-Rodgers and Mr. Allmond were not
credible, we agree with the district court’s conclusion that Officer Rembert’s
reliance on that tip was reasonable. He therefore had arguable probable cause to
arrest Ms. Taylor-Williams for trespass.
Ms. Taylor-Williams’ second argument is equally unavailing. Under the
“fellow officer rule,” courts impute “the collective knowledge of the investigating
officers to . . . each participating officer.” Terrell v. Smith, 668 F.3d 1244, 1252
(11th Cir. 2012). The rule is a legal fiction that allows one officer to develop
probable cause based on another officer’s observations, even if the first officer
never communicated with the second. See id. 1251–52. The rule is inapplicable in
this case because Officer Rembert directly communicated with sources who told
him they had witnessed Ms. Taylor-Williams trespass.
IV
In sum, Officer Rembert is entitled to qualified immunity because he had
arguable probable cause to arrest Ms. Taylor-Williams for trespass. He reasonably
relied on third-parties who told him they had witnessed the trespass. Because

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Ms. Taylor-Williams failed to contradict that key fact, summary judgment was
appropriate.
AFFIRMED.

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