Smith v. Mothershed, et al.
Filing
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MEMORANDUM. Signed by Judge William M Nickerson on 8/21/13. (hmls, Deputy Clerk)
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND
ANTOINE SMITH
v.
OFFICER JEREMY MOTHERSHED
et al.
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Civil Action No. WMN-12-3215
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MEMORANDUM
Before the Court is Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss, ECF No.
8.1
The motion is ripe.
Upon a review of the pleadings, the
papers, and the applicable law, the Court determines (1) that no
hearing is necessary, Local Rule 105.6, and (2) that the motion
will be granted, in part, and denied, in part.
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Plaintiff, Antoine Smith, brings this action against
Officer Jeremy Mothershed, Sergeant Donald Gividen, Deputy
Ronald Dawson, and Officer Charles Blessing (collectively
“Defendants”), all of whom are employed by the Harford County
Sheriff’s Office.
Plaintiff alleges that Defendants are liable
for tort and constitutional claims stemming from an incident
1
Also before the Court is a Motion for Leave to Amend the
Complaint, ECF No. 9, to which Defendants have consented, ECF
No. 11. The motion will be granted.
that occurred on November 1, 2009, at Tully’s Bar in Harford
County, Maryland.
Plaintiff alleges the following facts in his Amended
Complaint.
Plaintiff was leaving the bar with friends when
their vehicle was stopped by two officers who have not been
named as Defendants.
Am. Compl. ¶¶ 6-8.
Plaintiff, who was
sitting in the back seat of the car, was asked to step outside
the vehicle, but was not familiar with the locks in the car, and
could not determine how to unlock the door.
forced Plaintiff from the vehicle.
Defendants then
Am. Compl. ¶¶ 8-10.
In his opposition to the Motion to Dismiss, Plaintiff
provides additional detail by stating that the officers “broke
the windows to the position where Plaintiff was seated and
several of them (specifically Defendants Gividen and Mothershed)
pulled Plaintiff through the window as he was yelling to the
crowd for help as he was being cut by glass and excessively
yanked and thrown to the ground.”
ECF No. 10 at 1.
Plaintiff
was then placed in handcuffs while he was on the ground and,
despite screaming to the officers that they were hurting him,
Am. Compl. at ¶¶ 10-13.
Defendants beat and tasered him.
In
addition, Plaintiff alleges that while he was handcuffed,
Defendants deployed a K-9 towards him, which they caused to bite
a “large chunk of flesh from his leg.”
10 at 2.
2
Am. Compl. ¶ 14; ECF No.
Plaintiff further alleges that Defendants maliciously
charged him with certain criminal offenses including resisting
arrest and assault.
Id. at ¶¶ 15, 24.
He asserts that
Defendants did not have probable cause to support the criminal
charges because they knew that he did not commit the offenses
with which he was charged.
Id. at ¶ 23.
Ultimately, Plaintiff
reached an agreement with the State whereby he pleaded guilty to
disorderly conduct in exchange for the other charges being
dropped.
The Circuit Court for Harford County granted Plaintiff
probation before judgment.
ECF No. 8-2 (Transcript of
Proceedings, State v. Smith, No. 12-K-10-068 (Cir. Ct. Harford
Cnty. Sept. 27, 2011)).
Plaintiff filed notice of his claim against Defendants with
the Maryland State Treasurer within one year of the incident
pursuant to the Maryland Torts Claims Act (MTCA), Md. Code Ann.,
State Gov’t §§ 12-101 – 12-110.2
Id. at ¶¶ 15-16, 21-24.
In his
2
Section 12-106(b)(1) of the MTCA states that a claim against
State personnel may only proceed when the “claimant submits a
written claim to the Treasurer or a designee of the Treasurer
within 1 year after the injury to person or property that is the
basis of the claim.” Defendants moved to dismiss arguing that
Plaintiff failed to allege compliance with this requirement.
Plaintiff has amended his Complaint to make the appropriate
allegation, see Am. Compl. ¶ 16, and Defendants appear to have
dropped their argument for dismissal based on this issue in that
they failed to renew it in their reply briefing. This entire
issue may be a moot point, however, based on the Court’s
determination that Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint states claims
against Defendants in their personal capacities. See infra note
5.
3
Amended Complaint, Plaintiff asserts eight causes of action
against the Defendants:3 Count I, False Imprisonment; Count II,
Malicious Prosecution; Count III, violation of Article 26 of the
Maryland Declaration of Rights; Count IV, Battery; Count V,
False Arrest; Count VI, violation of Article 24 of the Maryland
Declaration of Rights; Count VII, violation of the Fourth and
Fourteenth Amendments pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983; and, Count
VIII, Gross Negligence.
II. LEGAL STANDARD
Defendants move to dismiss the Complaint pursuant to
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).
“The purpose of a
Rule 12(b)(6) motion is to test the sufficiency of a complaint.”
Edwards v. City of Goldsboro, 178 F.3d 231, 243 (4th Cir. 1999).
To survive a motion to dismiss, the complaint must contain
sufficient factual allegations that “state a claim of relief
that is plausible on its face.”
Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550
U.S. 544, 570 (2007).
A complaint states a plausible claim for relief when it
“allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the
defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.”
Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009).
Ashcroft v.
When reviewing a motion to
3
Plaintiff requests $600,000.00 in compensatory damages and
$3,000,000.00 in punitive damages.
4
dismiss, all factual allegations must be accepted as true and
viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.
Brockington v. Boykins, 637 F.3d 503, 505 (4th Cir. 2011).
The
court, however, is “not bound to accept as true a legal
conclusion couched as a factual allegation.”
at 555.
Twombly, 550 U.S.
Evaluating whether a claim is plausible on its face is
a “context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to
draw on its judicial experience and common sense.”
Iqbal, 556
U.S. at 679.
III. DISCUSSION
Defendants assert that various immunities bar Plaintiff’s
action.
In addition, they argue that the doctrines of
collateral estoppel and res judicata bar Plaintiff’s false
imprisonment and malicious prosecution claim.
Finally, in the
event that one or more of Plaintiff’s state law claims are not
dismissed, Defendants argue that his prayer for punitive damages
should be stricken.4
4
Some of Defendants’ arguments rest on materials they have
submitted with the motion. As such, they address issues beyond
the four corners of Plaintiff’s complaint and the Court believes
that Plaintiff should have the benefit of discovery before
answering them. Thus, despite Defendants’ implicit invitation
to do so, the Court will not exercise its discretion to convert
the motion to dismiss to one for summary judgment.
5
A. Defendants’ Claims of Immunity
Defendants assert qualified immunity as a defense to
Plaintiff’s § 1983 claim.
They also argue that they are immune
from Plaintiff’s state law claims, based on Maryland common law
qualified immunity and statutory immunity.5
1. Qualified Immunity for Federal Claims
Defendants move to dismiss Plaintiff’s § 1983 claim based
on the doctrine of qualified immunity.
“Qualified immunity
shields government officials performing discretionary functions
from personal-capacity liability for civil damages under § 1983,
‘insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established
statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person
would have known.’”
Ridpath v. Bd. of Governors Marshall Univ.,
447 F.3d 292, 306 (4th Cir. 2006) (quoting Wilson v. Layne, 526
5
When evaluating a defendant’s claim of immunity, it is
necessary to consider whether the plaintiff has stated claims
against the defendant in his personal or his official capacity.
See Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159, 165-68 (1985) (explaining
that an official capacity suit is simply another way of pleading
an action against the state and that the only immunities that
can be claimed are forms of sovereign immunity whereas in a
personal capacity action a defendant may be able to assert
personal immunity defenses such as qualified immunity). Here,
Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint does not specify the capacity in
which he seeks to sue Defendants. In his opposition, however,
he states that he “intends to sue the Defendants in their
individual capacity.” ECF No. 10 at 5. This appears to be
consistent with the other indicia of capacity in Plaintiff’s
Amended Complaint. See Biggs v. Meadows, 66 F.3d 56, 61 (4th
Cir. 1995). The Court will thus construe Plaintiff’s Amended
Complaint as being brought against Defendants’ in their
individual capacities.
6
U.S. 603, 609 (1999)).
An official is not entitled to qualified
immunity, however, when (1) “the allegations underlying the
plaintiff’s claim, if true, substantiate the violation of a
federal statutory or constitutional right;” and (2) “this
violation was of a ‘clearly established’ right ‘of which a
reasonable person would have known.’”
Ridpath, 447 F.3d at 306
(quoting Mellen v. Bunting, 327 F.3d 355, 365 (4th Cir. 2003)).
While immunity issues should be resolved at the earliest stage
of the litigation as possible, in some cases it may not be
possible to resolve a defendant’s claim of immunity without
discovery.
DiMeglio v. Haines, 45 F.3d 790, 795 (4th Cir. 1995)
(”In instances where there is a material dispute over what the
defendant did, and under the plaintiff’s version of the events
the defendant would have, but under the defendant’s version of
events he would not have, violated clearly established law, it
may be that the qualified immunity question cannot be resolved
without discovery.”).
Here, Defendants argue that all actions
taken to detain Plaintiff were necessary and reasonable under
the circumstances.
In addition, Defendants argue that
Plaintiff’s claims7 do not meet the two-prong test that provides
an exception to their asserted defense.
7
Although neither the Amended Complaint nor the Motion to
Dismiss explicitly use the phrases “unlawful seizure” and
“excessive force” for violation of the Fourth Amendment, the
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a. Unlawful Seizure
“There is no cause of action for false arrest under section
1983 unless the arresting officer lacked probable cause.” Street
v. Surdyka, 492 F.2d 368, 372-73 (4th Cir. 1974).
Here,
Plaintiff alleges that “Defendant(s) arrested Plaintiff(s)
without probable cause” and “Defendants arrested Plaintiff
without legal justification.”
Compl. ¶¶ 34-35.
Defendants
clearly dispute this allegation as a matter of fact and argue
that they are entitled to qualified immunity because they had
probable cause to arrest him.
See ECF No. 8-1 at 8.
Because
Plaintiff has not had the opportunity to conduct any discovery,
however, the Court will not dismiss Plaintiff’s claim at this
stage based on qualified immunity.
b. Excessive Force
Defendants also argue that they are entitled to qualified
immunity on Plaintiff’s § 1983 excessive force claim.
To state
a § 1983 claim for excessive force a plaintiff must allege that
the force used to affect his seizure was unreasonable under the
circumstances.
Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989).
Determining whether the amount of force used to seize a person
was reasonable “requires a careful balancing of ‘the nature and
quality of the intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment
Court infers, based on Plaintiff’s other allegations, that he
seeks to allege both unlawful seizure and excessive force.
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interests’ against the countervailing governmental interests at
stake.”
Id. (quoting Tennessee v. Garner, 471, U.S. 1, 8
(1985)).
The relevant inquiry is “whether the officers’ actions
are ‘objectively reasonable’ in light of the facts and
circumstances confronting them, without regard to their
underlying intent or motivation.” Id. at 397.
Taking all of Plaintiff’s factual allegations as true, the
Court finds that he has properly alleged a claim for excessive
force.
Plaintiff alleges that Defendants pulled him through a
broken car window and once he was removed from the car
handcuffed on the ground, he was beaten, tasered, and bitten by
a K-9.
These facts would support a finding that the amount of
force Defendants used to arrest him was unreasonable under the
circumstances.
See Waterman, 393 F.3d at 481 (“Force justified
at the beginning of an encounter is not justified even seconds
later if the justification for the initial force has been
eliminated.”); Vathekan v. Prince George’s Cnty, 154 F.3d 173,
178 (4th Cir. 1998) (holding that “[a]n attack by an
unreasonably deployed police dog in the course of a seizure is a
Fourth Amendment excessive force violation”); Spell v. McDaniel,
824 F.2d 1380 (4th Cir. 1987) (holding that officer used
excessive force when violently kneeing the handcuffed detainee
in the groin).
Therefore, at this stage, Defendants are not
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entitled to qualified immunity on Plaintiff’s § 1983 excessive
force claim.
3. Maryland Common Law Public Official Immunity
Under Maryland common law, public official immunity shields
officers from liability for negligent acts performed in the
course of their discretionary duties.
A.2d 223, 227 (Md. 2010).
Houghton v. Forrest, 989
It does not apply to intentional
torts or constitutional torts.
Johnson v. Prince George’s Cnty,
Md., No. 10-0582, 2011 WL 806448, at *7 (D. Md. May 17, 2012).
Here, Plaintiff has not stated a claim for negligence.
Therefore, common law qualified immunity under Maryland law does
not apply in this case.
4. Maryland Statutory Immunity
Defendants also claim that they are entitled to statutory
immunity.
Under Maryland law, State personnel11 are provided
with statutory immunity for both negligent and intentional
torts, McDaniel v. Arnold, 898 F. Supp. 2d 809, 849 (D. Md.
2012), when the “tortious act or omission that is within the
scope of the public duties of the State personnel and is made
11
Section 12-101(a)(6) of the MTCA includes “a sheriff or deputy
sheriff of a county or Baltimore City” in the definition of
“State personnel.” In this case, Defendants are officers of the
Harford County Sheriff’s Office and thus are within the scope of
State personnel who are immune from liability in certain
circumstances. See State v. Card, 656 A.2d 400, 402 (Md. Ct.
Spec. App. 1995) (holding that sheriffs and deputies fall within
the scope of statutory immunity).
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without malice or gross negligence.”12
Jud. Proc. § 5-522(b).
Md. Code Ann., Cts. &
Malice in this context “has an ‘actual
malice’ meaning, and requires a determination of whether the
arresting officer’s ‘conduct, given all of the existing and
antecedent circumstances, was motivated by ill will, [or] by an
improper motive . . . . [T]hat motive or animus may exist even
when the conduct is objectively reasonable.’” 762 A.2d 172, 189
(Md. Ct. Spec. App. 2000) (quoting Shoemaker v. Smith, 725 A.2d
549, 560 (Md. 1999)), cert. denied 768 A.2d 55 (Md. 2001).
Gross negligence, on the other hand, is “an intentional failure
to perform a manifest duty in reckless disregard of the
consequences as affecting the life or property of another, and
also implies a thoughtless disregard of the consequences without
the exertion of any effort to avoid them.”
Taylor v. Harford
Cnty Dept. of Social Servs., 862 A.2d 1026, 1035 (Md. 2004)
(quoting Romanesk v. Rose, 237 A.2d 12 (Md. 1968)); see also
McDaniel, 898 F. Supp. 2d at 849.
Defendants argue that they are entitled to immunity because
Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint lacks allegations of malice and
the conclusory allegations of gross negligence are insufficient
to state a claim.
disagrees.
ECF No. 8, at 8-12, 16-18.
The Court
Plaintiff’s allegations that Defendants forced him
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The parties agree that Defendants were acting within the scope
of their employment. Am. Compl. ¶ 5; ECF No. 8, at 10.
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from the car and then when he was on the ground and handcuffed,
beat him, tasered him, and caused a K-9 to bite a large piece of
flesh from his leg, Am. Compl. ¶¶ 10-14, are sufficient to
support a finding that Defendants acted with malice or gross
negligence.
See Bixler v. Harris, No. 12-1650, 2013 WL 2422892,
at *9 (D. Md. June 3, 2012) (finding sufficient allegations of
malice where the plaintiff alleged that he was punched, thrown,
and beat by officers who also broke his sunglasses and cell
phone);
Okwa, 757 A.2d at 129 (denying the defendants’ motion
for summary judgment where the plaintiff claimed that the
defendants acted with malice which was supported by allegations
that officers roughly dragged him, hit him in the head and the
neck, and twisted his handcuffed thumbs).
Therefore,
Defendants’ claim to statutory immunity will be denied.
B. Collateral Estoppel and Res Judicata
Defendants argue that Plaintiff’s false imprisonment and
malicious prosecution claims should be dismissed under the
doctrine of collateral estoppel or res judicata.
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ECF No. 8, at
They argue that Plaintiff’s plea of guilty to the charge
of disorderly conduct demonstrates that Defendants had probable
cause for his arrest and prosecution and that the issue should
not be relitigated here.
The doctrines of collateral estoppel and res judicata are
affirmative defenses that are “varieties of preclusion.”
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Haskins v. Hawk, No. 11-2000, 2013 WL 1314194, at *27 (D. Md.
Mar. 29, 2013).
“Under res judicata, a final judgment on the
merits of an action precludes the parties or their privies from
relitigating issues that were or could have been raised in that
action.” Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 94 (1980).
Maryland law
applies the three traditional elements of res judicata:
(1) The parties in the present litigation should be
the same or in privity with the parties to the earlier
case;
(2) The second suit must present the same cause of
action or claim as the first; and
(3) In the first suit there must have been a valid
final judgment on the merits by a court of competent
jurisdiction.
Colandrea, 761 A.2d at 908.
“Under collateral estoppel, once a court has decided an
issue of fact or law necessary to its judgment, that decision
may preclude relitigation of the issue in a suit on a different
cause of action involving a party to the first case.” Allen, 449
U.S. at 94.
Maryland law applies a four-part test to determine
if collateral estoppel precludes the relitigation of issues that
were previously decided:
(1) Was the issue decided in the prior adjudication
identical with the one presented in the action in
question?
(2) Was there a final judgment on the merits?
(3) Was the party against whom the plea is asserted a
party or in privity with a party to the prior
adjudication?
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(4) Was the party against whom the plea is asserted
given a fair opportunity to be heard on the issue?
Colandrea, 761 A.2d at 909.
Neither doctrine applies here because the trial court
granted Plaintiff probation before judgment and the law is clear
that probation before judgment is not a final judgment on the
merits.
Powell v. Md. Aviation Admin., 647 A.2d 437, 440-41
(Md. 1994); State v. Hannah, 514 A.2d 16, 21 (Md. 1986).
The
Court will, therefore, not dismiss Plaintiff’s claims for false
imprisonment and malicious prosecution on the basis of res
judicata or collateral estoppel.
In addition, Defendant’s arguments regarding collateral
estoppel fail because “collateral estoppel cannot apply when the
party against whom the earlier decision is asserted did not have
a ‘full and fair opportunity’ to litigate that issue in the
earlier case.”
Allen, 449 U.S. at 95.
This issue is of
particular importance where, as here, Defendants are seeking to
use Plaintiff’s guilty plea against him.
In Federal Insurance
Co. v. Edenbaum, this Court noted:
When a plea of guilty has been entered in the prior
action, no issues have been drawn into controversy by
a full presentation of the case. It may reflect only
a compromise or belief that paying a fine is more
advantageous than litigation. Considerations of
fairness to civil litigants and regard for the
expeditious administration of criminal justice . . .
combine to prohibit the application of collateral
estoppel against a party who, having pleaded guilty to
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a criminal charge, seeks for the first time to
litigate his cause in a civil action.
No. JKS 12-410, 2012 WL 2803739, at *3 (D. Md. July 9, 2012)
(quoting Brohawn v. Transamerica Insurance Co., 347 A.2d 842,
848 (Md. 1975) (internal quotations and citations omitted)).
In
this case, it is likely that Plaintiff pleaded guilty to
disorderly conduct to avoid litigating the other more serious
charges.
C. Punitive Damages
Defendants argue that Plaintiff’s demands for punitive
damages under his state law claims should be dismissed because
the State has not waived its immunity for punitive damages.
Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc., § 5-522(a)(1).
Md.
The Court,
however, has found that Plaintiff’s claims are brought against
Defendants in their personal capacities, supra, note 5, and thus
Defendants’ point is moot.
Under Maryland law, punitive damages are limited to
circumstances where the defendant has acted with actual malice.
French v. Hines, 957 A.2d 1000, 1027 (Md. 2008).
As already
noted, gross negligence is different from actual malice.
Therefore, the Court will strike Plaintiff’s request for
punitive damages under his gross negligence claim.
957 A.2d at 1027.
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See Hines,
IV. CONCLUSION
For the above-stated reasons, Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss
will be granted, in part, and denied, in part.
A separate order will issue.
_________________/s/______________
William M. Nickerson
Senior United States District Judge
August 21, 2013
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