Bertha BOYD, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Matthew BAEPPLER; David Wilsman, Defendants-Appellants

215 F.3d 594, 2000 U.S. App. LEXIS 12201, 2000 WL 726983
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedJune 6, 2000
Docket99-3234
StatusUnpublished
Cited by152 cases

This text of 215 F.3d 594 (Bertha BOYD, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Matthew BAEPPLER; David Wilsman, Defendants-Appellants) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bertha BOYD, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Matthew BAEPPLER; David Wilsman, Defendants-Appellants, 215 F.3d 594, 2000 U.S. App. LEXIS 12201, 2000 WL 726983 (6th Cir. 2000).

Opinions

WELLFORD, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which BATCHELDER, J., joined. DAUGHTREY, J. (pp. 604-06), delivered a separate dissenting opinion.

OPINION

WELLFORD, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff Bertha Boyd, administratrix of the estate of decedent Adolph Boyd, Jr. (“Boyd”), filed a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against Cleveland police officers Matthew Baeppler and David Wilsman, police chief Rocco Pollutro, and the City of Cleveland, asserting constitutional claims arising out of the shooting death of Boyd. The case was removed from state court to the federal district court. Subsequently, defendants moved for summary judgment, which plaintiff opposed. The district court denied defendants’ motion for summary judgment with respect to officers Baeppler and Wilsman and reserved judgment as to defendants Pollutro and the City of Cleveland, concluding that:

Based upon the evidence presented by plaintiff, the Court finds that genuine issues of fact exist as to whether the amount of force used by the offices was justified.
... A genuine issue of fact exists as to whether it was objectively reasonable to use deadly force where (1) a suspect is running away from the officers in an attempt to escape; (2) the officers did not witness the suspect fire the weapon; and (3) no verified proof exists as to whether the suspect committed a crime.

Defendants had moved for judgment on the accompanying state law claims and the district court indicated that it would not decide the state claims on their merits but would dismiss them without prejudice “upon the resolution of the federal claims.”

I. JURISDICTION

Regarding this court’s jurisdiction over an interlocutory appeal from a denial of summary judgment based on qualified immunity, we recently stated:

A district court’s order denying summary judgment that is based on qualified immunity and turns on an issue of law is immediately appealable as a final judgment under the collateral order doctrine. However, as this court has previously explained, “[ujnder the doctrine of Johnson v. Jones, [515 U.S. 304, 115 S.Ct. 2151, 132 L.Ed.2d 238 (1995),] this court cannot review on interlocutory appeal a district court’s determination that a genuine issue of fact exists for trial, but we retain jurisdiction over the legal question of qualified immunity, i.e., whether a given set of facts violates clearly established law.” We review de novo the district court’s denial of qualified immunity.

Hoard v. Sizemore, 198 F.3d 205, 211 (6th Cir.1999) (citations omitted). Plaintiff contends we lack jurisdiction, because the district court denied summary judgment to defendants on qualified immunity upon finding “that genuine issues of fact exist” as to the use of deadly force. Defendants argue, however, that the “genuine issues of fact, found by the district court are not genuine and material, and that this appeal presents purely legal questions based on essentially uncontroverted material facts.” Specifically, defendants assert that the district court:

erroneously applied a fleeing felon analysis, and misidentified the governmental interest at stake in this self defense case. The facts cited by the District [597]*597Court as precluding summary judgment under its erroneous analysis are not relevant to a self defense inquiry, where the government interests at stake are the lives of police officers. In this regard, Appellants [defendants] do not dispute the facts identified by the District Court as the basis for the denial of summary judgment because those facts are not material to the relevant qualified immunity issues in this case.

We agree, and therefore, as we shall explain, we believe that the district court’s assertion that there were genuine issue of material fact does not destroy the appealability of its qualified immunity ruling under the circumstances set forth.

Denial of summary judgment often includes a determination that there are controverted issues of material fact ... and Johnson surely does not mean that every such denial of summary judgment is nonappealable.
;¡: # & # % *
Johnson permits petitioner to claim on appeal that all of the conduct which the District Court deemed sufficiently supported for purposes of summary judgment met the Harlow [v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982) ] standard of “objective legal reasonableness.”

Turner v. Scott, 119 F.3d 425, 428 (6th Cir.1997) (quoting Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299, 312, 313, 116 S.Ct. 834, 133 L.Ed.2d 773 (1996)). We determined in Turner that we had jurisdiction over purely legal questions despite a district court’s order stating that genuine issues of material fact existed; “[i]f it were otherwise a district court could always insulate its qualified immunity rulings from interlocutory review by mouthing the appropriate shibboleth.” 119 F.3d at 428. Defendants assert that “whether Boyd had committed a crime, fired shots, or was running away are irrelevant to the reasonableness of both Officer Wilsman’s and Office Baep-pler’s reactions to the threats with which they were faced.” Again, we agree. The issues in this case are whether Boyd posed a threat to officers Wilsman and Baeppler and, if so, whether their use of force in response was reasonable. The district court made no finding that there remained in dispute facts material to those issues. Nonetheless, we will review the record to decide whether, as plaintiff maintains, we lack jurisdiction under the district court’s decision, or otherwise, as defendants assert.

Witness, Steve J. Arvai, submitted an affidavit stating that on April 14, 1997, around 11:10 or 11:15 p.m., he heard a gunshot from his home and looked out the window and saw a black male armed and walking west on Buckeye near East 122nd. Arvai stated that the male was about six feet tall, wore a dark blue jacket, blue jeans and white tennis shoes and appeared to be holding a dark colored automatic. Arvai added that he saw the man point the gun at three people outside of Wendy’s but that he then lost sight of him.1 In any event, Arvai promptly called the police operator and reported his observations. This evidence was undisputed.

Defendant police officers Baeppler and Wilsman submitted affidavits to the effect that on the night in question, they were on duty together, Baeppler driving the police car, and that shortly after Arvai’s call, they were called to respond to a “Code One” emergency radio dispatch which indicated that there was a male with a gun in the area of East 120th and Buckeye Road, who met the general description given by Arvai. Defendants- proceeded to the area and Wilsman notified radio headquarters of their arrival.

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Bluebook (online)
215 F.3d 594, 2000 U.S. App. LEXIS 12201, 2000 WL 726983, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bertha-boyd-plaintiff-appellee-v-matthew-baeppler-david-wilsman-ca6-2000.