Carmita Lewis v. Charter Township of Flint

660 F. App'x 339
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedAugust 22, 2016
Docket15-1908
StatusUnpublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 660 F. App'x 339 (Carmita Lewis v. Charter Township of Flint) 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
Carmita Lewis v. Charter Township of Flint, 660 F. App'x 339 (6th Cir. 2016).

Opinions

HELENE N. WHITE, Circuit Judge

Dominique Lewis (Lewis) was killed after Flint Police Officer Matthew Needham (Needham) fired shots into a car Lewis was driving as Lewis attempted to flee a traffic stop. Carmita Lewis, as personal representative of Lewis’s estate (the Estate), brought the instant action against the Charter Township of Flint and Need-ham, alleging violations of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state law. Prior to discovery, Defendants sought summary judgment and qualified immunity, respectively, based on a dashboard-camera video of the incident. In an order following a status conference, the district court declined to rule on the motion at that time and provided the parties sixty days to conduct discovery. Needham appeals; and we AFFIRM.

I.

A.

When Flint Township Police Officer Janelle Stokes (Stokes) stopped Kenisha Williams (Williams) for speeding, Lewis was in the right rear passenger seat of Williams’s vehicle. R. 8: First Am. Compl., PID 40-41; see also Video 00:23-00:32, 01:08-01:11. After asking for Williams’s ■driver’s license and returning to her cruiser, Stokes called for backup to search the vehicle based on her contention that she [341]*341had smelled marijuana inside the vehicle. R. 8 at PID 41. Needham responded and arrived a few minutes later. Id. at PID 41-42. After Williams consented to a search, Stokes patted Williams down and allowed her to take her young daughter out of the back seat. Id. at PID 42; Video at 10:45-11:22. Stokes then conducted a pat down of the front passenger. Video at 11:20-11:38.

The dash-cam video then shows the following. As Stokes pats down the front passenger, who has his hands on the vehicle, Lewis climbs into the driver’s seat; Stokes says, “Hey hold up,” and Need-ham—coming into the video’s view from the adjacent grass—approaches the car from the passenger side. Video at 11:38— 11:41. Lewis then starts the car; at the same time, Needham runs towards then across the front of the vehicle, stopping directly in front of the driver’s side and appearing to have his gun drawn and pointed at Lewis.1 Id. at 11:41-11:45. Lewis accelerates the car forward; the wheels can be heard screeching. Id. at 11:45. When the vehicle accelerates, Needham appears to scurry a few steps to his right to get out of the vehicle’s path, lowering his weapon and placing an arm on the car as he does so. Id. at 11:45-46. The car comes very close to Needham, but does not appear to hit him. Id. at 11:45-11:46. As the car passes Needham he shoots into the driver’s side window. Id. at 11:46-47. Two shots can be heard on the video. Id. The car then veers sharply left. Id. at 11:47-11:48. Lewis died as a result of gunshot wounds. R. 8 at PID 43.

This incident occurred on a three-lane road with no buildings in sight and light to moderate traffic. See generally Video. The video shows approximately four to five other cars in the vicinity as Lewis attempts to drive away. Id. at 11:45-11:48.

B.

The Estate filed an amended complaint on May 14, 2015. On June 30, 2015, prior to discovery, Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment and a motion to stay the proceedings pending resolution of the summary judgment motion. Defendants argued discovery was not necessary because the dash-cam video showed Needham was entitled to qualified immunity as a matter of law. The Estate did not respond to these motions. However, on July 21, 2015—the deadline for the Estate’s response—the district court held a status conference. Following this conference, the district court issued an order declining to rule on Defendants’ motion for summary judgment, denying the motion to stay without prejudice, and permitting the parties to conduct discovery for sixty days. Needham then filed this interlocutory appeal.2

II.

The denial of summary judgment generally is “not a ‘final order’” that may be immediately appealed. Chappell v. City of Cleveland, 585 F.3d 901, 905 (6th Cir. 2009); see also 28 U.S.C. § 1291. However, “to the extent that it turns on an issue of law,” a public official may immediately appeal the denial of qualified immunity. Quigley v. Tuong Vinh Thai, 707 F.3d 675, 679 (6th Cir. 2013) (quoting Estate of Carter v. City of Detroit, 408 F.3d 305, 309 (6th Cir. 2005)). “Because we do not have jurisdiction over factual issues, ‘a defendant must concede the most favorable view [342]*342of the facts to the plaintiff for purposes of the appeal.’ ” Id. at 680 (quoting Estate of Carter, 408 F.3d at 309-10). Needham concedes the facts in the complaint for purposes of appeal to the extent they are not contradicted by the dash-cam video, and argues that based on the undisputed facts as shown in the video, he is entitled to qualified immunity. Thus, we have jurisdiction to consider this question of law.

Further, although the district court did not formally deny the motion, we have previously found that a “district court’s refusal to address the merits of the defendant’s motion asserting qualified immunity constitutes a conclusive determination for the purposes of allowing an interlocutory appeal.” Summers v. Leis, 368 F.3d 881, 887 (6th Cir. 2004).

III.

We review de novo a district court’s determination that a defendant is not entitled to qualified immunity. Foster v. Patrick, 806 F.3d 883, 886 (6th Cir. 2015). Although the plaintiff “bears the burden of demonstrating that [the defendant] is not entitled to qualified immunity,” id. “we view the facts and any inferences reasonably drawn from them in the light most favorable to” the plaintiff, Martin v. City of Broadview Heights, 712 F.3d 951, 957 (6th Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Griffith v. Coburn, 473 F.3d 650, 655 (6th Cir. 2007)).

IV.

Qualified immunity shields “government officials ‘from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.’ ” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231, 129 S.Ct. 808, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982)). To demonstrate that an official is not entitled to qualified immunity, a plaintiff “must show both that, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to her, a constitutional right was violated and that the right was clearly established at the time of the violation.” Chappell, 585 F.3d at 907.

A. Constitutional Violation

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Bluebook (online)
660 F. App'x 339, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/carmita-lewis-v-charter-township-of-flint-ca6-2016.