Catledge v. City of Chicago

666 F. App'x 558
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedDecember 13, 2016
DocketNo. 16-1096
StatusPublished

This text of 666 F. App'x 558 (Catledge v. City of Chicago) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Catledge v. City of Chicago, 666 F. App'x 558 (7th Cir. 2016).

Opinion

ORDER

This suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the City of Chicago and three of its police officers was previously before us. In August 2008 the plaintiff, Lee Catledge, was sitting in his parked car holding a video camera when a woman saw him and called police. The 911 operator wrote in the call log that a black male in his late forties was sitting in his parked car with a video camera “taping females” and had been there daily. Several officers responded and detained Catledge, and two of the named defendants, Dale Martin and Danielle Kap-pel, searched his car without consent before releasing Catledge. He sued, claiming that the police did not have justification to detain him or probable cause to search his car. The district court initially dismissed the suit sua sponte with the explanation that Catledge did not state a Fourth Amendment claim against any defendant. After we overturned that ruling, see Catledge v. City of Chicago, 428 Fed.Appx. 646 (7th Cir. 2011), the district court granted the City’s motion to dismiss on the ground that Catledge had not attributed the actions of the individual officers to a municipal custom or policy. See Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs. of City of N.Y., 436 U.S. 658, 694, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978). The court then granted summary judgment for the three officers. The court first reasoned that undisputed evidence establishes that Martin, Kappel, and the third officer, Russell McKnight (who did not help search Catledge’s car), had reasonable suspicion to detain Catledge. The court then concluded that, although Martin and Kappel did not have probable cause to search, a jury could not reasonably find that they knew that probable cause was lacking, and, thus, these officers are protected by qualified immunity. Only this last conclusion is challenged by Cat-ledge on appeal, so we need not say more about his Monell claim or his claim that he was detained without reasonable suspicion. On this record, however, we conclude that a jury reasonably could decide that Martin and Kappel knew they lacked probable cause to search Catledge’s car.

Our review is de novo, and we evaluate the evidence in the light most favorable to Catledge. See Payne v. Pauley, 337 F.3d 767, 770 (7th Cir. 2003). At summary judgment the defendants principally relied upon Catledge’s complaint and deposition, [560]*560along with affidavits from McKnight and a City employee who handles 911 call records. (At summary judgment, both of the officers who searched Catledge’s car stayed silent. Martin did not submit an affidavit or other form of testimony giving his version of the story. And throughout the litigation, Kappel insisted that she did not recall encountering Catledge or participating in the search of his car, though her involvement is not disputed for purposes of summary judgment.)

McKnight and the City employee, in contrast with the 911 operator’s terse log entry, testified by affidavit that the caller had reported that she and other women were being videotaped by the man in the parked car. The police department dispatched McKnight, a uniformed officer working alone, and the two other defendants, Martin and Kappel, who were in plainclothes and riding together. McKnight, who arrived first, testified that he saw Catledge’s car parked at the corner and noticed that the occupant matched the 911 caller’s description. He parked with the lights on his ATV still flashing and approached Catledge “to conduct an investigatory stop.” (When deposed, Catledge explained that he worked for a messenger service and often parked on that corner while waiting to be dispatched because parking there was free. A placard in the windshield identified the messenger company by name and by its state Commerce Department registration number.)

According to McKnight, after he told Catledge about the 911 call, the plaintiff responded that he had a video camera but it was broken and he was not using it to film women. Rather, Catledge explained to McKnight, he had been pointing the broken camera at a hovering helicopter. In his deposition Catledge explained that he had seen the same helicopter over his house, and, afraid that it was following him, tried to scare it away by pretending to film it. McKnight conceded that another officer then examined Catledge’s camera and verified that it was broken.

In his affidavit McKnight says nothing at all about the search of Catledge’s car. In fact, all of the details about the search come from Catledge’s testimony, much of which the defendants adopted. In their motion for summary judgment, the defendants acknowledge that two of them (presumably Martin and Kappel) searched the car and Catledge’s computer bag, even though they now knew that his camera was broken. All they found were “wires, plugs, and batteries,” which Catledge explained were for the video camera and his computer. Martin and Kappel then departed temporarily, but when they returned a few minutes later they searched Catledge’s car again.

In opposing the motion for summary judgment, Catledge relied on the evidence submitted by the defendants, along with police attendance logs establishing Kap-pel’s presence on the day of the incident. (Although Catledge’s response did not conform to Local Rule 56.1, the district court opted against rigorously applying that rule and instead considered Catledge’s additional factual representations to the extent they are “material and properly supported.” We do the same.) Catledge noted that the City employee—whose affidavit purports to rely on the 911 operator’s call summary—exaggerates that document by asserting that the 911 caller had said that she was being videotaped and that the occupant of the car had been videotaping women every, day. Catledge also augmented the defendants’ account of the search. In his deposition Catledge had described how Martin and Kappel began searching his car without even saying a word to him. They ransacked the entire car, his toolbox, and several other bags including the com[561]*561puter bag (where they found the cables and batteries), and dumped his belongings onto the street. They then left, he agreed, before returning and searching the car a second time.

Catledge also testified at his deposition that throughout the encounter he had asked the police officers what was going on but was told nothing and treated with disdain. When he asked why his car was being searched without a warrant, one officer retorted that Catledge would want them to investigate if someone had filmed his mother. Kappel, he said, had called him a “sick creep.” Another officer said that “the Patriot Act” allowed them to search the car.

As noted, Catledge no longer claims that the investigatory stop was unlawful, but he continues to insist that Martin and Kappel can be held liable for searching his car. Those defendants, in contrast, continue to insist that they had probable cause to conduct a warrantless search based on the automobile exception. That exception allows police to search a vehicle if they have probable cause to believe that evidence of a crime or contraband is inside. Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, 347, 129 S.Ct. 1710, 173 L.Ed.2d 485 (2009); United States v. Edwards, 769 F.3d 509, 511 (7th Cir. 2014).

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666 F. App'x 558, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/catledge-v-city-of-chicago-ca7-2016.