David Zokaites v. City of Sioux Falls

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
• Decided: May 20, 2021
• Docket: 20-3338
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit ___________________________

No. 20-3338 ___________________________

David Zokaites

lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellant

v.

City of Sioux Falls

lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant - Appellee ____________

Appeal from United States District Court for the District of South Dakota - Southern ____________

Submitted: May 16, 2021 Filed: May 20, 2021 [Unpublished] ____________

Before LOKEN, MELLOY, and KOBES, Circuit Judges. ____________

PER CURIAM.

David Zokaites appeals the district court’s1 adverse grant of summary judgment in his pro se 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action. Upon de novo review, see Thiel v. Korte, 954

1 The Honorable Karen E. Schreier, United States District Judge for the District of South Dakota. F.3d 1125, 1128 (8th Cir. 2020) (standard of review), we affirm. We agree with the district court that Zokaites failed to establish a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the city had a policy or custom that caused the alleged constitutional violations, as required to hold the city liable. See Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 690-92 (1978) (plaintiff seeking to hold local government liable under § 1983 must establish official policy, custom, or practice of unconstitutional conduct that caused deprivation of constitutional rights); Thiel, 954 F.3d at 1129 (summary judgment for county was proper where plaintiff failed to provide evidence of municipal custom that led to constitutional violation); Carter v. Morris, 164 F.3d 215, 218 (4th Cir. 1999) (challenged policy or custom cannot merely be abstract one of violating citizens’ constitutional rights, and plaintiff cannot rely upon scattershot accusations of unrelated constitutional violations to prove that municipality was moving force behind his deprivation). We find no abuse of discretion in the district court’s rulings on the parties’ discovery motions, see Bucklew v. Precythe, 883 F.3d 1087, 1096 (8th Cir. 2018) (discovery rulings are reviewed narrowly for gross abuse of discretion), or on Zokaites’s motion to amend his complaint and his post-judgment motion, see U.S. ex rel. Raynor v. Nat’l Rural Utils. Co-op Fin., Corp., 690 F.3d 951, 958 (8th Cir. 2012) (no abuse of discretion in denying leave to amend when plaintiff has not submitted proposed amended pleading in accord with local procedural rule); Miller v. Baker Implement Co., 439 F.3d 407, 414 (8th Cir. 2006) (abuse of discretion review of denial of Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) and 60(b) motions).

The judgment is affirmed. See 8th Cir. R. 47B. We deny Zokaites’s pending motions. ______________________________

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