D.D. v. James Scheeler

645 F. App'x 418
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedApril 14, 2016
Docket15-3294
StatusUnpublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 645 F. App'x 418 (D.D. v. James Scheeler) 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
D.D. v. James Scheeler, 645 F. App'x 418 (6th Cir. 2016).

Opinions

JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge.

James Scheeler (Scheeler), a police officer with the Springfield Township Police Department, challenges the district court’s denial of his motion for summary judgment on the false arrest claim plaintiff D.D. brought on behalf of his daughter, S.D. Scheeler argues for the first time on appeal that the facts establish he had probable cause to arrest S.D. and is therefore entitled to qualified immunity. We proceed to consider the merits of this claim because its resolution will materially advance the progress of the case. Considering the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, Scheeler’s arrest of S.D. lacked probable cause and was objectively unreasonable.

I.

On July 28, 2012, then-fourteen-year-old plaintiff S.D. was attending a church festi[420]*420val with her Mend Dana Dawson (Dawson). That night, a fistfíght between two boys broke out, and police officers at the festival made an “Officer Needs Assistance” call. Scheeler, on patrol for the Springfield Township Police Department at the time, was among the officers who responded. He arrived at approximately 11:00 P.M. and saw a large crowd containing numerous groups of teenagers.

S.D. recognized one of the boys involved in the fight, and after the police broke it up, she approached a group of officers to tell them what she had witnessed. Because the officers did not listen to her and seemed more focused on getting the two girls to leave the festival, S.D. became irritated. The responding officers, including Scheeler, began walking behind the crowd and asking the festivalgoers to move toward the church parking lot exit.

Scheeler and S.D. disagree about the circumstances of their interaction, Scheeler testified at his deposition that he first encountered S.D. while performing crowd control measures. He noticed that the group she was with was talking loudly and not exiting like the other groups. S.D. drew Scheeler’s attention because she was being loud and using vulgar language. He instructed her three or four times to leave the festival, while she continued to use vulgar language and ultimately refused to exit. According to Scheeler, S.D. “was having a three-year-old'temper tantrum in the middle of the festival ... causing people to stop and watch, which hindered the rest of the people in the festival from leaving.” R, 21, Scheeler Dep., Page ID 536-37. After advising S.D. that if she did not leave the festival she would be arrested for disorderly conduct, Scheeler arrested her.

S.D., however, testified that when she approached the group of officers to tell them what she had seen, Scheeler instructed her to leave that area. She began walking away, and Scheeler followed her and Dawson. As she was walking away, S.D. may have said something to Dawson along the lines of “fuck the police,” or called the police “useless” or “idiots,” but S.D. does not remember whether she was being loud. R. 16, Dep. of S.D., Page ID 170-71. Dawson testified that S.D. was speaking to her and that she did not believe S.D. was speaking loudly enough for Scheeler to hear her. Though S.D. was leaving the festival as instructed, she stopped right before the exit in order to call her sister in order to take her sister home. Scheeler told S.D. to leave, and she said she couldn’t until she reached her sister, though she said she was willing to leave as soon as her sister was with her. Scheeler twice asked S.D. to give him her phone and said that he was going to break it if she did not give it to him. He then knocked S.D.’s phone out of her hand, grabbed her left wrist, and put her in his police cruiser. Dawson’s deposition testimony corroborates the sequence of events involving the phone, S.D.’s explanation regarding her sister, and the arrest.

S.D. was arrested for disorderly conduct in violation of Ohio Rev.Code § 2917.11(A). This statute provides, in relevant part:

(A) No person shall recklessly cause inconvenience, annoyance, or alarm to another by doing any of the following:
(2) Making unreasonable noise or an offensively coarse utterance, gesture, or display or communicating unwarranted and grossly abusive language to any person;
(3) Insulting, taunting, or challenging another, under circumstances in which that conduct is likely to provoke a violent response;
• (4) Hindering or preventing the movement of persons on a public street, road, [421]*421highway, or right-of-way, or to, from, within, or upon public or private property, so as to interfere with the rights of others, and by any act that serves no lawful and reasonable purpose of the offender;
(5) Creating a condition that is physically offensive to persons or that presents a risk of physical harm to persons or property, by any act that serves no lawful and reasonable purpose of the offender.

Ohio Rev.Code § 2917.11(A). Under Ohio law, to be reckless, a person must act “with heedless indifference to the consequences,” in “disregard[ing] a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the person's conduct is likely to cause a certain result or is likely to be of a certain nature.” Id. at § 2901.22(C). S.D.’s resulting juvenile court case was dismissed because she “complete[d] thirty hours of community service ... and an anger management assessment.” R. 22-1, Magistrate Order, Page ID 727.

On July 19, 2013, plaintiff D.D. filed a complaint on behalf of his daughter, S.D., against Scheeler and Springfield Township under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988, the Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, and Article I, §§ 1, 2, 9 and 14 of the Constitution of the State of Ohio. Among other claims, D.D. alleged that Scheeler’s conduct constituted false arrest/imprisonment. The defendants’ answer raised, among others, the defenses of qualified and statutory immunity.

The defendants moved on November 17, 2014 for summary judgment. Their motion states that they are “entitled to absolute immunity, qualified immunity, and judgment as a matter of law” and that “Officer Scheeler maintains he is entitled to qualified immunity with respect to Plaintiffs § 1983 claims because his interaction with [S.D] did not constitute any violation of a clearly established constitutional right.” R-22, Mot. For Summ. J., Page ID 701-02, 721.

The district court granted the defendants’ motion as to all of D.D.’s claims except for the false arrest claim against Scheeler. D.D. v. Scheeler, No. 1:13-cv-504, 2015 WL 892387, at *14 (S.D.Ohio Mar. 3, 2015). The court held that Scheeler failed to carry his summary judgment burden by demonstrating that he had probable cause to arrest S.D. Id. at *8. Rejecting his argument that the disposition of S.D.’s juvenile court case established probable cause, thus barring her false arrest claim, the district court further noted that “[n]either party further briefed the issue of whether the facts of this case establish that the Officer had probable cause to arrest S.D. for disorderly conduct.” Id.

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645 F. App'x 418, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dd-v-james-scheeler-ca6-2016.