Edward Hays v. Aaron Bolton

488 F. App'x 971
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit·Decided July 18, 2012·No. 11-3123·Unpublished·Cited by 3 cases

Opinions

SUHRHEINRICH, Circuit Judge.

After a jury acquitted him of domestic violence against his daughter, Defendant-Appellant Edward Hays brought various claims against those responsible for his arrest: the City of Vermillion, the Vermillion Police Department, Vermillion Police Chief Robert Kish, and Vermillion Police Officers Bolton and Grassnig. The district court found that Officers Bolton and Grassnig were entitled to qualified immunity and dismissed each of Hays’ claims. Hays appeals. For the reasons stated, we AFFIRM.

I. Background

This case arises from the arrest and subsequent prosecution of Defendant-Ap[973] pellant Edward Hays (Hays) for domestic violence against his then-eighteen year old daughter Heather.

Late on the night of December 7, 2008, Heather, angry because Hays had grounded her for lying about her whereabouts earlier that night, told her parents that she was moving out of their home. Heather admitted at trial that she had previously threatened to move out but had nonetheless continued to live with her parents. Heather packed her belongings while fighting loudly with her mother and Hays yelled at her to be quiet. When Heather did not stop screaming, Hays emerged from his bedroom and told her “if you’re going to leave, you need to leave, but this fighting has to stop.

Hays put one hand on Heather’s shoulder and walked with her down the stairs and out the door, locking the door behind her. Although Heather’s slip-on shoes had fallen off while being led down the stairs, Hays testified that he did not know Heather was barefoot when he locked her out of the house. The temperature that night was approximately nineteen degrees with a wind chill of fourteen degrees and there was snow on the ground.

Heather’s friend Brie had driven to the Hays residence and was waiting outside when Hays locked her out. Although her feet were one or two sizes smaller than Heather’s, Brie gave Heather her shoes to wear. Heather then realized that she had forgotten some of her things inside the home. At 11:35 p.m., she called the Vermilion Police Department, telling them:

I was like, dad, I need my stuff. If I don’t have my stuff I’ll call a police officer over here so I can get my clothes and he threw me out without any shoes on. I was barefoot and my friends came and I just need a police officer to go get my stuff.

Dispatch radioed Vermilion Police Department Officers Bolton and Grassnig to the scene for a “father daughter domestic. The daughter is 18, she’s locked out of the house at this time.

Heather waited in the car with Brie until the officers arrived. When they did, she exited the car and told them that “I had all my stuff in a yellow bin and I had my shoes and everything and like I was wearing slippers. So then like he like pulled me downstairs and they fell off and like my bin is not there anymore, nothing is there. She was upset and crying. Audio from the officers’ patrol cars records Heather affirming to the officers that she was forcibly removed from the home:

Officer [Bolton]: How did you end up outside, did he grab you—
Officer [Grassnig]: He threw her out (inaudible).
Officer [Bolton]: — and you pulled you outside?
Heather: Yes.

Id. at 8. The officers knocked loudly on the door, rang the doorbell, and telephoned Hays to have him come to the door. While doing so, the officers discussed the fact that Heather was a resident of the home she was trying to enter:

Officer [Bolton]: It’s her house, so, she lives here.
Officer [Grassnig]: Yep.
Officer [Bolton]: (Inaudible) breaking and entering, breaking into her own house.
Officer [Grassnig]: Nope.
Heather: I don’t want to break anything.
[974] Officer [Grassnig]: You live here.
Heather: I honestly don’t want to cause trouble, I just want my stuff.
Officer [Grassnig]: Well, that’s what we’re saying, you live here, if you want to go in and get your stuff.
Heather: Can you stop banging?

Id. at 10-11. Officer Bolton then left to check the doors and windows around the home. He reported back that “everything is locked.” Id. at 12. Officers Bolton and Grassnig were standing at the front door with Heather when it was discovered that the garage door had since been opened.

Heather proceeded into the house and the two officers followed. While the officers searched the first floor for residents, Heather went upstairs to gather additional belongings from her bedroom. Hays then came out from his upstairs bedroom and objected to the officers’ presence in his home. He asked whether they had broken in, to which Officer Grassnig responded that they had not, and Heather stated that the garage door was open. Officers Bolton and Grassnig asked Hays to come down the stairs and speak with them. Hays again questioned the officers’ authority to be in his home and he did not immediately proceed down the steps toward them. The officers then arrested Hays for domestic violence.

Hays proceeded to trial and was found not guilty. He then brought suit in ,the federal District Court for the Northern District of Ohio against the City of Vermillion, the Vermillion Police Department, Vermillion Police Department Chief Robert Kish, and Vermillion Police Officers Bolton and Grassnig (collectively, Defendants) alleging warrantless entry and arrest without probable cause in violation of the Fourth Amendment, municipal liability, false arrest, malicious prosecution, and various Ohio state law violations. After extensive discovery, the district court granted Defendants’ motion for summary judgment on Hays’ claims against Officers Bolton and Grassnig, finding that they were entitled to qualified immunity. The district court also granted Defendants’ motion for summary judgment on Hays’ remaining claims, all of which were predicated upon Officers Bolton and Grassnig’s alleged wrongdoing.1 Hays appeals.

II. Analysis

A. Standard of Review

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Edward Hays v. Aaron Bolton, 488 F. App'x 971 (6th Cir. 2012).

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