Estate of George ex rel. George v. Michigan

63 F. App'x 208
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedApril 23, 2003
DocketNo. 01-1613
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 63 F. App'x 208 (Estate of George ex rel. George v. Michigan) 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
Estate of George ex rel. George v. Michigan, 63 F. App'x 208 (6th Cir. 2003).

Opinions

BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge.

The Estate of Leslie George (the “Estate”) brings this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state negligence law against Michigan State Troopers Greg Cook and Phillip Duplessis, in their individual capacities, for depriving the plaintiffs decedent, Leslie George, of her constitutional rights. Because we find that the conduct of Troopers Cook and Duplessis did not constitute an unreasonable search or seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of the § 1988 claim. Moreover, for the reasons stated by the district court, we affirm its holding with respect to the Estate’s state law negligence claim.

I.

The sad facts of this case arise from what began as an ordinary traffic stop in the Detroit area. Driver Leslie George (“George”) and her friend, passenger [210]*210Shampayne Robinson (“Robinson”), were traveling north along the John C. Lodge Freeway on May 25,1998. It was approximately two o’clock in the morning on a holiday weekend, and defendants Trooper Gregory Cook (“Cook”) and Trooper Phillip Duplessis (“Duplessis”) were working an “enhanced patrol” in an effort to curb drunk driving. The troopers, who were also driving northbound along the Lodge Freeway, noticed that George’s car was traveling significantly in excess of the posted speed limit and changing lanes frequently without signaling. Cook moved his police cruiser behind George’s car and activated his emergency lights; George exited the freeway onto a service drive that ran parallel to the freeway, just south of Seven Mile Road. George pulled her car up to the right curb of the service drive, still headed north, and Cook positioned the police cruiser approximately three to six feet behind George’s car, and about two feet to the left so as to create a safe passage of ingress and egress from the cruiser to George’s vehicle.

Cook and Duplessis spoke with George and Robinson, respectively, who both denied having consumed any alcohol that night. However, Cook noticed that George’s eyes were slightly red, glassy and watery. Based upon the appearance of George’s eyes, as well as her driving behavior, Cook decided to administer a sobriety test.1 Cook asked George to exit the car, and he led her to the passenger side of the cruiser, onto a paved area between the road and the sidewalk several feet to the east of and parallel to the road.2 As Cook was explaining the procedures of the test to George, a speeding car came careening off of the exit ramp and onto the service drive toward the stopped cars. Hearing the approaching car, Cook looked toward the exit ramp and saw the car skidding sideways along the sidewalk toward George and himself. He shouted a warning, tried unsuccessfully to grab George, and ran towards the service drive to escape the oncoming car. Officer Duplessis, who was questioning Robinson by the passenger door of George’s car, ran north towards Seven Mile Drive. The out-of-control car — still sliding sideways along the sidewalk on the passenger side of the cruiser and George’s car — nicked Duples-sis’s heel as it skidded by before eventually coming to rest in a nearby parking lot. Ms. George was struck and killed by the car.

Leslie George’s estate and her mother, Betty George, initially filed a seven-count complaint against the State of Michigan, the Michigan Department of State Police, and Troopers Cook and Duplessis. The plaintiffs dismissed all of the counts except two against Troopers Cook and Duplessis in their individual capacities: a negligence claim brought under Michigan state law and a § 1983 claim alleging a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment duty of care that is created when the state places an individual in custody. Both claims were based upon the common allegation that the troopers had placed George in danger by conducting the sobriety test on the service road, and that their conduct was the proximate cause of George’s death.

The troopers moved for summary judgment, and the district court granted their motion, holding that the troopers did not [211]*211exhibit “deliberate indifference” to George’s well-being or place her in a state-created danger and then fail to protect her in violation of her Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. Consequently, the court held, the troopers were entitled to qualified immunity with respect to the Estate’s § 1983 claim. Moreover, the court said, even if Cook and Duplessis had placed George in danger and failed to protect her, their actions did not violate clearly established law such that they could lose their qualified immunity. The court went on to hold that the Estate’s state law claim is barred by public employee immunity under Michigan law.3

The Estate timely appealed.

II.

We review de novo a district court’s grant of summary judgment, using the same Rule 56(c) standard used by the district court. Miami Univ. Wrestling Club v. Miami Univ., 302 F.3d 608, 613 (2002). A party moving for summary judgment may set forth facts in the “pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits” to support its motion, Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c), and we draw any inferences that can be made from the facts in favor of the non-moving party. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986). If the moving party produces facts upon which judgment could be granted, the non-moving party must “set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial,” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e); that is, it must present “evidence on which the jury could reasonably find” in its favor. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 252, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986).

We begin by examining the Estate’s claim, brought under § 1983,4 that Cook and Duplessis violated George’s right to substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution by detaining George against her will, conducting an unnecessary sobriety test in a dangerous location, and then failing to protect her after they had placed her in danger. In County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 118 S.Ct. 1708, 140 L.Ed.2d 1043 (1998), the Supreme Court reviewed a § 1983 action brought by the parents of a deceased motorcycle rider against law enforcement officers who had pursued the decedent in a high-speed chase. Though the Court analyzed the facts in that case under the Fourteenth Amendment and asked whether the officers who had participated in the high-speed chase had exhibited “conscience-shocking” behavior in violation of the decedent’s substantive due process rights, the Court noted that

[bjecause we have always been reluctant to expand the concept of substantive due process, we held in Graham v. Connor that [wjhere a particular amendment provides an explicit textual source of [212]

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63 F. App'x 208, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/estate-of-george-ex-rel-george-v-michigan-ca6-2003.