Juan L. Perez v. City of Sweetwater

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedMay 3, 2019
Docket18-10498
StatusUnpublished

This text of Juan L. Perez v. City of Sweetwater (Juan L. Perez v. City of Sweetwater) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Juan L. Perez v. City of Sweetwater, (11th Cir. 2019).

Opinion

Case: 18-10498 Date Filed: 05/03/2019 Page: 1 of 20

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT ________________________

No. 18-10498 ________________________

D.C. Docket No. 1:16-cv-24267-CMA

JUAN L. PEREZ, MARIA A. POSADA,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

versus

CITY OF SWEETWATER, RAFAEL DUARTE, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees. ________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida ________________________

(May 3, 2019)

Before WILLIAM PRYOR and NEWSOM, Circuit Judges, and ROSENTHAL, * Chief District Judge.

PER CURIAM:

* Honorable Lee H. Rosenthal, Chief United States District Judge for the Southern District of Texas, sitting by designation. Case: 18-10498 Date Filed: 05/03/2019 Page: 2 of 20

Careful district judges anxious to protect the trial record and avoid retrial may

submit cases to the jury, even when the judge doubts that the evidence is sufficient

to support the liability finding and damages the plaintiff seeks. If the jury returns a

defense verdict, the judge usually needs only to enter judgment. But when, as here,

the jury finds liability and imposes a large damages award, the district judge must

decide whether to displace the verdict by granting judgment as a matter of law. The

district judge took that step here, and the plaintiff appealed, requiring us to decide if

the jury had any reasonable basis to return the verdict it did. We agree with the

district court that this record did not present sufficient evidence to support the

verdict, and we affirm.

I. Background

A jury found that the City of Sweetwater, Florida was liable under 42 U.S.C.

§ 1983 for injuries that Juan L. Perez suffered when a car fleeing police pursuit hit

Perez’s vehicle at a high speed. The jury awarded Perez $1,000,000 in compensatory

damages. After trial, the City renewed its motion for judgment as a matter of law,

which the district court granted, finding that no reasonable jury could have found the

City liable under § 1983 based on the trial evidence. Perez appeals the district

court’s decision during trial to exclude certain evidence and its decision after trial to

grant judgment for the City as a matter of law.

2 Case: 18-10498 Date Filed: 05/03/2019 Page: 3 of 20

Early the morning of January 2, 2012, Juan Perez left his home in Miami,

Florida to drive to work. As he was driving east on 8th Street, he noticed four police

cars stopped behind “one dark car.” Officer Richard Brioso, a City police officer,

had stopped the “dark car,” a Mercedes Benz, for reckless driving. Officer Brioso

testified at trial that the Mercedes had been traveling at a high speed and appeared

to be racing another car. At trial, the driver testified that he was not racing another

car, but he did not recall how fast he was driving. The passenger had been asleep

and could not dispute Officer Brioso’s testimony.

Three nearby City police officers—Officers Rafael Duarte, Armando

Gonzalez, and Domingo Benito—responded to Officer Brioso’s dispatch report of

the stop. The Mercedes driver, Felipe A. Torrealba, gave the officers a Texas

identification card, telling them that he did not have a Florida driver’s license. The

officers did a routine run of Torrealba’s name through identification databases and

found a Florida driver’s license with a picture matching Torrealba’s appearance.

The picture showed a large tattoo on Torrealba’s neck. When the officers asked

Torrealba about his tattoo, Torrealba ran toward the Mercedes’s driver-side door.

The police officers ordered him to stop, but he kept going. The officers gave chase.

Officer Duarte was closest to Torrealba, but Torrealba got to the Mercedes

first. The officers testified at trial that at that point, they saw Torrealba reach into

his waistband, pull out a handgun, and aim it at Officer Duarte. Officer Duarte yelled

3 Case: 18-10498 Date Filed: 05/03/2019 Page: 4 of 20

“Oh, shit[,] gun,” and leaned “back towards the driver[‘s] rear door” for cover,

holding onto the “middle pillar of the vehicle.” The Mercedes started moving,

dragging Officer Duarte. Officers Gonzalez and Brioso fired 23 rounds at Torrealba,

but he raced away. Officer Benito testified that he got into his patrol car to give

chase but “had no chance” because the Mercedes was already “two blocks ahead.”

At trial, Torrealba testified that he did not have a gun on that day, disputing the

officers’ testimony.

Perez was still driving on 8th Street. He looked into his rearview mirror and

saw “light coming like a lightning.” He could do nothing more than “say, [s]orry,

Maria,” before the Mercedes hit his truck at high speed. Perez recalled nothing after

seeing the light and feeling the impact. He regained consciousness upside down in

his crumpled truck, smelling leaking gasoline. The Fire Rescue Squad had to free

him from the truck. Perez was hospitalized for 14 days.

Officer Benito was the first to arrive at the collision scene. He saw the truck

but did not check on the occupants, because his “main concern was [that Torrealba

was] armed with a handgun and” on the loose. The Mercedes had crashed into a

palm tree “30, 40 yards away” from Perez’s truck. A bystander told Officer Benito

that a man had jumped out of the Mercedes and into a nearby canal. Officer Benito

radioed dispatch to set up a perimeter blockade in the area.

4 Case: 18-10498 Date Filed: 05/03/2019 Page: 5 of 20

The City police officers did not find Torrealba on January 2, 2012, and they

did not find a firearm or evidence that Torrealba had fired a gun from the Mercedes,

the canal, or the crash area. Torrealba was finally arrested in February 2013.

Torrealba pleaded guilty to resisting arrest with violence and to resisting arrest

without violence for his actions on January 2, 2012. He received a three-year

sentence.

Perez and his wife, Maria A. Posada,1 sued the City and Officers Duarte,

Brioso, and Gonzalez in state court, asserting claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and for

negligence. Perez alleged that his injuries were caused by the officers’

unconstitutional use of deadly force. He alleged that the City’s custom relating to

conducting vehicle stops to enforce a towing ordinance to obtain money or property

for the City, and the City’s custom relating to, and training in, using deadly force

and engaging in high-speed chases, violated his Fourteenth Amendment substantive

due-process rights. The City and the officers removed. The district court dismissed

the claims against Officer Duarte, with prejudice, and denied Officers Brioso’s and

Gonzalez’s motions for summary judgment. Officers Brioso and Gonzalez filed an

interlocutory appeal, and Perez’s claims against them were not tried with his claims

against the City.

1 Perez and Posada are referred to collectively as Perez.

5 Case: 18-10498 Date Filed: 05/03/2019 Page: 6 of 20

Perez voluntarily dismissed his negligence claim against the City during trial.

The City moved for judgment as a matter of law on the § 1983 claims after Perez

rested his case-in-chief, and renewed the motion at the close of the evidence. Perez

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