King v. Davis

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
• Decided: March 18, 2026
• Docket: 25-966
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

25-966 King v. Davis

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 18th day of March, two thousand twenty-six.

PRESENT: REENA RAGGI, ALISON J. NATHAN, Circuit Judges, JESSE M. FURMAN, District Judge. * _____________________________________

Brian King,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v. No. 25-966

Stephen C. Davis III, Police Officer, City of Potsdam Police Department, individually and officially, Peter G.

Judge Jesse M. Furman, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of *

New York, sitting by designation. Lasala, Police Officer, City of Potsdam Police Department, individually and officially, Corbin Gates-Shult, Police Officer, City of Potsdam Police Department, individually and officially, Village of Potsdam, Officers John Doe 1-5, Potsdam Police Department,

Defendants-Appellees,

Ryan Robinson, Police Officer, City of Potsdam Police Department,

Defendant. †

_____________________________________

FOR PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT: WOODRUFF LEE CARROLL, Woodruff Lee Carroll P.C., Syracuse, NY.

FOR DEFENDANTS-APPELLEES: APRIL J. LAWS, Olivia G. Reinhardt, Johnson & Laws, LLC, Clifton Park, NY.

Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Northern

District of New York (Scullin, J.).

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED,

ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court is

† The Clerk of the Court is respectfully directed to amend the caption.

2 AFFIRMED in part, VACATED in part, and REMANDED.

Plaintiff-Appellant Brian King appeals a March 24, 2025 order of the United

States District Court for the Northern District of New York (Scullin, J.) entering

summary judgment for defendants, and a June 4, 2025 order of that court imposing

a $1,000 sanction on defense counsel. Plaintiff argues that there exists a material

dispute of fact as to whether officers used excessive force or acted negligently

when they removed him from his vehicle in order to arrest him for driving while

intoxicated. He also argues that his counsel’s repeated violation of the district

court’s orders and failure to file properly formatted briefs with appropriate

citations did not merit sanctions. We conclude that the district court erred in

dismissing King’s negligence claim and vacate and remand for further

proceedings. We otherwise affirm.

We review the district court’s entry of summary judgment de novo,

construing the facts in the light most favorable to Plaintiff and drawing all

reasonable inferences in his favor. See Covington Specialty Ins. Co. v. Indian Lookout

Country Club, Inc., 62 F.4th 748, 752 (2d Cir. 2023). We assume the parties’

familiarity with the underlying facts, procedural history, and issues on appeal, to

3 which we refer only as necessary to explain our decision.

* * *

The district court entered summary judgment as to Plaintiff’s excessive force

claims pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, along with his state battery and negligence

claims. While Plaintiff appealed with respect to all three claims, his reply brief

purports to “withdraw[]” his excessive force claim, which he characterizes as the

“sole basis for jurisdiction in federal court[.]” Appellant’s Reply Br. at 15. 1

Plaintiff argues that, as a result, “everything else is moot,” and that “[t]he case

should be remanded to state court.” Appellant’s Reply Br. at 15. To the extent

that Plaintiff is trying to amend the complaint to remove his federal claims, thereby

depriving us of subject matter jurisdiction, he would have needed to do so before

the district court. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2) (governing amendments without

consent). He did not do so. If Plaintiff instead means to withdraw his appeal of

his federal claims, doing so would not affect this Court’s jurisdiction, nor would it

1 On March 13, 2026, Carroll filed a letter claiming that he had “confused briefs on [his] computer and filed an earlier draft” as a result of technical problems experienced by the printing company he used. Docket No. 46 at 1. He attached a new version of his reply brief, identifying it as “[a] copy of the correct but unfiled brief.” Id. We construe the letter as a motion to file a corrected brief and deny it as untimely.

4 upset the district court’s entry of summary judgment as to those claims. In any

event, because the scope of Plaintiff’s intended withdrawal is unclear based on his

counsel’s briefs and oral argument, we address the merits of Plaintiff’s federal

claims.

A. Section 1983

“To establish a [§ 1983] claim of excessive force, a plaintiff must show that

the force used by the officer was, in light of the facts and circumstances confronting

him, objectively unreasonable under Fourth Amendment standards.” Davis v.

Rodriguez, 364 F.3d 424, 431 (2d Cir. 2004) (quotation marks omitted). “Because

‘the right to make an arrest or investigatory stop necessarily carries with it the

right to use some degree of physical coercion or threat thereof to effect it,’

determining whether the amount of force an officer used is reasonable ‘requires a

careful balancing of the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual’s

Fourth Amendment interests against the countervailing governmental interests at

stake.’” Cugini v. City of New York, 941 F.3d 604, 612 (2d Cir. 2019) (quoting

Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989)). Relevant factors include “(1) ‘the

severity of the crime at issue,’ (2) ‘whether the suspect poses an immediate threat

5 to the safety of the officers or others,’ and (3) ‘whether the suspect is actively

resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.’” Id. (quoting Graham, 490

U.S. at 396) (alteration accepted). “The fact that a person whom a police officer

attempts to arrest resists, threatens, or assaults the officer no doubt justifies the

officer’s use of some degree of force, but it does not give the officer license to use

force without limit.” Sullivan v. Gagnier, 225 F.3d 161, 165–66 (2d Cir. 2000). The

analysis must be undertaken without regard to subjective intent or “‘the 20/20

vision of hindsight.’” Cugini, 941 F.3d at 612 (quoting Graham, 490 U.S. at 396).

The district court was correct that Plaintiff has identified no material dispute

of fact concerning his § 1983 claim. The arresting officers’ body-worn camera

videos reveal that Plaintiff was visibly intoxicated when officers approached his

car, repeatedly refused to answer questions or cooperate with directives, and

reached his hand into his jacket to retrieve an unknown object when officers

attempted to remove him from his vehicle. All three Graham factors therefore

support the reasonableness of the force used. Most notably, the officers

reasonably suspected a threat to their safety when Plaintiff reached into his jacket

and did so again even after being instructed not to do so.

6 Plaintiff maintains that he was “preparing to leave the car,” “calling to get

somebody to pick up the car,” and “compl[ying]” with officers’ directives. See

Appellant’s Br. at 16. But that version of events is “blatantly contradicted” by the

video evidence. Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 380 (2007). Plaintiff refused

multiple commands to leave the car and reached into his jacket pocket even after

instructed not to do so. Plaintiff may have been reaching for his phone to call

someone, but the officers would not have known that and were not required to

assume that. Accordingly, “no reasonable jury could believe” Plaintiff’s

characterization of the facts, and the district court was not obliged to “adopt [it]

for purposes of ruling on [his] motion for summary judgment.” Scott, 550 U.S. at

380.

To be sure, Plaintiff is correct that both of his hands were visible at the

precise moment the officers pulled him from his car, and to the extent that the

district court found otherwise, that finding was clearly erroneous. But Plaintiff

had already reached his hand into his pocket at that point and had begun to do so

again after being told to stop. Officers therefore reasonably suspected that

Plaintiff may have been carrying a weapon and acted reasonably by executing the

7 arrest in the manner they did so as to immobilize Plaintiff and prevent him from

again reaching for the unknown object. Given that motor-vehicle stops “are

especially fraught with danger to police officers,” Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032,

1047 (1983), we will not second-guess the “split-second judgments” they made in

these circumstances, Graham, 490 U.S. at 396. 2

B. State-Law Claims

Plaintiff raises only state-law negligence and battery claims in his opening

brief, so we deem his other state-law claims abandoned. As Plaintiff

acknowledges, the same legal analysis applies to his state-law battery claim as his

federal excessive force claim, and summary judgment was therefore appropriate

as to his battery claim for the reasons explained above. See Tardif v. City of New

York, 991 F.3d 394, 410 (2d Cir. 2021).

By contrast, we conclude that the district court erred in granting summary

judgment as to Plaintiff’s state-law negligence claim. The district court, citing

2 In answering a question at oral argument, Defendants’ counsel stated that if Plaintiff’s hands were visible at the precise moment the officers pulled him from his car, summary judgment would not have been appropriate. We are not bound by that concession because the issue is one of law. See, e.g., Elias Bochner, 287 7th Ave. Realty LLC v. City of New York, 118 F.4th 505, 524 n.12 (2d Cir. 2024).

8 other Eastern District decisions, reasoned that Plaintiff’s allegations were “only

consistent with intentional or reckless conduct,” and that the defendants could

therefore “only be liable for intentional torts, not negligence.” App’x at 931

(quoting Benbow v. City of New York, No. 17-CV-6457, 2024 WL 5165073, at *11

(E.D.N.Y. Dec. 19, 2024)). If the district court meant to suggest that Plaintiff’s

negligence and intentional tort claims are inconsistent, Plaintiff is nonetheless

allowed to pursue alternative claims, even at the summary judgment stage. See

Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(d); see also, e.g., Henry v. Daytop Vill., Inc., 42 F.3d 89, 95 (2d Cir.

1994) (“The flexibility afforded by Rule 8(e)(2) is especially appropriate in civil

rights cases, in which complex inquiries into the parties’ intent may sometimes

justify raising multiple, inconsistent claims.”). If the district court instead meant

that Plaintiff’s negligence claim does not lie because the complaint alleges only

intentional conduct, that rule is unsettled as a matter of New York law. Compare

Johnson v. City of New York, 50 N.Y.S.3d 461, 463 (2d Dep’t 2017) (“New York does

not recognize a cause of action to recover for negligent assault.”), with

McCummings v. New York City Transit Auth., 81 N.Y.2d 923, 925 (1993) (upholding

a jury verdict of common-law negligence in a case involving a police shooting).

9 While it may be that, unlike in McCummings, no reasonable jury could find

negligence here, the applicability of McCummings “turns in part on factual

questions not addressed by the district court” and we therefore “leave it to the

district court to pass on the issue in the first instance.” Brocklesby Transp., A Div.

of Kingsway Transports, Ltd. v. E. States Escort Servs., 904 F.2d 131, 134 (2d Cir. 1990).

That said, we have repeatedly discouraged district courts from “retain[ing]

jurisdiction over state-law claims raising unsettled questions of law following

dismissal of all original-jurisdiction claims.” Kolari v. New York-Presbyterian

Hosp., 455 F.3d 118, 124 (2d Cir. 2006). That is true even after discovery and

summary judgment. Valencia ex rel. Franco v. Lee, 316 F.3d 299, 302, 308 (2d Cir.

2003). On remand, the district court should therefore first consider whether

“judicial economy, convenience, fairness, and comity” favor retention of

supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s negligence claims. Nowak v. Ironworkers

Loc. 6 Pension Fund, 81 F.3d 1182, 1191 (2d Cir. 1996).

C. Sanctions

Finally, reviewing for abuse of discretion, see Huebner v. Midland Credit

Mgmt., Inc., 897 F.3d 42, 53 (2d Cir. 2018), we agree with the district court that Mr.

10 Carroll’s conduct here warranted a $1,000 sanction. 3 Ordinarily, a federal court

“may exercise its inherent power to sanction a party or an attorney who has acted

in bad faith, vexatiously, wantonly, or for oppressive reasons.” Ransmeier v.

Mariani, 718 F.3d 64, 68 (2d Cir. 2013) (quotation marks omitted). However, an

explicit finding of bad faith is only required to sanction conduct “undertaken for

the client’s benefit.” United States v. Seltzer, 227 F.3d 36, 42 (2d Cir. 2000).

“[S]anctions may be justified absent a finding of bad faith” if misconduct involves

counsel’s “negligent or reckless failure to perform his or her responsibility as an

officer of the court,” including if counsel violates court orders. Id. at 41.

Here, the district court acted squarely within its discretion in sanctioning

Carroll for his reckless failure to practice with a minimal level of competence, as

well as for his repeated noncompliance with the court’s rules and orders.

Moreover, while bad faith is not required, we agree with the district court that

Carroll’s conduct was egregious enough to warrant such an inference. Carroll’s

filings lack proper citations, often lapse into incoherence, and fail to respect the

3 Because the district court here acted as “accuser, fact finder and sentencing judge all in one, . . . our review is more exacting than under the ordinary abuse-of-discretion standard.” Wolters Kluwer Fin. Servs., Inc. v. Scivantage, 564 F.3d 110, 113–14 (2d Cir. 2009) (quotation marks omitted).

11 most basic dictates of grammar and spelling. See, e.g., App’x at 840 (citing to

“Memorandum ______”); App’x at 841 (citing to “Ex ___”); App’x at 742 (three

placeholder citations on one page); App’x at 823 (“esculation Davis clearly was

descultating the situation at first the esculated whenhe removed the Plaintiff”).

Carroll attempts to excuse these errors by claiming that he was suffering from

“psoriasis and a tooth problem” and was on “strong medications” at the time he

filed his surreply brief in the district court. Appellant’s Br. at 38. But Carroll has

consistently committed the same misconduct throughout this litigation, and

continues to do so even before this Court. See, e.g., id. at 5 (citing to

“bizarrebizarre”). We also note that it was Carroll’s professional responsibility to

withdraw from the representation if his physical or mental condition materially

impaired his competence. See Am. Bar Ass’n Model Rules of Pro. Conduct

1.16(a)(2). What Carroll actually did—knowingly ignoring court orders and

declining to proofread his work—warrants sanctions.

Indeed, given the record in this case, including on appeal, we refer Carroll

to the Court’s Grievance Panel pursuant to Local Rule 46.2 for further

investigation, and for consideration of a referral to the Committee on Admissions

12 and Grievances. See 2d Cir. R. 46.2. The briefs that he filed in this court (1) are

replete with typographic and grammatical errors; (2) include large segments of

copied and pasted text (including headnotes that he apparently forgot to delete);

(3) contain numerous incorrect or unintelligible citations; and (4) fail to comply

with the formatting rules contained in Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32. 4

Making matters worse, Carroll has engaged in at least some of this precise conduct

before (namely, copying and pasting large segments of text, replete with

headnotes)—and was explicitly warned by a member of this Court never to do so

again. See App’x at 944-45 (citing Oral Argument at 07:45–09:01, Rose v. City of

Utica, 777 F. App'x 575 (2d Cir. 2019) (No. 18-1491)).

We have considered Plaintiff’s remaining arguments and find them to be

4 In his March 13, 2026 letter, Carroll now claims that “[a]t the time of oral argument I was unaware of the error and did not expect any of the issues to arise.” Docket No. 46 at 2. He also claims that the correct brief “did not have the word bizarre in it at all and complied with court rules.” But the “copy of the correct but unfiled brief” that Carroll attached to his March 13 letter is in fact an unaltered copy of the reply brief he actually filed. Obviously that does nothing to address the errors in Carroll’s opening brief that the panel identified at oral argument. Furthermore, Carroll’s claim that he was unaware of his briefing errors until oral argument is difficult to accept since Appellees specifically identified those errors in their opposition brief. See Appellee’s Br. at 28 n.15. Finally, the letter is hard to reconcile with representations he made to the court during oral argument.

13 without merit. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court in

part, VACATE in part, and REMAND the case for further proceedings consistent

with this Summary Order.

FOR THE COURT: Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court