Lakecia Gant, as trustee for the next-of-kin of Raven Bianca Gant v. Daniel Ledman, in his ...

• Court: Court of Appeals of Minnesota
• Decided: May 28, 2024
• Docket: a231495
• Status: Published

Opinion

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

STATE OF MINNESOTA IN COURT OF APPEALS A23-1495

Lakecia Gant, as trustee for the next-of-kin of Raven Bianca Gant, deceased, Appellant,

vs.

Daniel Ledman, in his individual capacity as an officer of the Minneapolis Police Department, et al., Respondents.

Filed May 28, 2024 Affirmed Ross, Judge

Hennepin County District Court File No. 27-CV-22-9110

Oliver E. Nelson III, Magna Law Firm, LLC, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for appellant)

Kristyn Anderson, Minneapolis City Attorney, J. Haynes Hansen, Mark Enslin, Assistant City Attorneys, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondents)

Daniel J. Cragg, Eckland & Blando LLP, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for amicus curiae Minnesota Association for Justice)

Considered and decided by Ross, Presiding Judge; Johnson, Judge; and Kirk,

Judge. ∗

∗ Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant to Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10. NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION

ROSS, Judge

This case arises from the 2019 Thanksgiving Day fatal shooting of a woman by the

father of her children. The two Minneapolis police officers who are defendants in this civil

action were dispatched to and arrived at a home where the woman had reportedly struck

the man during a domestic dispute. After knocking and receiving no response, the officers

left the home, discovered an occupied stolen vehicle, and began investigating the vehicle

theft. The man soon re-called 9-1-1 to report that he and the woman were still in the home.

Within 22 minutes after that call and within 4 minutes after the dispatcher informed the

officers that the man was refusing to let the woman leave, the man shot and killed the

woman. The woman’s mother sued the officers and the city, claiming wrongful death

caused by the officers’ allegedly negligent investigation after the first calls and negligent

response after the next. She appeals the district court’s official-immunity dismissal of her

civil action for failure to state a claim. Because the officers are officially immune from

liability for their discretionary acts and the city is consequently vicariously immune, we

affirm.

FACTS

This wrongful-death negligence action brought by Lakecia Gant arises from the fatal

shooting of her daughter, Raven Gant. Because Lakecia appeals from the district court’s

dismissal of her civil complaint for failure to state a claim under Minnesota Rule of Civil

Procedure 12.02(e), we accept as true the factual allegations stated in her civil complaint

and as further detailed in the police records that Gant provided to the district court and

2 relied on in the district court and in this court to contest the respondents’ motion to dismiss

her complaint.

Randall Watkins and Raven are the parents of a now-six-year-old girl. In the

afternoon of Thanksgiving Day 2019, Raven went to Watkins’s home in north Minneapolis

with the girl to retrieve children’s clothing. Minneapolis police were called to the home at

that time over a dispute about the clothing.

At about 9:40 p.m., the Minneapolis police dispatcher directed Officers Daniel

Ledman and Zerrick Fuller to a domestic disturbance at Watkins’s home. Watkins and

Raven had both dialed 9-1-1 to report their conflict. Watkins reported that Raven was

refusing to leave his home and that she had just kicked him in the face. Raven reported that

Watkins was refusing to give her clothes that belonged to their child. She told the dispatcher

that she knows that Watkins tends to carry a pocketknife but that she had not seen him with

a knife that day, and she reported that she believed he might have a gun somewhere in his

house. The two officers arrived at the Watkins house about five minutes after receiving the

dispatched call.

The officers approached the house but saw no one. They noticed that the house

appeared to be dark inside. One officer knocked on the door, but no one answered. The

officers heard no noise or voices from inside the house. The officers directed the dispatcher

to call the person who had reported the incident. The dispatcher telephoned one of the

callers but got no answer. The officers left the area. One of the officers needed to use the

bathroom, and so they drove away from Watkins’s house toward an area where he could

use the facilities.

3 Watkins again called the dispatcher, reporting that he and Raven were still at the

house. Approximately five minutes after the officers left the house, the dispatcher

communicated that Watkins was requesting that police return and that he would be waiting

at the front door.

At about 10:00 p.m., Officers Ledman and Fuller arrived at the area where one of

them could use a portable restroom. And one of them saw a parked pickup truck that looked

suspicious, with people lying down inside. The officers informed the dispatcher that they

were with the vehicle and investigating. As one officer spoke with the pickup truck’s

occupants, the other checked on the vehicle’s registration and learned that the pickup was

stolen. The dispatcher therefore cleared them from the domestic-incident call at the

Watkins house.

While Officers Ledman and Fuller investigated the stolen pickup and its occupants,

Watkins again telephoned the 9-1-1 dispatcher. It was 10:08 p.m. This time, he told the

dispatcher that Raven had just punched him in the face. The dispatcher directed a different

squad car to the Watkins house. One minute later, Watkins told the dispatcher that Raven

had called her father and others in her family to come to his house and assault him. About

one minute later, Watkins told the dispatcher that Raven was refusing to leave the house.

Meanwhile, Officers Ledman and Fuller were taking two juveniles into custody related to

their stolen-pickup investigation.

At 10:12 p.m., in the background of Watkins’s call, the dispatcher overheard Raven

say that Watkins would not let her leave. One minute later, Watkins reported that Raven

had again punched him. Thirty seconds later, Watkins said, “She ain’t gone keep on

4 punching me.” Then at 10:15, Watkins told the dispatcher that Raven needed emergency

medical assistance and elaborated, “She’s been shot.” Officers Ledman and Fuller were at

about that time driving the two detained juveniles to the juvenile unit at the Hennepin

County jail. When they heard that a shooting had occurred at the Watkins house, they

immediately dropped the two juveniles off at a bus stop and drove toward the Watkins

house to assist the other officers who had been dispatched there.

Raven died due to the injuries she sustained when Watkins shot her. Her mother

Lakecia Gant brought this action as trustee for the next-of-kin of Raven. Gant’s civil

complaint alleges that Officers Ledman and Fuller are principally liable for Raven’s death

and that the City of Minneapolis is vicariously liable. The district court granted the officers’

and city’s joint motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim on which relief

can be granted. It did so after concluding that official immunity shielded the officers from

liability. Gant appeals the resulting judgment.

DECISION

Gant appeals the district court’s dismissal of her civil complaint. We review de novo

a district court’s dismissal for failure to state a claim under Minnesota Rule of Civil

Procedure 12.02(e). Halva v. Minn. State Colls. & Univs., 953 N.W.2d 496, 500 (Minn.

2021). In doing so, we accept the complaint’s alleged facts as true and construe “all

reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party.” Engstrom v. Whitebirch, Inc., 931

N.W.2d 786, 790 (Minn. 2019) (quotation omitted). Because Gant incorporated the facts

from the police reports into her opposition to the officers’ and city’s motion to dismiss and

she likewise relies on them on appeal, we have incorporated those referenced details from

5 the reports as they align with the facts alleged in the complaint. For the following reasons,

we affirm the district court’s decision to dismiss Gant’s complaint.

Gant raises two primary issues on appeal. She first challenges the district court’s

conclusion that official immunity bars her claims against the officers and the city. She next

challenges the district court’s conclusion that the officers did not owe Raven a duty under

the special-duty doctrine. Although Gant’s civil complaint also had alleged that the city is

principally liable for Raven’s death because it improperly hired, trained, and retained

employees, specifically, Officers Ledman and Fuller and the dispatching staff, Gant is not

appealing the city’s dismissal except on the theory of vicarious liability for the officers’

alleged negligence. We hold that the officers’ conduct was discretionary, entitling them to

official immunity from Gant’s claims, and we therefore need not reach Gant’s arguments

regarding the special-duty doctrine.

We must decide whether the district court properly determined that official

immunity bars Gant’s claims against the officers. Public employees are entitled to official

immunity, which bars state-law tort claims based on their performance of duties that arise

from their exercise of independent discretion and judgment, except when they were

perpetrating a willful or malicious wrong. Mumm v. Mornson, 708 N.W.2d 475, 490 (Minn.

2006); Anderson v. Anoka Hennepin Indep. Sch. Dist. 11, 678 N.W.2d 651, 655 (Minn.

2004). Although every Minnesota municipality is generally vicariously liable for the torts

“of its officers . . . acting within the scope of their employment or duties,” Minn. Stat.

§ 466.02 (2022), the inverse is also true. That is, if the officers are entitled to official

immunity, their immunity extends to protect the city vicariously. Wiederholt v. City of

6 Minneapolis, 581 N.W.2d 312, 316 (Minn. 1998); Pletan v. Gaines, 494 N.W.2d 38, 43

(Minn. 1992); see also Vassallo ex rel. Brown v. Majeski, 842 N.W.2d 456, 465 (Minn.

2014) (clarifying unqualifiedly that “[county’s] immunity stands or falls with [deputy’s]

immunity”). For the following reasons, we conclude that Officers Ledman and Fuller are

entitled to official immunity and that the city is therefore entitled to vicarious official

immunity.

We must first identify the allegedly negligent actions that Gant’s complaint cites as

the basis for her claim that the officers are subject to wrongful-death liability to determine

whether the officers’ actions constitute discretionary or ministerial duties. See Vassallo,

842 N.W.2d at 462. Gant’s complaint alleges that, because every police officer in

Minnesota “has a duty to arrest anyone whom the officer has probable cause to believe has

committed domestic violence,” and because “[a] reasonable peace officer” in Officer

Ledman’s and Officer Fuller’s shoes “should have known that some problem was

occurring, or, more precisely, [that] the caller was in jeopardy,” they had a duty to “force[]

entry into the residence” based on exigent circumstances, and they had a duty to take

Watkins into custody based on “probable cause to arrest Watkins” without a warrant. The

complaint adds that the city has a specific policy requiring its officers to “thoroughly

investigate all allegations of domestic violence and aggressively utilize [their] arrest

powers.”

Gant’s contention that the officers’ purported duty to enter Watkins’s home and

arrest him for domestic assault was a ministerial rather than discretionary act faces two

equally insurmountable obstacles. The first is that caselaw establishes that an officer’s

7 decision whether to warrantlessly force entry into a person’s home on a domestic-violence

call is a discretionary rather than ministerial act. The second is that, in this case, the officers

had no real discretion to warrantlessly force entry into Watkins’s home because to do so

would have violated the Fourth Amendment.

The decision whether to force entry without a warrant is a discretionary rather than

ministerial duty. Gant’s contention to the contrary fails under the supreme court’s decision

in Elwood v. Rice County. The Elwood case involved officers who responded to a reported

domestic dispute involving a potentially armed man who threatened to harm himself and

his ex-wife. 423 N.W.2d 671, 672–74 (Minn. 1988). The officers there had arrived at the

home, knocked, and, when the door opened, they burst inside, pinning the man’s father

against a wall. Id. at 674. The Elwood court held that the officers’ conduct was

discretionary. Id. at 679. It recognized that officers who face emergency situations “must

immediately judge whether probable cause and exigent circumstances justify entry without

a warrant.” Id. at 678. It considered the “broad standard for probable cause,” observing that

police, especially when responding to reported domestic disputes, must make quick

decisions based on “notoriously volatile and unpredictable” circumstances. Id. It concluded

that an officer’s decision to enter a home without a warrant was the precise type of

judgment the doctrine of official immunity protects. Id. at 679. Inasmuch as the decision

to force entry is discretionary, so is the decision not to.

The similarly dispositive fact here is that, not only was the officers’ decision

whether to force entry discretionary, they had no constitutional authority to exercise that

discretion in the manner that Gant says they must have. The Fourth Amendment enshrines

8 “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their . . . houses . . . against unreasonable searches

and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. And warrantless home entries by police are

presumptively unreasonable. Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 586 (1980). Gant is correct

that police may nevertheless force entry without a warrant if they face an exigent

circumstance justifying them to do so. See id. at 589–90. Examples of this sort of exigent

circumstance include officers pursuing a fleeing suspect or providing emergency aid. State

v. Paul, 548 N.W.2d 260, 262, 265 (Minn. 1996) (pursuing suspect); State v. Halla-Poe,

468 N.W.2d 570, 572–73 (Minn. App. 1991) (providing emergency aid). But the officers

here faced nothing resembling an exigent circumstance when they approached Watkins’s

home. They knew of the calls reporting that a domestic dispute had occurred involving a

woman who believed a man was improperly refusing to hand her clothes that belonged to

their child and that the woman had kicked the man. They knew that there might be a gun

inside, but no one had reported that anyone had brandished or threatened to use any

weapon. They arrived to find a darkened, quiet house. They knocked and got no response,

and they directed the dispatcher to call the complainant and again got no response. Gant’s

allegation that these circumstances constituted an exigency that justified (and, according

to her complaint, compelled) the officers to force entry and arrest Watkins for domestic

assault finds no support in any caselaw that Gant provides or that we believe exists. The

allegation simply has no legal or logical support.

Gant’s complaint includes an alternative theory of liability, which is that “[d]espite

being re-dispatched to the residence and despite knowing the situation was progressively

deteriorating, Ledman and Fuller chose not to respond.” But the documents Gant provided

9 to respond to the motion to dismiss elaborate on these officers’ choice not to respond.

According to the civil complaint and police reports that detail Gant’s factual allegations,

one of the officers had to find a bathroom to relieve himself after they left Watkins’s house,

and as soon as they arrived at the location where he could do so, they happened upon a

stolen vehicle occupied by two suspects and began investigating. Although the complaint

and police reports indicate that Watkins had recontacted police, reported that he and Raven

were still present in the house, and requested police to meet him at his door, at the time of

that call the officers were no longer near the house and were investigating another crime.

And at that point, police had been told only that Raven, not Watkins, was the aggressor.

Police work requires officers to make immediate decisions based on very little information.

Kelly v. City of Minneapolis, 598 N.W.2d 657, 665 (Minn. 1999). The factual allegations

imply the decision the officers faced at that point: they could either continue to investigate

the stolen-vehicle crime and have the dispatcher send different officers to the reported

domestic assault, or they could leave the stolen vehicle and its suspicious occupants and

begin driving back toward the Watkins house. We do not here consider whether either

option was more reasonable; to answer the question of official immunity, we consider only

whether making the decision was discretionary. We have no difficulty concluding that the

officers’ decision to continue investigating one crime instead of leaving it to investigate

another was discretionary.

We need not address whether the officers’ discretionary decision not to enter

Watkins’s home and their later decision whether to return fall outside the protection of

official immunity on a theory that the decisions were undertaken maliciously. See Vassallo,

10 842 N.W.2d at 462. This is because Gant does not contend that they were, and no

allegations in the complaint remotely suggest it. We conclude that the officers are entitled

to official immunity and that the city is consequently entitled to vicarious official

We are not persuaded otherwise by Gant’s contention that the district court relied

improperly on evidence outside the pleadings to decide the question of official immunity.

We have addressed de novo the question of the respondents’ motion to dismiss. In doing

so, we have relied only on the facts in Gant’s complaint and the material Gant supplied to

the district court in her opposition to the motion to dismiss. Our decision rests properly on

the facts alleged construed in Gant’s favor. Gant also unpersuasively asserts that the district

court should have afforded her the opportunity to conduct discovery before dismissing her

complaint, contending essentially that discovery could have revealed evidence proving that

Minneapolis officers have no discretion but to make arrests for domestic abuse when

probable cause exists. Our decision affirming the dismissal would be unaffected by

evidence of this alleged fact because we have held that the officers lacked exigent

circumstances to enter Watkins’s house to arrest him. Discovery therefore would not

change our holding that the officers’ decision not to enter was discretionary.

In sum, we conclude that the officers’ decision not to forcibly enter Watkins’s home

without a warrant required their discretion to assess whether exigent circumstances existed.

We also conclude that their decision not to immediately leave their stolen-vehicle

investigation to return to the domestic-abuse investigation was likewise discretionary. The

officers are therefore officially immune from suit and the city is vicariously officially

11 immune. The district court appropriately dismissed Gant’s civil complaint for failure to

state a claim.

Affirmed.