McKenna v. Edgell

617 F.3d 432, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 17114, 2010 WL 3220018
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedAugust 17, 2010
Docket08-2080, 08-2393
StatusPublished
Cited by72 cases

This text of 617 F.3d 432 (McKenna v. Edgell) 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
McKenna v. Edgell, 617 F.3d 432, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 17114, 2010 WL 3220018 (6th Cir. 2010).

Opinions

MOORE, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which GIBSON, J., joined. ROGERS, J. (pp. 446-51), delivered a separate dissenting opinion.

OPINION

KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge.

Scott E. McKenna (“McKenna”) brought suit against two Royal Oak police officers [435]*435(“the defendants” or “the officers”) who responded to a 911 report that McKenna was having a medical seizure and who thereafter allegedly violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The district court rejected the officers’ argument for summary judgment based on qualified immunity, and they sought interlocutory appeal. We dismissed the appeal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because the officers’ arguments for qualified immunity turned on disputed facts. The ease proceeded to trial, where the jury awarded McKenna $6,000 for medical bills and $275,000 for pain and suffering. The district court then denied the defendants’ motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict and for a new trial but reduced the award for pain and suffering to $10,000. The jury and district judge having spoken, the case is before us now on two issues: first, whether the officers were entitled to qualified immunity, and second, whether the remittitur was improper. Because we hold that the jury reasonably could have found a set of facts indicating that the officers acted in an objectively law-enforcement rather than medical-response capacity, we AFFIRM the denial of qualified immunity. We also AFFIRM the reduction of damages based on the settled doctrine that a plaintiff who accepts a remittitur may not appeal it.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual Background

We recounted many of the operative facts in our opinion dismissing the officers’ interlocutory appeal from the district court’s denial of summary judgment:

In the early morning of March 18, 2004, Scott McKenna was suffering from a seizure in his home in Royal Oak, Michigan. At that time, McKenna was a single father living with his three daughters, Alexandra, Samantha, and Jessica. Alexandra, his then fourteen-year-old daughter, called 911 and told the dispatcher that she thought her father may be having a seizure or choking. Officers Edgell and Honsowetz were dispatched to assist a man having trouble breathing. The officers arrived before any other emergency personnel. Alexandra directed the officers to McKenna’s bedroom, where they found McKenna lying in bed.
The course of events after the officers entered McKenna’s bedroom is disputed. Alexandra testified that she “couldn’t see exactly what was going on” for some period, because she was talking to one of the officers. However, she also testified that this period was “for about a minute .... So I was standing there watching it all.” According to Alexandra, the officers instructed Scott McKenna to get out of bed and to get dressed. McKenna got up and started to pick up his pants, but then sat back down on the bed and began to lie back down. Alexandra testified that the officers then “picked him up by his hands, and they like pulled him up from the ground and told him to put his pants on.” McKenna then sat back down and, according to Alexandra, “was telling them to stop.” According to Alexandra, the officers continued to try to get McKenna out of bed while McKenna “just laid back down.” Finally, Alexandra testified, the officers handcuffed McKenna’s wrists and ankles, and only then did McKenna begin struggling with them.
Contradicting the testimony offered by McKenna’s daughter, the officers said that after they found McKenna unresponsive to verbal questioning, Officer Edgell placed his hand on McKenna’s upper arm or shoulder to try to rouse him. Officer Edgell testified that when McKenna did rouse he immediately became aggressive and violent, pushing [436]*436them and causing Officer Honsowetz to fall backwards. The officers asserted that it was necessary to handcuff McKenna because of his violent behavior.
Firefighters arrived as the officers were already restraining McKenna. Scott McKenna has no recollection of the events that took place during his seizure.

McKenna v. City of Royal Oak, 469 F.3d 559, 560 (6th Cir.2006). The parties testified to those facts at trial.

In addition, Alexandra testified that when the officers arrived, one of them asked her whether McKenna was on drugs and whether he had assaulted her. She answered no to both questions. While or just after firefighters and emergency medical personnel placed McKenna on a stretcher and removed him from the premises, the two officers searched through McKenna’s bathroom medicine cabinet and the top drawer of his dresser. They testified that they were looking for prescription or illegal drugs. Alexandra testified that the officers threw out the baby teeth of all of his children that her father kept in the cabinet and that they knocked down all of the objects on top of the dresser.

Officer Honsowetz admitted that even in responding to medical emergencies, he is always aware that criminal activity may be involved and he is “always looking to investigate it.” Trial Tr. 2/12/08 at 41 (Document (“Doc.”) 108). He testified that he wrote a report explaining that when he responded to McKenna’s home, he believed he might be dealing with an intoxicated person, a person on drugs, or a person having a diabetic reaction. At some point during the encounter, Honsowetz ran McKenna’s license plate but did not run his information through the Law Enforcement Information Network (“LEIN”), which tracks criminal history and outstanding warrants.

Both parties introduced evidence as to the proper medical protocol for responding to emergency calls. McKenna’s witnesses stated that the appropriate response to a medical seizure is not to restrain the subject but rather to clear the area and let the episode run its course. A firefighter testified, “[w]e don’t handcuff patients.” Trial Tr. 2/19/08 at 72 (Doc. 119). Firefighters and paramedics testifying for the defendants stated that they are trained to initiate physical contact to rouse a nonresponsive subject, to restrain the subject for safety if necessary, and to look for indications in the environment that might explain the subject’s condition.

B. Procedural Background

McKenna initially sued the City of Royal Oak, Officers Edgell and Honsowetz, and a third officer, pleading deprivation of civil rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and several state claims. The district court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state claims and dismissed the § 1983 claim against the third officer, who was not personally involved in the events of March 18. The court then granted summary judgment for the City based on McKenna’s failure to allege facts sufficient to amount to deliberate indifference in training, but it rejected Edgell and Honsowetz’s qualified-immunity argument. The court held that the facts could support a Fourth Amendment violation. We agreed with the district court on interlocutory appeal, dismissing the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. McKenna, 469 F.3d at 562. The officers moved for summary judgment a second time, arguing that because they had acted in response to a medical emergency, they were qualifiedly immune from suit under Peete v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, [437]

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
617 F.3d 432, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 17114, 2010 WL 3220018, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mckenna-v-edgell-ca6-2010.