Paul Donald Davis v. Paul Waller

44 F.4th 1305
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedAugust 12, 2022
Docket21-11333
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 44 F.4th 1305 (Paul Donald Davis v. Paul Waller) 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
Paul Donald Davis v. Paul Waller, 44 F.4th 1305 (11th Cir. 2022).

Opinion

USCA11 Case: 21-11333 Date Filed: 08/12/2022 Page: 1 of 37

[PUBLISH] In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 21-11333 ____________________

PAUL DONALD DAVIS, KATHY DAVIS, Plaintiffs-Appellants, versus PAUL WALLER, SHAUN BROWDER,

Defendants-Appellees,

SCOTT WALDROUP, ANDREW DRAKE,

Defendants. USCA11 Case: 21-11333 Date Filed: 08/12/2022 Page: 2 of 37

21-11333 Opinion of the Court 2

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia D.C. Docket No. 3:18-cv-00134-CAR ____________________

Before JILL PRYOR, GRANT, and MARCUS, Circuit Judges. MARCUS, Circuit Judge: Paul Donald Davis (“Davis”) was taken hostage by a fleeing felon in rural Georgia. The felon, William Arnold (“Arnold”), forced Davis at gunpoint to drive an 84,000-pound truck loaded with timber to escape the pursuing officers. Davis drove the truck toward seven officers gathered at the scene and showed no signs of stopping. As the logging truck struck the police vehicles lining the dirt road, several of the officers opened fire on the cab of the truck, even though they allegedly knew Davis -- an innocent hostage -- was being forced to drive. Davis survived but was shot in his hand, his fingers, his hip, and his shoulder. He sued Georgia State Patrol Lieutenant Paul Waller (“Waller”) and Georgia State Patrol Trooper Shaun Browder (“Browder”) in their individual capacities (collectively, “Defendants”) for violating his Fourth and Fourteenth Amend- ment Rights. The Defendants moved for summary judgment, ar- guing that they were entitled to qualified immunity. The district court agreed and granted summary judgment because their actions USCA11 Case: 21-11333 Date Filed: 08/12/2022 Page: 3 of 37

21-11333 Opinion of the Court 3

were reasonable and, even if they were not, they did not violate any clearly established law. We affirm. I. This tragic story1 begins when William Arnold shot his preg- nant girlfriend and took his grandmother hostage at his home in Oglethorpe County, Georgia.2 Hostage negotiations eventually failed, and Arnold fled his house in his red pickup truck, taking his wounded girlfriend with him. Arnold eventually threw his preg- nant girlfriend from his moving truck and continued his escape. He then encountered law enforcement officers Browder and Waller, who had been called to the scene by police responding to the initial hostage taking. Arnold made a U-turn as soon as he saw the officers and fled. The officers gave chase. After a brief pursuit, Browder’s and Arnold’s vehicles ended up facing each other. Arnold began shooting at Officer Browder. When Browder returned fire, Arnold reversed and drove away. Browder tried to follow in his car, but his police cruiser could not

1 Because we review the district court’s grant of summary judgment, we offer these facts from the record as taken in the light most favorable to Davis and with all inferences drawn in his favor. See Troupe v. Sarasota Cnty., 419 F.3d 1160, 1165, 1167 (11th Cir. 2005). 2 Arnold admitted to being high on methamphetamine throughout these events. USCA11 Case: 21-11333 Date Filed: 08/12/2022 Page: 4 of 37

21-11333 Opinion of the Court 4

cross the off‐road terrain, so Browder pursued Arnold on foot. Browder came to a single‐lane, dirt road where he saw Arnold’s red pickup truck parked perpendicular to a curve in the road, which led to the entrance of the logging site where Plaintiff Don Davis worked. Another deputy was parked at the scene, about 70 yards from Arnold’s red truck; the two officers called for backup. Meanwhile, Arnold’s truck ran out of gas, and he began searching for a new vehicle at the logging site in which to escape.3 Inside one of the trucks at the logging site, Arnold found a loaded .22 caliber rifle. He then ordered Davis, at gunpoint, to drive his 84,000-pound logging truck in order to help him escape. Davis says he drove for “10 or 15 minutes” and at “5-10 miles per hour” while Arnold hid in the footwell, trying to push the gas pedal with his hands, before the truck arrived at Arnold’s abandoned red pickup truck blocking the road. Shortly before Waller and other officers arrived on the scene, Davis had called 9-1-1. Dispatchers relayed over the radio that Arnold had “hijacked” a logging truck, that he was armed, and that he had forced a hostage to drive the truck. Some of the officers dispute whether they received the message, but the district court,

3 The site was about a quarter mile off Centerville Road, which Defendants describe as “a main thoroughfare for many in Oglethorpe County,” but Plain- tiff highlights deposition testimony stating that the nearest town is “three or four” miles “as the crow flies” from where officers shot Davis. USCA11 Case: 21-11333 Date Filed: 08/12/2022 Page: 5 of 37

21-11333 Opinion of the Court 5

viewing the facts most favorably to Davis, assumed both Defend- ants knew Arnold had forced a hostage to drive the logging truck at gunpoint. D.E. 64 at 9 n.56. All the while, several officers, including Waller, heard over the police radio that Browder and Arnold had exchanged gunfire and that Arnold’s red truck had been found on a logging road -- so they drove to the logging road and parked behind the police vehicle already on the scene. Within a “minute, [or] minute and a half,” as the officers and six police vehicles congregated on the logging road, Davis’s logging truck was about to knock Arnold’s red pickup truck out of its way. Davis hesitated to ram Arnold’s red pickup truck out of the way and continued driving toward the officers and their vehicles. But Arnold, who was in control of the truck, demanded that he do so, firing his rifle for emphasis, and shattering the driver’s side win- dow. The officers heard the gunshot and took cover behind their vehicles because they did not know who or what the shooter was targeting. After having pushed Arnold’s pickup truck out of the way, Davis continued to drive toward the officers and their parked vehi- cles. As the logging truck began to knock the police vehicles out of the way, the officers bailed out from behind their vehicles and be- gan firing their weapons at the moving truck. Officer Browder, who was only five feet away, fired his semi‐automatic rifle at least two times and Waller fired his shotgun two or three times. USCA11 Case: 21-11333 Date Filed: 08/12/2022 Page: 6 of 37

21-11333 Opinion of the Court 6

The logging truck finally came to a stop after it had struck one of the patrol cars. Davis managed to knock the truck out of gear, put his hands up, and “bailed” out of the truck. Almost sim- ultaneously, as Davis was exiting the truck, Waller fired one more shot and struck Davis in the shoulder. As Waller put it in his dep- osition, “[w]hen that door burst open, I certainly shot towards that direction.” D.E. 36-22 at 107. And Davis characterized the timing of the final shot this way: “Q: As you were getting out of the door, you believe you got shot in the shoulder? A: That’s right.” D.E. 36- 7 at 105. When all was said and done, Davis had been struck nine times. He suffered many physical and psychological injuries and still does not have full use of his hand. Davis sued the Defendants in the Middle District of Georgia in their individual capacities for violating his Fourth Amendment right to be free from excessive force and for violating the Four- teenth Amendment right to substantive due process pursuant to § 1983. 4 The district court granted summary judgment to the De- fendants, reasoning this way: Although Plaintiff was a hostage, as the driver of the log truck, he posed not only a threat of serious

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
44 F.4th 1305, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/paul-donald-davis-v-paul-waller-ca11-2022.