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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 19-12476
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 1:15-cv-01834-RWS
JOHN DANIEL BLUE,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
versus
MARIA DEGUADALUPE LOPEZ,
a DFACS caseworker, in her individual capacity,
Defendant - Appellee.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Georgia
________________________
(April 8, 2020)
Before ROSENBAUM, GRANT, and TJOFLAT, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
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John Blue appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment on his 42
U.S.C. § 1983 malicious-prosecution claim against Maria Lopez, a caseworker with
the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (“DFCS”). Blue alleged that
Lopez caused his arrest and prosecution for aggravated assault with a vehicle by
knowingly providing false information to law enforcement. The court concluded
that Lopez did not cause Blue’s arrest and that Blue had not established a
constitutional violation. After careful review, we affirm the grant of summary
judgment.
I.
A.
On the morning of June 12, 2014, Lopez went to a residence to investigate a
complaint of domestic violence. After Lopez parked, she went to the front door, and
Zstanya Patrick answered. Lopez and Patrick spoke outside the residence. Patrick
admitted that domestic violence had occurred in the home. Patrick said that she and
Blue, who lived with Patrick and their two sons (ages 14 and 10), did not get along,
and she described a recent incident where Blue had hit one of the children, causing
the child to complain of ringing in his ear. Patrick explained that she planned to
separate from Blue and move with her sons to Ohio, but she had not made any
specific plans about a timeframe for moving.
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While the two women spoke, Blue arrived at the apartment and went inside
without addressing them. Once inside, he found his sons and told them to get dressed
while he went out. Blue then left the apartment.
Blue testified that he did not know of Lopez’s official capacity at that time.
Instead, he believed that Lopez, whom he later described as appearing disheveled,
was a “drug addict” friend of Patrick’s. He based his belief on what he described as
Lopez’s flushed face and on his alleged observation of an IV dangling from her arm.
Lopez was using an IV catheter on her arm because of a medical condition.
Lopez became concerned about Patrick’s lack of a specific plan to remove the
two children from the alleged domestic violence occurring in the home. She returned
to her car and called her supervisor, who instructed Lopez to contact the Juvenile
Court so she could take further action. Lopez did so, receiving authorization from a
judge to take Blue’s sons into custody on behalf of DFCS. The Juvenile Court
emailed Lopez copies of the Authorizations for Protective Custody.
Meanwhile, Blue returned to the apartment, waited for the children to get
dressed, and then left the apartment with the children. Blue and his sons emerged
from the apartment while Lopez was in her car. The three entered Blue’s van, which
was parked head-in in the parking space directly across from and in front of Lopez’s
car, which was backed in and therefore facing the back of Blue’s van. An eight-to-
ten-foot-wide lane of travel separated the two vehicles. Seeing Blue and his sons
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about to leave, Lopez approached the van, beat on the driver’s side window, and told
him he could not leave with the children. Blue said, “No,” and began backing out.
What happened next is hotly disputed. According to Blue, as he was backing
out, Lopez ran to her car and deliberately drove it into the back of Blue’s van. Blue
claimed that after the two cars collided, he got out of his van and asked Lopez to
move her vehicle, but she did not respond. At the time, Blue said, he thought Lopez
looked “high” and “crazy as heck,” and his only interest was getting his children
away from Lopez. So, when Lopez refused to move her car, Blue returned to his
van and began driving it backward and forward multiple times until he was able to
leave the parking space. Blue testified at his deposition that he succeeded in leaving
without hitting Lopez’s car.
Lopez had a different take on the incident. She claimed that it was Blue who
struck her vehicle: Lopez asserted that she pulled her car up behind the van to prevent
Blue from leaving with the children, but she did not strike his van. Rather, after she
got close and had already stopped moving, Blue then backed into her. She said that
Blue rammed her car with his van several times until he had successfully pushed her
car out of the way and was able to maneuver the van out of the parking space. After
Blue left the apartment complex with his children, Lopez called 911 to report the
incident, prompting police to arrive on the scene and speak with Lopez.
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Lopez later went to the Duluth Police Department to give a statement. In her
statement, Lopez reported that Blue rammed her car as he was leaving the parking
lot. As Lopez described the incident, Blue “continued backing into her vehicle until
he had created a space where he could flee with his vehicle and both juveniles.”
Lopez advised the officer that Blue was very angry and belligerent and that she
feared for the safety of both herself and the juveniles. The officers who spoke to
Lopez asked if she wanted to press charges against Blue. Lopez called her supervisor
at DFCS, who told Lopez to press charges.
Based on Lopez’s statements, an officer obtained arrest warrants for one count
of aggravated assault and two counts of child-custody interference. In addition, a
statewide alert was issued for the children. Later, two additional arrest warrants
were issued for reckless conduct.
At some point, Blue saw the police alert on television and, after asking his
parents to pick up the children, turned himself in. Blue spoke with the lead
investigator at the Duluth Police Department. Blue told the investigator that, as he
was backing up, Lopez drove her car into the back of his van. Following the initial
impact, Blue said he put the van in reverse, “hit the gas, pushed her out of the way,
and took off.” He told the detective that if he hit Lopez’s car with his van, it was
because he was trying to get out of the parking space.
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Ultimately, an indictment was returned against Blue on a single charge of
aggravated assault, in violation of O.C.G.A. § 16-5-21(a)(2). He spent
approximately seven months in jail, before a state jury acquitted him. During the
trial, the state court denied Blue’s motion for a directed verdict.
B.
Following his acquittal, Blue filed a lawsuit against Lopez asserting, among
other things, a malicious-prosecution claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district
court originally granted summary judgment to Lopez based on the “Monroe Rule.”
See Monroe v. Sigler,
353 S.E.2d 23 (Ga. 1987). In Monroe, the Georgia Supreme
Court held that a trial court’s denial of a motion for directed verdict in an earlier
criminal case served as a binding determination of the existence of probable cause
in a later civil action for malicious prosecution.
Id. at 25. We vacated the district
court’s ruling on appeal, holding that the Monroe rule did not apply to claims under
§ 1983. See Blue v. Lopez,
901 F.3d 1352, 1358–60 (11th Cir. 2018). We remanded
for the district court to apply the ordinary federal standard for determining whether
summary judgment should be granted.
Id. at 1360.
On remand, the district court again granted summary judgment to Lopez, this
time under the ordinary federal standard. The court concluded that Blue had not
proven that law enforcement relied on Lopez’s statements or actions when deciding
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to pursue the aggravated-assault charge against Blue and that Blue had not
established a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. Blue now appeals.
II.
We review de novo the grant of summary judgment, viewing the evidence and
drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party—here, Blue.
Moore v. Pederson,
806 F.3d 1036, 1041 (11th Cir. 2015). Summary judgment is
appropriate when “there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant
is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). “Summary
judgment is improper, however, if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could
return a verdict for the nonmoving party.” Guevara v. NCL (Bahamas) Ltd.,
920
F.3d 710, 720 (11th Cir. 2019) (quotation marks omitted). We may affirm the grant
of summary judgment on any reasonable ground supported by the record, even if the
district court did not rely on that ground. Feliciano v. City of Miami Beach,
707
F.3d 1244, 1251–52 (11th Cir. 2013).
III.
We have identified “malicious prosecution as a violation of the Fourth
Amendment and a viable constitutional tort cognizable under § 1983.” Wood v.
Kesler,
323 F.3d 872, 881 (11th Cir. 2003). A § 1983 malicious-prosecution claim
requires proof of (1) the elements of the common-law tort of malicious prosecution
and (2) a violation of the plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable
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seizures.
Blue, 901 F.3d at 1357. The common-law elements of malicious
prosecution are (1) a criminal prosecution instituted or continued by the present
defendant; (2) with malice and without probable cause; (3) that terminated in the
plaintiff’s favor; and (4) caused damage to the plaintiff. Id.; Kjellsen v. Mills,
517
F.3d 1232, 1237 (11th Cir. 2008).
An arrest without probable cause is an unreasonable seizure that violates the
Fourth Amendment. Paez v. Mulvey,
915 F.3d 1276, 1285 (11th Cir. 2019).
Probable cause exists when the facts and circumstances, of which the official has
reasonably trustworthy information, would cause a prudent person to believe that the
suspect has committed, is committing, or is about to commit an offense. Jordan v.
Mosley,
487 F.3d 1350, 1355 (11th Cir. 2007).
A.
The parties first dispute whether Lopez caused the prosecution against Blue.
In approaching this issue, we begin with the obvious fact that Lopez is not a police
officer and did not arrest Blue. Rather, she claimed to be a victim who opted to press
charges. The parties do not identify any § 1983 case, rather than state law, holding
that allegedly false statements by a complaining witness can ground a § 1983
malicious-prosecution claim. See
Blue, 901 F.3d at 1358 (“Federal law, not state
law, governs the resolution of § 1983 claims.”); cf. Willis v. Brassell,
469 S.E.2d
733, 737 (Ga. Ct. App. 1996) (stating that, under Georgia law, “[a] person may be
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liable where he gave information [to the investigating officer] which he knew to be
false and so unduly influenced the authorities”). Based on similar considerations,
the district court observed that Lopez was an “improper defendant.”
Nevertheless, Lopez does not dispute that she was acting under color of law,
rather than as a private citizen, in reporting Blue to the police, and therefore was
generally subject to suit under § 1983. See Myers v. Bowman,
713 F.3d 1319, 1329
(11th Cir. 2013). And we have not limited malicious-prosecution defendants to
arresting officers or prosecutors. In Jordan, for example, we stated that “[a] non-
arresting officer who instigates or causes an unlawful arrest can still be liable under
the Fourth Amendment.”
Jordan, 487 F.3d at 1354. To establish proof of causation
for non-arresting officers, the plaintiff generally must show that the seizure was “the
result of deception or undue pressure by the defendant policemen,” as opposed to
the intervening acts of others, which ordinarily “break the chain of causation.” See
Barts v. Joyner,
865 F.2d 1187, 1195 (11th Cir. 1989) (discussing liability for
damages in a § 1983 false-arrest case).
Ultimately, however, we need not decide the parameters of § 1983 liability
for non-law-enforcement defendants in malicious-prosecution cases. Instead, we
conclude that, even assuming Lopez caused the prosecution, summary judgment was
still proper on Blue’s § 1983 malicious-prosecution claim because he has not
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established that he suffered a violation of his Fourth Amendment right against
unreasonable seizures.
B.
To prove his § 1983 malicious-prosecution claim, Blue must establish, in
addition to the common-law elements of malicious prosecution, a violation of his
Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable seizures. See
Blue, 901 F.3d at 1357.
In other words, he must show that he was arrested without probable cause. See
Paez,
915 F.3d at 1285.
Blue maintains that Lopez knowingly made false statements to the police,
which resulted in a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. As support for this
theory, he relies on caselaw, stemming from Franks v. Delaware,
438 U.S. 154
(1978), which “prohibits a police officer from knowingly making false statements in
an arrest affidavit about the probable cause for an arrest in order to detain a citizen.”
Jones v. Cannon,
174 F.3d 1271, 1285 (11th Cir. 1999); see Whiting v. Traylor,
85
F.3d 581, 585 n.5 (11th Cir. 1996) (“Knowingly making false statements to obtain
an arrest warrant can lead to a Fourth Amendment violation.”). This rule is limited
“to cases of perjurious or recklessly false statements or omissions,” and does not
apply to “negligent misrepresentations or omissions.” Kelly v. Curtis,
21 F.3d 1544,
1554 (11th Cir. 1994). And no Fourth Amendment violation occurs if, after setting
aside the false statements, there still exists “sufficient content . . . to support a finding
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of probable cause.” Madiwale v. Savaiko,
117 F.3d 1321, 1326 (11th Cir. 1997)
(quotation marks omitted).
We first examine whether this case involves “perjurious or recklessly false
statements.” See
Kelly, 21 F.3d at 1554. Blue contends that, under his version of
events, Lopez engaged in knowing falsity because she knew that Blue did not
commit any offense when she told police that he rammed his van into her car and
then “continued backing into her vehicle until he had created a space where he could
flee.” In contrast, Blue testified that Lopez initiated contact by ramming the back of
his van and that, after the initial collision, he was able to leave without hitting
Lopez’s car.
However, Blue himself contradicted this version of events in a videotaped
interview with law enforcement after his arrest. In the interview, although Blue
maintained that Lopez struck him first, he admitted that he then used his van to push
Lopez’s car out of the way. In particular, he stated that, after the initial contact with
Lopez’s car, he put the van in reverse, “hit the gas, pushed her out of the way, and
took off.” And despite Blue’s creative efforts on appeal to inject some ambiguity
into this comment, it cannot be viewed as anything other than an admission that he
intentionally backed his van into Lopez’s car to “push[] her out of the way.”
Accordingly, while the parties disputed and continue to dispute who caused the
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initial collision, their statements to law enforcement about the events that followed
were largely consistent.
We assume for purposes of this opinion that a jury could find that Lopez lied
about her responsibility for the initial collision between her car and Blue’s van. But
because there is video evidence of Blue admitting to police that he intentionally
made contact with Lopez’s car to push her out of the way, no reasonable jury could
find that Lopez’s similar statements to police were made either intentionally or with
a reckless disregard for the truth. See
Kelly, 21 F.3d at 1554 (explaining that the
Franks rule is limited “to cases of perjurious or recklessly false statements or
omissions made by a police officer in support of a warrant”);
Franks, 438 U.S. at
171 (“Allegations of negligence or innocent mistake are insufficient.”). As a result,
the use of those statements to establish probable cause does not violate the Fourth
Amendment. See
id.
Having clarified the falsehood at issue, we consider whether Lopez’s alleged
falsehood—that Blue caused the initial collision instead of Lopez—resulted in an
arrest without probable cause. 1 See
Madiwale, 117 F.3d at 1326 (stating that even
intentional falsehoods or omissions will invalidate a warrant only if removing the
1
We reject Blue’s claim that Lopez herself was required to possess probable cause before
reporting Blue’s actions to police. Blue cites no authority for this proposition, and he appears to
disavow it in his reply brief. The mere fact that Lopez relayed information to police did not amount
to a seizure or authorize a seizure that must be justified by the Fourth Amendment’s probable-
cause requirement.
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falsehood or including the omission would have prevented a finding of probable
cause). We conclude that Blue has not established a genuine issue of material fact
on this matter.
Setting aside the allegedly false statement about the initial collision, the
officer who applied for the arrest warrant still had reason to believe that Blue
intentionally used his car to push Lopez’s car out of the way, causing damage to
Lopez’s car and putting her in fear. See, e.g., Bush v. State,
601 S.E.2d 511, 513
(Ga. Ct. App. 2004) (affirming an aggravated assault conviction where the defendant
intentionally caused a car collision that “caused only slight damage”); Frayall v.
State,
576 S.E.2d 654, 656 (Ga. Ct. App. 2003) (“Although an automobile is not a
deadly weapon per se, it may become one depending upon the manner in which it is
used.”). Lopez told police—consistent with Blue’s post-arrest statements2—that
Blue “continued backing into her vehicle until he had created a space where he could
flee.” Although the use of his van did not cause Lopez any injury, it caused damage
to her vehicle, and Lopez stated that she feared for her safety. See
id. Plus, Blue
left the scene of the accident and did not report the incident to police. In these
circumstances, we cannot say that Blue’s arrest was unsupported by probable cause.
2
Because Blue’s statements came after his arrest, they would not have been known to a
reasonable officer applying for the arrest warrant. So we cannot directly rely on those statements
to justify the arrest itself.
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While Blue contends that a reasonable jury could find that no aggravated
assault was committed, “[p]robable cause does not require the same type of specific
evidence of each element of the offense as would be needed to support a conviction.”
Adams v. Williams,
407 U.S. 143, 149 (1972). In seeking the arrest warrant, the
officer “need not have in hand evidence sufficient to obtain a conviction.” Von Stein
v. Brescher,
904 F.2d 572, 578 n.9 (11th Cir. 1990).
Because we conclude that, even in the light most favorable to Blue, no
reasonable jury could find that Blue’s Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable
seizures was violated, he cannot establish an essential element of his malicious-
prosecution claim under § 1983. See
Blue, 901 F.3d at 1357. We therefore affirm
the grant of summary judgment against him.
IV.
For the reasons stated, we affirm the district court’s grant of summary
judgment to Lopez on Blue’s claim of malicious prosecution under § 1983.
AFFIRMED.
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