Mario Martin v. Dewayne Howard

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 19-10944
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 2:16-cv-00355-MHH
MARIO MARTIN,
Plaintiff-Appellee-Cross Appellant,
versus
SERGEANT DEWAYNE HOWARD,
Defendant-Appellant-Cross Appellee,
CITY OF BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA,
BIRMINGHAM POLICE DEPARTMENT,
Defendants-Cross Appellees.
________________________
Appeals from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Alabama
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(January 10, 2020)
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Before WILLIAM PRYOR, JILL PRYOR, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges
PER CURIAM:
Dewayne Howard, a retired Sergeant with the Birmingham Police
Department, appeals the district court’s denial of his motion for summary
judgment on the grounds of qualified immunity. Separately, Mario Martin cross-
appeals from the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the City of
Birmingham, Alabama, and the denial of his motion for leave to amend his
complaint. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the district court’s denial of
qualified immunity and dismiss Martin’s appeal.
I. BACKGROUND
Mario Martin is a concert and event promoter. He scheduled a performance
by the rapper “Yo Gotti” at the Bill Harris Arena in Birmingham, Alabama, but a
last-minute change forced him to change the venue to the Club Atlantis. However,
Yo Gotti failed to show and the gathered audience grew restless and angry.
Martin, along with his associates, attempted to leave the Club and return to the
hotel to ascertain the nature of the rapper’s absence.
At this point, Martin alleges that he was stopped by several off-duty officers
with the Birmingham, Alabama, Police Department, who had been contracted by
the Club to provide security. The officers prevented Martin from leaving and
demanded that he pay them for their security services. A disagreement ensued as
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to whether Martin or the Club were responsible for paying the officers. The
officers informed Martin that if he did not pay them, he would be charged with
nine counts of theft of services—one count for each of the unpaid officers.
Martin’s attempts to include Jeremy Cooper, the manager of the Club, in the
discussion proved fruitless, and he surrendered to the officers the $200.00 he had
with him. When this proved unsatisfactory to the officers, Martin telephoned one
of his associates, who provided him with another $400.00, which he provided to
the officers, again, not satisfying them.
It was at this point that Sergeant Dewayne Howard arrived on the scene.
Howard became aware that many of his officers had been dispatched to the Club
and, curious as to the reason for the en masse dispatchment, decided to investigate
himself. Upon arriving, Howard discovered that the crowd, restless and upset at
the performer’s cancellation, had started fighting, which precipitated the
dispatches. The officers met Howard at the scene and informed him that Martin
had not paid them, so Howard confronted Martin about the matter. Martin alleges
that Howard threatened that he would arrest him if Martin did not pay the officers.
In response, Martin agreed to pay the officers from his percentage of the event’s
bar sales, an amount totaling about $575.00. Howard and the officers then allowed
Martin to address the crowd to inform them that their tickets would be refunded.
After Martin returned, Howard agreed to escort Martin from the venue.
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Martin followed up with the police department, filing complaints alleging
that his money had been taken from him by police officers. The police department
tasked an internal affairs investigator with investigating Martin’s allegations. The
investigator determined that Martin was not detained and that the officers had not
threatened him with criminal charges if he did not pay them. The investigator
ultimately concluded that Martin’s complaint was not supported by the available
evidence and did not discipline any of the officers alleged to have been involved.
On February 29, 2016, Martin filed the instant case in federal court against
the City of Birmingham, the Birmingham Police Department, Sergeant Howard,
the unknown officers, and the Club. Martin’s complaint included a claim under 42
U.S.C. § 1983 that the defendants violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free
from unreasonable seizures; a section 1983 claim against the City for failure to
train, supervise, or discipline its officers; a § 1985 conspiracy claim against all
defendants; an unjust enrichment claim against all defendants; and a negligence
and wantonness claim against all defendants. Later, Martin sought to amend his
complaint to add the names of the previously unknown officers, which the district
court denied. The district court granted the defendants summary judgment on all
of Martin’s claims except for his section 1983 claim against Howard and his claims
for unjust enrichment and negligence and wantonness against the Club. Howard
timely appealed to us. Martin cross-appealed the district court’s grant of summary
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judgment to the City on Martin’s section 1983 claim and its denial of his motion
for leave to amend his complaint. We address each in turn.
II. HOWARD’S APPEAL
We review the district court’s denial of qualified immunity de novo. Nolin
v. Isbell, 207 F.3d 1253, 1255 (11th Cir. 2000). We begin by resolving “all issues
of material fact in favor of the plaintiff” and then “answer the legal question of
whether the defendants are entitled to qualified immunity under that version of the
facts.” Thornton v. City of Macon, 132 F.3d 1395, 1397 (11th Cir. 1998).
Qualified immunity protects “government officials performing discretionary
functions” from suit “unless the conduct which is the basis for the suit violates
‘clearly established federal statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable
person would have known.’” GJR Invs. v. Cnty. of Escambia, 132 F.3d 1359,
1366 (11th Cir. 1998) (alteration omitted) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S.
800, 818 (1982)).
We begin by determining whether the official in question was performing a
discretionary function. Holloman v. Harland, 370 F.3d 1252, 1264 (11th Cir.
2004). Because Sergeant Howard was indisputably acting within his discretionary
authority at the time of the conduct in question, the burden shifts to Martin to
prove that Howard is not entitled to summary judgment on the grounds of qualified
immunity. Id. To succeed, Martin must demonstrate that (1) Howard violated his
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“constitutional rights” and that (2) those rights “were clearly established at the time
of the putative misconduct.” Loftus v. Clark-Moore, 790 F.3d 1200, 1204 (11th
Cir. 2012) (alteration omitted) (quoting Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 226
(2009)). We are free to decide these inquiries in either order, depending on what
makes the most sense in the circumstances before us. See Callahan, 555 U.S. at
236.
Here, we start with Martin’s claim that Howard violated his constitutional
rights. Pursuant to the Supreme Court’s holding in Johnson v. Jones, we “take, as
given, the facts that the district court assumed when it denied summary judgment.”
515 U.S. 304, 319 (1995). The district court indicated that
Mr. Martin maintained that Club Atlantis was supposed to pay the off-
duty officers. Mr. Martin did not have a written agreement with Club
Atlantis, so Mr. Martin’s dispute with Mr. Cooper amounted to a he
said, [s]he said disagreement. According to Mr. Martin, Sergeant
Howard credited Mr. Cooper’s version of events and told Mr. Martin
that if he did not pay the officers within 15 minutes, he would go to jail.
District Court Order, Doc. 66, at 16. Martin argued before the district court that
this conduct violated his Fourth Amendment rights. He argued, inter alia, that
Howard violated his Fourth Amendment rights when Howard seized his property
by threatening him with arrest to compel the seizure. The district court agreed with
Martin. It determined that a jury “reasonably could conclude that Sergeant
Howard violated Mr. Martin’s Fourth Amendment rights when he conditioned Mr.
Martin’s release from detention on Mr. Martin surrendering his money to the off-
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duty officers.” The district court then concluded that this right was clearly
established at the time of the incident, citing our cases applying the Fourth
Amendment and our opinion in Wright v. Sheppard, in which we held, “If an
officer departs from the role of a neutral law enforcement officer by attempting to
enforce a private debt collection, and engages in conduct that effectively
intimidates an alleged debtor into refraining from exercising her legal rights, then
the officer exceeds constitutional limits on his authority.” 919 F.2d 665, 673 (11th
Cir. 1990) (citing Booker v. City of Atlanta, 776 F.2d 272 (11th Cir. 1985)).
Howard contends that this was incorrect. We disagree.
The Fourth Amendment protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. “A seizure of property occurs when there is a
‘meaningful’ interference with a person’s possessory interest in it. Generally, the
seizure of personal property is per se unreasonable when not pursuant to a warrant
issued upon probable cause.” Crocker v. Beatty, 886 F.3d 1132, 1136 (11th Cir.
2018) (citing United States v. Virden, 488 F.3d 1317, 1321 (11th Cir. 2007)).
Though there are several exceptions to this “general rule,” they largely relate to
seizure of property in the context of an ongoing law enforcement investigation.
See generally Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 91, 100 (1990) (noting the exigent
circumstances exception to the warrant requirement).
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It is clear to us that at the time of Martin’s seizure, he had a constitutional
interest in his property—that is, the $575.00 he paid to the officers after Howard’s
threat. And when Howard directed Martin to give the officers his property,
Howard effectively “seized” the property within the meaning of the Fourth
Amendment. At the time of this seizure, Howard was not operating pursuant to a
warrant issued upon a showing of probable cause, as the Fourth Amendment
requires. Nor were “exigent circumstances,” such as the imminent destruction of
evidence, present that would justify Howard’s warrantless seizure. Indeed, the
currency that Martin held, and then surrendered upon threat of arrest, at the time of
the incident was not evidence in any sense of the word—rather, it was Martin’s
personal property, to which the off-duty officers, rightly or wrongly, felt they were
entitled. We conclude, therefore, that Howard violated Martin’s constitutional
rights.
Our inquiry does not end here. We must next consider whether Martin’s
constitutional rights were clearly established at the time of the incident. As we
have previously held
[a] right may be clearly established for qualified immunity purposes in
one of three ways: (1) case law with indistinguishable facts clearly
establishing the constitutional right; (2) a broad statement of principle
within the Constitution, statute, or case law that clearly establishes a
constitutional right; or (3) conduct so egregious that a constitutional
right was clearly violated, even in the total absence of case law.
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Lewis v. City of W. Palm Beach, Fla., 561 F.3d 1288, 1291–92 (11th Cir. 2009)
(citations omitted). A broad statement of principle “may give notice to officers,
provided that the decisions clearly apply to the situation at hand” and that it is
“specific enough to give the officers notice of the clearly established right.”
Mercado v. City of Orlando, 407 F.3d 1152, 1159 (11th Cir. 2005).
We conclude that our holding in Wright—that an officer exceeds the
constitutional limits on his authority by attempting to enforce a private debt
collection—was sufficient to put Howard on notice that his actions violated
Martin’s clearly established rights. As we have explained, “[e]xact factual identity
with a previously decided case is not required,” so long as the available law
provided the official with “fair warning” that his conduct violated the constitution.
Coffin v. Brandau, 642 F.3d 999, 1013 (11th Cir. 2011) (citation and quotation
omitted). We conclude that the requisite “fair warning” existed here. Accordingly,
we affirm the district court’s order as to this issue.
III. MARTIN’S CROSS-APPEAL
In addition to defending the district court’s denial of qualified immunity to
Sergeant Howard, Martin also cross-appeals the district court’s decisions to
(1) deny his motion to amend his complaint and (2) its grant of summary judgment
to the City of Birmingham. Before reaching the merits of Martin’s arguments, “we
have a special obligation to satisfy ourselves . . . that we have jurisdiction” to do
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so. See Tamiami Partners, Ltd. by & Through Tamiami Dev. Corp. v. Miccosukee
Tribe of Indians, 177 F.3d 1212, 1221 (11th Cir. 1999). Under 28 U.S.C. § 1291,
our jurisdiction is limited to “final decisions” issued by district courts. “As a
general rule, an appeal may be taken . . . only where the district court has disposed
of all claims against all parties.” Leslie v. Hancock Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 720 F.3d
1338, 1344 (11th Cir. 2013) (quoting Hudson v. Hall, 231 F.3d 1289, 1293 (11th
Cir. 2000)) (emphasis added).
The exceptions to this rule are narrow and well-delineated. As we have
routinely explained, denials of qualified immunity fall within the collateral order
doctrine—so long as “the disputed issue involves whether or not the defendant’s
conduct constitutes a violation of clearly established law”—and public officials
“may appeal such a decision because it is considered a final, collateral order
regarding qualified immunity.” Johnson v. Clifton, 74 F.3d 1087, 1090 (11th Cir.
1996) (citing Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 528 (1985)). Accordingly,
Howard’s appeal of the district court’s denial of qualified immunity is properly
before us, even though it is not a “final judgment” under section 1291, because it is
an appeal in which the “disputed issue involves whether or not the defendant’s
conduct constitutes a violation of clearly established law.” Johnson, 74 F.3d at
1090.
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Further, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54 carves out a discrete exception
in an action that “presents more than one claim for relief . . . or when multiple
parties are involved.” Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 54(b). In that case, “the court may direct
entry of a final judgment as to one or more, but fewer than all, claims or parties
only if the court expressly determines that there is no reason for delay.” Id. If not,
any order “that adjudicates fewer than all of the claims or rights and liabilities of
fewer than all the parties does not end the action . . . and may be revised at any
time before the entry of a judgment adjudicating all the claims and all the parties’
rights and liabilities.” Id. As we have explained,
An order is appealable under Rule 54(b) when three conditions are
satisfied. First, the order must be “final,” as traditionally defined under
section 1291, as to one or more, but fewer than all, of the multiple
claims or parties. Second, if the order is final as to a claim or party, the
district court must direct entry of judgment. Third, the district court
must expressly determine that there is no just reason for delay.
Mathis v. Zant, 903 F.2d 1368, 1371 (11th Cir. 1990) (citations omitted). In other
words, as our sister circuit explained, “an order which disposes of one or more
parties or claims but does not end the litigation must either be certified as final
pursuant to Rule 54(b) or be disposed of with the remainder of litigation at the
conclusion of the entire case in compliance with Rule 58.” Willhauck v. Halpin,
919 F.2d 788, 793 (1st Cir. 1990).
Here, the orders denying Martin’s request to amend his complaint and
granting the City of Birmingham summary judgment on Martin’s section 1983
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claim, which he cross-appeals to us, were not expressly certified as a “final
judgment” in compliance with Rule 54(b). Accordingly, we may only hear them if
they fit within our pendent appellate jurisdiction.
“Under the pendent appellate jurisdiction doctrine, we ‘may address
otherwise nonappealable orders if they are ‘inextricably intertwined’ with an
appealable decision or if ‘review of the former decision is necessary to ensure
meaningful review of the latter.’” Hudson v. Hall, 231 F.3d 1289, 1294 (11th Cir.
2000) (cleaned up) (quoting Summit Med. Assoc., P.C. v. Pryor, 180 F.3d 1325,
1335 (11th Cir. 1999)). A nonappealable order is “inextricably intertwined” with
an appealable order only if determination of the pendent issue is “essential to the
resolution of properly appealed collateral orders.” Swint v. Chambers Cty.
Comm’n, 514 U.S. 35, 51 (1995) (quotation omitted).
We conclude that we do not have pendent appellate jurisdiction over
Martin’s cross-appeal. The question of whether a municipality is liable for a
section 1983 claim concerns a determination as to whether “the execution of a
government’s policy or custom . . . inflicts [an] injury,” Monell v. Dep’t of Soc.
Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 696 (1978), is entirely separate from our qualified immunity
analysis, which questions whether an individual public official violated a plaintiff’s
clearly established constitutional rights. See Hudson, 231 F.3d at 1292 n.1. “[T]he
district court’s grant of summary judgment to the [municipality under Monell] . . .
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does not fall within our pendent appellate jurisdiction” in a qualified immunity
appeal. Id.
Similarly, the question of whether the district court properly denied Martin’s
motion under Rule 15(a) to amend his complaint to replace the fictitious names of
defendants with their actual names is separate from our qualified immunity
analysis. Determining whether the district court abused its discretion under Rule
15(a) requires us to evaluate whether there was “a substantial reason to deny leave
to amend,” Thomas v. Town of Davie, 847 F.2d 771, 773 (11th Cir. 1988), like
“undue delay, bad faith or dilatory motive on the part of the movant, repeated
failure to cure deficiencies by amendments previously allowed, undue prejudice to
the opposing party by virtue of allowance of the amendment, futility of
amendment, etc.” Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962). These questions are
answered by looking to a party’s conduct in the course of litigation, which are
altogether disentangled from the merits of that party’s case. In other words, the
questions of qualified immunity and the propriety of the district court’s decision to
not grant Martin leave to amend his complaint pull on threads of a different cloth
and are not intertwined so as to allow us to exercise pendent appellate jurisdiction
over them. Accordingly, we dismiss Martin’s cross-appeal.
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IV. SUMMARY
Our review persuades us that the district court appropriately denied Sergeant
Howard qualified immunity and we affirm the district court’s opinion as to that
issue. Because we determine that we are without jurisdiction to hear Martin’s
cross-appeal concerning the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the City
of Birmingham on his section 1983 claim and its denial of his motion for leave to
amend his complaint, we dismiss his cross-appeal.
The district court’s order is AFFIRMED. We DISMISS Martin’s cross-
appeal.
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