Price v. City of Bossier

Case: 20-30263 Document: 00515695045 Page: 1 Date Filed: 01/05/2021
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
January 5, 2021
No. 20-30263 Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
Andre Price,
Plaintiff—Appellant,
versus
City of Bossier; Police Department of Bossier City;
Hunter J. Timms, Officer; Shawn Parker, Officer;
Unknown Employees, Bossier Police Department,
Defendants—Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Louisiana
USDC 5:19-CV-1237
Case: 20-30263 Document: 00515695045 Page: 2 Date Filed: 01/05/2021
No. 20-30263
Before Jones, Smith, and Elrod, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam:*
Andre Price appeals the dismissal of his federal and state law claims as
well as the denial of his motion to amend the complaint. 1 Finding no error of
fact or law, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court as modified.
I. BACKGROUND
In the early hours of September 21, 2018, Price was stopped while
riding his bicycle by Officers Timms and Parker of the Bossier City Police
Department. The encounter turned violent when the officers attempted to
arrest Price. After a struggle lasting “15-20 minutes” and covering “60-80
yards,” police finally subdued Price. The incident left him with severe
injuries, including an intracranial hemorrhage, acute head injury, hematoma,
and partial blindness in his right eye. Particularly important, the incident also
resulted in Price’s conviction for battery of police officer Parker alone.
Roughly a year later, Price filed the present suit under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983 alleging his constitutional rights were violated during the arrest.
Specifically, he claimed that Timms, Parker, and “other unnamed and/or
unknown co-conspirators” used excessive force in violation of the Fourth
and Fourteenth Amendments. Further, he asserted that officers of the
Bossier City Police Department violated his state law rights and “committed
the specific torts of assault, battery, abuse of process, intentional infliction of
emotional distress, false arrest, false imprisonment, negligence, gross
negligence, and intentional torts.” Price also asserted that Bossier City was
*
Pursuant to 5th Circuit Rule 47.5, the court has determined that this
opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited
circumstances set forth in 5th Circuit Rule 47.5.4.
1
Appellant’s Counsel is reminded that Local Rule 28.2.2 requires that “[e]very
assertion in briefs regarding matter in the record must be supported by a reference to the
page number of the original record.” 5th Cir. R. 28.2.2. This demands more than a range
of record pages appended to a section heading.
2
Case: 20-30263 Document: 00515695045 Page: 3 Date Filed: 01/05/2021
No. 20-30263
liable for actions of the officers under theories of agency, respondeat
superior, and vicarious liability. Finally, the complaint alleged various
violations of Price’s Fifth and Eighth Amendment rights.
The Defendants moved for dismissal, and the subsequent Report and
Recommendation by the magistrate judge recommended dismissal of the
Fifth and Eighth Amendment claims, the claims against the City, and claims
against the “Unknown Employees of the Bossier City Police Department”
on the ground that Price did not oppose dismissal, although he might amend
the complaint. 2 The magistrate judge further recommended that the claims
against Officers Timms and Parker under both the Constitution and state law
be dismissed as barred by Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S. Ct. 2364(1994). The magistrate judge concluded by suggesting that Price be given
opportunity to amend his complaint. Price timely filed a motion to amend
the complaint. 3
The district court adopted the magistrate judge’s Report and
Recommendation dismissing all charges. Additionally, the district court
reviewed the proposed amended complaint, determined it still failed to state
a claim against any defendant and denied leave to amend as futile. Price
timely appealed to this court, challenging the denial of leave to amend, the
dismissal of his excessive force claims, and dismissal of his state law claims.
2
There appears to be some disagreement regarding whether Price opposed the
dismissal of his claims against the City. Any dispute, however, is immaterial to the present
appeal as Price appeals only the dismissal of his Fourth Amendment and state law claims
against the officers individually.
3
The proposed amended complaint named three additional Bossier City Police
Officers and recharacterized the arrest as “multiple incidents” lasting 15-20 minutes over
60-80 yards as described above.
3
Case: 20-30263 Document: 00515695045 Page: 4 Date Filed: 01/05/2021
No. 20-30263
II. DISCUSSION
A. Standard of Review
This court reviews de novo the district court’s grant of a motion to
dismiss for failure to state a claim. Hammer v. Equifax Info. Servs. LLC,
974 F.3d 564, 567 (5th Cir. 2020). “To survive a motion to dismiss, a
complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a
claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662,
678, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1949 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly,
550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S. Ct. 1955, 1974 (2007)). “A pleading that offers
‘labels and conclusions’ or ‘a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause
of action will not do.’” Id. (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S. Ct. at
1965).
We review the district court’s denial of a motion to amend a pleading
for abuse of discretion. Leal v. McHugh, 731 F.3d 405, 417 (5th Cir. 2013).
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a) dictates that courts “should freely give
leave [to amend] when justice so requires.” FED. R. CIV. P. 15(a)(2). But the
court may consider factors such as “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 the allowance of the amendment, and futility of the amendment.”
Schiller v. Physicians Resource Group Inc., 342 F.3d 563, 566 (5th Cir. 2003).
A proposed amendment is futile if the amended complaint fails to state a
claim upon which relief could be granted. Villarreal v. Wells Fargo Bank,
N.A., 814 F.3d 763, 766 (5th Cir. 2016). This standard is the same as a
12(b)(6) dismissal and we review it de novo. Id.B. Price’s Fourth Amendment Claims
We begin with Price’s Fourth Amendment excessive force claims as
alleged in his proposed amended complaint. The district court concluded
4
Case: 20-30263 Document: 00515695045 Page: 5 Date Filed: 01/05/2021
No. 20-30263
that Price’s claims, even as amended, remained “inseparable” from his
conviction for battery of an officer and, thus, were barred by Heck. We agree.
The Supreme Court in Heck barred any § 1983 claim that effectively
attacks the validity of a conviction or imprisonment until the conviction or
sentence has been “reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order,
declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such determination,
or called into question by a federal court’s issuance of a writ of habeas
corpus.” 512 U.S. at 487, 114 S. Ct. at 2372. Thus, the key inquiry is
“whether a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would necessarily imply the
invalidity of his conviction.” Id.Pursuant to Heck, this court previously determined that the conviction
of a battery of an officer under Louisiana law prohibits an excessive force
claim arising from the same incident. Hudson v. Hughes, 98 F.3d 868, 873
(5th Cir. 1996). State law recognizes self-defense as a justification for battery
of an officer, and a criminal defendant can prevail by showing that the use of
force against an officer was reasonable and necessary to prevent a forcible
offense against himself. Id. (citing Louisiana v. Blancaneaux, 535 So. 2d 1341(La. App. 1988)). Since the excessive force claim turns on whether officers
used unreasonable force in effectuating the arrest, it places the defendant’s
own resistance into question. Id. If the officers’ use of force was
unreasonable because the defendant was justified in resistance, these facts
necessarily call into question the validity of the battery conviction. Id.Our precedent recognizes, however, that “if the factual basis for the
conviction is temporally and conceptually distinct from the excessive force
claim,” the claim is not barred by Heck. Bush v. Strain, 513 F.3d 492, 498
(5th Cir. 2008). Thus, “a claim that excessive force occurred after the
arrestee has ceased his or her resistance would not necessarily imply the
validity of a conviction for the earlier resistance.” Id. But if the excessive
5
Case: 20-30263 Document: 00515695045 Page: 6 Date Filed: 01/05/2021
No. 20-30263
force claim stems from “a single violent encounter,” then the conviction bars
recovery. DeLeon v. City of Corpus Christi, 488 F.3d 649, 656–57 (5th Cir.
2007).
Price’s amended complaint attempts to draw such a distinction,
alleging that the struggle covered “60-80 yards,” lasted “as much as 15-20
minutes,” and “involves much more than a single ‘incident’ in one discrete
location.” The amended complaint further alleges that some officers
observed Price being struck while “resisting” arrest but not battering officers
and some officers did not observe Price committing battery at the time he was
being struck. But Price never alleges that he stopped resisting, only that he
stopped “battering.” Placing conclusory labels aside, we fail to find the
temporal and conceptual distinction between the basis of Price’s conviction
and the excessive force claim. In sum, the amended complaint describes a
single—though drawn out—violent encounter that left Price with multiple
injuries and a battery conviction.
C. Price’s State Law Claims
Price’s amended complaint re-asserts his state law claims against the
officers but fails to add any additional factual allegations. These torts—
assault, abuse of process, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false
arrest, false imprisonment, negligence, gross negligence, and other
“intentional torts”—all stem from Price’s arrest. Louisiana applies the Heck
rationale to state law tort claims. 4 Williams v. Harding, 2012-1595 (La. App.
1 Cir. 4/26/13), 117 So. 3d 187, 191. As with the excessive force claim, so
4
We recognize that the Louisiana Supreme Court has not definitively applied Heck
to all state law torts, making this an Erie guess. But the Louisiana Supreme Court has noted
that, in the context of a malicious prosecution action, collateral attacks on the judgment via
civil tort are not permitted. See Lemoine v. Wolfe, 2014-1546 (La. 3/17/15), 168 So. 3d 362,
368 (citing Heck, 512 U.S. at 486, 114 S. Ct. at 2372).
6
Case: 20-30263 Document: 00515695045 Page: 7 Date Filed: 01/05/2021
No. 20-30263
these state law claims imply the invalidity of the underlying conviction. Since
Price has failed to distinguish these torts from the factual basis for the battery
conviction, they are inseparable and Heck-barred. DeLeon, 488 F.3d at 657.
Price’s proposed amended complaint fails to state a claim upon which
relief can be granted. Thus, the district court did not abuse its discretion in
denying leave to amend. This conclusion applies a fortiori to the original
complaint, which describes the incident in even less detail. Accordingly, the
court did not err in dismissing Price’s original complaint. The preferred
order of dismissal in Heck cases, however, states that the claims are dismissed
with prejudice until the Heck conditions are met. Johnson v. McElveen,
101 F.3d 423, 424 (5th Cir. 1996).
Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED but
MODIFIED to state that Price’s claims are DISMISSED WITH
PREJUDICE to their being asserted again until the Heck conditions are
met.
7