Opinion
Case No. 1:01-CV-408
June 14, 2002
Craig W. Haehnel/Hugh M. Davis, Jr. for Plaintiffs.
Steven Floyd Stapleton, for Defendants.
ORDER
In accordance with the Opinion filed this date,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendants Second Motion To Dismiss, or In The Alternative, For Summary Judgment Pursuant To Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c) (docket no. 39) is GRANTED. Plaintiff's claims for municipal liability and gross negligence are dismissed with prejudice. The case will continue on the claims again Defendants Hancock and Baskerville.
OPINION
On August 2, 2001, Defendants filed a motion to dismiss, or in the alternative, for summary judgment. As part of their motion, Defendants requested the dismissal of Defendant City of Grandville (the "City") on the municipal liability claim. Plaintiff responded that the motion was premature with respect to municipal liability because further discovery was required to determine whether the City's policies, procedures, and customs, as well as its failure to train, caused the constitutional violations. On October 3, 2001, following a hearing on Defendants' motion, the Court entered an Order denying the motion with respect to Plaintiff's claims for excessive force and First Amendment retaliation in Counts III and IV of his complaint because the evidence regarding those claims was in dispute and presented questions for the jury. The Court also denied the motion with respect to municipal liability, subject to further consideration following Defendants' compliance with Plaintiffs' discovery requests. Finally, the Court denied the motion without prejudice with respect to Plaintiff's gross negligence claim in Count I of his complaint, subject to further consideration either at the pretrial conference or earlier at the request of either party.
After several extensions and a show cause hearing by the Court, Plaintiff filed a supplemental response to the City's initial motion, and Defendants filed a second motion to dismiss or, in the alternative, for summary judgment on Plaintiff's gross negligence and municipal liability claims. On May 6, 2002, the Court heard oral argument on Defendants' second motion. At the conclusion of the hearing, the Court instructed the parties to submit the transcripts from the depositions of the police officers for the Court to review with regard to the issue of training. The parties have submitted the deposition transcripts and the Court has reviewed them. For the reasons set forth below, the Court will grant Defendants' motion with respect to the gross negligence and municipal liability claims.
Discussion
I. Municipal Liability
The Supreme Court has held that a municipality may be held liable where its failure to provide training to its employees results in a constitutional deprivation. City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 392, 109 S.Ct. 1197, 1206 (1989). A municipal defendant maybe held liable "[o]nly where [its] failure to train its employees in a relevant respect evidences a `deliberate indifference' to the rights of its inhabitants" that amounts to a "`policy or custom.'" Id. at 389, 109 S.Ct. at 1205. A particular officer's unsatisfactory performance will not alone be indicative of a failure to receive adequate training because
[i]t may be, for example, that an otherwise sound program has occasionally been negligently administered. Neither will it suffice to prove that an injury or accident could have been avoided if an officer had had better or more training, sufficient to equip him to avoid the particular injury-causing conduct. Such a claim could be made about almost any encounter resulting in injury, yet not condemn the adequacy of the program to enable officers to respond properly to the usual and recurring situations with which they must deal. And plainly, adequately trained officers occasionally make mistakes; the fact that they do says little about the training program or the legal basis for holding the city liable.
Id., 489 U.S. at 391, 109 S.Ct. at 1206. Moreover, a plaintiff who asserts a failure to train claim must prove that the training program is inadequate with respect to the specific task performed. Matthews v. Jones, 35 F.3d 1046, 1049 (6th Cir. 1994). The plaintiff "`must identify the policy, connect the policy to the city itself and show that the particular injury was incurred because of the execution of that policy.'" Coogan v. City of Wixom, 820 F.2d 170, 176 (6th Cir. 1987) (quoting Bennett v. City of Slidell, 728 F.2d 762, 767 (5th Cir. 1984)); see also Sova v. City of Mt. Pleasant, 142 F.3d 898, 905 (6th Cir. 1998) (requiring showing of policy or custom for municipal liability under Michigan constitution).
A plaintiff who seeks to impose liability against a municipality pursuant to § 1983, under any theory, must do more than show some conduct that is attributable to the municipality. Board of County Comm'rs v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 404, 117 S.Ct. 1382, 1388 (1997). Instead, a "plaintiff must also demonstrate that, through its deliberate conduct, the municipality was the `moving force' behind the injury alleged." Id. In other words, a plaintiff must demonstrate "the requisite degree of culpability" and "a direct causal link between the municipal action and the deprivation of federal rights." Id. In Brown, the Court held that although the Sheriff was a decisionmaker who possessed final authority to establish municipal policy, the Sheriff's negligent hiring of an employee did not suffice to impose liability upon the county for the employee's use of excessive force because the Sheriff's failure to adequately screen the employee did not "reflect a conscious disregard for a high risk that [the employee] would use excessive force." Id at 415 117 S.Ct. at 1394. Thus, in establishing a failure to train claim, a plaintiff must not only show that the training was inadequate for the tasks the officers must perform, but also that the inadequacy was the result of the municipality's indifference and that the inadequacy was closely related to the injury alleged. Russo v. City of Cincinnati, 953 F.2d 1036, 1046 (6th Cir. 1992).
Plaintiff submits that the City is liable for the alleged acts of Reserve Officers Hancock and Baskerville because: (1) the City's police department does not follow its own policies and procedures which would have required them to take Plaintiff to the hospital rather to the Kent County Jail; (2) the City's police department does not follow its own policies and procedures which would have required an investigation into the alleged assault and excessive force used against Plaintiff (3) the City does not maintain a meaningful internal affairs review system and does not maintain personnel files for its reserve officers; and (4) the City failed to train its reserve officers on the use of force. In spite of these alleged shortcomings, the only failure that is relevant in this case is the claim regarding failure to train in the use of force. In other words, Plaintiff claims that Defendants violated his constitutional rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures by using excessive force in affecting the arrest. (Compl. ¶¶ 18-22.) Plaintiff's alleged injuries occurred as a result of being struck in the knee by a flashlight, not because Defendants denied him medical treatment, failed to conduct an investigation, or failed to maintain personnel files or an internal affairs review system. Therefore, the only failure identified by Plaintiff having any relevance to his claim is the failure to train in the use of force. Sims ex rel. Sims v. Glover, 84 F. Supp.2d 1273, 1284 (M.D. Ala. 1999) (stating that the failure to train must rise to the level of deliberate indifference and must actually cause the alleged injury); Jackson v. Mills, No. Civ. A. 96-3751, at *7 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 4, 1997)("Of course, the failure adequately to train must also cause the violation complained of.").
Plaintiff contends that the City can be held liable because there is no proof that Defendants Hancock and Baskerville received proper training in the use of force. The testimony of the officers shows that the City trains its sworn officers in the use of force but does not train its reserve officers in the use of force. (Roelofs Dep. at 5-6; Neerken Dep. at 11; Hancock Dep. at 7; Baskerville Dep. at 8-12.) However, the City does require its reserve officers to complete a training class at the Kent County Sheriffs Department traffic squad school. (Baskerville Dep. at 12; Hancock Dep. at 10-11.) One of the topics covered in the class was the permissible use of force in affecting an arrest. (Baskerville Dep. at 13-14; Hancock Dep. at 7.) Thus, while reserve officers Hancock and Baskerville did not receive training in the use of force from the City, they were still trained in the use of force at or shortly after the time they became reserve officers for the City because they completed the traffic squad class.
The real gist of Plaintiff's argument is that Reserve Officers Hancock and Baskerville were inadequately trained because they did not have specific training in the use of a baton or a flashlight as a weapon. This argument must be rejected in light of the evidence presented. First, there is no evidence that any officer on the scene at the time of the incident possessed a baton. In fact, Officer Neerken testified that the City's officers stopped carrying batons prior to Plaintiff's arrest. (Neerken Dep. at 10.) Second, although the officers on the scene did have flashlights, the officers testified that their flashlights were issued as "flashlights" and were never considered to be weapons. (Roelofs Dep. at 38-39; Neerken Dep. at 8; Baskerville Dep. at 14.) Thus, if the flashlights were never intended to be used as weapons, the City would have no reason to provide or require training on the use of a flashlight as a weapon. Moreover, Plaintiff has not presented any evidence showing either that flashlights are commonly used as weapons or that it is standard procedure for police departments to train their officers in the use of flashlights as weapons.
More importantly, even if Plaintiff's evidence established that the City's reserve officers were inadequately trained in the use of force, Plaintiff has failed to present any evidence showing that the City's failure to train evidenced a "deliberate indifference" to the rights of its citizens. "[A] plaintiff must present some evidence that the municipality knew of a need to train and/or supervise in a particular area and the municipality made a deliberate choice not to take any action." Gold v. City of Miami, 151 F.3d 1346, 1350 (11th Cir. 1998). See also McClendon v. City of Columbia, 258 F.3d 432, 442 (5th Cir. 2001) (stating that in a failure to train case a plaintiff may prove deliberate indifference either: "1) by showing that the municipality deliberately or consciously chose not to train its officers despite being on notice that its current training regimen had failed to prevent tortious conduct by its officers; or 2) showing a single incident with proof of the possibility of recurring situations that present an obvious potential for violation of constitutional rights and the need for additional or different police training"). Thus, "without notice of a need to train or supervise in a particular area, a municipality is not liable as a matter of law for any failure to train and supervise." Gold, 151 F.3d at 1351 (footnote omitted). See also Searcy v. City of Dayton, 38 F.3d 282, 287 (6th Cir. 1994) (stating that "plaintiffs have not pointed to any evidence in the record that would indicate that the City's training of police officers was inadequate, or that the alleged failure to train resulted from the City's deliberate indifference, both of which are required for failure to train to be actionable"); Berry v. City of Detroit, 25 F.3d 1342, 1346-47 (6th Cir. 1994) (concluding that the evidence was insufficient to support the plaintiff's contention that the improper use of deadly force "was not an isolated incident but, rather, emblematic of a consistent and pervasive pattern of misuse of fatal force by Detroit police officers"); Ronayne v. Ficano, No. 98-1135, 1999 WL 183479, at *1 (6th Cir. Mar. 15, 1999)("'Failure to train can amount to deliberate indifference when the need for more or different training is obvious, such as when there exists a history of abuse by subordinates that has put the supervisor on notice of the need for corrective measures, and when the failure to train is likely to result in the violation of a constitutional right.'") (quoting Belcher v. City of Foley, 30 F.3d 1390, 1397-98 (11th Cir. 1994)). Plaintiff has not presented evidence of complaints of the use of excessive force by reserve officers in general or Defendants Hancock or Baskerville in particular, nor has he presented evidence of an investigation, a court finding, or even allegations in a lawsuit regarding use of excessive force by Grandville police officers that would be sufficient to put the City on notice of the need for training, particularly in the use of flashlights as weapons. See Estate of Fuentes ex rel. Fuentes v. Thomas, 107 F. Supp.2d 1288, 1302-03 (D. Kan. 2000). Thus, the City could not have been "deliberately indifferent" to the need to train. Accordingly, Plaintiff has failed to present sufficient evidence to support his failure to train claim.
II. Gross Negligence
The City has renewed its motion for summary judgment on Plaintiff's gross negligence claim, arguing that Plaintiff's claim is based upon an intentional tort rather than negligence. Plaintiff concedes that his claim is based upon an intentional tort because all of the officers deny that Plaintiff they struck Plaintiff, thus rendering Defendants' conduct an intentional tort rather than an act of gross negligence. Plaintiff also states that he intends to withdraw his gross negligence claim. For those reasons, the Court concludes that Defendants are also entitled to summary judgment on the gross negligence claim.
Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, the Court will grant Defendants' motion for summary judgment with regard to Plaintiff's municipal liability and gross negligence claims.
An Order consistent with this Opinion will be entered.