Edwin Krell v. Kyle Braightmeyer ( 2020 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 19-2448
EDWIN CHARLES KRELL,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
STATE TROOPER KYLE BRAIGHTMEYER; STATE TROOPER TYSON
BRICE,
Defendants - Appellants,
and
QUEEN ANNE’S COUNTY, MARYLAND; LAMONTE COOKE, Individually
and in his Official Capacity as Warden, Queen Anne’s County Detention Center;
GARY HOFMANN, Individually and in his Official Capacity as Sheriff, Queen
Anne’s County Detention Center; OFFICER DUCKERY, Individually and in his
Official Capacity as Corrections Officer, Queen Anne’s County Detention Center;
OFFICER MARCY, Individually and in her Official Capacity as Corrections
Officer, Queen Anne’s County Detention Center; OFFICER CRABTREE,
Individually and in his Official Capacity as Corrections Officer, Queen Anne’s
County Detention Center; OFFICER JOHN DOE #1, Individually and in his Official
Capacity as Corrections Officer, Queen Anne’s County Detention Center; OFFICER
JOHN DOE #2, Individually and in each officer’s Official Capacity as Corrections
Officer, Queen Anne’s County Detention Center,
Defendants.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore.
James K. Bredar, Chief District Judge. (1:18-cv-00637-JKB)
Submitted: September 11, 2020 Decided: September 22, 2020
Before AGEE and QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judges, and SHEDD, Senior Circuit Judge.
Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Brian E. Frosh, Attorney General, Phillip M. Pickus, Assistant Attorney General, Brent D.
Schubert, Assistant Attorney General, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF
MARYLAND, Pikesville, Maryland, for Appellants. Cary J. Hansel, Ashton Zylstra,
HANSEL LAW, P.C., Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:
Edwin Charles Krell commenced this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against two Maryland
state troopers, Kyle Braightmeyer and Tyson Brice (“Defendants”), alleging excessive
force, deliberate indifference to serious medical needs, an equal protection violation, and
related state law claims. Asserting qualified immunity, Defendants moved for summary
judgment. The district court denied the motion in part, and Defendants timely appealed.
For the reasons that follow, we vacate the district court’s judgment relating to Krell’s
negligence claim but otherwise affirm.
“Qualified immunity protects government officials from civil liability and suit
insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights
of which a reasonable person would have known.” Attkisson v. Holder, 925 F.3d 606, 623
(4th Cir. 2019) (internal quotation marks omitted). “To overcome an official’s claim of
qualified immunity, the plaintiff must show: (1) that the official violated a statutory or
constitutional right, and (2) that the right was clearly established at the time of the
challenged conduct.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). On appeal from the denial of
summary judgment and qualified immunity, we review the district court’s decision de
novo. Pegg v. Herrnberger, 845 F.3d 112, 117 (4th Cir. 2017).
As an initial matter, we emphasize that, at this stage, our review is limited to pure
questions of law. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530 (1985). Thus, we cannot decide
“question[s] of evidence sufficiency,” Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 313 (1995) (internal
quotation marks omitted), or “whether or not the pretrial record sets forth a ‘genuine’ issue
of fact for trial,” id. at 319-20. For this reason, we need not dwell on the evidence-based
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arguments that occupy much of Defendants’ opening brief. Rather, we will simply “accept
the facts as the district court articulated them” before “determin[ing] whether, based on
those facts, a reasonable person in the defendant’s position could have believed that he or
she was acting in conformity with the clearly established law at the time.” Pegg, 845 F.3d
at 117 (internal quotation marks omitted).
This action concerns Defendants’ conduct during and after Krell’s allegedly violent
arrest inside of his home. The district court, construing the factual disputes in the light
most favorable to Krell, found that a jury could reasonably conclude: that, after Defendants
entered Krell’s residence, Braightmeyer tackled Krell to the ground and smashed his face
into the tile floor, even though Krell neither resisted arrest nor posed a physical threat to
the officers; that Braightmeyer both declined Krell’s request to reposition his handcuffs in
order to alleviate his shoulder pain and, in so doing, used a slur regarding Krell’s sexual
orientation; and that, during the several hours that Krell was in Defendants’ custody,
Defendants refused to provide him with medical treatment, despite Krell’s repeated
complaints about his visibly injured shoulder. Based on this version of events, the district
court largely rejected Defendants’ qualified immunity defense.
“The Fourth Amendment prohibits police officers from using excessive force to
seize a free citizen.” Hupp v. Cook, 931 F.3d 307, 321 (4th Cir. 2019) (internal quotation
marks omitted). In determining whether the force at issue was excessive or reasonable, we
consider the totality of the circumstances. Id. at 321-22. Several specific factors guide our
analysis, “including the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect posed an
immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, . . . whether the suspect was actively
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resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight,” and “the extent of the plaintiff’s
injuries.” Id. at 322 (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted).
Based on the evidence adduced at summary judgment, the district court held that a
jury could reasonably find that Braightmeyer unnecessarily slammed Krell’s face into the
floor. In disputing this conclusion, Defendants assert that the excessive force claim
necessarily fails because, like in Pegg, Krell suffered only de minimis injuries. See Pegg,
845 F.3d at 120 (“An efficient, lawful arrest of a resisting suspect that causes the suspect
to suffer only de minimis injuries does not constitute excessive force.”). But this
contention necessarily relies on the premise that Krell was uncooperative, even though the
district court made clear that a factfinder could reasonably determine that Krell did not
resist arrest. Thus, we conclude that Krell can prevail on his excessive force claim
regardless of the extent of his injuries. See Hupp v. Cook, 931 F.3d 307, 322 (4th Cir.
2019) (emphasizing that plaintiff’s “minor injuries . . . [were] but one consideration in
determining whether force was excessive” (internal quotation marks omitted)). We further
conclude that, at the time of Krell’s arrest, the law clearly prohibited Defendants from
“using unnecessary, gratuitous, and disproportionate force to seize a secured, unarmed
citizen.” Jones v. Buchanan, 325 F.3d 520, 532 (4th Cir. 2003). Thus, we affirm the denial
of qualified immunity on Krell’s excessive force claims.
Turning to the deliberate indifference claim, it is well established that “a pretrial
detainee makes out a due process violation if he shows deliberate indifference to serious
medical needs within the meaning of Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104-06 (1976).”
Martin v. Gentile, 849 F.2d 863, 871 (4th Cir. 1988); see Parrish ex rel. Lee v. Cleveland,
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372 F.3d 294, 302 (4th Cir. 2004). Under that standard, the plaintiff must first demonstrate
that he had a serious medical condition—i.e., a condition that “has been diagnosed by a
physician as mandating treatment or is so obvious that even a lay person would easily
recognize the necessity for a doctor’s attention.” Gordon v. Schilling, 937 F.3d 348, 356
(4th Cir. 2019) (internal quotation marks omitted). Second, the plaintiff must establish that
the defendants acted with deliberate indifference—i.e., that they “had actual knowledge of
the plaintiff’s serious medical needs and the related risks, but nevertheless disregarded
them.” Id. at 357 (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted).
Defendants contend that Krell, who had a history of shoulder problems, had to
present evidence that his arrest resulted in a new or exacerbated injury. Thus, according to
Defendants, Krell’s mere complaints of pain were insufficient to establish a constitutional
violation. We disagree. As the district court correctly held, a plaintiff can maintain a
deliberate indifference claim based solely on the theory that the defendant withheld,
delayed, or interfered with medical treatment. Gordon, 937 F.3d at 359; Smith v. Smith,
589 F.3d 736, 739 (4th Cir. 2009). As a result, even if Krell did not suffer a new or
exacerbated injury, evidence that Defendants failed to provide medical care for Krell’s
substantial pain is enough to prevail on a claim of deliberate indifference.
In addition, we conclude that the requirement that Defendants provide treatment for
Krell’s pain was clearly established at the time of the incident. See Loe v. Armistead, 582
F.2d 1291 (4th Cir. 1978) (holding that pretrial detainee stated deliberate indifference claim
by alleging that, for at least 11 hours, defendants failed to provide medical treatment for
detainee’s broken arm). Although, as Defendants emphasize, the plaintiff in Loe spent
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more time in the defendants’ custody than the three hours Krell spent in Defendants’ care,
we find this distinction immaterial. Booker v. S.C. Dep’t of Corr., 855 F.3d 533, 538 (4th
Cir. 2017) (“[D]efendants can still be on notice that their conduct violates established law
even in novel factual circumstances, so long as the law provided fair warning that their
conduct was unconstitutional.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Thus, we agree with
the district court’s decision to deny qualified immunity on the deliberate indifference claim.
Next, with regard to the equal protection claim—in which Krell named only
Braightmeyer—the district court identified two actions that, coupled with Braightmeyer’s
alleged use of a sexual orientation slur, could constitute an equal protection violation: first,
Braightmeyer’s refusal to reposition Krell’s handcuffs; and second, Braightmeyer’s refusal
to seek medical care for Krell. On the latter point, Braightmeyer baldly contends that there
was no evidence of deliberate indifference. As discussed above, this argument holds no
water. On the former point, Braightmeyer appears to suggest that he did not use excessive
force when handcuffing Krell, thus precluding a finding that he acted with discriminatory
animus when rejecting Krell’s request to reposition his handcuffs. But Krell does not need
to premise his equal protection claim on some other constitutional violation; rather, he
simply must “demonstrate that he has been treated differently from others with whom he
is similarly situated and that the unequal treatment was the result of intentional or
purposeful discrimination.” King v. Rubenstein, 825 F.3d 206, 220 (4th Cir. 2016) (internal
quotation marks omitted). Based on Braightmeyer’s alleged refusal to alleviate Krell’s
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pain—a decision punctuated with a vile epithet—we conclude that the district court
properly denied qualified immunity to Braightmeyer. *
Finally, Defendants aver that, under Maryland law, they are entitled to immunity
for Krell’s negligence and gross negligence claims. Under the Maryland Tort Claims Act
(“MTCA”), state officials generally are immune from suit and liability for torts committed
within the scope of their employment, so long as the tortious acts or omissions were “made
without malice or gross negligence.” Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 5-522(b). Thus,
by its terms, the MTCA does not extend immunity to grossly negligent acts, so we therefore
discern no error in the denial of immunity on Krell’s gross negligence claim.
We agree, however, that Defendants were entitled to immunity on Krell’s claim of
simple negligence. Although the district court determined that the negligence claim rose
and fell with the gross negligence claim, these two torts are, in fact, mutually exclusive of
one another. See Barbre v. Pope, 935 A.2d 699, 717 (Md. 2007) (defining simple
negligence and gross negligence). Thus, a finding of gross negligence necessarily
precludes a finding of negligence for the same act or omission.
Accordingly, we vacate the part of the district court’s judgment denying immunity
to Defendants on Krell’s negligence claim, we affirm the remainder of the judgment, and
we remand for further proceedings. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and
*
Braightmeyer raises no objection to the district court’s determination that, at the
time of Krell’s arrest, the right to be free from discrimination based on sexual orientation
was clearly established.
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legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument
would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED IN PART,
VACATED IN PART,
AND REMANDED
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