Autin v. City of Baytown

United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
F I L E D
December 29, 2005
Charles R. Fulbruge III
Clerk
In the
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit
_______________
m 05-20214
Summary Calendar
_______________
NAOMI AUTIN,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
VERSUS
CITY OF BAYTOWN, TEXAS, ET AL.,
Defendants,
MICAH ALDRED,
Defendant-Appellant.
_________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Texas
m 4:04-CV-481
_________________________

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Before SMITH, GARZA, and PRADO,
Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:*
Micah Aldred challenges the denial of sum-
mary judgment regarding an excessive force
claim brought by Naomi Autin. Finding no
error, we affirm.
I.
The district court relied on the following
pertinent facts: On July 11, 2003, fifty-nine-
year-old Autin went to her brother’s house to
check the mail. When no one answered the
door, she became concerned about the occu-
pant, who she had reason to believe was seri-
ously ill. Because she could hear the television
loudly through the door, Autin began
knocking on the door with a brick she found in
the yard, thinking this might get the occupant’s
attention. She then went to a neighbor’s
house to telephone her brother’s house.
When this was unsuccessful, she contacted
the Baytown Police Department, and Officer
Aldred came to the scene. Autin requested Al-
dred’s help in getting someone to answer the
door. When Aldred told her he could not
make anyone come to the door, Autin dis-
missed Aldred and returned to the door to
continue knocking on it with the brick.
As Autin picked up the brick and ap-
proached the door, Aldred attempted to use
his taser on her, but it malfunctioned, so he ap-
proached her and attempted a contact tase,
but the taser again malfunctioned, causing a
taser dart to penetrate Autin’s skin. Aldred
then repeatedly contact-tased Autin while phy-
sically forcing her to the ground. Autin hit her
head on a pole and suffered a severe
laceration.
II.
Autin sued Aldred, the City of Baytown,
and a number of police and city officials, alleg-
ing a variet y of civil rights violations. The
district court awarded summary judgment to
the defendants on all of Autin’s claims except
for her excessive force claim against Aldred.
Aldred contends that as a state official, he is
entitled to summary judgment based on quali-
fied immunity from the excessive force claim.
III.
The standard of review we apply in an in-
terlocutory appeal asserting qualified immunity
differs from the standard employed in typical
appeals of summary judgment rulings. Kinney
v. Weaver, 367 F.3d 337, 348 (5th Cir. 2004)
(en banc). Ordinarily, we review the denial of
summary judgment de novo, determining on
our own review of the record whether a
genuine issue of material fact exists. Id. In the
qualified immunity context, however, we
consider only whether the district court erred
in assessing the legal significance of the
conduct the district court deemed sufficient to
overcome qualified immunity. Id.
The district court properly took the view of
the facts most favorable to Autin.1 We are to
decide only whether that court erred in con-
cluding as a matter of law that Aldred was not
* Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has de-
termined that this opinion should not be published
and is not precedent except under the limited cir-
cumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4.
1 See Gonzales v. Dallas County, 249 F.3d 406,
411 (5th Cir.2001) (stating that “[o]n interlocutory
appeal the public official must be prepared to con-
cede the best view of the facts to the plaintiff and
discuss only the legal issues raised by the ap-
peal.”).

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entitled to qualified immunity on these facts.
Such a review of the district court’s assess-
ment of the legal consequences of the facts is
de novo. Id., at 349.
IV.
The Supreme Court has established a two-
part test to be applied in determining whether
the presumption of qualified immunity is over-
come. First, “taken in the light most favorable
to the party asserting the injury, do the facts
alleged show the officer’s conduct violated a
constitutional right?” Saucier v. Katz, 533
U.S. 194, 201 (2001). Second, is the right
violated clearly established?” Id. This second
question must be answered in light of the spe-
cific context of the case, not as a broad, gen-
eral proposition. Brosseau v. Haugen, 543
U.S. 194 (2004) (citing Saucier, 533 U.S. at
201). “The relevant, dispositive inquiry in de-
termining whether a right is clearly established
is whether it would be clear to a reasonable of-
ficer that his conduct was unlawful in the situ-
ation he confronted.” Saucier, 533 U.S. at
201.
The district court correctly found that the
facts alleged show that Aldred’s conduct vio-
lated Autin’s Fourth Amendment right to be
free from excessive force. To succeed in such
a case, a plaintiff must demonstrate that (1) he
suffered a significant injury; (2) resulting di-
rectly and only from the use of force that was
clearly excessive to the need; and (3) the force
used was objectively unreasonable. Fontenot
v. Cormier, 56 F.3d 669, 675 (5th Cir. 1995).
Autin suffered a significant head injury that
resulted directly and only from the force Al-
dred used against her. The relevant question
is whether, taking Autin’s version of the facts
as true, the force used by Aldred was both ex-
cessive to the need and objectively unreason-
able. In Fourth Amendment excessive force
cases, the reasonableness question amounts to
“whether the totality of the circumstances jus-
tifies a particular sort of seizure.” Tennessee
v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 8-9 (1985). Important
factors to be considered include the severity of
the crime, whether the actor poses an immedi-
ate threat to the safety of the officer or others,
and whether he is actively resisting arrest or
attempting to evade arrest by flight. Graham v.
Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989).
On the facts as presented by Autin and re-
lied on by the district court, Autin was at most
committing the minor crime of criminal mis-
chief. She posed no objective threat to Aldred
or others and was not resisting or attempting
to evade arrest. It is irrelevant that Aldred
claims he felt threatened by Autin because she
wielded a brick. The question is whether the
use of force was objectively reasonable under
the circumstances as alleged by Autin, not
whether the force was justified based on Al-
dred’s claimed interpretation of the situation at
the time.2
Not only was Autin not resisting arrest, but
Aldred’s tasing of her was allegedly the first
indication he gave to her that she was doing
anything wrong. He tased her when her back
was to him, he gave her no notice of his inten-
tion to do so, and he continued to tase her re-
peatedly, even after she was subdued on the
ground. In judging the objective reasonable-
ness of Aldred’s use of force, it should not be
forgotten that Autin was fifty-nine years old
2 See Stroik v. Ponseti, 35 F.3d 155, 158 (5th
Cir. 1994) (stating that “the only question is
whether Ponseti’s use of force was ‘objectively
reasonable’ in light of the facts and circumstances
confronting [him], without regard to [his] under-
lying intent or motivation”).

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and five feet two inches tall. Given these
alleged facts, Aldred’s use of force was both
excessive to the need and objectively unrea-
sonable. The district court correctly found
that the facts as alleged show a violation of
Autin’s Fourth Amendment rights.
After establishing that the violation of a
constitutional right had been alleged, the dis-
trict court failed adequately to address the sec-
ond factor in the qualified immunity analysis
SSwhether the right was clearly established.
The court appears to have approached the
question of objective reasonableness as though
it were dispositive of both elements of the
qualified immunity test.
Each element must be addressed independ-
ently, however. Saucier, 533 U.S. at 204-05.
The first element involves the objective rea-
sonableness of the officer’s conduct, and the
second looks to whether he could have made
a reasonable legal mistake in deciding whether
his conduct was legal. As stated above, the
relevant inquiry is whether it would be plain to
a reasonable officer that his conduct was
unlawful in the situation he confronted. Id.
Aldred will succeed on his qualified immu-
nity claim if he can show that his mistaken be-
lief in the legality of the force used against Au-
tin was reasonable given the state of the case-
law on excessive force at the time of the
incident. When discussing the law of exces-
sive force, the Supreme Court and this circuit
typically emphasize the three factors discussed
above.3 A reasonable officer is charged with
knowing that, as clearly established law, these
are factors that tend to indicate whether the
use of force is appropriate.
None of these factors offers support for Al-
dred’s conduct: Autin was objectively un-
threatening, she was not resisting arrest in any
way, and her crime was minor. Aldred, how-
ever, cites a number of cases in which courts
have upheld qualified immunity defenses, and
he claims these cases involve facts similar to
those alleged here. In each of them, however,
at least one of the three excessive force factors
was plainly present. The plaintiffs in those
cases either posed an objective threat to the
officers or physically resisted arrest.
A jury trial may reveal other facts that jus-
tified Aldred’s use of force. At the summary
judgment stage, however, we are bound to
take Autin’s version of the facts as true. Giv-
en those facts, nothing about the situation fac-
ing Aldred would have indicated to a reason-
able officer that repeatedly tasing a woman
while forcing her to the ground was lawful
conduct. Therefore, Autin’s Fourth Amend-
ment right to be free from excessive use of
force was established under the particular cir-
cumstances she alleges.
AFFIRMED.
3 See, e.g., Saucier, 533 U.S. at 205; Garner,
471 U.S. at 11; United States v. Brugman, 364
F.3d 614, 616 (5th Cir. 2004); Colston v. Barn-
hart, 146 F.3d 282, 291 n.7 (5th Cir. 1998).

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