CA8: Quantity of alleged excessive force against an arrestee based on extent of injury a jury question

A jail altercation in Ferguson, MO led to the arrestee getting injured and he sued. The district court dismissed on the narrow ground the injuries were “de minimus.” The Eighth Circuit says, no, that’s a jury question here. Davis v. White, 14-1722 (8th Cir. July 28, 2015):

Our prior cases acknowledging that “some minimum level of injury” may be required to prove a Fourth Amendment excessive force claim concluded that “the necessary level of injury is actual injury.” Dawkins v. Graham, 50 F.3d 532, 535 (8th Cir. 1995); accord Lambert v. City of Dumas, 187 F.3d 931, 936 (8th Cir. 1999). Other cases noted, consistent with the proper standard as clarified in Kingsley, 2015 WL 2473447, at *6-7, that the infliction of only de minimis injuries “supports the conclusion that [the officer] did not use excessive force.” Wertish, 433 F.3d at 1067; accord Copeland v. Locke, 613 F.3d 875, 881 (8th Cir. 2010); Cook v. City of Bella Villa, 582 F.3d 840, 850 (8th Cir. 2009); cf. Wilkins v. Gaddy, 559 U.S. 34, 36-38 (2010) (same principle applies to Eighth Amendment excessive force claims).

No case acknowledging this issue has held that serious injuries such as “a concussion, scalp laceration, and bruising” can be considered de minimis as a matter of law for qualified immunity purposes. See, e.g., Small v. McCrystal, 708 F.3d 997, 1005 (8th Cir. 2013) (three lacerations above eye treated without stitches not de minimis); Copeland, 613 F.3d at 881-82 (same for lacerations from handcuffs and chronic knee injury); Irving v. Dormire, 519 F.3d 441, 448 (8th Cir. 2008) (blow to the face not de minimis); Lambert, 187 F.3d at 936 (same for “single small cut of the … eyelid and small scrapes of the … knee and upper calf”); Dawkins, 50 F.3d at 535 (same for bruises and facial laceration); compare Bishop v. Glazier, 723 F.3d 957, 962 (8th Cir. 2013) (light cut on neck de minimis); Wertish, 433 F.3d at 1067 (“relatively minor scrapes and bruises” de minimis); Andrews v. Fuoss, 417 F.3d 813, 816, 818 (8th Cir. 2005) (soreness and bad headache de minimis). We conclude the district court erred in granting summary judgment on this ground.

Accordingly, we remand for further proceedings on these claims with directions to apply the proper objective reasonableness standard as defined in Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396-97 (1989), Chambers v. Pennycook, 641 F.3d 898, 905-06 (8th Cir. 2011), and, most recently, Kingsley, 2015 WL 2473447, at *5-7. …