CA7: A diabetic assaulted by officer for suspected DWI survives summary judgment

Plaintiff’s case against an officer for excessive force who was “pissed off” at plaintiff for allegedly being a drunk driver resulted in plaintiff being thrown to the ground and seriously manhandled and injured survives summary judgment and qualified immunity. Plaintiff was in hypoglycemic shock, which the officer was trained to recognize, and an EMT saw plaintiff’s medical alert bracelet and the officer then calmed down and removed the handcuffs from plaintiff’s bleeding wrists. McAllister v. Price, 615 F.3d 877 (7th Cir. 2010)*:

Claims that officers used excessive force in seizing a person are evaluated under the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness standard. See Acevedo v. Canterbury, 457 F.3d 721, 724 (7th Cir. 2004). The dispositive question is whether, in light of the facts and circumstances that confronted the officer (and not 20/20 hindsight), the officer behaved in an “objectively reasonable” manner. See Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396-97, 109 S. Ct. 1865, 104 L. Ed. 2d 443 (1989). The Supreme Court has directed lower courts to consider three factors in this inquiry: (1) the severity of the crime at issue; (2) whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of officers or others; and (3) whether the suspect is actively resisting arrest by flight. Id. at 396.

. . .

While we are hesitant to second-guess the snap judgments made by law enforcement personnel, McAllister has come forward with enough evidence so that a jury could infer that Price’s mistaken belief that McAllister was intoxicated was unreasonable. It was clear to Price, as it was to the other witnesses, that McAllister was impaired in some way during and after the accident. Thus, this is not a case like Estate of Phillips, where the plaintiff’s medical condition was completely hidden. Multiple eyewitnesses observed McAllister to be convulsing or twitching, and at least one concluded that McAllister was not intoxicated. Price was trained to ask if someone who appears unwell is diabetic, but did not do so before applying the challenged force. McAllister was wearing a medical alert necklace–something that Price was trained to look for–but Price made no attempt to check for it until this course of action was suggested by a witness. Finally, Price was trained to recognize people under the influence of alcohol and drugs; yet if we draw all reasonable inferences in favor of McAllister, Price did not follow that training and leapt to the conclusion that McAllister was intoxicated. For these reasons, the district court did not err in finding a genuine issue of material fact regarding McAllister’s diabetic condition.

Lower court opinion: McAllister v. Town of Burns Harbor, 693 F. Supp. 2d 815 (N.D. Ind. 2010).