Court of Appeals revives Section 1983 wrongful death claim

This might be the Second Circuit's police misconduct case of the year. The Court of Appeals reinstates a wrongful death lawsuit where a mentally-ill elderly man died in police custody after they broke into his home on an accidental medical alert.

The case is Chamberlain v. City of White Plains, issued on May 29, more than two years after the Court of Appeals heard oral argument. The decedent accidentally hit the medical alert button, which sent approximately one dozen police officers and medical emergency workers to his apartment. The Complaint alleges, however, that when he police arrived at the home, they learned from the dispatcher that Chamberlain had accident hit the life-alert button. Chamberlain also told the police that it was all accident, and that there was nothing wrong with him. But the police persisted on banging on the door and eventually forced their way inside the house without Chamberlain's consent. This made Chamberlain even more agitated, once he saw the guns and weaponry, suffering flashbacks from his military service. Really, at this point, things were getting pretty ugly, and the Court of Appeals (Hall and Sack) notes that the audio recording of this episode "add a dimension to these proceedings that we doubt even a verbatim transcript alone would provide." It must have been quite a scene. After the hour-long standoff, once the police entered the apartment, they deployed their weapons, Tased him and fired beanbag shots before firing their handgun. One of the bullets killed Chamberlain.

While the district court dismissed the unlawful entry claim, that claim is revived on appeal. The police had no warrant, and they entered the abode without the victim's consent. While the police can enter without a warrant in extraordinary circumstances (such as when someone's life is at stake), the complaint does not establish they satisfied that high burden, as it took more than an hour to enter the apartment before they tore the door off the hinges and fatally shot him. The Court says a reasonable, experienced officer would not have believed there was probable cause that Chamberlain needed urgent medical attention, especially since they knew the life-alert had been activated accidentally. And, when they entered the apartment, they did so not with a gurney or paramedics but with a Taser and other weapons. The district court drew an improper inference in finding the plaintiffs have no claim, in part, because Chamberlain was not mentally capable of providing adequate assurances of his own medical needs. 

Nor do the police get qualified immunity on the face of the complaint. It was clearly established at the time that you cannot enter a private dwelling without exigent circumstances, and cases had already held that an uncorroborated 911 call reporting that a mentally ill person is in distress is not enough to believe there is a medical emergency. This claim therefore proceeds to discovery.

Some of the claims did proceed to discovery, but the district court dismissed them on summary judgment, including an excessive force claim against Officer Martin, who deployed beanbag shots at Chamberlain. Now that the Court of Appeals has ruled that the search may have been illegal, the district court must again whether Martin's use of force complied with the Fourth Amendment in light of the totality of the circumstances, which includes the warrantless entry ruling. Same holds true on the supervisory liability claims that were dismissed on summary judgment.