David W. Sherbrooke v. City of Pelican

David Sherbrooke filed this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that
the City of Pelican Rapids, Minnesota, and several of its police officers violated his
constitutional rights. Specifically, Sherbrooke alleged that the officers violated his
rights under the Fourth Amendment by stopping his car without probable cause and
by recording one side of a conversation between Sherbrooke and his attorney.

Sherbrooke also claimed that the officers committed several violations of state law,
and alleged that the city was liable for maintaining an unconstitutional policy.
The district court dismissed most of Sherbrooke's claims, but denied the
defendants' motion for summary judgment on the claim relating to the traffic stop.

The court also granted summary judgment for Sherbrooke on the claim concerning the
recording of his statements during a telephone call with his attorney. The police
officers and police chief appeal the district court's denial of qualified immunity, and
the city appeals the court's denial of its motion for summary judgment. We reverse
and remand.

I.

On the night of July 24, 2004, Sherbrooke attended a high school class reunion
at the Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in Pelican Rapids. At the reunion, Sherbrooke
drank several alcoholic beverages before driving his pickup truck back to his lake
house at about 12:25 a.m. Along the way, Sherbrooke pulled over to the side of
Minnesota Highway 59 to look up a telephone number. While parked along the side
of the highway, Sherbrooke activated his hazard lights to alert passing traffic that he
had pulled over.

After finding the telephone number and completing a telephone call,
Sherbrooke pulled away from the shoulder and continued driving down the highway.
Sherbrooke testified that a police vehicle was parked at a stop sign "about 1,100 feet"
up the road and around a bend from where Sherbrooke had pulled over. Officer Scott
Sachs was in the squad car, performing patrol work. Sherbrooke testified that he
turned off the hazard lights when his vehicle reached the 55 mile-per-hour speed limit,
which, he says, "is the correct way to do it." At the same time, Sherbrooke conceded
that he turned his hazard lights off about 200 yards before reaching Sachs's police
vehicle, and only after noticing that Sachs's car was a police vehicle. Upon seeing the
police vehicle, Sherbrooke gathered his thoughts, checked his speed, and noticed that
his hazard lights remained on.

After seeing Sherbrooke drive by, Officer Sachs pulled out behind Sherbrooke,
followed him for about twenty-five seconds, and then signaled to Sherbrooke to pull
over. Sherbrooke testified that by the time Officer Sachs pulled him over, the hazard
lights had been deactivated. After pulling to the side of the road, Sherbrooke got out
of his truck, but Officer Sachs ordered him back into the vehicle. Sherbrooke testified
that Sachs then waited four minutes before approaching Sherbrooke's truck.

Sherbrooke later alleged that he was pulled over because Sachs was involved in a
contest with other officers to see who could make the most arrests for driving while
intoxicated.

During the traffic stop, Officer Sachs detected alcohol on Sherbrooke's breath
and looked for signs of impairment. After conducting a series of field sobriety tests
and a portable breath test, Sachs arrested Sherbrooke for drunk driving and
transported him to the police department for additional testing.

At the police station, Sherbrooke consented to another, more accurate breath
test called an Intoxilyzer. Pursuant to the standard operating procedure of the police
department, Sherbrooke remained under video and audio surveillance so that the
officers could monitor his food and water intake prior to administering the test.

During the wait, Sherbrooke called his attorney and spoke to him while Sachs and
another officer (defendant Ted Leabo) remained in the room. After speaking to his
attorney, Sherbrooke took the Intoxilyzer test, which revealed that his blood alcohol
level exceeded the legal limit for driving. Sherbrooke contends that Sachs caused
Sherbrooke to drink warm water before the test, and then improperly administered the
test, thus resulting in an artificially high reading. Sherbrooke then requested a blood
test. The blood test, administered at a nearby hospital, was not admissible in court.

The charges against Sherbrooke eventually were dropped, and he was never
prosecuted.
Sherbrooke brought this suit for damages, alleging violations of his
constitutional rights, as well as "mental anguish, pain and suffering and humiliation."

The district court dismissed most of his claims, but denied the defendants' motion for
summary judgment on Sherbrooke's claim that the initial traffic stop was an unlawful
seizure. The court also granted summary judgment for Sherbrooke on his claim that
the officers unlawfully recorded one side of the telephone conversation with his
attorney. The officers and the city filed this interlocutory appeal.

II.

As a preliminary matter, Sherbrooke challenges our jurisdiction over this
appeal. We have jurisdiction to consider an interlocutory appeal of an order denying
qualified immunity to the extent the appeal seeks review of "purely legal
determinations made by the district court." Wilson v. Lawrence County, Mo., 260
F.3d 946, 951 (8th Cir. 2001). We do not have jurisdiction to consider "which facts
a party may, or may not, be able to prove at trial," Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304,
313 (1995), but the city and the police officers do not bring this sort of fact-based
appeal. Their contention is that even taking the facts in the light most favorable to
Sherbrooke, neither the traffic stop nor the recording of Sherbrooke's statements
violated Sherbrooke's clearly established rights under the Fourth Amendment. This
is a purely legal question over which we have jurisdiction. See Saucier v. Katz, 533
U.S. 194, 201 (2001); Dible v. Scholl, 506 F.3d 1106, 1109 (8th Cir. 2007). We also
have jurisdiction to consider the district court's grant of partial summary judgment in
favor of Sherbrooke, because it turns on the very same legal issue as the denial of
qualified immunity – that is, whether the recording of Sherbrooke's conversation with
his attorney violated the Fourth Amendment. See Smith v. Ark. Dept. of Corrections,
103 F.3d 637, 650 (8th Cir. 1996). And we have jurisdiction to consider the City's
appeal of the denial of summary judgment on Sherbrooke's allegation that a municipal
policy caused a violation of his constitutional rights, because the merits of the City's
appeal is inextricably intertwined with the question whether the officers violated
Sherbrooke's rights. Smook v. Minnehaha County, 457 F.3d 806, 813 (8th Cir. 2006),
cert. denied, 127 S. Ct. 1885 (2007).

In assessing a claim of qualified immunity, we are required first to ask whether
the plaintiff's allegations establish a violation of the Constitution. Saucier, 533 U.S.
at 201. If so, then we "ask whether the right was clearly established" at the time of
the violation. Id. "To defeat a claim of qualified immunity, the contours of an alleged
constitutional right must be ‘sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would
understand that what he is doing violates that right.'" Smook, 457 F.3d at 813
(quoting Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987)).

Sherbrooke's first claim at issue on appeal is that Officer Sachs violated the
Fourth Amendment by stopping Sherbrooke's truck. Sachs argues that the seizure was
constitutional because an objectively reasonable officer could have stopped the
vehicle either to exercise a community caretaking function, see Cady v. Dombrowski,
413 U.S. 433, 441 (1973), or to investigate a traffic violation for which there was
probable cause. As to the latter, probable cause that a driver has committed any traffic
violation, no matter how minor, provides sufficient justification under the Fourth
Amendment to stop a vehicle. Atwater v. City of Lago Vista, 532 U.S. 318, 354
(2001). The officer's subjective motivation is irrelevant. Brigham City v. Stuart, 126
S. Ct. 1943, 1948 (2006). Even if the officer was influenced by an impermissible
motive, a traffic stop does not violate the driver's rights under the Fourth Amendment
to be free from unreasonable seizures, as long as the circumstances, viewed
objectively, justified the seizure. Id.; Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 813
(1996).

Minnesota law prohibits the use of flashing lights on a vehicle except in limited
circumstances, including "as a means of indicating a right or left turn, or the presence
of a vehicular traffic hazard requiring unusual care in approaching, overtaking, or
passing." Minn. Stat. § 169.64. Sherbrooke contends that his use of the flashers on
his truck was permissible under the quoted exception, because he used his lights as a
proper means of indicating that his vehicle presented a "vehicular traffic hazard." His
rationale is that when a vehicle enters a roadway from a stopped position on the
shoulder, the vehicle presents a vehicular traffic hazard until such time as the vehicle
reaches the speed limit (in this case, fifty-five miles per hour), and that use of the
flashers is thus permissible until that speed is attained.

We disagree with Sherbrooke's interpretation of the Minnesota statutes. The
posted speed limit is evidence of only the maximum speed that is reasonable and
prudent on a roadway. Minn. Stat. § 169.14(2). There is no legal requirement that a
vehicle ever reach that speed. Vehicles may operate lawfully at reasonable and
prudent speeds below the maximum without constituting a vehicular traffic hazard.
Assuming Sherbrooke is correct that a vehicle may lawfully use its flashers to indicate
a traffic hazard when the vehicle first enters a roadway in Minnesota, use of the
flashers should cease when the vehicle reaches a speed that no longer presents a
hazard. A reasonable officer surely could believe that speeds close to, but less than,
the maximum posted limit present no traffic hazard. Sherbrooke concedes that he was
using his flashers until he reached the maximum speed limit of fifty-five miles per
hour. Because the speed of the vehicle during the preceding moments, when the
vehicle was traveling slightly under the speed limit, presented no apparent traffic
hazard, Officer Sachs had probable cause to stop Sherbrooke for improper use of
flashing lights.

Alternatively, even accepting Sherbrooke's interpretation of the statutes for the
sake of argument, we conclude that an objectively reasonable officer in Sachs's
position had probable cause to stop Sherbrooke's truck for improper use of flashing
lights. It is undisputed that Sachs did not observe Sherbrooke at the point when he
was stopped at the side of the road to use the telephone before pulling back on to
Highway 59. By Sherbrooke's own testimony, the distance from where Sherbrooke
pulled off the road to Sachs's location was 1,100 feet, but Sherbrooke could not
observe Sachs (and vice-versa) until after Sherbrooke came around a curve on the
highway, at a distance between 600 and 900 feet from Sachs's squad car. (Sherbrooke
Dep. 59, Appellant's App. A-33). Thus, even assuming it was permissible for
Sherbrooke to operate his flashers from the time he reentered the highway until his
vehicle reached fifty-five miles per hour, and even assuming any reasonable officer
would have been expected to know that interpretation of the statute was correct, a
reasonable officer in Sachs's position would not have known that Sherbrooke recently
reentered the roadway. From his location, Sachs simply observed Sherbrooke's
vehicle come around the curve with its flashing lights activated. A reasonable officer
in those circumstances had probable cause to believe that Sherbrooke was in violation
of the prohibition on flashing lights in Minn. Stat. § 169.64, because there was no
apparent vehicular traffic hazard. Even if Sherbrooke, unbeknownst to Sachs, actually
was using his flashers to alert other drivers after reentering the road from a stopped
position, a law enforcement officer does not violate the Fourth Amendment if he
seizes a suspect under the reasonable, but mistaken, belief that the suspect committed
an offense. United States v. Smart, 393 F.3d 767, 770 (8th Cir. 2005).

For these reasons, we conclude that Officer Sachs had probable cause to stop
Sherbrooke for improper use of flashing lights. Accordingly, Sachs did not violate
Sherbrooke's constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment, and Sachs's motion
for summary judgment on this point should have been granted. In view of our
conclusion regarding probable cause, we need not consider whether the seizure also
was justified by the officer's exercise of his community caretaking function.

Sherbrooke's second claim at issue on appeal relates to his telephone call to his
attorney while in custody. The police in Pelican Rapids had a standard operating
procedure of making an audio and video recording of detainees who were awaiting an
Intoxilyzer test, with the stated purpose of preventing any action that would call into
question the validity of the ensuing test. The officers investigating Sherbrooke
activated the recording equipment in accordance with this procedure, so Sherbrooke's
speech was recorded while he was in the police station. Before taking the breath test,
while in the presence of Officers Sachs and Leabo, Sherbrooke called his attorney to
ask for legal advice. Sherbrooke's end of this telephone call was recorded by the
equipment that was already activated.

The district court held that the act of recording Sherbrooke's speech during the
telephone conversation with his attorney was an unconstitutional search. We disagree,
because Sherbrooke had no reasonable expectation of privacy in what he said during
this call. "What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or
office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection." Katz v. United States, 389
U.S. 347, 351 (1967). Sherbrooke placed this telephone call in an open room, in
which the presence of police officers was open and obvious. The tape recording even
shows that Sherbrooke acknowledged, near the end of the conversation, that his
statements were being recorded, and that this was "fine" with him. Under these
circumstances, Sherbrooke could not reasonably expect that the conversation was
private, and there was no search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. See
United States v. Hatcher, 323 F.3d 666, 674 (8th Cir. 2003); United States v. Gann,
732 F.2d 714, 723 (9th Cir. 1984). That communications between an attorney and
client generally are privileged when conducted privately does not mean that a
conversation knowingly conducted in the presence of others is privileged or private.
Sherbrooke's contention that the police allegedly prevented him from placing a private
call to his attorney is properly addressed, if at all, under constitutional provisions other
than the Fourth Amendment. Cf. Friedman v. Comm'r of Public Safety, 473 N.W.2d
828, 835 (Minn. 1991).1

The City's appeal is inextricably intertwined with the appeal of the police
officers. Because the police officers did not violate Sherbrooke's constitutional rights
under the Fourth Amendment, there can be no municipal liability under the Fourth
Amendment for an unconstitutional policy. McCoy v. City of Monticello, 411 F.3d
920, 922 (8th Cir. 2005). Accordingly, the City is also entitled to summary judgment
on that claim.

* * *

http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/08/01/064072P.pdf