Alaska Employment Law

Daniel Mahoney sued several police officers for violating his constitutional rights through use of excessive force, assault and battery, false arrest, and false imprisonment, all arising from his wife’s 911 call reporting domestic violence.  Mahoney relied on 42 USC § 1983.  Judge Timothy Burgess has granted part of the defendants’ motion for partial summary judgment based on qualified immunity.  See Order of March 28, 2008.  What is notable for civil practitioners is Burgess’ reliance on Scott v. Harris, 127 S.Ct. 1769 (2007)(in considering deputy’s motion for summary judgment, courts had to view the facts in the light depicted by videopate that captured events underlying excessive force claim).

No one disputed that defendants’ detention of plaintiff was a 4th Amendment seizure.  What was disputed was whether the investigatory stop had graduated into an arrest.  Burgess used the test in Washington v. Lambert, 98 F.3d 1181 (9th Cir. 1996).   Despite contradictory evidence, Burgess found that the Plaintiff was uncooperative (the first of four disjunctive “special circumstances” that can justify the use of “especially intrusive means of effecting a stop”): 

the summary judgment stage requires the Court to view facts in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party when there is a genuine dispute as to material facts.  However, as the Defendants point out, where the record includes a recording that ‘blatantly contradict[s]’ the nonmoving party’s version of events, so that no reasonable jury could believe it, the Court need not adopt the party’s version of the facts for purposes of ruling on a summary judgment motion.

Burgess, thus, rejected Mahoney’s testimony concerning the part of his contact with the officers that the tape recording contradicted, citing, at footnote 20, Scott v. Harris. 

Burgess next examined whether Defendants had reasonable suspicion to support the detention.  Burgess found they had, but also held that summary judgment was inappropriate on the issue of whether Defendants used excessive force in detaining and thus provided plaintiff Mahoney with the right to resist under AS 11.81.400.

Mahoney v. Barlow, 3:06-cv-00070-TMB (D.Alaska Order of Mar. 28, 2008) 

Arthur Robinson of Soldatna represents plaintiff Mahoney.  Frank Koziol of Anchorage represents the Homer police officer and Jan Rutherdale of the Juneau AG’s Office represents the State Trooper.