Lopez v. Minnesota Vikings Football Club, LLC

Background

Anastacio Lemus Lopez traveled to Minnesota to attend a Minnesota Vikings game at U.S. Bank Stadium on December 1, 2016. A stadium security guard testified that Lopez was pushing and shoving past other fans and appeared drunk and unruly. When the guard asked Lopez to leave the stands, Lopez refused, and Minneapolis police officers Anthony Rodin and Russell Cragin began escorting him toward a holding cell.

According to the officers’ testimony and security video, Lopez repeatedly stopped during the escort, resisted being guided forward, threatened Rodin, and reached toward Rodin’s chest. Rodin took Lopez to the floor to handcuff him. Lopez continued struggling with the officers and reached toward items on Cragin’s utility belt, including a firearm, flashlight, and taser. Rodin struck Lopez several times, and Cragin used his taser. After the taser incapacitated Lopez, the officers handcuffed him and took him to the holding cell, where paramedics checked him.

Lopez’s amended complaint asserted claims including excessive force under a federal civil-rights statute, improper training and supervision, conspiracy, assault, battery, negligence, emotional-distress claims, false arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, and responsibility for officers’ conduct. In his opposition to summary judgment, Lopez conceded that summary judgment was proper on his excessive-force claim as to four officers and that there was no genuine factual dispute concerning several other claims, including his claims for improper training and supervision, conspiracy, and malicious prosecution.

Excessive Force and Qualified Immunity

The court analyzed Lopez’s excessive-force claim under the Fourth Amendment’s objective-reasonableness standard. That standard asks whether the amount of force was reasonable under the particular circumstances, including the severity of the suspected offense, the threat posed to officers or others, and whether the person was resisting or attempting to flee.

The court concluded that Rodin’s decision to take Lopez to the ground was objectively reasonable. The court relied on evidence that Lopez repeatedly stopped during the escort, resisted the officers’ efforts to move him, threatened Rodin, turned toward him, and reached toward his chest. The court also found the force used after the takedown reasonable because Lopez continued wrestling with the officers and reached for items on Cragin’s belt, including his firearm. The court determined that Rodin’s strikes and Cragin’s use of the taser were reasonably necessary to stop the struggle.

Because the court found no constitutional violation, it granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. Qualified immunity is a legal protection that generally prevents damages claims against government officials unless the evidence shows a constitutional violation and the violated right was clearly established. The court did not reach the separate question of whether the right was clearly established because it found no constitutional violation.

State-Law Claims

The court held that Minnesota’s official-immunity doctrine protected the officers from Lopez’s claims for assault, battery, negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and responsibility for negligence by other defendants. The doctrine protects public officials performing discretionary duties unless they commit a willful or malicious wrong. Because the court found the officers’ use of force reasonable, it concluded that a reasonable factfinder could not determine that their conduct was willful or malicious.

The court also granted summary judgment on Lopez’s false-arrest and false-imprisonment claims. Under Minnesota law, those claims require an arrest or detention without proper legal authority. The court found that the circumstances—including Lopez’s disorderly conduct, refusal to follow commands, threat to Rodin, struggle with the officers, and attempts to gain control of Cragin’s firearm and taser—gave the officers probable cause to believe that Lopez had committed crimes such as disorderly conduct, obstructing legal process, or attempting to disarm a peace officer.

The court rejected Lopez’s intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress claim because the officers’ objectively reasonable conduct was not extreme and outrageous. The court noted that the remaining claims were assault, battery, negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false arrest, false imprisonment, and responsibility for negligence by others.

Expert-Testimony Motions and Disposition

Defendants filed three motions to exclude expert testimony. A magistrate judge had already struck one expert’s report as improper rebuttal, and the court stated that the related motion was moot. Because the court granted summary judgment, it also stated that the remaining expert-testimony motions were moot.

The order granted defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment and denied defendants’ Motions to Exclude Expert Testimony as moot. The order directed that judgment be entered accordingly.