Yang v. City of Minneapolis

Background

This case concerns the December 15, 2019, officer-involved shooting of Chiasher Vue. The plaintiffs are Vue’s spouse and estate trustee, Mai Pha Vue; his mother, Mai Yang Yang; and four of his children, Hailee Vue, Nou Vue, Chamee Vue, and Benjamin Vue. The defendants are the City of Minneapolis and 17 Minneapolis police officers sued in their individual and official capacities.

According to the complaint, Benjamin Vue called 911 after his father discharged a gun inside the family home. Police initiated a SWAT response, and Officer Peng Moua, who spoke Hmong, communicated with Vue before a trained negotiator arrived. Vue came onto the porch, returned inside after seeing officers with their guns drawn, and then came back outside carrying a rifle. Seven officers fired their guns, another fired a less-lethal rifle, and 62 rounds were fired. Vue was fatally wounded. His mother, Mai Yang Yang, was inside the house, and the Children were detained in police vehicles and later in locked rooms at police headquarters for nearly six hours.

The plaintiffs brought federal civil-rights claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state-law claims, including wrongful death, false imprisonment, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, negligence, and vicarious liability. The defendants moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c) for partial judgment on the pleadings. This type of motion asks whether, assuming the complaint’s factual allegations are true, the opposing party has pleaded a legally sufficient claim.

Federal claims

The court held that the complaint did not plausibly allege that the officers used excessive force against Vue or Yang. Because Vue came outside carrying a rifle after seeing armed officers near the home, the court concluded that a reasonable officer could believe he posed an immediate threat of serious physical harm. The court also rejected the theory that the officers’ earlier decisions created the need for deadly force, explaining that the Fourth Amendment question was whether the force actually used was objectively reasonable. The excessive-force claim in Count I was dismissed, and the officers were entitled to qualified immunity on that claim.

The court dismissed Count II, the equal-protection claim. It held that the alleged comparison incidents did not support a plausible inference that Vue was treated differently from similarly situated non-Hmong or non-Asian people, or that any different treatment was racially motivated.

The Children’s Fourth Amendment claims in Count III included claims for unlawful seizure and excessive force based on their detention in locked police vehicles and rooms. The court dismissed Chamee Vue’s and Benjamin Vue’s excessive-force claims because the complaint alleged detention but no physical force or threats of force against them. The court allowed the Children’s unlawful-seizure claims to proceed. Although the initial detention might have been reasonable, the court held that the complaint sufficiently alleged that the nature and duration of the detention became unreasonable, and that discovery was needed to determine when that occurred and which officers were involved.

The court dismissed Count V, Hailee Vue’s and Nou Vue’s First Amendment claim, because telling them to stop asking to be released did not plausibly state a free-speech violation. The court denied dismissal of Count VI, the civil-rights conspiracy claim. It found sufficient allegations to suggest that police officers and Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigators had a meeting of the minds to detain the Children, search them, and take their property without reasonable suspicion or probable cause.

The court dismissed Counts VII and VIII, which asserted municipal liability against the City based on alleged policies, customs, training, and supervision failures. The complaint did not provide specific facts about other incidents or notice to the City that its training and supervision were inadequate. The court also stated that any municipal liability would depend on an underlying constitutional violation, and that the only underlying federal violation plausibly alleged at this stage was the Children’s unlawful detention.

State-law claims

The court dismissed Count X, the wrongful-death claim, because the officers’ decisions during the armed standoff were discretionary and the complaint did not plausibly allege malice. It rejected the argument that the Minneapolis Police Department’s Operation 100 policy made the officers’ conduct ministerial, meaning controlled by a narrow and definite mandatory standard.

The court denied dismissal of the Children’s false-imprisonment claims in Count XI. It held that the complaint alleged an objectively unreasonable detention and a willful violation of a known right. The court stated that discovery was needed to determine when any initially lawful detention became unconstitutional and which officers could claim official immunity.

For Count XII, intentional infliction of emotional distress, the court dismissed the claims against Troy Carlson and Rachael Lynch because those claims were withdrawn as untimely. It also dismissed the claims brought by Mai Pha Vue and Mai Yang Yang. As to Chamee, Hailee, Nou, and Benjamin Vue, the court dismissed the claim as to all conduct except their detention in the patrol vehicles and at police headquarters, as described in the complaint. The court held that the Children’s alleged prolonged detention could potentially constitute conduct extreme and outrageous enough to support the claim, but that discovery was needed concerning the circumstances and each officer’s involvement.

The court dismissed Count XIII, Mai Yang Yang’s negligent-infliction-of-emotional-distress claim, because the officers’ conduct in firing at Vue was discretionary, legally justified, and not malicious. It partially dismissed Count XIV, the negligence claim: Mai Pha Vue’s and Mai Yang Yang’s claims were dismissed, and the Children’s claims were dismissed as to conduct unrelated to their detention in the patrol vehicles and at police headquarters.

The court also dismissed Count IX, the City’s vicarious-liability claim, in part. The City received vicarious official immunity for state-law claims based on conduct for which the officers were immune, but not for the portions of the false-imprisonment, intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress, and negligence claims based on the Children’s detention.

Disposition

The court ordered that the defendants’ motion for partial judgment on the pleadings was GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART. Counts I, II, V, VII, VIII, X, and XIII were dismissed. Count III was partially dismissed as to Chamee Vue’s and Benjamin Vue’s excessive-force claims but survived in all other respects. Count XII was partially dismissed as described above, and Count XIV was partially dismissed as described above. The court’s discussion also denied dismissal of Count VI and the Children’s detention-related claims in Count XI.