Webster v. St. Louis County

Background

Austin J. Webster alleged that, while detained at the St. Louis County Jail awaiting trial, he was speaking with another detainee as Tamara S. Lemke, a jail program facilitator, explained volleyball rules. Lemke yelled at Webster to “shut up” and threw a volleyball that struck him in the face. Webster alleged bruising below his eye and said he received over-the-counter pain medication from a jail nurse. Lemke later apologized.

Webster brought a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal law allowing claims against government officials for violating constitutional rights. He alleged that Lemke used excessive force in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause; for this motion, he pursued that claim against Lemke only in her individual capacity. He also brought a Minnesota common-law battery claim against Lemke and St. Louis County.

Federal excessive-force claim

Lemke moved to dismiss the § 1983 claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which tests whether a complaint states a legally sufficient claim. The court applied the standard for a pretrial detainee’s Fourteenth Amendment excessive-force claim: the detainee must show that the official purposely or knowingly used force that was objectively unreasonable. The court also explained that the force must be more than minimal, or de minimis, meaning negligible or trivial, or must be so extreme that it is incompatible with basic standards of decency.

The court concluded that Webster’s allegations did not plausibly show a constitutional violation. It reasoned that a volleyball ordinarily does not carry substantial force, the complaint did not allege that Lemke threw it at high speed, and the incident was comparable to cases involving thrown objects that courts had found involved only minimal force. The court also considered Webster’s alleged minor bruising and the fact that Lemke’s conduct could be viewed as unprofessional and ill-considered, but concluded that those facts did not show force beyond the minimal level or conduct incompatible with basic standards of decency.

The court separately held that, even if Webster had plausibly alleged a constitutional violation, the claimed right was not clearly established when the incident occurred. Qualified immunity protects a government official unless her conduct violated a constitutional or statutory right that was sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood the conduct to be unlawful. The court found no sufficiently similar Eighth Circuit precedent, no persuasive consensus of cases, and no general constitutional rule that would have given Lemke clear notice that throwing a volleyball in these circumstances amounted to excessive force. The court found the cases Webster cited materially different.

State-law battery claim

The court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction, meaning its authority to hear related state-law claims, over the battery claim. It noted that there was no complete diversity between Webster and at least St. Louis County, so diversity jurisdiction did not provide a basis for hearing the claim. After dismissing the only federal claim, the court determined that the usual considerations favored leaving the state-law claim to state court, particularly because the case was at an early stage and no pretrial scheduling conference or scheduling order had occurred.

Disposition

Judge Eric C. Tostrud’s order granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss. Count One, the § 1983 claim, was dismissed with prejudice under Rule 12(b)(6). The court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Count Two, the Minnesota battery claim, and dismissed that count without prejudice. The order stated that Webster may pursue the battery claim in Minnesota state court.