Excessive force claim under U.S. Const. amend. IV; 42 USC § 1983; Qualified immunity; Harlow v. Fitzgerald; See v. City of Elyria; Campbell v. City of Springboro, OH; Saucier v. Katz; Goodwin v. City of Painesville; Jurisdiction; 28 USC § 1291; Mitchell v. Forsyth; Barry v. O’Grady; Phillips v. Roane Cnty., TN; Diluzio v. Village of Yorkville, OH; Livermore ex el Rohm v. Lubelan; Estate of Carter v. City of Detroit; “Deadly force”; Mullins v. Cyranek; Jefferson v. Lewis; Scott v. Henrich; Violation of a clearly established constitutional right; Berryman v. Rieger; Attempts to dispute plaintiffs’ facts; Phelps v. Coy; Beard v. Whitmore Lake Sch. Dist.; Claybrook v. Birchwell; McKenna v. City of Royal Oak; Hopper v. Phil Plummer

The court held that because defendant-deputy’s (Burns) appeal of the denial of qualified immunity in this excessive force case was premised on factual disputes and not on questions of law, it must be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. Burns responded to a call that three “suspicious individuals” were walking down a country road, and he was concerned that one of them was possibly a man (T) wanted on a warrant for assaulting a police officer. When he questioned them, plaintiffs’ decedent, Edwards, ran. The circumstances that led to his handcuffed, bleeding body with multiple contusions and an autopsy verdict of homicide, were in dispute. Five individuals, including two deputies, were present at and around the time when Edwards was taken into custody, and their recollections varied. “Burns’s camera fell off his body[]” just after Edwards complained that he was going to pass out. The district court denied him qualified immunity, ruling that issues of fact precluded summary judgment. As to whether Burns used deadly force, a mixed issue of law and fact, the “underlying factual circumstances leading to Edwards’s injuries and the degree of force used” were disputed. The district court appropriately relied on the autopsy report at the summary judgment stage. Thus, Burns’s contention in this regard was “a prohibited fact-based challenge.” His arguments that he thought Edwards might have been T, “that there was a ‘struggle’ in the field,” and about the way he took down Edwards were “prohibited fact-based challenges that go to the heart of the legal issue: whether Burns’s conduct rises to excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment.” The court also agreed with the district court that there were “credibility concerns” as to the claim that Edwards attempted to flee a second time. Burns’s claim that he had not violated any “clearly established constitutional right” was unsuccessful where he failed “to concede the most favorable view of the facts to Plaintiffs and instead relies solely on his version of the facts . . . .”