Case Summaries: Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (October 2020)

This post summarizes published decisions from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decided in October, 2020, that may be of interest to state practitioners. Evidence was sufficient to show violation of plaintiff’s substantive due process rights by deputy’s reckless driving during a non-emergency that caused a collision and serious injury; deputy was not entitled to qualified immunity Dean v. McKinney, 976 F.3d 407 (Oct. 2, 2020). In this South Carolina case, the plaintiff was the guardian of a woman who received debilitating injuries following a collision with the defendant, a sheriff’s deputy. The deputy was responding to a radio call requesting backup at a traffic stop. Based on the tone of voice of the officer requesting backup, the dispatcher initially classified the call as an emergency. The call was quickly downgraded to non-emergency. Under state law, an officer may speed in a manner “that does not endanger life or property” in response to an emergency call and must display lights and sirens when doing so. Once the call was downgraded from an emergency, the defendant turned off his lights and sirens but continued driving at a high rate of speed. Around two minutes passed from the time the call was downgraded to when the defendant struck a woman (the plaintiff's ward) in her lane of travel head-on. The defendant was driving at least 38 miles over the speed limit. The defendant had been involved in other “incidents” regarding his driving while on duty and had received corrective training on safe driving. [...]