16‐4225‐cv
Ali v. Kipp
In the
United States Court of Appeals
for the Second Circuit
AUGUST TERM 2017
No. 16‐4225‐cv
IMRAN ALI,
Plaintiff‐Appellant,
v.
NYC POLICE OFFICER DONALD KIPP,
Defendant‐Appellee.*
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of New York
ARGUED: DECEMBER 5, 2017
DECIDED: MAY 22, 2018
Before: CABRANES, LIVINGSTON, and CARNEY, Circuit Judges.
The Clerk of Court is directed to amend the caption as indicated above.
*
Plaintiff‐appellant Imran Ali (“Ali”) brought this action in the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York
(Nicholas G. Garaufis, Judge) under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that
defendant‐appellee New York Police Sergeant Donald Kipp
(“Sergeant Kipp” or “Kipp”) used excessive force against him. At
trial, Ali claimed that, while he was in custody following his arrest,
Sergeant Kipp slammed his head into the bars and wall of a holding
cell, causing two lacerations: one on the top of his head requiring
staples, and another on his forehead requiring stitches. Sergeant Kipp
denied the allegations of excessive force, and maintained that Ali’s
injuries were self‐inflicted.
The jury found that Sergeant Kipp used excessive force against
Ali, and that Kipp’s use of excessive force proximately caused injury
to Ali. It nevertheless awarded no compensatory damages.
Ali moved for a new trial, arguing that the jury’s findings of
excessive force and proximate causation were inconsistent with the
decision not to award compensatory damages. He contended that if
the jury found that Sergeant Kipp used excessive force, as he alleged,
it must have also accepted his theory of how he injured his head.
The District Court disagreed and determined that the verdict
could be harmonized. It thus denied the motion.
2
This case raises two questions:
(1) Whether the District Court “abused its discretion” when it
denied Ali’s Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(a) motion
for a new trial because it determined that the jury’s verdict
could be harmonized and therefore that Ali was not entitled
to compensatory damages as a matter of law; and
(2) Whether a court, when attempting to harmonize a
seemingly inconsistent verdict, is limited to the specific
theories of the case presented by the parties.
We answer both questions in the negative and therefore
AFFIRM the judgment of the District Court.
STEVEN J. HARFENIST, Harfenist Kraut &
Perlstein, LLP, Lake Success, NY, for
Plaintiff‐Appellant.
AMANDA SUE NICHOLS (Richard Dearing,
Claude S. Platton, on the brief), for Zachary
W. Carter, Corporation Counsel of the City
of New York, New York, NY, for Defendant‐
Appellee.
3
JOSÉ A. CABRANES, Circuit Judge:
Plaintiff‐appellant Imran Ali (“Ali”) brought this action in the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York
(Nicholas G. Garaufis, Judge) under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that
defendant‐appellee New York Police Sergeant Donald Kipp
(“Sergeant Kipp” or “Kipp”) used excessive force against him. At
trial, Ali claimed that, while he was in custody following his arrest,
Sergeant Kipp slammed his head into the bars and wall of a holding
cell, causing two lacerations: one on the top of his head requiring
staples, and another on his forehead requiring stitches. Sergeant Kipp
denied the allegations of excessive force, and maintained that Ali’s
injuries were self‐inflicted.
The jury found that Sergeant Kipp used excessive force against
Ali, and that Kipp’s use of excessive force proximately caused injury
to Ali. It nevertheless awarded no compensatory damages.
Ali moved for a new trial, arguing that the findings of excessive
force and proximate causation were inconsistent with the jury’s
decision not to award compensatory damages. He contended that if
the jury found that Sergeant Kipp used excessive force, as he alleged,
it must have also accepted his theory of how he injured his head.
The District Court disagreed and determined that the verdict
could be harmonized. It thus denied the motion.
4
This case raises two questions:
(1) Whether the District Court “abused its discretion” when it
denied Ali’s Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(a) motion
for a new trial because it determined that the jury’s verdict
could be harmonized and therefore that Ali was not entitled
to compensatory damages as a matter of law; and
(2) Whether a court, when attempting to harmonize a
seemingly inconsistent verdict, is limited to the specific
theories of the case presented by the parties.
We answer both questions in the negative and therefore
AFFIRM the judgment of the District Court.
I. BACKGROUND
This case arises out of Ali’s arrest on the morning of July 17,
2009. The parties agree that Ali’s interaction with the police began
when officers found Ali in a crashed vehicle, alone and under the
influence of alcohol.1 The parties also agree that Ali’s interaction with
Sergeant Kipp ended at the jail with Ali sustaining two lacerations:
one on the top of his head requiring six staples, and another on his
forehead requiring stitches.2 But at trial, Ali and defendant Sergeant
See, e.g., App’x at 164–65, 222, 572–75; Appellant’s Br. at 6; Appellee’s Br.
1
at 4–5.
Appellant’s Br. at 9; Appellee’s Br. at 10–11.
2
5
Kipp offered vastly different accounts of what transpired between
those bookends.
A. Parties’ Testimony about the Morning Ali Was Injured
According to Ali’s testimony at trial, the morning in question
had an unpropitious beginning. After consuming “some shots . . .
[and] some beers,” he and his friend, Alex Rodriguez, decided to go
for a car ride.3 Rodriguez was the driver, and Ali the passenger.
Rodriguez eventually rammed the car into a parked vehicle, and fled
the scene on foot. When officers arrived, Ali testified, they refused to
accept that he had not been driving. This caused him to become
“visibly angry” and start yelling.4 He was thereafter arrested and
transported to the 103rd Police Precinct (“Precinct”) in Jamaica,
Queens, New York for processing and detention.
Sergeant Kipp was working the front desk of the Precinct when
Ali arrived. Ali testified that he renewed his protestations of
innocence, but Kipp refused to listen.5 An argument ensued and, in
Ali’s account, Kipp declared that he would show Ali what “happen[s]
to wiseguys like you.”6
3 App’x at 222–23. At the time of the accident and at trial, Ali was unable
to provide any contact or location information for Alex Rodriguez. Id. at 229–31.
4 Id. at 166.
5 Id. at 168–69.
6 Id. at 170.
6
Ali claimed that Sergeant Kipp then grabbed him by “[his]
neck, [his] back, [his] pants, and basically [his] boxers were ripped
from the way [Kipp] was lifting [him] up.”7 Sergeant Kipp forced Ali
into a holding cell, where he allegedly “start[ed] slamming [Ali’s]
head into the brick wall a few times,” before “proceed[ing] to slam
[his] head . . . into the metal bars.”8 This purportedly left Ali bloody
and unconscious, and the next thing he could recall he was in an
ambulance headed to Jamaica Hospital.9
Sergeant Kipp also testified at trial. He denied slamming Ali’s
head into the cell wall and bars, and maintained that Ali’s wounds
were instead self‐inflicted.
According to Kipp, Ali arrived at the Precinct intoxicated and
“yelling and screaming.”10 After unsuccessfully attempting to calm
him down, Kipp and another officer searched him for weapons and
led him to a holding cell.11 Sergeant Kipp admitted that, in escorting
Ali, he “physically move[d]” him because Ali refused to “walk[ ] on
his own.”12 But Sergeant Kipp stated that this physical contact
Id. at 171.
7
Id. at 171–72.
8
Id. at 174–75.
9
10 Id. at 346, 355.
11 Id. at 358–61.
12 Id. at 362.
7
involved little more than “guid[ing]” him toward the cell—not
grabbing him by the neck and lifting him by the pants, as Ali had
claimed.13 As for the use of physical force on Ali inside the cell, Kipp
said only that he pulled Ali into the cell and “used [Ali’s] arm to sit
him down.”14
In Sergeant Kipp’s account, Ali sustained his injuries after Kipp
had exited the cell. Kipp explained that he locked the cell door,
returned to the Precinct’s front desk, and observed Ali on a monitor.
Ali, still screaming, started climbing on the cell bench. Sergeant Kipp
revisited the cell once to sit Ali down, and when he returned to the
front desk he heard two “hollow banging sound[s].”15 He again went
back to the holding cell, where, Kipp claimed, he found Ali with his
back against the wall and “blood coming from his head.”16
Kipp testified that he did not see precisely how Ali had injured
himself. He also testified that this entire interaction with Ali—from
when Ali first entered the Precinct to when he injured his head—
lasted approximately two minutes.17
13 Id. at 362–63.
14 Id. at 371.
15 Id. at 389.
16 Id. at 391–92.
17 Id. at 438.
8
B. The Jury Instructions
At the charging conference, Ali objected to the inclusion of a
nominal damages charge because his physical injuries were
uncontested.18 If the jury found that Sergeant Kipp had used excessive
force, Ali contended, it would also have to find, as a matter of law,
that Kipp caused compensable damages.19 The District Court agreed,
stating that it would be “inconsistent” for the jury to find that Kipp
violated Ali’s rights, but that he was entitled only to an award of
nominal damages, because “we know that there were definitely costs,
damages, of more than a dollar.”20 Accordingly, no nominal damages
charge was given.
The District Court nevertheless made clear in its jury
instructions that the jury could find that (1) Sergeant Kipp used
excessive force, and also find that (2) he did not proximately cause
Ali’s head injuries. Two instructions are particularly relevant here: the
excessive force charge and the compensatory damages charge.
On excessive force, the District Court instructed the jury to
determine whether “Sergeant Kipp used excessive force on [Ali]
when placing him in the precinct holding cell.”21 Recognizing that
18 Id. at 634.
19 Id.
20 Id. at 635.
21 Id. at 741.
9
both parties testified that Sergeant Kipp used some force on Ali,22 the
District Court gave the jury a lengthy exposition of the distinction
between reasonable and excessive force.23 Sergeant Kipp, the District
Court explained, was permitted to “use reasonable force necessary to
maintain order and ensure compliance with regulations of the jail.”24
And “[r]easonable force that happens to cause an injury is not
excessive force.”25
On compensatory damages, the District Court expressly
instructed the jury that, to award such damages, it had to find that
any excessive force used by Sergeant Kipp was the proximate cause
of Ali’s injuries. The District Court underscored that, even if the jury
found that Kipp had used excessive force, some of Ali’s injuries could
still be attributable to other causes: “you may award compensatory
damages only for those injuries that you find the plaintiff has proven
. . . to have been the result of conduct by the defendant in violation of
the law. That is, you may not simply award compensatory damages
for any injury suffered by the plaintiff from any cause.”26
22 Id. (“Mr. Ali claims that . . . Sergeant Kipp used excessive force on him.”);
id. (“Sergeant Kipp contends that any use of force by him was not excessive but
reasonable.”).
23 Id. at 741–42.
24 Id.
25 Id. at 742.
26 Id. at 745 (emphases added).
10
C. The Verdict and Ali’s Post‐Trial Motion
After approximately four hours of deliberation, the jury
returned its verdict. The jury found that Ali had proven that (1)
Sergeant Kipp used excessive force on him, and (2) “he suffered an
injury or injuries . . . proximately caused by the use of excessive
force.”27 The jury, however, awarded Ali “$0” in compensatory
damages.28 The jury also concluded that Ali was not entitled to
punitive damages.29 Neither party objected to the verdict prior to the
jury’s discharge.
Ali subsequently moved for a new trial under Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 59(a) on the limited issue of damages or,
alternatively, a new trial on both damages and liability. The District
Court denied the motion, concluding that the jury’s findings could be
reasonably harmonized. The District Court determined that a
reasonable jury could have credited Ali’s testimony that Kipp
“grabbed him by the neck and pants and dragged him to the holding
cell, ripping his boxers in the process, and concluded that the amount
of force used was excessive,” while rejecting Ali’s testimony about
Kipp slamming his head into the cell wall and bars.30 Under that view
of the case, the jury could reasonably have found that Kipp used
27 Id. at 78.
28 Id.
29 Id. at 79.
30 Special App’x at 16.
11
excessive force, but that the excessive force caused Ali de minimis
injuries.31
The District Court, however, determined that Ali was entitled
to nominal damages as a matter of law, and awarded him $1.32 This
appeal followed.
II. DISCUSSION
The gravamen of Ali’s appeal is that the jury’s material findings
of fact cannot be rationally reconciled with the evidence and theories
presented at trial. He argues that if the jury determined that
(1) Sergeant Kipp used excessive force and (2) the excessive force was
the proximate cause of some injury or injuries sustained by Ali, it
must also have believed that (3) Sergeant Kipp slammed his head into
the cell wall and bars, causing the injuries to his head. And because it
is undisputed that those head injuries were serious, Ali contends that
he was entitled to more than nominal damages. In Ali’s view, the only
explanation for the jury’s decision not to award substantial damages
is that it disapproved of his character.33
We disagree. Here, the District Court correctly identified a view
of the case that harmonized the jury’s findings. Specifically, the jury
could have found that Sergeant Kipp used excessive force when
31 Id. at 16–17.
32 Id. at 18.
33 See, e.g., Appellant’s Br. at 18, 42, 45.
12
transporting Ali to the holding cell, that this use of force caused de
minimis injuries, and that Ali himself later caused his undisputedly
serious head injuries.
We further clarify that, in harmonizing a seemingly
inconsistent verdict, a court is not limited to the specific theories of
the case presented by the parties; it may adopt any reasonable view
of the case that is consistent with the facts and testimony adduced at
trial.
A.
A trial court should not grant a motion for a new trial unless it
is “convinced that the jury . . . reached a seriously erroneous result or
that the verdict is a miscarriage of justice.”34 We review a district
court’s denial of a Rule 59 motion for a new trial for abuse of
discretion.35 It is a deferential standard, which reflects district courts’
significant—although not limitless—latitude to exercise their
inherent discretionary authority. We view the evidence “in the light
most favorable to the nonmoving party,”36 and we will reverse a
judgment only if the district court (1) based its decision on an error of
Amato v. City of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., 170 F.3d 311, 314 (2d Cir. 1999)
34
(quoting Atkins v. New York City, 143 F.3d 100, 102 (2d Cir. 1998)).
Crawford v. Tribeca Lending Corp., 815 F.3d 121, 128 (2d Cir. 2016); see
35
generally In re Sims, 534 F.3d 117, 131–32 (2d Cir. 2008) (explaining the term of art
“abuse of discretion”).
36 Atkins, 143 F.3d at 102.
13
law, (2) made a clearly erroneous factual finding, or (3) otherwise
“rendered a decision that cannot be located within the range of
permissible decisions.”37
A party appealing a district court’s denial of a Rule 59 motion
because of a seemingly insufficient damages award in light of a
liability verdict bears a heavy burden.38 As Justice Brandeis notably
admonished, “[a]ppellate courts should be slow to impute to juries a
disregard of their duties, and to trial courts a want of diligence or
perspicacity in appraising the jury’s conduct.”39 Accordingly, when
faced with an apparent inconsistency, we “must adopt a view of the
case, if there is one, that resolves any seeming inconsistency,” making
“every attempt to reconcile the jury’s findings, by exegesis if
necessary.”40 We will order a new trial only if the district court abused
Chin v. Port Auth. of N.Y. & N.J., 685 F.3d 135, 146 (2d Cir. 2012) (internal
37
quotation marks omitted).
See Amato, 170 F.3d at 314 (“[A]ppellate courts must afford the jury’s
38
findings and the district court’s decision [not to grant a new trial] great
deference.”).
39 Fairmount Glass Works v. Cub Fork Coal Co., 287 U.S. 474, 485 (1933); see
also Stevenson v. Hearst Consol. Publications, 214 F.2d 902, 911 (2d Cir. 1954); cf. Jayne
v. Mason & Dixon Lines, 124 F.2d 317, 319 (2d Cir. 1941) (L. Hand, J.) (“We do not
mean to imply . . . that we should have thought it fatal to the wife’s recovery if no
rational reconciliation of the verdicts was possible.”).
Turley v. Police Dep’t of the City of New York, 167 F.3d 757, 760 (2d Cir. 1999)
40
(internal quotation marks omitted).
14
its discretion in deciding that the verdict was not “seriously erroneous
or a miscarriage of justice.”41
B.
Because “a jury finding of excessive force does not
automatically entitle a claimant to compensatory damages as a matter
of law,”42 we must examine the record to determine whether it is
possible to harmonize the jury’s verdict. The jury instructions frame
our analysis, just as they did the jury’s deliberations.
Contrary to Ali’s suggestion,43 the jury instructions did not
limit the jury to considering only Sergeant Kipp’s conduct inside the
holding cell. Rather, they directed the jury to determine whether
“Sergeant Kipp used excessive force on [Ali] when placing him in the
precinct holding cell.”44 As a matter of plain language, this
encompassed any force Kipp may have used to bring Ali to the
holding cell, and any force he may have used once Ali was inside the
cell. The jury therefore was not only entitled, but required, to consider
41 Amato, 170 F.3d at 314.
42 Id.; see also Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. 247, 248 (1978) (holding that Section
1983 plaintiffs were “entitled to recover only nominal damages” “in the absence
of proof of actual injury.”).
43 Appellant’s Br. at 3.
44 App’x at 741 (emphasis added).
15
whether Sergeant Kipp used excessive force when bringing Ali from
the front desk of the Precinct to the threshold of the cell.
Even if the jury found that Sergeant Kipp used excessive force
while placing Ali in the cell, that was not necessarily the end of its
fact‐finding. Rather, the District Court instructed the jury that, before
it could award damages, it also had to find that any excessive force
used by Sergeant Kipp was the proximate cause of Ali’s “injury or
injuries.”45 And in the event that the jury found that only some of Ali’s
injuries were caused by Kipp’s use of excessive force, the jury was
directed to “award compensatory damages only for those injuries that
[it] find[s] the plaintiff has proven . . . to have been the result of
conduct by the defendant in violation of the law.”46
In light of these proper and thorough jury instructions, we have
no difficulty identifying “a view of the case . . . that resolves any
seeming inconsistency.”47 The jury heard two different accounts of
what transpired when Sergeant Kipp placed Ali in the cell. According
to Ali, the entire incident was marked by violence—from Sergeant
Kipp grabbing Ali’s neck and ripping Ali’s boxers on the way to the
cell, to his slamming Ali’s head into the cell wall and bars once inside
the cell.48 Sergeant Kipp, on the other hand, testified that all he did
45 Id. at 78 (final jury verdict sheet).
46 Id. at 745 (emphasis added).
47 Turley, 167 F.3d at 760 (internal quotation marks omitted).
48 App’x at 171–72.
16
was “guide[ ]” an inebriated Ali to the cell, pull him inside, and
repeatedly sit him down on a bench—after which, Kipp said, Ali
injured himself.49
The jury was free to conclude that the truth lay somewhere
between these two versions of the relevant events. It could have
credited Ali’s testimony that Sergeant Kipp used excessive force
when he brought Ali to the holding cell, but concluded that Ali
suffered only de minimis injuries from the treatment. That finding
would not have foreclosed the jury from also crediting Kipp’s
testimony that Ali caused his own head injuries, either by slamming
his own head into the wall or by falling off the cell’s bench head‐first.
Under this view of the case, the award of no compensatory damages
was proper, for the jury was not to “simply award compensatory
damages for any injury suffered by the plaintiff from any cause.”50
Because the jury’s causation finding was ambiguous and might
have referred only to the de minimis injuries that Ali suffered while
being forced into the cell,51 the District Court cannot be said to have
abused its discretion when it denied Ali’s Rule 59 motion for a new
trial.
49 Id. at 362–63, 371.
50 Id. at 745 (jury instructions).
See, e.g., Gibeau v. Nellis, 18 F.3d 107, 110 (2d Cir. 1994) (holding that
51
compensatory damages are not required as a matter of law where the evidence
was ambiguous as to the cause of injuries).
17
C.
Ali’s arguments to the contrary give us little pause. Ali
contends that the District Court, in denying his motion, relied on a
“new theory” of liability not presented to the jury. According to Ali,
he argued to the jury that Sergeant Kipp used excessive force only
when he was already in the holding cell. Ali thus claims that the
evidence he presented precluded any finding of liability with respect
to Sergeant Kipp’s conduct in the course of transporting him to the
holding cell.
We do not agree. The law is clear that “the jurors were not
required to accept the entirety of either side’s account, but were free
to accept bits of testimony from several witnesses and to make
reasonable inferences from whatever testimony they credited.”52 Not
“accept[ing] the entirety of either side’s account” necessarily entails
not accepting either side’s theory of the case whole cloth. We therefore
hold that, when harmonizing a seemingly inconsistent verdict, a court
similarly is not limited to the specific theories of the case presented
by the parties, but may adopt any reasonable view that is consistent
with the facts and testimony adduced at trial.
Ali also argues that the District Court erred when it analyzed
his motion for a new trial as a challenge to an inconsistent verdict,
rather than considering whether he was entitled to damages as a
matter of law. This argument is without merit. As discussed, Ali was
52 Haywood v. Koehler, 78 F.3d 101, 105 (2d Cir. 1996).
18
not, as a matter of law, entitled to compensatory damages simply
because the jury found liability.53
Finally, Ali suggests that the District Court impermissibly
added a new claim to the litigation by permitting the jury to conclude
that Sergeant Kipp used excessive force when bringing him to the
holding cell. This argument is simply a re‐packaging of the assertion
that the District Court could not adopt a new “theory” of the case, and
fails for the same reason.
We thus affirm the judgment of the District Court.
III. CONCLUSION
To summarize, we hold as follows:
(1) The District Court did not abuse its discretion when it
determined that Ali was not entitled as a matter of law to
more than nominal damages and therefore denied Ali’s
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(a) motion for a new trial;
and
(2) When attempting to harmonize a seemingly inconsistent
verdict, a court is not limited to the specific theories of the
case presented by the parties, but may adopt any reasonable
53 Amato, 170 F.3d at 314.
19
view of the case that is consistent with the facts and the
testimony adduced at trial.
For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the judgment of the
District Court.
20