In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 16‐1051
MICHAEL A. WHITE, et al.,
Plaintiffs‐Appellants,
v.
STEVEN L. HEFEL, et al.,
Defendants‐Appellees.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 12 C 7853 — Charles R. Norgle, Judge.
____________________
ARGUED SEPTEMBER 6, 2017 — DECIDED NOVEMBER 7, 2017
____________________
Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and ROVNER and SYKES, Circuit
Judges.
WOOD, Chief Judge. Shortly after 9:00 in the evening on Sep‐
tember 30, 2011, Semajay Hyles charged uninvited into the
White family’s Chicago home. No more than a few minutes
later, police officers pushed past Michael White, Sr., and fol‐
lowed Hyles into the house. They found Hyles huddled in a
basement room and arrested him, but they did not leave the
house right away. Instead, they spent some time searching it
2 No. 16‐1051
before finally departing. The Whites did not appreciate the in‐
trusion, and so they brought this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983,
seeking damages related to the entry and search of their
home. The district court ultimately denied cross‐motions for
summary judgment, but at trial, it granted judgment as a mat‐
ter of law for the defendant officers on three claims. The jury
ruled for the defendants on the remaining four claims, and the
Whites now appeal. We can find no reversible error, and so
we affirm the district court’s judgment.
I
It is easy to understand why the district court thought that
a trial was necessary in this case. The parties’ accounts of what
happened differ significantly. The plaintiffs—Michael White,
Sr., his wife Linda, and their three children—testified that just
before the events in question, Michael Sr. was escorting some
visitors outside. He had gotten as far as the street when an
unknown teenager (Hyles) ran up to the unlocked door,
opened it, ran in, and locked it behind him. Police officers who
were chasing the teenager quickly arrived and began to kick
down the door. Michael Sr. tried to let them know that he had
a key to the house, but before he could get that message
across, one of the officers shoved him down the stairs, injur‐
ing him. With their guns drawn, the officers kicked down the
door, went into the house, and found Hyles. After Hyles was
secured, they thoroughly searched the house even though
they had no warrant and the urgency had passed. The police
claimed that Linda gave her consent for the search, but Linda
denied that. Instead, she said, they pushed some forms in
front of her in the waning light, and she thought that she was
signing only a complaint for criminal trespass.
No. 16‐1051 3
The police painted quite a different picture. As they por‐
trayed the evening’s events, the encounter began when six
Chicago Police Department (CPD) officers spotted Hyles on a
nearby street corner. When one of the officers tried to speak
with him, Hyles fled. The officers pursued him, partly in their
squad cars, partly on foot. Some of the officers saw Hyles
drop a baggie, which (when it was eventually retrieved)
turned out to contain crack cocaine. The route that the squad
cars took was recorded on the GPS systems in the cars; we
discuss this further when we consider the Whites’ argument
that some of the testimony from the police describes physi‐
cally impossible events. The police wound up in the vicinity
of the Whites’ house. One officer observed Hyles unsuccess‐
fully try to open the gate of a nearby home; other witnesses
testified that he approached several places. He got lucky at
the Whites’ home, where the door was unlocked. An officer
testified that Hyles kicked the door open. When the officer
tried to follow Hyles, the officer accidentally collided with
Michael Sr. and both fell down. The officers arrested Hyles,
and then, with Linda’s consent, they searched the home and
obtained her signature on complaints against Hyles.
Approximately a year after these events, Michael Sr.,
Linda, and the three children brought this suit under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983 and state common law. In it, they raised a host of theo‐
ries arising out of the Hyles incident. The critical ones for pre‐
sent purposes are Counts I and III, which raise claims of the
use of excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment;
Count XI, asserting a failure on the part of some officers to
intervene; and Counts V, VII, and VIII, which raise unconsti‐
tutional seizure and detention, entry, and search claims, also
under the Fourth Amendment. (For those who would like a
4 No. 16‐1051
comprehensive list of the counts and their disposition, we in‐
clude a table showing who made which claims, and how they
were resolved, in an appendix to this opinion.)
Jurisdiction over the federal claims was proper under 28
U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1343; the state‐law claims fell within the
court’s supplemental jurisdiction, 28 U.S.C. § 1367. Before the
trial, the court denied the plaintiffs’ motion for summary
judgment on Counts VII, VIII, and XI. The Whites’ argument
was that the police account of the chase was incredible as a
matter of law because the GPS units in the squad cars contra‐
dicted the officers’ testimony. The court granted judgment as
a matter of law to all of the individual defendants on the
claims of illegal seizure, illegal entry of the home, illegal
search of the home, and indemnification. (For reasons that are
unclear, the court also instructed the jury on Count XI, though
it had previously granted judgment as a matter of law.) The
excessive‐force and failure‐to‐intervene claims went to trial
before a jury, which ruled in the defendants’ favor. This appeal
followed.
II
A
We can dispose of one part of this appeal easily. The
Whites sought summary judgment in their favor on Counts
VII, VIII, and XI, but the court found disputed issues of fact
that warranted a trial. The Whites would like us to review that
issue, but they have overlooked the rule against revisiting
summary judgment after trial. See Ortiz v. Jordan, 562 U.S. 180,
184–85 (2011); see also Chemetall GMBH v. ZR Energy, Inc., 320
F.3d 714, 718 (7th Cir. 2003). There are good practical reasons
No. 16‐1051 5
for this rule. Once a trial has taken place, we have an authori‐
tative decision by a jury resolving whatever disputes of fact
existed. If the jury behaved irrationally, there are two safe‐
guards built into the system: first, the losing party can file a
motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59 and seek a
new trial on the ground that the verdict is against the manifest
weight of the evidence; second, the party that believes that a
claim should not reach the jury is free to file timely motions
under Rule 50(a) and (b) for judgment as a matter of law. In
the latter instance, the moving party will seek to persuade the
court that the case should not go (Rule 50(a)) or never should
have been sent (Rule 50(b)) to the jury. Going back to the ear‐
lier summary judgment stage and plugging one’s ears to the
actual evidence that the jury heard would be, at a minimum,
wasteful, and at worst, would fail to take account of the actual
trial that took place and the jury’s response.
When they were seeking summary judgment, the Whites
argued that the GPS data from the squad cars conclusively
showed that the officers’ chase of Hyles could not have hap‐
pened as they said it did. The district court decided, however,
that the officers’ account was not incredible as a matter of law
(in contrast, for instance, to an assertion that someone drove
in an ordinary car the roughly 1,100 miles from Chicago to
Houston in just three hours). Instead, the court ruled that the
differing accounts required “credibility determinations …
best suited for a jury.” This was a reasonable assessment of the
evidence. But even if the district court’s assessment had been
unreasonable, the jury has now resolved all credibility dis‐
putes, and Ortiz holds that a party may not appeal an order
denying summary judgment after a full trial on the merits.
That rule requires us to refrain from revisiting the district
court’s summary judgment ruling.
6 No. 16‐1051
B
Trying another tack against the GPS evidence, the Whites
also argue that the district court erred by refusing at the trial
to admit the GPS evidence and some exhibits related to it. The
GPS charts themselves contained coordinates that correspond
to points on a map. The Whites wanted to use two sources of
evidence: first, testimony from Captain Martin Ryczek based
on deposition testimony he had given in a different case about
the GPS system that CPD used in 2012; second, some demon‐
strative maps and exhibits that a paralegal had created by
plugging the GPS information from the squad cars into
Google Maps, PowerPoint, and Synfig, in an effort to recreate
for the jury the path that the cars took. The district court ex‐
cluded Ryczek’s testimony under Federal Rule of Evidence
403, which permits exclusion of relevant evidence if its proba‐
tive value is substantially outweighed by the danger of con‐
fusing the issues. That was the situation here, the court con‐
cluded. It was undisputed that the police first spotted Hyles
some distance from the Whites’ house, and that they wound
up at the house after pursuing him. The court regarded the
risk of confusing the jury with marginally relevant details
about the GPS system used by the Chicago police as too great,
and the utility of this evidence too small, to require its admis‐
sion.
And those were not the only problems with Ryczek’s pro‐
posed testimony. The court concluded that it was expert testi‐
mony for purposes of Rule 702. This meant that the Whites
had a duty to disclose it to the defendants, FED. R. CIV. P.
26(a)(2), and they had done no such thing. The Whites argue
that Ryczek was not an expert, because he was simply ex‐
plaining the GPS charts and how the data could be used. Yet
No. 16‐1051 7
at trial the Whites said that Ryczek would “authenticate and
interpret and explain the records.” We have looked at the rec‐
ords, which are quite dense. The district court reasonably con‐
cluded that the role the Whites wanted Ryczek to play was
that of an expert. Finally, Ryczek’s deposition addressed the
GPS system CPD was using as of a year after the Hyles inci‐
dent. While we understand the Whites’ position that there
was no material change from 2011 to 2012, this discrepancy is
also a strike against them.
The Whites also insist on appeal that the court should have
allowed the jury to see the computer re‐creation of the chase
prepared by their paralegal. They emphasize that all the par‐
alegal did was to take GPS coordinates, plug them into a big‐
ger map, and deduce the route that each squad car must have
taken. Charts and summaries are admissible to demonstrate
extensive data that cannot easily be examined in court. FED.
R. EVID. 1006. The proponent of the summary, however, must
show that the underlying records are accurate and would be
admissible. United States v. Oros, 578 F.3d 703, 708 (7th Cir.
2009). The Whites ask, rhetorically, how anyone could object
to their maps, when all they did was take a certain set of
points on a small map and put them on a larger map. But that
overlooks the larger problem, which is that the routes driven
by the various patrol cars tell us very little about which offic‐
ers were driving, which ones were on foot, when the cars were
stopped, and why it matters what route, and by what means
(running or driving) the officers made it to the Whites’ front
door immediately behind the fleeing Hyles. The paralegal’s
map, the court reasonably concluded, slid over these ques‐
tions and could have diverted the jury’s attention from the
central issues in the case. In so ruling, the court did not abuse
its discretion.
8 No. 16‐1051
C
This brings us to the entry and search of the Whites’ home.
They begin by arguing that the district court erred when it
found that the police had probable cause to enter the house.
That finding lay behind the court’s decision to grant judgment
as a matter of law on several of the claims.
The police first spotted Hyles at night, on a street corner
in a high crime neighborhood known for significant gang
presence and a flourishing drug trade. When an officer ap‐
proached Hyles to talk to him—something the police are en‐
titled to do without any degree of suspicion, see United States
v. Childs, 277 F.3d 947, 950 (7th Cir. 2002) (en banc)—Hyles did
not stand still and answer. He turned on his heels and sped
off. This mirrors what happened in Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S.
119 (2000), where some police officers spotted a man in “an
area known for heavy narcotics trafficking” and decided to
talk to him. Id. at 121. Without any provocation, the man ran
away. As in our case, the police pursued him and then
stopped him. Id. At that point in Wardlow, the police con‐
ducted a protective patdown, found a weapon, and arrested
the man. Id. The Supreme Court held that the stop did not vi‐
olate the Fourth Amendment. Id.
Crediting the officers’ account, as the district court was en‐
titled to do for purposes of suppression of evidence, the police
did not lose track of Hyles for any significant time. An officer
was thus able to observe him try to open a gate, without suc‐
cess. They saw him run into the house, on the way passing the
people at the Whites’ front door. Michael Sr. told them that
Hyles did not live there. No reasonable person could have
thought that Mr. White had just invited Hyles into his home.
No. 16‐1051 9
Looking at all the circumstances, the police at that point
had probable cause to believe that Hyles was committing the
crime of trespass. We therefore do not need to resolve the
question whether any of the officers could have seen him drop
the baggie of cocaine that was later recovered. Nor do any
statements made by the officers relating to the cocaine make
a difference: as the Supreme Court reiterated in Devenpeck v.
Alford, 543 U.S. 146 (2004), the test for probable cause is an
objective one, and so it does not matter if the offense for which
probable cause exists is not closely related to the offense iden‐
tified by the arresting officer. Id. at 154–55. What matters, and
all that matters, is whether the facts known to the arresting
officers at the time they acted supported probable cause to ar‐
rest. As we have said, the officers pursuing Hyles had proba‐
ble cause to believe that he was committing criminal trespass.
The question remains whether they should have procured
a warrant before they rushed into the Whites’ home, but on
these facts, that question answers itself. See United States v.
Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 42–43 (1976) (no warrant needed when
police in hot pursuit are acting on probable cause). The offic‐
ers were in hot pursuit of a fleeing suspect. They were hardly
going to shout into the house and ask Hyles to mark time
while they checked in with a state judge. Moreover, they had
good reason to conduct a protective search of the house. They
had no idea, as they ran in, whether Hyles had a weapon, if
he did whether he had dropped it on his way to the back room
where he was found, whether anyone else in the house was in
danger, or whether Hyles would resist arrest.
In their brief, the Whites also hint at the idea that the police
did not leave the house within a reasonable time, but instead
stayed for more than an hour and conducted a thorough
10 No. 16‐1051
search. But this theory was not developed in their brief; it ap‐
pears only as part of the argument that there was no probable
cause to enter the house in the first place. The defendants thus
never had the chance to counter it with their own evidence.
The undue‐duration argument is therefore forfeited.
III
There are some troubling parts to this trial, to be sure. The
Whites assert that the district court erred when it allowed
Hyles’s guilty plea in the criminal proceeding related to his
break‐in to be introduced, and worse, when it took judicial
notice of the factual allegations in the plea transcript for pur‐
poses of bolstering its finding of probable cause to enter the
house.
The facts with respect to the transcript of the guilty‐plea
proceedings are unusual, to say the least. The Whites had filed
a motion in limine “[t]o bar all evidence, testimony, and argu‐
ments that defendants had probable cause to enter the White
home to arrest Semajay Hyles because he pled guilty to pos‐
session of a controlled substance or because he was ‘a felon.’”
The defendants countered that the guilty plea was an “admis‐
sion of facts” and thus relevant to the reason why the officers
entered the house. The Whites rightly replied that the guilty
plea had little or no relevance to what the officers knew as
they pursued Hyles. At trial, the defendants produced both
Hyles’s certificate of conviction and the transcript.
That was when things took a strange turn. The district
court properly noted that “later learned evidence does not es‐
tablish that there was earlier probable cause.” The court thus
ruled that “the defendants will not be permitted to argue to
the jury that there was probable cause on the issue of whether
No. 16‐1051 11
the male possessed narcotics as established by his judgment
of conviction entered against him.” At trial, however, in his
opening statement, the Whites’ counsel repeatedly argued
that the police could not have seen anything amiss. During
the case‐in‐chief, Linda White testified that when Hyles ran
into the house, she did not see any weapons and Hyles said
he had nothing. At that point the court ruled that the Whites
had opened the door to the question of Hyles’s guilt, and that
evidence of his conviction could come in. Even then, the de‐
fendants planned to introduce only the certified judgment of
conviction and pages 2–3 of the guilty‐plea transcript, which
contained the court’s recitation of the charge and Hyles’s
acknowledgement that his plea was voluntary. It was plaintiffs
who insisted that if that much of the transcript was coming in,
the whole thing should be read. The court acquiesced.
Once the transcript was in, the court took the position that
it could take judicial notice of the factual allegations that un‐
derlay Hyles’s guilty plea. This was mistaken. Under Federal
Rule of Evidence 201, a court may take judicial notice only of
facts that are beyond reasonable dispute. Gen. Elec. Capital
Corp. v. Lease Resolution Corp., 128 F.3d 1074, 1083 (7th Cir.
1997). Far from satisfying this requirement, the factual allega‐
tions in the plea transcript, which purported to describe the
events of September 30, 2011, were hotly contested: they lay
at the heart of the dispute in this case. The only question that
matters is whether this error was one that requires reversal.
We think not. A party who invites error cannot later complain
of it, even if the error is plain. United States v. Addison, 803 F.3d
916, 919 (7th Cir. 2015). Here, just as the court initially recog‐
nized, Hyles’s guilty plea had little or nothing to do with what
the officers knew as they were chasing Hyles. We conclude
that the court’s error in attempting to take judicial notice of
12 No. 16‐1051
the statements in the plea transcript was either harmless or
waived.
The Whites also touch on several other alleged errors at
the end of their principal brief, including (1) that the court
should have permitted Michael Sr. to introduce evidence of
his medical bills (according to him, $4,610.37), which he in‐
curred as a result of injuries he suffered when he was pushed
down the stairs by the police; (2) that the court erred by in‐
structing the jury that it had to find that the Whites were
harmed in order to recover on their excessive‐force claims;
and (3) that it gave the jury the option of finding nominal
damages of $1, over the Whites’ objection.
The reason the court gave for excluding the medical‐bill
evidence was that Michael Sr. had not yet paid the bills. In
Illinois (to whose law we look for guidance on this point),
whether a medical bill is paid is the touchstone for whether
the expense is reasonable. Barreto v. City of Waukegan, 478
N.E.2d 581, 589 (Ill. App. Ct. 1985). Payment is not the exclu‐
sive way to demonstrate reasonableness, however. It is also
acceptable for a “person having knowledge of the services
rendered and the usual and customary charges for such ser‐
vices” to testify that the charges are “fair and reasonable.” Ar‐
thur v. Catour, 833 N.E.2d 847, 853–54 (Ill. 2005). The problem
here is that the Whites never called the medical record‐keep‐
ers they had included on their witness list, and so the jury
never heard the necessary evidence. This was simply a failure
of proof, not a ruling that unpaid medical bills can never be
used at a trial.
The Whites’ second point is well taken: the key inquiry in
an excessive‐force case is the amount of force used, not the
No. 16‐1051 13
degree of harm that was inflicted on the victim. Thus, in Hud‐
son v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1 (1992), in the course of addressing
an Eighth Amendment claim, the Supreme Court had this to
say:
When prison officials maliciously and sadistically use
force to cause harm, contemporary standards of de‐
cency always are violated. … This is true whether or
not significant injury is evident.
Id. at 9 (citation omitted); see also Wilkins v. Gaddy, 559 U.S.
34, 37–40 (2010) (vacating dismissal of excessive‐force claim
because the district court erroneously focused on extent of in‐
jury rather than nature of force applied). Wilkins noted, how‐
ever, that the extent of injury might shed light on the question
whether the degree of force used could plausibly have been
thought necessary by the officer. Id. at 37.
To the extent that the instructions failed to convey these
nuances, however, we conclude that any error was harmless.
The Whites were allowed to, and did, argue in closing that
harm need not be physical. This was enough to alert the jury
to Linda’s distress as a source of harm. And the jury was well
aware of Michael Sr.’s testimony that he had been thrown
down a flight of concrete stairs—something that easily could
lead to more than de minimis injury. The question before the
jury was whether the police, in hot pursuit of Hyles, pushed
past Michael Sr., inadvertently causing him to lose his balance
and fall, or if they deliberately pushed him aside in an exces‐
sive use of force. The evidence could have supported either
conclusion. As it was entitled to do, the jury chose to believe
the police.
14 No. 16‐1051
IV
The Whites have raised several other points as well, but it
is enough to say that we see nothing that requires discussion.
The judgment of the district court is therefore AFFIRMED.
No. 16‐1051 15
Appendix
Count Theory Plaintiffs Defendants Disposition
I Exc. force – 4th am. Michael Sr. Hefel Jury for defendant
II Battery Michael Sr. Hefel, City Vol. dismissal
III Exc. force – 4th am. Linda and Michael Jr. Hefel, Homer, Ramag‐ Vol. dismissal of Michael
lia, Laurie, Suing, Jr.’s claim; jury for Hefel
O’Keefe (“Individual
Defendants”)
IV Assault Linda and Michael Jr. All defendants Vol. dismissal
V Illegal seizure and All plaintiffs All defendants JMOL for all defendants
detention – 4th am.
VI False imprisonment All plaintiffs Individual defendants Vol. dismissal
VII Unconstitutional All plaintiffs Individual defendants No sum. jdgt. for plaintiffs;
entry – 4th am. JMOL at trial for defendants
VIII Unconstitutional All plaintiffs Individual defendants No sum. jdgt. for plaintiffs;
search – 4th am. JMOL for defendants
IX Trespass and illegal All plaintiffs All defendants Vol. dismissal
search
X Damage to prop‐ Michael Sr. and Linda All defendants Sum. jdgt. for some defend‐
erty ants; dismissed in a pre‐trial
ruling for others
XI Failure to intervene All plaintiffs Homer, Ramaglia, Lau‐ No sum. jdgt. for plaintiffs;
– 4th am. rie, Suing, and O’Keefe jury for defendants
XII Indemnification All plaintiffs City JMOL for defendant
from City