Brown v. City of Huntsville, Ala.

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that the city was entitled to immunity for assault and battery claims stemming from intentional, rather than negligent, careless, or unskillful use of force
• concluding that officer was not entitled to qualified immunity when he used pepper spray to subdue a suspect who was not resisting arrest for a minor offense and then threw her to the ground before applying handcuffs
• holding that, for unlawful arrest liability under §1983, a plaintiff must show that the officer was “personally involved in the acts that resulted in the constitutional deprivation” such that “merely being present” was not enough
• recognizing doctrine of state-agent immunity under Alabama law and the defense of statutory discretionary-function immunity
• noting that “[w]hether an officer possesses probable cause . . . depends on the elements of the alleged crime and the operative fact pattern”
• noting that under Alabama law, a city is not liable 13 Plaintiffs rely on Faulkner v. University of Tennessee, 627 So. 2d 262 (Ala. 1992

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).