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The estate of a woman who died after a struggle with Indianapolis police may pursue a battery claim at trial next month after a federal judge denied the city’s motion to dismiss.
The Estate of Eleanor Northington sued the city and the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department in February 2021 after Northington died from lack of oxygen in 2019.
According to The Associated Press, IMPD officers responded to a call at Mt. Calvary Apostolic Church, where Northington and officers engaged in a “struggle.” Northington attempted to hit, bite and spit on officers, who wrestled her to the floor and placed a knee in her back, the AP reported.
Northington reportedly said, “I can’t breathe,” according to the AP. She was taken to a hospital and was eventually taken off life support.
The suit alleged officers used excessive force, leading to Northington’s death.
IMPD and its officers were dismissed as defendants in March 2021, and various claims against the city have also been dismissed, pursuant to various stipulations.
That leaves a respondeat superior claim for battery, which the city sought to dismiss.
According to the Indiana Southern District Court, the city argued that “the Estate’s remaining claim is subject to dismissal because (1) without a claim under Indiana’s wrongful death statute, Indiana’s common law dictates that no tort experienced by Eleanor Northington … survived her death and (2) even if such a claim survived, Northington died at the time it was determined she had no brain activity and as a result, evidence of her brain death is inadmissible.”
In denying the dismissal motion, Chief Judge Tanya Walton Pratt pointed to Indiana Code § 34-9-3-4, which provides, “The personal representative of the decedent who was injured may maintain an action against the wrongdoer to recover all damages resulting before the date of death from those injuries that the decedent would have been entitled to recover had the decedent lived.”
For its part, the city pointed to Jackson v. SPC Leasing, 22A-CT-1201, and its analysis of I.C. 34-9-3-1 to argue that “there is no cause of action if the decedent’s death was caused by the personal injuries alleged in the complaint.”
“But the pleadings do not establish that the alleged battery was the sole cause of Ms. Northington’s death,” Walton Pratt wrote.
“In the Second Amended Complaint, the Estate alleges in part that Eleanor Northington’s … death was ‘a direct, legal and proximate result of’ defendant parties’ ‘gross negligence, … deliberate indifference, or reckless disregard for an obvious risk’, in addition to their battery,” the chief judge wrote. “As was discussed at the final pretrial conference, the autopsy report written by Dr. Poulos, whose testimony the Court has limited to inquiries about the alleged battery, indicates the ‘Cause of Death’ as anoxic brain injury in the setting of morbid obesity, cardiac hypertrophy, schizophrenia, and struggle with others.’
“The Estate’s averments, at the pretrial conference or otherwise, do not foreclose other potential causes of her death. Neither does the parties’ supplemental joint stipulation, which merely submits that ‘Eleanor Northington is deceased and the cause of her death is not an issue before the jury,’” Walton Pratt continued. “As such, it has not been established, and it is not an issue, whether Ms. Northington ultimately died from the battery or some other unrelated condition or comorbidity. The Court therefore declines to dismiss on these grounds the remaining state law battery claim, which will go to trial by jury ‘to recover all damages resulting before the date of death from those injuries that the decedent would have been entitled to recover had the decedent lived.’”
Further, under I.C. 1-1-4-3, Walton Pratt ruled that the estate should be allowed to prove damages that stop short of “irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem.”
“The Court reiterates that the single claim before the jury is battery,” the chief judge concluded. “The Court acknowledges the City’s ultimate concern that the jury, in wading into an impermissible determination as to ‘cause of death’, may award damages related to Ms. Northington’s death itself.
“As such,” she wrote, “the Court reminds the Estate’s counsel to stay the course of the sole claim at hand and implores him to vigilantly abstain from even hinting — let alone presenting evidence or testimony — that the alleged battery proximately caused ‘brain death’ or death.”
The case — Estate of Eleanor Northington v. City of Indianapolis, 1:21-cv-406 — is scheduled for trial on the battery claim on Feb. 20.
Mt. Calvary was also initially named as a defendant, but the parties stipulated to a dismissal with prejudice of the church in September 2021.
The Indianapolis Office of Corporation Counsel declined to comment on the pending litigation.
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