Family of pregnant woman killed by speeding officer loses 7th Circuit appeal

IL file photo

A district court correctly dismissed a complaint alleging an Indianapolis police officer violated a woman’s 14^th Amendment rights when he struck and killed her while driving to work, the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Tuesday.

On May 6, 2020, Ashlynn Lisby and Marcus Lewis Jr. were walking along the shoulder of State Road 37 in Indianapolis. Lisby was eight months pregnant at the time with Lewis’ child, and the two were walking back to their motel.

According to court records, Officer Jonathan Henderson of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department was driving to work in his police vehicle on the same road. Henderson was driving 78 miles per hour — which was 33 mph over the posted speed limit — when he illegally changed lanes and partially crossed the fog lane onto the shoulder.

Henderson struck Lisby without seeing her while still traveling at 55 mph.

Lisby was transported to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The baby was delivered but died shortly thereafter.

Ralph Lisby, Lisby’s father and the representative of her estate, sued Henderson under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging he had violated Lisby’s 14^th Amendment substantive due process rights. He also brought state-law negligence claims against Henderson and the city of Indianapolis.

The defendants removed the suit to federal court and filed a motion for partial judgment on the pleadings.

The United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana granted that motion, disposing of all federal claims and relinquishing its supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state-law claims. The district court concluded Lisby’s complaint failed to plead sufficient facts plausibly suggesting that Henderson had acted with the criminal recklessness necessary to establish a due process violation.

The 7^th Circuit agreed and affirmed.

The sole issue on appeal was whether the district court properly granted the motion with respect to Lisby’s Section 1983 claim against Henderson.

Judge Thomas Kirsch wrote the opinion for the appellate court.

Lisby argued the district court should have converted the motion for judgment on the pleadings to a motion for summary judgment and allowed the parties to conduct discovery.

Kirsch wrote that the district court ordinarily has discretion to convert a motion for judgment on the pleadings to a motion for summary judgment, but only when the district court considers materials beyond the pleadings is it required to convert a Rule 12(c) motion to one for summary judgment.

“Because the district court did not stray beyond the pleadings, and Lisby has not identified any evidence that would have any bearing on the motion, the district court did not err in dismissing the complaint on the pleadings,” Kirsch wrote, citing United States v. Rogers Cartage Co., 794 F.3d 854, 861 (7th Cir. 2015).

According to Kirsch, the appellate court’s analysis of whether allegations of a police officer’s dangerous driving during a nonemergency rise to the level of a substantive due process violation is guided by the court’s decisions in Hill v. Shobe, 93 F.3d 418 (7th Cir. 1996), and Flores v. City of South Bend, 997 F.3d 725 (7th Cir. 2021). Those cases hold that a plaintiff seeking relief under Section 1983 for such a claim must plead sufficient facts to establish that the officer acted with “criminal recklessness—which is the same as deliberate indifference.”

Lisby argued that Henderson reasonably understood that his driving was dangerous and that he was willing to let a fatal collision occur. But Kirsch wrote that the mere knowledge that driving at a high speed at night could have fatal consequences is not enough to allege a constitutional violation.

“We agree with the district court that Officer Henderson’s actions, as alleged in the complaint, are grounded in negligence rather than criminal recklessness. As such, Lisby failed to allege a constitutional violation,” Kirsch concluded.

Judges Michael Scudder and John Lee concurred.

The case is Ralph Lisby, as the Personal Representative of the Estate of Ashlynn Lisby, deceased v. Jonathan Henderson, individually and in his official capacity as a police officer, and City of Indianapolis, Indiana, 22-2867.