Background
El Paso Police Officer Steven Jaso responded alone to a reported domestic assault involving 70-year-old Armando Navejas, who had dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. According to the call, Armando had tried to strangle his wife. Surveillance video and undisputed evidence showed that Armando ignored repeated commands, threw multiple objects toward Jaso, struck him with one object, and remained unsecured. Jaso deployed his taser once, striking Armando in the back and causing him to fall. Armando lost consciousness, was hospitalized, and later died.
Armando’s daughter, Debbie Navejas, sued Jaso under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for excessive force and sued the City of El Paso under Monell, alleging deficient training and supervision, failure to discipline officers, inadequate Crisis Intervention Team staffing, and ratification. The district court granted summary judgment to both defendants, and Navejas appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Fifth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Jaso on qualified-immunity grounds without deciding whether the tasing violated the Fourth Amendment. Assuming a constitutional violation, the court held that no controlling precedent clearly established that an officer could not deploy a taser once against an uncontrolled suspect who repeatedly ignored commands and threw objects at the officer. Cases involving passive, nonthreatening, restrained, or already-subdued individuals did not squarely govern Jaso’s circumstances.
The court also affirmed judgment for the City. The record contained no pre-incident pattern of similar constitutional violations sufficient to show deliberate indifference, and Navejas could not rely for the first time on appeal on different incidents discussed in other cases. The single-incident exception did not apply because Jaso had received substantial use-of-force, less-lethal-force, and mental-health training. The evidence likewise failed to establish a widespread failure-to-discipline practice, deliberate indifference in the City’s overnight Crisis Intervention Team scheduling, or the extreme circumstances required for ratification liability. The court also denied a remand for additional discovery because Navejas had received a 78-day extension, did not seek another extension or invoke Rule 56(d), and did not identify with specificity what further discovery would have produced.
Key Takeaways
- The panel resolved the officer’s qualified-immunity defense solely on the clearly established law prong and did not decide whether the single taser use was unconstitutional.
- Earlier decisions involving passive, compliant, restrained, or subdued people did not clearly prohibit tasing a suspect who ignored commands, threw objects at an officer, and remained uncontrolled.
- Municipal liability failed because the record did not show a preexisting pattern, a complete absence of relevant training, a widespread disciplinary failure, deliberately indifferent crisis-team scheduling, or an extreme act capable of supporting ratification.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores the factual specificity required to overcome qualified immunity in Fifth Circuit excessive-force cases. General decisions limiting taser use will not suffice when materially different facts indicate active resistance or a threat, even if the person subjected to force is elderly, cognitively impaired, and tased while moving away from the officer.
The opinion also illustrates the evidentiary and preservation demands of Monell litigation. Plaintiffs must develop and present relevant pre-incident pattern evidence in the district court, and parties needing more discovery to oppose summary judgment should timely seek relief and explain precisely what evidence remains necessary.