Judge tosses ‘excessive force’ claim from lawsuit against police, but allows other parts to move ahead

A lawsuit alleging Eugene police wrongly used aggressive tactics in arresting a man undergoing a mental health crisis will move forward, but with a key claim tossed out.

In a May 30 ruling, U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai dismissed a claim of excessive force in the 2020 arrest of Eamonn Kerr-Daly. In a 33-page opinion, the judge at one point describes the force used by police as potentially “unreasonable,” but cited “qualified immunity” for police in explaining his decision.

Qualified immunity is a legal concept that generally protects government officials, including police, from civil damages unless their conduct violates clearly established rights.

The judge allowed other parts of the lawsuit, including an alleged violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, to move forward, with a scheduling conference set for July 8.

The city of Eugene had previously filed a motion seeking a ruling in its favor, arguing in part that police used a reasonable amount of force in the arrest. Kasubhai’s opinion made no such finding. With some facts in dispute, the judge wrote, “the Court cannot rule as a matter of law that the officers’ use of force was not excessive.”

In August 2020, Kerr-Daly picked up a kitchen knife and held it up to his father, leading his mother to ask for a nonemergency response as she told a dispatcher her son had set down the knife, according to court documents. But some time after police arrived, they grabbed Kerr-Daly “without warning and a scuffle ensued,” causing him to sustain injuries, the opinion states.

Criminal charges against Kerr-Daly were later dropped. The lawsuit was filed in August 2022.

Melinda McLaughlin, a Eugene Police Department spokeswoman, declined to answer specific questions citing the ongoing lawsuit, but said in a statement: “The court determined that the city had no policy or practice of excessive force and also granted the individual officers qualified immunity on the excessive force claim.”

J. Ashlee Albies, an attorney representing Kerr-Daly’s appointed guardian, in an interview Monday noted how the opinion referred to the force used by police.

At one point in the opinion, Kasubhai wrote that “the Court has already found that Plaintiff has presented sufficient evidence from which a reasonable jury could find that Eamonn’s Fourth Amendment rights against excessive use of force were violated.”

Albies, the attorney, said the qualified immunity standard for police “shields them from any kind of verdict or accountability on those particular claims” of excessive force, praising Kasubhai’s review of the case.

“I think the court went through a deep analysis, watched the video and did a very careful review of the incident,” she said.

Kasubhai also wrote that Kerr-Daly “actively resisted the officers’ attempt to place him in handcuffs,” citing this resistance in his reasoning for dismissing the excessive force claim given how, under the qualified immunity standard, the law must have clearly already established that conduct is unconstitutional.

“In sum, Plaintiff fails to meet her burden of identifying precedent establishing that the law at the time of the arrest was sufficiently clear such that every reasonable officer under the circumstances would understand that their conduct violated Eamonn’s constitutional rights,” Kasubhai wrote.

The ruling allows other claims in the lawsuit to move forward, however, including that police violated the Americans with Disability Act in their treatment of Kerr-Daly.

Officers knew of Kerr-Daly’s schizoaffective disorder, and Kerr-Daly’s mother had requested help from CAHOOTS, a mobile crisis counseling and transport service at the time funded by the city of Eugene, the opinion states.

Kasubhai wrote that “officers could have reasonably accommodated Eamonn’s disability by allowing him to speak with CAHOOTS before entering the house to confront him.”

Other claims in the lawsuit, including abuse of a vulnerable person, also may move forward.

Kasubhai wrote that the city’s arguments “place too much of an emphasis on the fact that Eamonn did not suffer a severe injury.”