Nick Kosmalski v. Sherrell King

Officer Nick Kosmalski and another Lincoln Park, Michigan police officer initiated a traffic stop because Sherrell King was driving a vehicle with expired plates, and, as it turned out, no insurance, a suspended driver’s license, and multiple outstanding traffic warrants. To conduct further investigation, the officers placed King in handcuffs. When King complained the cuffs were tight, both officers checked the tension and double-locked the handcuffs to prevent them from getting tighter. As Kosmalski then directed King into the back seat of the patrol vehicle, King made a second comment that the handcuffs were hurting her wrists. Kosmalski declined to recheck the handcuffs because he had checked them one minute earlier and knew they could not have gotten tighter. King remained in the handcuffs for less than fifteen minutes. In King’s subsequent § 1983 suit in which she claimed injury from the handcuffs, the Sixth Circuit, applying its precedent in excessive force cases involving tight handcuffing, affirmed the district court’s order denying Kosmalski’s motion for summary judgment. The Court held the mere fact that Kosmalski “ignored” King’s second, close-in-time complaint was enough for King to reach the jury on her Fourth Amendment excessive force claim. The question presented is: Whether the Sixth Circuit’s three-factor tight handcuffing test, a brightline rule as stated and as applied in this case to deny qualified immunity, fails to comport with the Fourth Amendment and Graham v. Connor,