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Badia v. City of Casa Grande3/16/1999
AFFIRMED
Plaintiff/appellant Delores Badia, individually and on behalf of the estate and children of her deceased daughter, Ida Perez, appeals from a summary judgment granted in favor of defendants/appellees the City of Casa Grande; Kent Myers, Casa Grande City Manager; and Officers John Tena, G.M. Clark, and Dennis Mercer of the Casa Grande Police Department. We affirm.
BACKGROUND
"On appeal from a grant of summary judgment, we view all facts and reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the party against whom judgment was entered." Bothell v. Two Point Acres, Inc., 192 Ariz. 313, , 965 P.2d 47, (App. 1998). At approximately 3:00 a.m. on October 17, 1993, Perez was murdered by her boyfriend, Julio Murrillo. Apparently Murrillo later was convicted of second-degree murder for the slaying. Officer Tena had arrested Perez at around 9:45 p.m. on the previous evening, after Officer Mercer had seen her back her truck into a parked vehicle. Murrillo and Gloria Harrison, a relative of Perez, were passengers in the truck at the time.
When Officer Tena approached Perez to investigate what had happened, he smelled a faint odor of alcohol coming from her and observed that she had watery, bloodshot eyes and mumbled speech. Perez initially gave a false first name to Officer Tena and, after she admitted having done so, Tena arrested her for "false reporting." He handcuffed her and placed her in Officer Mercer's vehicle. After Tena walked away, Perez slipped one hand out of the handcuffs and began banging the patrol car windows with the cuffs. When Tena removed Perez from the vehicle, she became physically combative and kicked him. Tena and Mercer then put the handcuffs back on her and "hobbled" her. They placed her face-down in the back seat of Mercer's vehicle, and he transported her to the police station.
During the drive, Perez was "irritated with Officer Tena" and called him names. At the police station, Sergeant Ellsworth, the "officer in charge," met Mercer and Perez in the parking lot, and the officers removed the hobble but kept Perez handcuffed. They took Perez to an interview room, where Ellsworth talked to her for a few minutes until she "settled down." When Tena came in, however, she again started to call him names. After Ellsworth returned to the room and talked to Perez for a while, she agreed to cooperate with the rest of the investigation and processing. Ellsworth testified in his deposition that he observed that Perez had been drinking, but that she was oriented and conversant. He did not "remember a strong odor of alcohol" and did not believe she was "snockered or falling-down drunk."
Tena testified in his deposition that while Perez was in custody, a dispatcher ran a "driver's license check" through the state motor vehicle division and determined that Perez's license was suspended, but that she did not have a prior conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI). The police also ran a computer check on Perez's name "for her physical information, Social Security number, date of birth," and ran a "warrants check" through a different state computer system. After reviewing the information that was obtained and discussing the earlier accident and Perez's conduct at the scene, Ellsworth and Tena charged Perez with various misdemeanor offenses, including driving with a suspended license, DUI, and resisting arrest.
At some point during the evening, Perez agreed to take an "intoxilyzer test." Tena transported her to the Pinal County substation for that test because the Casa Grande Police Department did not have an intoxilyzer machine. When they arrived at the substation,
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