4th Circuit: Excessive force, Takings claim, deliberate indifference

Civil Rights; excessive force

BOTTOM LINE: Where a man alleged his arrest by two officers left him unable to breathe and with a broken arm, although he posed no threat to anyone, he plausibly alleged an excessive force claim.

CASE: Nichols v. Bumgarner, Case No. 24-7215 (filed April 22, 2026) (Judges GREGORY, Wynn, Berner).

FACTS: Patrick Nichols alleges that the force used by two officers who arrested him was disproportionate to any potential threat he could have posed. The district court dismissed Nichols’s complaint.

LAW: Nichols maintains that this case has always been against Bumgarner and Schmidt. Bumgarner argues that Nichols’s failure to include Schmidt in the caption of either complaint rendered service of process to Schmidt impossible. This court agrees with Nichols.

In his original complaint, Nichols described the actions of Bumgarner and “another officer [who] had his knee on [Nichols’s] throat.” From this alone, it would not have been a particularly onerous task for the district court or Bumgarner to conclude that Nichols intended to sue both officers.

It does not appear that Schmidt was individually served at any point in the district court’s proceedings. But the fault lies with the district court. Nichols remained incarcerated and proceeded pro se throughout the proceedings. As such, the district court was responsible for effectuating process. The district court acknowledged as much through its order to the clerk to send a copy of the complaint to the Montgomery County Attorney’s Office.

Moreover, little in the court’s initial order to the clerk would have alerted Nichols to the risk of Schmidt not being served. While the order’s caption listed Bumgarner as the sole defendant, the remainder of the order refers to “Defendants.” From the perspective of Nichols, this language would suggest that the office was to serve both officers.

In his amended complaint, Nichols was expressly instructed to include facts involving the named defendants in his case, and he identified Schmidt as one of the perpetrators of the excessive force used against him. In the “STATEMENT OF CLAIM” section, the form instructed Nichols to state “briefly the FACTS that support your case” by describing “what happened, how [he] was harmed, and how each defendant that [he] named took a wrongful action that caused [him] harm.”

While Nichols still listed Bumgarner as the only defendant in the caption of the amended complaint, he followed these instructions by describing Schmidt’s actions. If the district court did not realize that Nichols intended to sue both officers before, it certainly should have here.

If the body of a complaint indicates that the plaintiff intended to sue parties left out of the caption, the district court must help remedy the error. Here, the district court should have either afforded Nichols the opportunity to add Schmidt to the caption of his complaint or instructed the office to serve both officers.

Turning to the excessive force claim, the first factor, the severity of the crime at issue, weighs in neither party’s favor. At the time of the arrest, Nichols had outstanding warrants for theft, forgery and burglary. Bumgarner argues that Nichols could have committed a burglary in a violent manner. But making inferences about how Nichols committed the alleged burglary at this stage in litigation is premature. Thus, the question of whether the severity of Nichols’s alleged crimes made the officers’ use of force reasonable should be answered after discovery.

The second factor, whether the suspect posed an immediate threat to the safety of the police officers or others, weighs in Nichols’s favor. Based on the facts as Nichols has pleaded them, the officers could not have reasonably believed that Nichols posed an immediate threat to anyone.

The third factor, whether the suspect actively resisted arrest or attempted to evade arrest by flight, weighs in neither party’s favor. The only relevant facts provided by Nichols is that he “did not do not[h]ing.” and that Bumgarner “slam[med him] on the ground for no reason.” While these facts support the inference that Nichols posed little to no threat to the officers, they say little about the issue of flight.

The fourth factor, the extent of the plaintiff’s injuries, weighs strongly in Nichols’s favor. Nichols suffered two injuries during the arrest, a broken arm and the inability to breathe. Looking at these factors cumulatively, Nichols has adequately alleged that the force used by the officers was excessive.

Qualified immunity is typically “best addressed ‘at the summary judgment stage after the facts have been developed through discovery.’” While Nichols has plausibly alleged an excessive force claim, the details of the arrest remain unknown.

As Bumgarner argues, there may be more that happened between the officers’ initial approach and Nichols being slammed on the ground. But, the additional questions of fact, if any, have yet to be resolved. If such questions do arise, they “should be resolved on a motion for summary judgment, after discovery has occurred.”

Vacated and remanded.

Municipal; Takings claim

BOTTOM LINE: Where six property owners adjacent to a land development project that has not materially progressed in the past two decades since the City of Baltimore procured much of the land by using eminent domain brought a Takings claim, it failed as a matter of law. Holding a protected property interest in taken property is an essential element of any takings claim and, here, the plaintiffs did not contend that any of their properties have been taken, either physically or by regulation.

CASE: Poppleton Now Community Association, Inc. v. LA Cite Development, LLC, Case No. 25-1770 (filed May 4, 2026) (Judges Gregory, HARRIS, Richardson).

FACTS: Roughly two decades ago, the City of Baltimore entered into the Land Disposition and Development Agreement, or LDDA, with a property developer to redevelop 13.8 acres of land in the city’s Poppleton neighborhood. Pursuant to this agreement, the city acquired the land at issue – much of it by using eminent domain. But in the intervening years, the redevelopment project suffered myriad complications and delays, and very little of the promised development ever occurred. Large portions of this land now sit vacant and neglected.

Six individuals who own property adjacent to the land at issue and a non-profit community organization sued the developer and various Baltimore City defendants, challenging both the development agreement and subsequent actions (and inactions) of the defendants. The district court dismissed the complaint.

LAW: The district court dismissed the plaintiffs’ takings claim for lack of Article III standing. To establish Article III standing, a plaintiff must show “(i) that he suffered an injury in fact that is concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent; (ii) that the injury was likely caused by the defendant; and (iii) that the injury would likely be redressed by judicial relief.”

Here, the individual plaintiffs each allege that property they own has diminished in value as a result of the LDDA and the related use of eminent domain. These allegations are sufficient to establish that the plaintiffs have a “personal stake” in – and thus Article III standing to bring – their takings claim.

That does not mean they can succeed on the merits of that claim. The individual plaintiffs “all maintain ownership over their properties and . . . do not contend that any of their properties have been taken,” either physically or by regulation. This fact prevents them from succeeding on the merits. The Takings Clause does not provide the plaintiffs with a mechanism to challenge the taking of their former neighbors’ properties because holding a protected property interest in taken property is an essential element of any takings claim.

These plaintiffs have not claimed any property interest in anything taken by the government. Nor have they identified any cases holding that someone other than the owner of the taken property may bring a takings claim. Caselaw from this court and other circuits makes clear why: A protected property interest in the taken property is an essential element of a takings claim. The plaintiffs’ failure to satisfy this element means their takings claim fails as a matter of law.

For these reasons, this court agrees with the district court that the plaintiffs’ takings claim must be dismissed. To align this dismissal with this court’s reasoning, however, it  vacates the portion of the judgment dismissing the plaintiffs’ takings claim for lack of standing and remands to the district court with instructions to dismiss this claim for failure to state a claim.

The district court considered the private nuisance claim after it had dismissed each of the plaintiffs’ federal law claims. As a general rule, however, “when a district court dismisses all federal claims in the early stages of litigation . . . it should decline to exercise jurisdiction over any remaining pendent state law claims by dismissing those claims without prejudice.”

Here, all the plaintiffs’ federal claims were dismissed when this litigation was still in its “early stages” – at the motion-to-dismiss stage – and no discovery had yet occurred. Moreover, the issues in this case implicate particularly strong state interests, and there is no substantial caselaw applying Maryland private nuisance law to claims analogous to this one.

This court therefore vacates the dismissal of the plaintiffs’ private nuisance claim for failure to state a claim, and remands to the district court with instructions to decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over this claim and dismiss it without prejudice.

The plaintiffs finally contend that the district court erred by not specifically addressing their separately pled claim for a declaratory judgment. This was not error. The Declaratory Judgment Act “does not create an independent cause of action.” It “is remedial only” and does not “create[] any substantive rights.” Thus, when all the plaintiffs’ substantive claims were dismissed, their declaratory judgment claim also necessarily failed.

 Vacated in part and remanded with instructions.

Prisons; preemption; deliberate indifference

BOTTOM LINE: Where the estate of a woman who died in custody after suffering opioid withdrawal sued an array of detention officers, alleging they acted with deliberate indifference to her serious medical needs, but her complaint didn’t include specific factual allegations for each defendant, and instead lumped them together, it was dismissed.

CASE: Rice v. Adams, Case No. 24-2026 (filed April 14, 2026) (Judges Nieyemer, Agee, RICHARDSON).

FACTS: Cynthia Rice died in custody after suffering opioid withdrawal. Her estate sued an array of detention officers, alleging they acted with deliberate indifference to her serious medical needs in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court agreed that the named officers were deliberately indifferent and concluded both that plaintiff had adequately stated a § 1983 claim and that the officers were not entitled to qualified immunity at this stage.

LAW: This court has appellate jurisdiction because the denial of qualified immunity is immediately appealable to the extent that it turns on an issue of law. Jurisdiction over the qualified-immunity question gives this court pendent appellate jurisdiction over overlapping issues, and overlap exists here: Whether the plaintiff has adequately pleaded a constitutional violation bears on both the complaint’s sufficiency and the first prong of qualified immunity.

To allege that an officer acted with deliberate indifference, the complaint must make defendant-specific allegations. The allegations must be particular enough to allow one to infer what each defendant did and knew. Lumping defendants together won’t do.

A plaintiff who makes only “collective allegations against all ‘Defendants’”—without specifying how each individual defendant interacted with her or bore responsibility for the alleged constitutional deprivation—has not stated a plausible claim against any defendant. This court requires instead “specific factual allegations for each defendant,” because only such allegations provide “fair notice to that defendant of the plaintiff’s claim and underlying factual support.”

Plaintiff’s complaint did not plausibly allege that any named officer acted with deliberate indifference to Rice’s serious medical needs. It rested instead on collective allegations. It never identified how—indeed, whether—any named officer ever interacted with Rice, or how—indeed, whether—any officer should have known about her condition.

Rather, the complaint treated the 16 deputy sheriffs who were “custody officer[s] at [the Detention Center] during the period of August 28 29 and as an undifferentiated collective. It purported to attribute knowledge that one officer should have gained, or acts that another officer may have committed, to all.

Take just three examples. First, Rice allegedly told “Sheriff’s deputies” that she was suffering from opioid withdrawal. But are those deputies among these defendants? And if so, which of the 16? Second, “custody staff” “were made aware” Rice would suffer withdrawal, but the complaint makes no attempt to specify which staff members were so informed.

Third, the court is left guessing whether the person who told Rice to “shut up” was even a named defendant, let alone which one. Nor can the court reasonably infer that all 16 deputies were present when Rice was processed, or that they were within earshot when she called out in pain. Repeated, vague reference to “custody staff” and “Sheriff’s deputies” cannot substitute for identifying individual officers.

The complaint does not permit this court to infer whether or how a particular defendant should have even known about Rice’s condition—let alone ignored it. So plaintiff has failed to plausibly allege that any defendant violated Rice’s constitutional rights.

What’s more, Rice’s undifferentiated deliberate-indifference-to-medical-needs allegations are even “less plausible” because the officers were nonmedical staff. Like the nonmedical staff in Langford, these officers, absent contrary allegations, would have “had no reason to have known or interacted with [Rice]” about her medical condition.

That medical professionals examined Rice several times—as detailed in the complaint—further undermines any inference that the officers acted with deliberate indifference, even if they should have known that she was undergoing withdrawal. For, when a detainee is “under the care of medical experts,” detention officers “will generally be justified in believing that the [detainee] is in capable hands.”

At bottom, the complaint does not allow the court to connect any named officer to any act or omission that plausibly amounts to deliberate indifference to Rice’s serious medical needs. That flaw is fatal.

Reversed and remanded.