Eckert v. City of Deming: A Notably Outrageous 1983 Suit

A while back, I mentioned UCLA's "Hummel Memo," an assignment that almost every student needs to complete in their legal writing courses.  This memo gives students an opportunity to draft an objective memo on negligent infliction of emotional distress using a controlled selection of cases.  Employers and organizations in the Los Angeles area who hire students for internships or clerkships following the students' first year of law school are all familiar with the Hummel Memo as the most commonly used writing sample year-to-year.

The other assignment that all UCLA students know about is the "Chambers Memo," which introduces students to how to write a brief.  The case is a motion for summary judgment in a 1983 motion involving excessive force by a police officer.  Again, this is a very common writing sample -- especially when it comes to applying to law firms at the beginning of students' second years.

I mention this mainly to give a context of what I know about 1983 motions (although I am also aware of its use in Fourth Amendment situations and its sometimes quirky results in First Amendment cases).  I also mention this because my blog monitoring abilities have shown me that people have found this blog in web searches based on my mention of the assignment names, and might look at this post for advice (hint: Hammer v. Gross, while nice (for the plaintiff), is a plurality opinion.  Nobody, not even writing advisors, seemed aware of this) (other hint: this case, while involving some pretty different facts, may be worth looking into for the defense).

What prompted me to write this post, however, is not my recollection of my old assignment, but a recent 1983 case that's getting some play in the media right now.  The plaintiff filed a 1983 complaint in New Mexico arising from multiple cavity searches that police performed on the plaintiff after they stopped him for a traffic infraction and noticed, when he stepped out of the vehicle, that he seemed to be clenching his buttocks.

The best summary I have read of the case Kevin Underhill's account at Lowering The Bar.  This is one of the more outrageous and unpleasant fact patterns that I have seen in a 1983 case, and I think that it is especially notable (whoever's facts you accept) that the police were able to obtain a warrant to perform a cavity search based on their observation that the plaintiff's buttocks appeared to be clenched.

I won't go into detail about the facts here -- they are pretty graphic and unpleasant, and Underhill lays them out effectively.  One final reaction, however: while I felt that the facts were outrageous to begin with, the medical center's billing the plaintiff for the police-ordered cavity searches really took this case to the next level.  I think that the odds of a settlement are high here.