Pierce

Pro se 1 plaintiff Stephanie Pierce appeals an adverse judgment following a jury trial in her 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action. Plaintiff sued the City of Portland (“City”), Multnomah County (“County”), the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (“Tri-Met”), fare inspector Jackson, corrections officers Bowdle and Karcher, and police officer Duncan, alleging that the defendants violated her Eighth and Fourth Amendment rights and also violated federal and state law. She was detained for four hours for identification following a citation for boarding a train without proof of payment of fare. The parties tried the ease before a magistrate judge, who directed verdicts for the City, Bowdle, and Duncan. A jury returned a verdict for the defendants on the remaining claims. Upon denial of her motion for a new trial, Pierce timely appealed. We have jurisdiction, 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and reverse and remand.

*1036 FACTS & PRIOR PROCEEDINGS

Fare inspector Jackson stopped Pierce as she was boarding a Tri-Met train and cited her for failing to produce proof of payment of fare. Pierce did not have any identification, so Jackson called the police to do an identification report. After…

concurring in part and dissenting in part:

I join the majority’s opinion except for Part I, where I agree with the result (but not the dicta) as to Duncan and disagree with both the reasoning and the result as to the City.

Whether or not Pierce had been identified adequately at the time Duncan decided to transport her to the county detention center for firm identification is an issue of fact that is disputed. This unresolved issue of fact bears on whether Duncan could reasonably have believed that taking Pierce to the detention center violated clearly established federal law. That is all that needs to be said, or that can be said on the state of the record. Therefore, the majority’s apparent conclusion that Pierce’s “de facto arrest by Duncan violated clearly established law because Duncan lacked authority to arrest her for identification after he had sufficient information for the issuance of the citation for the fare infraction,” maj. op. at 1037-38, must simply be a statement that if all those things were true, he should not have qualified immunity in the majority’s view.

I see no basis for reversing the directed verdict in favor of the City of Portland. No matter what the…