The underlying dispute centers on a series of confrontations between Holman and Officer Pate spanning September 2022 through August 2024. In the first incident, Holman pulled over and got out of her car after seeing Pate search a relative's vehicle; Pate arrested her for obstruction of governmental operations and resisting arrest, and she was later acquitted. Roughly four months later, Holman arrived to retrieve a car her daughter had driven; Pate again ordered her back to her vehicle, she refused, and she was handcuffed and placed in a police car before being released. In February 2024, Pate threatened to arrest her at police headquarters if she did not exit her car and show identification. In June 2024, he ordered her to leave a public parking lot. In August 2024, he arrested her for approaching a tow-truck driver while Pate was conducting a traffic stop involving her son.
Holman sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging Fourth Amendment false-arrest claims against Pate, First Amendment retaliation claims against Pate, and a Fourth Amendment claim against Mayor Bobbie White and the City of Brent. Judge Annemarie Carney Axon granted the defendants' Rule 12(b)(6) motion on every count.
On the Fourth Amendment claims, the court held that Pate was entitled to qualified immunity because Holman failed to identify any materially similar precedent from the Supreme Court, the Eleventh Circuit, or the Alabama Supreme Court establishing that her conduct — arriving at a scene, objecting to Pate's actions, and refusing to return to her car — did not give rise to arguable probable cause for obstruction of governmental operations under Alabama Code § 13A-10-2(a)(1). Existing Eleventh Circuit authority, the court noted, weighed in Pate's favor.
The First Amendment retaliation claim also failed. The court held that Holman's primary case, Duran v. City of Douglas, a Ninth Circuit decision, did not help her because her complaint contained no allegations connecting Pate's conduct to any criticisms or protected speech. The court also noted in a footnote that a Ninth Circuit decision cannot serve as a materially similar case for qualified immunity purposes under Eleventh Circuit precedent. Holman's argument that Pate retaliated for her criticisms of him appeared only in her opposition brief, not in the complaint itself, and a plaintiff cannot amend a complaint through briefing.
The claims against Mayor White in her individual capacity failed because the complaint contained no factual allegations describing any conduct by White. Holman's brief argued that White was negligent in hiring, retaining, and training Pate, but those allegations likewise did not appear in the complaint.
The Monell claim against the City of Brent failed because Holman's allegations described only isolated incidents involving a single officer over two years, falling short of the persistent and wide-spread practice required to establish a municipal custom or policy. The court also rejected Holman's argument that Pate himself was a final policymaker, holding that under Alabama law, final policymaking authority in towns rests with the mayor and city council, not individual officers. A failure-to-train theory raised in briefing was not pleaded in the complaint and therefore could not save the claim.