## Facts

- James E. Niehus was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving and taken to the Berkeley, Illinois police station.
- At the station, an argument escalated into a physical fight between Niehus and officers Vince Liberio and Frank Vittorio.
- Niehus testified the officers kicked him in the face, fracturing his left cheekbone and causing asserted brain damage with ongoing mental and emotional injury.
- The medical causation and extent-of-injury evidence was sharply disputed, but the jury credited Niehus’s account and awarded $336,320.59 in compensatory damages.
- Niehus sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging the officers used excessive force in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment; he also pleaded state-law conspiracy and malicious prosecution.
- The district court dismissed the state-law conspiracy and malicious-prosecution claims before submitting the case to the jury.
- Niehus’s then-wife, Denise Niehus, brought a separate § 1983 claim alleging the injury to her husband caused loss of marital consortium and contributed to divorce; the district court rejected her constitutional theory.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence on causation and injury was so insufficient that the excessive-force claim should not have gone to the jury or the verdict should have been set aside.
2. Whether challenged trial rulings warranted reversal of the judgment against the officers.
3. Whether the district court erred in removing the pendent state-law conspiracy and malicious-prosecution claims from the jury.
4. Whether a spouse’s loss of consortium, arising from unconstitutional conduct directed at the other spouse, is a Fourteenth Amendment liberty deprivation actionable under § 1983.

## Decision

- The court affirmed the judgment for Niehus on the § 1983 excessive-force claim.
- The court held the contested causation evidence was sufficient for the jury to decide, and the verdict would not be disturbed on appeal.
- The court found no reversible error in the officers’ challenged trial rulings.
- The court affirmed the dismissal of Niehus’s pendent state-law conspiracy and malicious-prosecution claims.
- The court affirmed dismissal of Denise Niehus’s § 1983 claim, holding loss of consortium is not an independent Fourteenth Amendment liberty interest in this context.

## Legal Principles

- Appellate review is highly deferential to a jury’s factfinding on causation and damages when the record contains evidence from which reasonable jurors could find liability, even if the proof is contested and imperfect.
- A district court has discretion to streamline litigation by declining to submit pendent state-law claims that add little beyond the federal theory and risk jury confusion.
- Section 1983 requires deprivation of the plaintiff’s own federal right; relational harm derivative of injury to another person does not, by itself, create a separate constitutional claim.
- Loss of spousal consortium, without state action aimed at the spouse or the marital relationship as such, is not a “liberty” deprivation under the Fourteenth Amendment actionable via § 1983.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit upheld a substantial jury award for a detainee who claimed officers used excessive force in custody, refused to overturn the verdict despite disputed medical causation evidence, approved dismissal of redundant pendent state claims, and rejected a spouse’s attempt to recast loss of consortium as a standalone Fourteenth Amendment injury under § 1983.


Niehus v. Liberio, 973 F.2d 526 (7th Cir. 1992)