## Facts

- After heavy drinking, Conni Black argued with her boyfriend, Steve Kritis, at a bar in Florence, Kentucky, and left with her friend Susan Stemler in Stemler’s car; Kritis followed in his truck.
- A citizen reported the pursuit, and Florence police officers stopped both vehicles.
- Officers arrested Stemler for driving under the influence.
- Witnesses stated that officers repeated Kritis’s claim that Stemler was “a lesbian,” including to one another and to others at the scene.
- The officers allegedly removed Black from Stemler’s car and placed her into the passenger seat of Kritis’s truck without testing Kritis for intoxication or requiring him to leave his vehicle.
- Kritis drove away with Black; after entering I‑75, the truck crashed during an alleged struggle in the cab, and Black was killed.
- Black’s estate administrator sued the officers and other defendants for wrongful death in Kentucky state court; the Kentucky Supreme Court held Black was not in police custody at the time of her death and, in broader language, stated she had never been in custody, rejecting a “special relationship” duty theory.
- The estate administrator also sued in federal court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983; in an earlier appeal, the Sixth Circuit treated the state-court “not in custody at the time of death” determination as preclusive and remanded.
- On remand, the district court applied collateral estoppel more broadly, concluding the estate could not litigate whether Black had ever been in custody and granted summary judgment to the individual officers on the estate’s custody-based theories.
- Stemler separately pursued § 1983 claims against officers, including equal protection (discriminatory policing), fabrication of evidence, and excessive force; the officers sought qualified immunity, producing cross-appeals.

## Issues

1. Whether collateral estoppel, based on the Kentucky Supreme Court’s wrongful-death decision, barred the estate from litigating that Black was in police custody at some point before her death (as opposed to only at the time of her death).
2. Whether the Kentucky Supreme Court’s broader statement that Black was “never in custody” was necessary to the state judgment (and therefore preclusive) or nonessential language without preclusive effect.
3. Whether the officers were entitled to qualified immunity on Stemler’s § 1983 claims alleging (a) denial of equal protection based on perceived sexual orientation, (b) fabrication of evidence connected to her DUI arrest/prosecution, and (c) excessive force during her arrest.

## Decision

- Reversed the district court’s ruling that collateral estoppel barred the estate from litigating whether Black was ever in custody; the Kentucky Supreme Court’s broader “never in custody” statement was not necessary to its judgment and therefore was not preclusive.
- Held that only the narrower state-court determination—Black was not in custody at the time of her death—could have preclusive effect, and remanded the estate’s § 1983 claims for further proceedings consistent with the proper scope of preclusion.
- On the officers’ cross-appeals, affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s qualified-immunity rulings on Stemler’s claims, allowing key portions of her equal-protection and force-related claims to proceed while granting or recognizing immunity on certain claim components depending on clearly established law and the summary-judgment record.

## Legal Principles

- Under 28 U.S.C. § 1738, federal courts apply the forum state’s issue-preclusion rules to determine the preclusive effect of a state-court judgment.
- Under Kentucky collateral estoppel, relitigation is barred only when the identical issue was raised, actually litigated, decided, and necessary to the prior judgment.
- Statements in a prior opinion that go beyond what was required to decide the case are not “necessary” to the judgment and do not carry preclusive effect in later litigation.
- Qualified immunity turns on (1) whether the facts, viewed in the plaintiff’s favor, show a constitutional violation and (2) whether the right was clearly established at the time of the events.
- Equal protection bars intentional disparate treatment by law enforcement based on an arbitrary classification; evidence of discriminatory intent and differential treatment can defeat qualified immunity at the summary-judgment stage.
- Deliberate fabrication of material evidence used to initiate or continue criminal proceedings can violate due process; the availability of qualified immunity depends on clearly established law and whether the alleged falsification is constitutionally significant on the record.
- Excessive-force claims during an arrest are evaluated under the Fourth Amendment’s objective-reasonableness standard; genuine disputes of material fact can prevent summary judgment and qualified immunity.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit held that Kentucky’s issue-preclusion doctrine did not bar Black’s estate from litigating whether Black was in police custody before she was placed into Kritis’s truck because the state court’s broader “never in custody” language was not necessary to its judgment; it therefore reversed the district court’s summary judgment against the estate and remanded, and it also issued a mixed qualified-immunity ruling on Stemler’s equal-protection, fabrication-of-evidence, and excessive-force claims.


Stemler v. Florence, 350 F.3d 578 (2003)