Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Richard Stephen Duffert, proceeding pro se after paying the filing fee, sued the City of Roseville, Danielle Eriksen, Ethan Wyke, and Hayden Figueroa over a June 8, 2025 traffic stop and its aftermath. His complaint alleged that officers stopped him for registration-related violations, saw an empty or partially consumed beer container, and later found his lawfully possessed firearm, marijuana products, THC cartridges, and nitrous oxide canisters. He said he had consumed a small amount of alcohol and used marijuana hours earlier for medical purposes. A preliminary alcohol screening registered .029 percent, but officers arrested him for suspected driving under the influence and took him to the police station.
At the station, Eriksen, a Drug Recognition Expert, conducted an examination that included holding Duffert's eyelids open and directing a bright flashlight into his right eye. Duffert alleged the light was excessively intense and prolonged, caused severe pain and visual disturbance, and was repeated after he complained. He sought emergency treatment the next day and alleged medical expenses and lost employment opportunities. His pleaded causes included excessive force or unreasonable search, failure to intervene, municipal liability, a Bane Act claim, and state-law battery, negligence, and emotional-distress claims. The recommendation noted that no pleaded claim was actually asserted against Figueroa.
Defendants moved to dismiss every cause of action for failure to state a claim. Duffert opposed and submitted an unauthorized surreply. The magistrate judge granted his requests to accept late filings, considered all submissions, and denied his settlement-conference motion as moot. The findings and recommendations are not a final district-judge judgment.
The Court’s Holding
The recommendation first held that the Fourth Amendment governed the alleged force because the examination occurred while Duffert remained in police custody. Applying objective reasonableness, the magistrate judge characterized temporarily holding open a compliant suspect's eyelids as no more than minimal force, even if painful, and observed that shining a flashlight involved no physical contact. Against that intrusion, the court weighed the public-safety interest in identifying impaired driving and the specific grounds for examining Duffert: the beverage container, other substances in the car, and his admissions of earlier alcohol and marijuana use. It concluded that the examination's unpleasantness was outweighed by the legitimate investigative need and was not objectively unreasonable.
The alternative unreasonable-search theory also failed. The recommendation reasoned that examining what is already visible, even through manipulation, is only a minimal intrusion, and Duffert had no heightened bodily-integrity interest in his pupils' response to light comparable to an involuntary blood draw or body-cavity search. Even assuming a search occurred, his repeated allegations of cooperation and nonresistance were inconsistent with a claim that the examination was unreasonable merely because it was warrantless. The complaint also did not allege a lack of probable cause, and its own allegations supplied a sufficient basis for the examination. The manner of the pupil test failed for the same reasons as the excessive-force theory.
Because Duffert did not plausibly allege an underlying constitutional violation by Eriksen, the derivative failure-to-intervene claim against Wyke and municipal-liability claim against Roseville necessarily failed. The magistrate judge found amendment futile: the detailed complaint and filings suggested no additional facts that would change the analysis, and a possible false-arrest theory would be defeated by probable cause based on the vehicle's contents and Duffert's admissions. The recommendation therefore was to grant dismissal without leave to amend, decline supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state-law claims, dismiss the complaint without prejudice, and close the case, subject to objections within 21 days and the district judge's final decision.
Key Takeaways
- The magistrate judge treated the stationhouse drug-recognition examination as governed by the Fourth Amendment because it occurred during continuing police custody.
- Holding eyelids open and shining a flashlight into the eyes did not amount to objectively unreasonable force on the facts alleged, even accepting that the procedure caused pain.
- The pupil examination was not comparable to a physical intrusion beneath the skin or into a body cavity, and the complaint's allegations also supported the examination's investigative justification.
- The failure-to-intervene and municipal-liability claims could not survive without a plausible underlying constitutional violation by Eriksen.
- The proposed disposition would dismiss the federal complaint without prejudice and without leave to amend, decline supplemental jurisdiction over state-law claims, and close the federal case, subject to objections and the district judge's final decision.
Why It Matters
The recommendation explains why these particular allegations about a Drug Recognition Expert's pupil examination did not satisfy either an excessive-force or unreasonable-search theory. Its analysis turns on the limited physical contact described, the examination's investigative purpose, Duffert's alleged cooperation, and the facts supporting suspected impairment rather than on a categorical rule approving every use of light or manipulation during such examinations.
The proposed without-prejudice dismissal also separates the federal constitutional rulings from the unresolved merits of the state-law claims. The magistrate judge did not decide whether those state claims were adequate; the recommendation was to decline supplemental jurisdiction after dismissal of the federal claims. The document itself ordered only the late-filing and settlement-conference rulings, while dismissal and closure remained recommendations awaiting district-judge action.