Rodney A. Ballard brought this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against Nebraska Governor David Heineman, Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning and Nebraska State Trooper No. 371, Dean Riedel. Ballard alleges he was the victim of Riedel’s racially-motivated traffic stop and subsequent unconstitutional search and seizure, which Heineman and Bruning promoted through policies that encouraged the targeting of racial minorities. The district court 1 granted summary judgment to Heineman, Bruning and Riedel. Ballard appeals, arguing that he presented evidence to create genuine issues of material fact and that he was not allowed sufficient time for discovery before the district court granted summary judgment. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
We follow the district court in considering Heineman’s, Bruning’s and Riedel’s statements of fact in support of their motions for summary judgment “deemed admitted” under Nebraska Local Civil Rule 56.1(b) because Ballard did not respond to those statements of fact.
See
Neb. Civ. R. 56.1(b)(1);
see also Nw. Bank & Trust Co. v. First Ill. Nat’l Bank,
On November 14, 2005, Ballard and two other persons, all of whom are African-American, were stopped by Riedel as they traveled in a rented vehicle. Riedel stopped the vehicle because he observed it speeding and following another car too closely. During the traffic stop, Riedel observed that the vehicle was rented, but none of the vehicle’s occupants admitted renting it. Riedel then asked for a copy of the rental agreement. While the occupants searched for a copy of the rental agreement, Riedel noticed that they avoided looking in a certain Adidas bag. Further, the information the occupants provided to Riedel was inconsistent, and at least two of the occupants had drug-related criminal histories. Riedel then obtained permission to search the vehicle, including the occupants’ luggage and coats. Riedel discovered cocaine in the Adidas bag, and he placed the three occupants under arrest. Ballard later admitted to a Nebraska state patrol inspector that the Adidas bag belonged to him. Heineman and Bruning had no knowledge of or involvement in this traffic stop or search, and they did not implement any policies allowing officers to take the race of motorists into account when deciding whether to stop or search them.
The Lincoln County Attorney’s Office filed criminal charges against Ballard. On May 16, 2006, the District Court of Lincoln County granted Ballard’s motion to suppress the evidence obtained from Riedel’s search, finding that the occupants did not consent to the search and that the search was not supported by probable cause. In its opinion, the Lincoln County court stated that racial profiling was implicated in Riedel’s decision to conduct the search, though the court made no such finding regarding the initial traffic stop. Thereafter, Ballard filed this § 1983 action, alleging that Heineman and Bruning instituted policies encouraging troopers to target racial minorities. According to Ballard, these policies led to Riedel conducting the racially-motivated traffic stop and subsequent unconstitutional search and seizure. Heineman, Bruning and Riedel each moved for summary judgment.
The district court granted the motions, finding that Ballard presented no evidence that raised a genuine issue of material fact in opposition to the motions for summary judgment and that Heineman, Bruning and Riedel were entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
2
Ballard appeals, arguing that he raised genuine issues of material fact by submitting the Lincoln County court’s opinion and a Nebraska Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice report, which found that African-American drivers were more likely than white drivers to be searched and arrested after a traffic stop. Ballard also contends that
II. DISCUSSION
We first address Ballard’s argument that he presented evidence sufficient to create genuine issues of material fact that preclude summary judgment. We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo.
Russell v. Hennepin County,
Ballard contends that the traffic stop was racially motivated and therefore an unreasonable seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment. He further argues that Riedel’s search of the vehicle violated the Fourth Amendment because it was racially motivated and unsupported by probable cause or consent. A traffic stop is reasonable “if it is supported by either probable cause or an articulable and reasonable suspicion that a traffic violation has occurred.”
United States v. Herrera-Gonzalez,
Riedel’s unopposed statement of facts explains that he stopped the vehicle because it was speeding and following another car too closely.
See VanHorn v. Oelschlager,
First, the Lincoln County court’s opinion makes no determination that the traffic stop was unconstitutional. According to Riedel’s unopposed statement of facts, Rie-del observed the vehicle violating traffic laws. Although it discusses racial profiling, the Lincoln County court’s opinion does not actually find that the traffic stop was the result of racial profiling or was otherwise unconstitutional. Thus, Riedel’s
Second, Ballard presents no specific evidence disputing Riedel’s statement that the passengers consented to his search of the vehicle. Ballard argues that the Lincoln County court’s opinion raises a question of fact as to whether the search was supported by consent. In the district court, however, Ballard argued that Riedel was barred from relitigating the consent issue by the doctrine of claim preclusion because the Lincoln County court had already found that the vehicle’s passengers did not consent to the search. The district court rejected that argument, noting that the Lincoln County court’s opinion addressed a motion in a criminal proceeding that did not involve the same parties to the current action.
See, e.g., Baker v. Chisom,
Similarly, although the Nebraska Commission report contains statistical data related to racial profiling generally in Nebraska, it does not contain specific facts showing that Riedel stopped this vehicle for racially-motivated reasons or that the passengers in this case did not consent to Riedel’s search. Finally, neither the Lincoln County court’s opinion nor the Nebraska Commission report present any specific facts stating that Heineman or Bruning instituted policies encouraging the targeting of minorities by law enforcement officials.
By presenting no specific facts disputing Heineman’s, Bruning’s and Riedel’s statements of fact, Ballard essentially failed to respond to the motions for summary judgment. Riedel’s unopposed statement of facts shows that he committed no constitutional violations because he stopped the vehicle after observing traffic violations and he subsequently obtained consent to search the vehicle. Heineman’s and Brun-ing’s unopposed statements of fact also explain that they did not institute policies involving the targeting of minorities. Because Ballard has presented no specific evidence controverting the unopposed statements of fact, he has not raised a genuine issue of material fact from which a reasonable jury could conclude that constitutional violations occurred. Therefore, the district court did not err in granting summary judgment to Heineman, Bruning and Riedel.
Next, we address Ballard’s argument that summary judgment was granted before he had the opportunity to conduct discovery. We review the district court’s determination of whether there has been adequate time for discovery for abuse of discretion.
Nord v. Kelly,
On July 2, 2007, a magistrate judge granted Heineman, Bruning and Riedel’s motion to stay discovery pending the resolution of their motion to dismiss. The order granting the motion to stay discovery stated that “the motion should be granted, without prejudice to [Ballard] filing, if necessary, a motion for leave to conduct limited discovery on the issue of qualified immunity.” Ballard never filed such a motion. On October 1, 2007, the magistrate judge stayed all discovery pending the resolution of Heineman’s, Bruning’s and Riedel’s motions for summary judgment. On the same day, Ballard filed an objection to the stay of discovery and a motion for enlargement of time to answer the defendants’ summary judgment motions on the issue of qualified immunity. The district court denied both the objection and the motion for enlargement of time because Ballard failed to identify the specific facts he sought to discover.
Because Ballard never filed a proper Rule 56(f) motion, the district court did not abuse its discretion by granting summary judgment on the record before it.
See Nolan,
III. CONCLUSION
Because Ballard created no genuine issues of material fact challenging the unopposed statements of fact showing no constitutional violations occurred as a matter of law and because the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying further discovery, we affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Heineman, Bruning and Riedel.
Notes
. The Honorable Laurie Smith Camp, United States District Judge for the District of Nebraska.
. In his brief, Ballard argues that Heineman, Bruning and Riedel are not entitled to qualified immunity. The district court did not explicitly base its grant of summary judgment on qualified immunity. Nevertheless, in granting summary judgment, the district court implicitly undertook the first step of a qualified immunity analysis; that is, the district court implicitly found that Ballard's constitutional rights were not violated when Rie-del stopped and searched the vehicle because the uncontroverted evidence gave rise to no genuine issue of material fact that a constitutional violation occurred.
See Cox v. Sugg,